and the figure of their Images did shew that they did apprehend something more than meer signs in them whatever they pretended I do not deny that there were pictures abroad in S. Augustins time of Christ and Peter and Paul for himself doth mention them but he declares so little reverence for them that he saith they deserved to be deceived who looked on them as Books to be instructed by and it was no wonder to see feigners of false doctrines to be led aside by painters By which it is plain S. Augustin did not think Pictures and Images to be such good helps for the Ignorant as was afterwards pretended And for those who worshipped Pictures S. Augustin doth not deny that there were such in his time but he reckons them among the ignorant and superstitious who by their practises did dishonour their profession of Christianity So that although we grant in the time of S. Augustin there were several pictures of Holy men mentioned in Scripture in several places yet there is no clear evidence that they were then brought into the African Churches any more than into those of Cyprus or Palestine but they were in the latter end of the fourth Century in some of the more Eastern Churches as appears by the Testimonies of Gregory Nyssen and Asterius produced by Petavius and others And it is a very probable conjecture of Daillè that in those parts of Pontus and Cappadocia they were first introduced out of a complyance with Gentilism and in imitation of the practice of Gregory Thaumaturgus whom Nyssen commends for changing the Heathen Festivals into Christian the better to draw the Heathens to Christianity which seemed a very plausible pretence but was attended with very bad success when Christianity came to be by this means but Reformed Paganism as to the matter of divine worship This same principle in all probability brought the Pictures of Martyrs and others into the Churches of Italy of which Prudentius and Paulinus speak and this latter confesseth it was a rare custome in his time to have Pictures in Churches pingere sanctas Raro more domos and thought it necessary to make an Apology for it which he doth by saying he looked on this as a good means to draw the rude and barbarous people from their Heathen Customes changing the pleasure of pictures for that of drinking at the Sepulchres of Martyrs but there is not the least intimation of any worship then given to them 3. After that the Use of Images had prevailed both in the Eastern and Western parts men came by degrees to the worship of them which is the third Period observable in this Controversie As to which there are these things remarkable 1. That it began first among the ignorant and superstitious people of whom S. Augustin speaks in his time that they were the worshippers of pictures and afterwards in the Epistle of Gregorius M. to Serenus Bishop of Marseilles it is observable that the people began to worship the Images in Churches in perfect opposition to Serenus their Bishop who was so much displeased at it that he demolished them and brake them in pieces which act of his so exasperated them that they separated from his Communion The news of this coming to Rome probably from some of these Schismaticks who alwayes loved to take Sanctuary in Rome and appeal thither against their Bishops the Pope writes to the Bishop about it by one Cyriacus he slights the Popes Letters as if he could not believe they were written by him Gregory being nettled at this writes again to him and reproves him for breaking down the Images but commends him for not allowing the worship of them So that we find the first beginning of the worship of Images in these Western parts to have been by the folly and superstition of the People expresly against the Will of their own Bishop and the Bishop of Rome Bellarmin saith that Gregory only reproved the Superstitious worship of Images i. e. that by which they are worshipped as Gods Which is a desperate shift in a bad Cause For if Gregory had intended any kind of worship to be given to Images could he not have expressed it himself He speaks plain enough about this matter in all other things why did he not in distinguishing what worship was to be given to Images and what not We praised you saith he that you forbad the worship of Images so adorari must be rendred and not according to the modern sense of Romish Authors who would against all sense and reason appropriate that word to Soveraign Worship but we reprehended you for breaking them It is one thing to worship an Image and another thing to learn by it what is to be worshipped That ought not to be broken down which was set up in Churches not to be worshipped but Only to instruct the minds of the Ignorant Would any man of common sense have said this that did allow any worship of Images Would Bellarmin or T.G. or any that embrace the second Nicene and Tridentine Council have said that Images are set up in Churches ad instruendas solummodo mentes nescientium only to instruct the ignorant Nay Gregory goes yet farther and tells Serenus he ought to call his People together and shew them from Scripture that it is not lawful to worship the Work of mens hands because it is written Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve Which very place Anastasius Bishop of Theopolis in his Epistle produced in the second Nicene Council thus expounds Mark saith he only is joyned to serve and not to worship adorare quidem licet servire nequaquam saith the Latin Translation there worship of other things is lawful but not the service which is directly contrary to what Gregory saith who makes the worship of any other thing unlawful from these words and to conclude all Gregory saith forbid not those who would make Images adorare verò Imagines modis omnibus devita but by all means avoid the worship of them What! no kind of worship to be allowed them no distinction of an inferiour honorary relative worship no not the least tittle tending that way But our Adversaries run from this Epistle to another to Secundinus to help them out where they say Gregory approves the worship of Images to which no other answer is needful than that all that passage is wanting in the Ancient M S. as Dr. Iames hath attested upon a diligent examination of them and however ought to be interpreted according to his deliberate sentence in the Epistle to Serenus where he not only delivers his judgement but backs it with the strongest Reason 2. That the worship of Images no sooner prevailed but it was objected against the Christians by the Iews and Gentiles Thus it appears in the Apology of Leontius Bishop of Neapolis in Cyprus written against the Iews and read in the second Nicene Council
God-head which was to be seen by the things that were made so as to leave them without excuse Was this their knowing of God and that incorruptible God whose glory they turned into the Image of a corruptible man c Was all this nothing but Iupiter of Crete and the Arch-Devil under his name But what will not men say rather than confess themselves Idolaters Although these Testimonies of Scriture be never so evident yet I am not sure but T. G. may be the Polus mentioned in Erasmus now whom he mentions for my sake more than once and may espy a red fiery Dragon even the old Serpent there where I can see nothing but the discovery of the True God Therefore supposing that the Testimony of Heathens or the Scriptures may not weigh much with him methinks he might have considered what the Learned men of their own Church have said to this purpose Th. Aquinas confesseth that the most of the Gentiles did acknowledge one Supreme God from whom they said all those others whom they called Gods did receive their being and that they ascribed the name of Divinity to all immortal substances chiefly by reason of their wisdom happiness and Government Which custom of speaking saith he is likewise found in Scripture where either the holy Angels or Men and Iudges are called Gods I have said Ye are Gods and many other places Franciscus Ferrariensis in his Commentaries on that place saith that Aquinas his meaning was that the Scripture only agreed with the Heathens as to the name but that they called their Gods properly so whereas the Scripture speaks of them only by way of participation And did Aquinas mean any otherwise of the Heathens when he saith that all their inferiour Gods derived their very being from the Supreme The same Aquinas in his Book purposely written against the Gentiles gives this account of their Principles of Religion that some of them held one God the first and universal principle of all things but withall all they gave Divine Worship Latriam next to the Supreme God to intellectual substances of a heavenly nature which they call Gods whether they were substances separated from bodies or the Souls of the heavenly Orbs and Stars in the next place to intellectual substances united to aerial bodies which they called Daemons whom they made Gods in respect of men and thought they deserved divine worship from men as being Mediatours between the Gods and them and in the last place to the Souls of good men as being raised to a higher state than that of this present life Others of them suppossing God to be the Soul of the World did believe that divine worship was to be given to the whole world and the several parts of it not for the sake of the Body but the Soul which they said was God as a wise man hath honour given him not for the sake of his Body but of his mind Others again asserted that things below men as Images might have divine worship given to them in as much as they did participate of a Superiour nature either from the influence of heavenly bodies or the presence of some Spirits which Images they called Gods and from thence they were called Idolaters And so he proves that they were who acknowledging one first principle did give divine worship to any other being because it weakens the notion and esteem we ought to have of the Supreme Being to give divine worship to any other besides him as it would lessen the honour of a King for any other Person to have the same kind of respect shewed to him which we express to the King and because this divine worship is due to God on the account of Creation which is proper only to him and because he is properly Lord over us and none else besides him and he is our great and last end which are all of them great and weighty reasons why divine worship should be appropriated to God alone But saith he although this opinion which makes God a separate Being and the first Cause of all intellectual Beings be true yet that which makes God the Soul of the World though it be farther from truth gives a better account of giving divine worship to created Beings For then they give that divine worship to God himself for according to this principle the several parts of the world in respect of God are but as the several members of a mans body in respect of his Soul But the most unreasonable opinion he saith is that of animated Images because those cannot deserve more worship than either the Spirits that animate them or the makers of them which ought not to have divine worship given them besides that by lying Oracles and wicked Counsels these appear to have been Evil Spirits and therefore deserve no worship of us From hence he saith it appears that because divine worship is proper only to God as the first principle and none but an ill disposed rational Being can excite men to the doing such unlawful things as giving the worship proper to God to any other Being that men were drawn to Idolatry by the instigation of evil Spirits which coveted divine honours to themselves and therefore the Scripture saith they worshipped Devils and not God From which remarkable Testimony we may take notice of these things 1. That he confesseth many of the Gentiles whom he charges with Idolatry did believe and worship the Supreme God as Creator and Governour of the world 2. That divine worship is so proper to the true God that whosoever gives it to any created being though in it self of real excellency and considered as deriving that excellency from God is yet guilty of Idolatry 3. That relative Latria being given to a creature is Idolatry for so he makes it to be in those who supposed God to be the Soul of the world And I desire T. G. or any other cunning Sophister among them to shew me why a man may not as lawfully worship any part of the world with a relative Latria supposing God to be the Soul of the world as any Image or Crucifix whatsoever For if union contact or relation be a sufficient ground for relative Latria in one case it will be in the other also and I cannot but wonder so great a judgement as Aquinas had should not either have made him justifie the Heathens on this supposition or condemn the Christians in giving Latria i. e. proper divine worship to the Cross. For there is not any shadow of reason produced by him for the one which would not held have much more for the other For if the honour of the Image is carried to the Prototype is not the honour of the members of the Body to the mind that animates them If the Image deserve the same worship with the person represented by it is not much more any part of the body capable of receiving the honour due to the Person as the
them therefore he saith they deny Christ and joyn with the Gentiles giving the same worship to several Gods I do not think any proposition in Euclid can be made more clear than it is from these expressions of Athanasius that he believed Idolatry to be consistent with the belief and worship of one God The same thing he urges in other places but if this be not proof enough I know not what will be S. Gregory Nazianzen parallels those who worshipped the Son or Holy Ghost supposing them to be creatures with those who worshipped Astaroth or Chemosh or Remphan because they were creatures too For whatever difference of honour or glory there be all creatures are our fellow servants and therefore not to be worshipped by us Might not the Arians have chared Gregory Nazianzen to have imitated Iulian the Apostate upon as good reason as T. G. doth me For however in words they professed to abhor the worship of Ashtoreth or Chemosh or Remphan as much as he did yet he did not regard their professions but thought it reasonable to judge by the nature of their actions And what profaneness would T. G. have accounted this to parallel the worship of the Son and Holy Ghost with that of Chemosh and Ashtoreth Yet we see Gregory doth not forbear making use of the similitude of the worship although there were so great a disparity in the objects Gregory Nyssen saith that the Devil by the means of Arianism brought Idolatry again insensibly into the world perswading men to return to the worship of the creature by his sophistry and that Arius Eunomius Eudoxius and Aetius were his instruments in restoring Idolatry under a pretence of Christianity In another place he hath this considerable passage God commands by the Prophet that we should have no new God nor worship any strange God but that is a new God which was not for ever and that is a strange God which is different from our God Who is our God the true God who is a strange God he that hath a different nature from the true God He that makes the Son a creature makes him of a different nature And they who make him a creature do they worship him or no if not they joyn with the Iews if they do worship him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they commit Idolatry Therefore we must believe him to be the true Son of the true Father that we may worship him and doing so that we be not condemned as worshipping a strange God To the same purpose he argues against Eunomius that it is the property of Idolaters to worship the creature or any new or strange God and that they who divide the Father and the Son must either wholly take away the worship of the Son or they must worship an Idol the very word used by S. Gregory making a creature and not God the object of their worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 placing the name of Christ upon an Idol that this was the fault of the Heathen Idolaters that they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worship those which were not Gods by nature and therefore could not worship the true God where it is observable that he uses the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both for the worship given to Idols by the Heathens and for that which is proper to God from which it is evident that these Fathers knew of no such distinction of the nature of divine worship as is understood in the Roman Church under the terms of Latria and Dulia for if they had having to deal with subtile adversaries they would not have failed to have explained themselves in the matter which had been absolutely necessary to the force of their own arguments if any such distinction had been known or allowed in the Christian Church Again he saith that he that puts the name of Son to a creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must be reckoned among Idolaters for they saith he called Dagon and Bel and the Dragon God but for all that they did not worship God and therefore he still urgeth against Eunomius that either with the Iews he must deny the worship of Christ or he must joyn with the Gentiles in the worship of the creature S. Basil charges the Arians and Eunomians with bringing in the Polytheism and Idolatry of the Greeks for they who say that the Son of God is a creature and yet worship him as God do worship a creature and not the Creator and so introduce Gentilism again And against Eunomius he urges the same places and reasons which I have already mentioned out of Nyssen viz. that if Christ be not the eternal God he must be a new and strange God and to worship that which by nature is not God is the fault S. Paul charges the Heathen Idolaters with Epiphanius proves that Christs being a creature and having divine worship given him are inconsistent according to the Scriptures and that those who worship a creature fall under S. Pauls reprehension of the Heathen Idolaters who did call the creatures God but true faith teaches us to worship the Creator and not the creature He thinks this Rule sufficient against all the arts and sophistry of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that no creature ought to be worshipped For saith he upon the same reason we worship one we may worship all together with their creator 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where we see he doth not speak of such worship as doth exclude the Creator but of that which is supposed to be joyned together with his nor of a Soveraign Worship to be given to them but of such as doth suppose the distance between the Creator and his Creatures Upon this principle he saith the Arians made the Son of God like to the Idols of the Heathens for if he be not the true God he is not to be worshipped nay he adds that those who said Christ was to be worshipped although a creature did build up Babylon again and set up the image of Nebuchadnezzar and by their words as by Musical instruments draw men to the worship of an Image rather than of the true God Is it credible saith he that God should make a creature to be worshipped when he hath forbidden men to make any likeness of things in Heaven or Earth and to fall down and worship it when the Apostle makes this the Idolatry of the Heathen that they worshipped the creature as well as the Creator wherein they became Fools for it is a foolish thing to attribute divinity to a creature and to break the first Commandment of the Law Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve Therefore saith he the holy Church of God doth not worship any creature but the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father together with the Holy Ghost To the very same purpose he speaks in his Ancoratus If the Son of God be a creature
it is confessed that Vows are a part of that worship which is proper only to God and how then can they be given to any else besides Him And Bellarmin confesseth That Vows in the Scriptures are alwaies taken for promises made to God for when they were written there was no such custom of vowing to Saints A very fair confession But how then comes that which all the time when the Scripture was written was peculiar to God to become common to Him and His Creatures why may not sacrifice be made common as well as Vows if it be in their power to change those things which God by the acknowledgement of our Adversaries hath throughout the Scripture made peculiar to himself 2. This therefore will require a farther debate viz. how far Gods appropriating these Acts of worship to himself doth concern us For which we are to consider 1. That it is granted by T. G. to be reasonable that there should be some external acts of worship peculiar to God because the reason of his worship is peculiar as he is the supreme Lord and Governour of the world 2. That acts of worship being designed to honour and please God he is the fittest to determine what those peculiar acts of worship shall be For S. Augustin mentions that saying of Socrates as a principle of natural reason Unumquemque Deum sic coli oportere quo modo se ipse colendum esse praeceperit that God ought to be worshipped according to His own appointment To which himself adds That if men worship God against His Will they do not worship Him but their own imagination and therefore they are to examine what worship this God doth reserve to himself and what He will allow to any other Origen embraces that saying of Celsus That no inferior Being ought to receive any Honour against the Will of the Supream and therefore he desires Celsus to prove that those Daemons and Heroes which had divine worship given them among them ever had the consent of the Supreme God for it but it rather came from the ignorance and barbarism of mankind which by degrees fell off from the true worship of God And he insists upon the demonstration of this as to all their Deities how they can shew that ever God gave way they should be worshipped 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but we can prove saith he by evident arguments that it was the Will of God that all men should honour the Son as they do the Father Dei honorem per Deum docemur saith Hilary we understand how to worship God by himself S. Chrysostom saith Let us learn to honour Christ as he would have us for that is the most pleasing honour which he would have and not that which we would give S. Peter thought to honour Christ by refusing to be washed but this was not honour but directly contrary Which I desire T. G. to take notice of that he may better understand that God cannot be honoured by prohibited acts of worship whatever the intention of the person be But one would think this were a principle so reasonable in it self that I need not vouch Authorities for it yet we shall soon find that all these Authorities are no more than necessary 3. Acts appropriated to the worship of God by his own appointment must continue so till himself hath otherwise declared For who dares alter what God hath appointed Indeed if the peculiar acts of worship had depended only on the consent of mankind there might have been some reason for men by common consent to have changed the nature and signification of them But since God by a Law hath appropriated some parts of worship to himself we ought in manners to know his mind before we give away any part of that which was once peculiar to himself to any of his creatures 4. Christ hath no where made it lawful to give any Acts that were before appropriate to the worship of God to any creature We do acknowledge that Christ did take away by the design of his doctrine that external ceremonial worship that was among the Iews but he no where gives the least intimation that any acts which before were peculiar to God might now be given to any else besides him Nay instead of this he layes down the same Fundamental precept of worship which was in the Law Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve and he explains it more clearly to avoid all ambiguity in it by expressing that restrictive particle only which was implyed before His Apostles utterly refused any thing like divine honour being given to them and when one of them after an ecstatical manner fell down before an Angel he was severely rebuked for it and bidden to worship God So that our Adversaries grant that since the incarnation the Angels would not receive any adoration from men it seems then the Gospel is so far from giving any countenance to it that it suggests a new argument against it 5. The notion of Idolatry under the Gospel doth remain the same that it was before For we find such a sin often expressed and condemned and cautions given against it Neither be ye Idolaters as were some of them wherefore my dearly beloved flee from Idolatry Little Children keep your selves from Idols What notion of Idolatry could they have but what was the same which the Iews had from the Law of Moses The notion of Idolatry was a new thing among the Gentiles who knew no harm at all in giving divine worship to creatures from whence should they understand the sinfulness and the nature of it if not from some Law of God the Apostles pretended to give no new Law about it and never corrected any mistake among the Iews concerning it as they did in other things therefore the notion of Idolatry did continue the same that it was before 6. It was Idolatry among the Iews to give the appropriate acts of divine worship to any thing but God which I have already proved from the words of the Law and the concurrent Testimony of the Iewish Writers and from these things laid together it follows that it is Idolatry for men now to give any of the fore-mentioned appropriate signs of divine worship to any thing but God whether it be sacrifice or adoration or building Temples and Altars or burning incense or invocation or making Vows for if all these were things appropriated to the worship of God by his Law the using of these to any creature is not meer disobedience to his Law but a giving to the creature the worship proper to God which on all sides is confessed to be Idolatry No saith T. G. this proves only an extrinsecal denomination of Idolatry for if for instance God hath forbidden external adoration to be given to an Image his prohibition of such worship may make it indeed to be unlawful but hinders not the Act from passing whither it
Ancestors to whom we give 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the second Honours next to the Gods as Celsus calls those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the due honours that belong to the lower Daemons which he contends ought to be given to them From which we take notice that the Heathens did not confound all degrees of divine worship giving to the lowest object the same which they supposed to be due to the Coelestial Deities or the supreme God So that if the distinction of divine worship will excuse from Idolatry the Heathens were not to blame for it 2. If this pretence doth excuse from Idolatry the Carpocratian Hereticks were unjustly charged by Irenaeus Epiphanius and S. Augustin for they are said To worship the Images of Christ together with the Philosophers Pythagoras Plato and Aristotle Wherein lay the fault of these Hereticks was it only in joyning the Philosophers together with Christ If that had been all it had been easie to have said That they worshipped the Philosophers together with Christ but they take particular notice of it as a thing unusual and blame-worthy that they worshipped the Images of Christ which they pretended to have had from Pilat which had been no wonder if there had been as many Images of Christ then extant as Feuardentius pretends viz. the Image of Christ taken by Nicodemus not I suppose when he came by night to our Saviour that at Edessa besides those which S. Luke drew of Him if there had been so many Images abroad of Him in veneration among Christians why should this be pitched upon as a peculiar thing of these Gnosticks That they had some Images painted others made of other matters which they crowned and set forth or worshipped as the Heathens did among which was an Image of Christ as Irenaeus reports it And supposing they had worshipped the Images of Christ as the Gentiles did worship their Images wherein were they to blame if the honour given to the Image be not the honour of the Image but of that which is represented by it And since Christ deserves our highest worship on this pretence they deserved no blame at all in giving divine worship of the highest degree to the Image of Christ. 3. The Primitive Christians did utterly refuse to worship the Images of Emperors although they were acknowledged to be Gods Creatures therefore I say according to their sense acknowledging the Saints to be Gods Creatures is not a sufficient ground to excuse the worship of the Images of Saints from Idolatry As in Pliny's Epistle to Trajan mentioned before one of the tryals of Christians was whether they would Imagini tuae thure ac vino supplicare use the Religious rites that were then customary of Incense Libation and Supplication before the Emperours Image this Minucius calls ad Imagines supplicare to pray before their Images which Pliny saith No true Christian could ever be brought to but would rather suffer Martyrdom than do it S. Hierome speaking of Nebuchadnezzars Image saith Statuam seu Imaginem cultores Dei adorare non debent the worshippers of God ought not to worship an Image Let saith he the Iudges and Magistrates take notice of this that worship the Emperours Statues that they do that which the three Children pleased God by not doing By which we see it was not only the Statues of Heathen Emperours which the Christians refused to give Religious worship to but of the most pious and Christian which out of the flattery of Princes those who expected or received Honours were willing to continue under Christian Emperours but it was at last absolutely forbidden by a Constitution of Theodosius of which I have spoken already in the Discourse about the Nature of divine worship But upon what reason came this to be accounted unlawful among Christians if it were lawful to worship the Images of Saints supposing them to be Gods Creatures Is it possible they should think the Emperours to be otherwise I do not think that the Souldiers who were trepann'd by Iulian to offer Incense to his Image at the receiving the Donative and after they understood what they did were ready to run mad with indignation at themselves crying out in the Streets We are Christians and ran to the Emperour desiring they might suffer Martyrdom for the Christian faith which they were supposed to deny by that act of theirs as Gregory Nazianzen and Theodoret relate the story did imagine that Iulian was any other than one of Gods Creatures or that they had any belief of his being a God but the Christians looked on the act it self of offering incense as unlawful to be done to the Image of any Creature or to the Image it self because it was a Creature and that of the meanest sort viz. the Work of mens hands 4. It is not enough for any of Gods Creatures to be worshipped under the Notion of Saints if any worship be given to them which is above the rank of Creatures i. e. any of that worship which belongs to God For none can have greater confidence of the Saintship of any Persons whose Images they worshipped those excepted which are revealed in Scripture than many of the Heathens had of the goodness of the Deities which they worshipped And if we observe the method which Origen S. Cyril S. Augustin and other Christian Writers took to prove them to be evil Spirits which they worshipped we shall find the great argument was from the Nature of the worship given to them For say they we find in Scripture that good Angels have refused that worship which they seem so desirous of and therefore there is just reason to suspect that these are not good Angels although they firmly believed them to be so and Hierocles saith God forbid we should worship any other And the Heathens in S. Augustin say peremptorily they did not worship Devils but Angels and the servants of the Great God So say I as to those who are worshipped under the name of Saints or Angels if in or at their Images such things are spoken or done which tend to the encouraging that worship which the Primitive Christians refused as Idolatry there is the same reason still to suspect those are not good but evil Spirits under whose name or representation soever they appear For it is as easie for them to play the same tricks among Christians which they did among Heathens for then they pretended to be Good Spirits and why may they not do the same still If we have a fuller discovery of their design to impose upon the world the folly of men is so much the greater to be abused by them and the Gentiles were in that respect far more excuseable than Christians because God had not discovered the Cheat and artifices of Evil Spirits to them so as he hath done to us by the Christian Religion Whatever pretence of miracles or visions or appearances there be if the design of them be to advance a way of
the object of worship but that the acts of worship were to be performed to the Images themselves The former use of Images doth suppose them to be only of the nature of Books which represent things to our minds without any act of adoration performed to that which is only an instrument of intellection although the thing represented to the mind be a proper object of adoration As if by reading a Book an Idea of God is represented to my mind whom I ought to worship yet no man can imagine that from hence I should fall down upon my knees out of honour to the Book or with a design to worship it When a man reads his prayers out of a Book and makes use of that only as a means or instrument to help his understanding and direct his expressions no man can have any colour of Reason to say that he worships the Book which he uses for a quite different purpose It is the same case as to Images when they are used for no other end but barely to represent to the mind an object of worship as a Crucifix may do our Saviour then it is no more than an external Note or Character and hath the same use that words have But those who go no farther than thus stand condemned and Anathematized by the second Council of Nice For that not only determines with a great deal of assurance that Images are to be set up in Churches and houses and wayes in order to the worship of them but very freely Anathematizes all sorts of dissenters either in judgement or practice Anathema be to all those who do not Salute the Holy and Venerable Images Anathema to all hereticks Anathema to those that follow the Council against Images Anathema to them that do not salute the Images of Christ and his Saints Epiphanius in the sixth Session declares this to be the sense of the Council Those who say that Images are to be had only for memory and not for worship or salutation are half-wicked and partly true and partly false they are so far right as they are for Images but they are in the wrong as they are against the worship of them O the folly of these men saith Epiphanius But this is not all for as it was not sufficient to have Images for helps to memory so neither was it to give them some kind of honour or reverence nothing but worship would satisfie them So the Patriarch Tarasius saith in plain terms they who pretend to honour Images and not to worship them are guilty of Hypocrisie and self-contradiction For worship saith he is a Symbol and signification of Honour therefore they who deny to worship them do dishonour them This was the Patriarchal way of arguing in this famous Council And this he proves from the saying of Anastasius Bishop of Theopolis Let no man be offended with the name of adoration or worship for we worship men and Angels but do not serve them and worship is an expression of Honour And it would do one good at heart to see how all the Reverend Fathers clap their hands for joy at the subtle Criticism which it seems that Bishop had discovered viz. that when our saviour said Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him Only shalt thou serve that Only was not applyed to Worship but to Service Mark that cryes the Council Only belongs to Service and not to worship therefore although we may not serve Images yet we may Worship them If the Devil had been so subtle might not he have said to our Saviour Mark that you are forbidden Only to Serve any else but God but you may Worship me notwithstanding that command The Patriarch Tarasius in his Epistle to Constantine and Irene expresses this worship by the very same word which is used to God for when God saith Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve he restrains Service to himself but allows Worship to other things therefore saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without the least doubt or dispute it is a thing acceptable and well pleasing to God for us to worship and salute the Images of Christ and the B. Virgin and of the Holy Angels and Saints If any man think otherwise and have any doubt in his mind or any wavering 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 about the Worship of the Venerable Images the Holy and Oecumenical Synod hath Anathematized him and what is an Anathema but a Separation from God And thus it becomes no less than damnation to doubt of the Worship of Images O blessed Change from what it was in the primitive times when it was damnation to worship them This worship he expresses in the same Epistle by Kissing by bowing by prostration all which he shews from the signification of the word and the use of it in Scripture And in the Definition of the Council among the Acts of worship are reckoned the oblation of Incense and Lights because the honour of the Image passes to the thing represented by it So that all external acts of adoration were by the Definition of this Council to be performed to Images and the same have been practised by the approbation of the Roman Church wherein this Council of Nice is received as a General Council and appealed to by the Council of Trent supposing the Decrees of that Council to be still in force In the Constitutions of Thomas Arundel Archbishop of Canterbury made in the Convocation of the Bishops and Clergy begun at S. Pauls 14 Ian. A. D. 1408. we have a particular enumeration of the several Acts of worship which were required to be performed to Images and the places and Reliques of the Saints viz. processions genuflections bowing of the body thurifications deosculations oblations burnings of Lights and Pilgrimages and all other forms and modes of worship which have been practised in the times of our predecessours or in our own and this not only the People were required to practise but the Clergy to teach and preach up the worship of the Cross and other Images with these acts of adoration And this Constitution is extant in Lyndwood as part of the Canon Law then in force who in his Notes upon it observes that offering incense was a sacrifice as it was burnt upon the Altar and a part of Latria and therefore he saith the same incense was not used to the Clergy and people with that burnt upon the Altar but of another sort which was not consecrated In the Records of the Tower is extant the Form of Renunciation imposed on the Lollards wherein are these words concerning the worship of Images I do swear to God and to all his Seynts upon this Holy Gospell that fro this day forward I shall Worship Images with praying and offering unto them in the worschop of the Seynts that they be made after And yet after all this plain evidence some have had the confidence to tell
Are Images to be worshipped let him answer without fear they are Because saith he Images being set apart by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost for such a sacred use do obtain such a degree of Sanctification that whoever violates them is guilty of Sacriledge and Treason against the Divine Majesty For saith he God himself is most truly believed to be present in them after a particular manner and he shews his power and presence by them using them often for Oracles that after this manner our Saviours saying is fulfilled I am with you to the end of the World And for the sake of this peculiar presence of God which we sensibly perceive and if I should deny that I had done it my self I should be a lyar and ungrateful Images do deserve a peculiar adoration but short of Latria because they are sanctified for such spiritual offices Naclantus another Italian Bishop and an eminent Divine in the Council of Trent as well as Catharinus saith That it is needless caution for any to say that they worship before the Image sed adorare imaginem sine quo volueris scrupulo but they may say it roundly and without the least scruple that they worship the Image Bellarmine saith That the Images of Christ and the Saints are to be worshipped not only by accident and improperly but by themselves and properly so that they terminate the worship as they are considered in themselves and not barely as they represent the exemplar which he proves from the definition of the Council of Nice and the same reasons which are mentioned from Suarez before Dominicus Soto another great Divine of the Council of Trent determines positively That Images are not intended by the Church only for helps to memory for we do not worship the Scriptures or names of Saints which call them to our minds but as to Images we ought to think otherwise for they do not only raise our minds to worship those who are represented by them sed easdem ipsas debemus adorare we ought to worship the Images themselves for saith he the Church doth not say We worship thee O Christ but thy Cross and O Crux ave spes unica c. whose words are repeated and approved by Ferd. Velosillus Bernardus Pujol laies down this assertion The Image truly and properly is the matter of adoration and the worship truly and properly is terminated upon it which he saith is plain from the seventh Council and from several others and those are Anathematized who deny it And the definitions of Councils being absolutely put are properly to be understood therefore the worship is truly and properly to be terminated on the Image and not only the external but the internal worship is he saith to be terminated on the Image which he proves likewise from the second Nicene Council wherein it is not only required that men do the outward acts of worship but that they do them with love and affection And when saith he the Council of Trent mentions the external acts it implies that the internal worship is terminated upon the Images for the external acts have not the nature of worship but as they are signs of internal worship And to say that the worship is terminated improperly and abusively on the Image is to make the Councils to speak improperly and abusively and those who say that Images are improperly worshipped do not only err in the manner of speaking but in the thing it self Tannerus saith Absque haesitatione satendum imagines non solum venerandas colendas sed etiam adorandas esse that we should say it without hesitation that Images are not barely to be honoured or reverenced but to be adored which he likewise proves from several passages of the Nicene synod Ysambertus delivers his sense in these particulars 1. That the worship of the thing represented before the Image is not properly worship of the Image nor agreeable to the Definitions of Councils For that saith he is only properly worshipped which terminates the worship and the Councils define such a worship of Images which is terminated upon the Images which he proves from the Council of Trent as well as Nice because it requires such acts of worship which are terminated on the Images 2. Adoration may be directed to the Image as to the thing which terminates it and to the exemplar as the reason of it for which besides the reasons given by others he gives this viz. when there are two things good and lawful and there is no positive Precept to do them together then it is lawful to do one without the other but in the act of worshipping the Image with the exemplar there are two good acts viz. the worship of the Image and of the exemplar and there is no precept of the Church to joyn those together therefore it is lawful to do one without the other Eligius Bassaeus desires it may be observed That in the worship of the Image not only the object is worshipped which is represented by it but also the Image it self seeing that is properly worshipped which is the term of adoration or the matter to which it is directed This is the Catholick verity saith Sylvius that Images are truly and properly to be worshipped so that the honour is given not only to the exemplar but for the sake of that to the Image and this is defined he saith by the second Council of Nice Arriaga laies down this as a certain principle among Catholicks That Images are to be truly worshipped which all the Definitions of Councils do clearly manifest which being in a dogmatical point and against Hereticks cannot without danger of errour be explained in an abusive and improper sense and he adds afterwards that the opinion of Durandus seems manifestly condemned by all those definitions of Councils which require true worship to be given to Images and he produces several passages of the seventh Synod to that purpose And it signifies nothing to their excuse that they perform the outward signs of worship to Images for saith he since they allow no proper worship to them the Images do only serve to excite the memory which he thus farther confirms It is not credible that any hereticks supposing the object represented to deserve worship should imagine it lawful to worship that object without an Image and unlawful to do it when the memory of that object is excited upon the view of an Image upon supposition that no worship is intended to be given to the Image thereby And it is not credible that if this had been all the Councils had determined that they should never think of such an easie way of satisfying dissenters as the declaring this to have been their sense would have been But the controversie lay in another point viz. that Images did not deserve any immediate worship so as to have any honour done to them although considered only as the material objects
a Book no one suspects that his praise is therefore directed to his Book Thus it is in the acts of worship the Object is that Being to which the worship is directed but because external Acts must have some local circumstances by the position of our countenances and the tendency of our posture either towards Heaven or towards some place as the more immediate Symbol of a divine presence the difference is apparent between such a direction of the act towards a place and the direction of it towards an Object in case it can be made appear that may be a place of worship which is not an object of it For which we must consider 1. That the object of worship is that to which the worship is given either for its own sake or for the sake of that which it represents but a local circumstance doth only circumscribe the material act of worship within certain bounds And the proper object of worship is a Person either really present or represented as present The Idolaters who worshipped their Images as Gods if at least any considerable number of them ever did so it was upon this account that they supposed some Spirit to be incorporated in the Image and so to make together with it a Person fit to receive worship Those who worshipped the Elements or heavenly bodies did it not on the account of the matter whereof they were made but of those spirits which they believed to rule over those things they worshipped as I have already shewed in the general discourse But it is not necessary in order to an object of worship that the Person be really present for if men by imagination do suppose him present as represented by an Image that makes those who worship that Image perform the very same acts as if he were actually present and in the Church of Rome they do make this representation by an Image a sufficient ground for making that an object of worship which we say is the very thing forbidden in the Second Commandment viz. that any Image should be worshipped on the account of what it represents and therefore it forbids all kind of representations to be worshipped by men because an Image seems to have such a relation to the thing it represents that they may pretend they give worship to it on another account than meerly its matter and form viz. the thing represented by it Thus when the Reason of the worship of Images is drawn from the exemplar as it is both in the Councils of Nice and Trent they thereby shew that they do make the Image a true object of worship although the reason of it be drawn from the Person represented But suppose men worship God towards the West as the Iews did or towards the East as the Christians did what is there in this that doth represent God to us what is there that we fix our worship upon but only himself God hath no where forbidden men to worship Him towards the place of His presence for even our Saviour hath bid us pray Our Father which art in Heaven and supposing God had promised a more peculiar presence in His Holy Temple it was as lawful to worship God towards that as towards Heaven but that which God hath strictly forbidden is the worshipping of any thing on the account of the representation either of himself or of His creatures for this doth suppose that Image to be made the object of worship although it be on the account of what it represents 2. Supposing the same external acts to be performed towards an Image and towards a place of Gods particular presence yet the case is not alike in both these if those who do them declare they do them not with a design to worship that place For to the making any thing an object of worship there must be some ground to believe that they intend to worship it either from the nature of their actions or the doctrine and practice of the Church they live in but in case it be expressly declared that what they do is only intended as a local circumstance there is no ground to charge them with making it an object of worship Thus those in the Church of Rome who declare that they do not worship the Image but only worship God before an Image although they perform the same external acts of worship yet are condemed of Heresie because hereby they declare they do not give worship to Images which is contrary to the decrees of their Councils Much more certainly will those be condemned by them who declare it unlawful to worship any thing on the account of representation and that they do only determine the acts of outward worship towards a particular place without any intention to worship that place but only to worship God that way And this was the case of the Iews as to the worshipping of Images and of God towards the Holy of Holies they declared it utterly unlawful to do one because God had strictly forbidden it and they though it as lawful to do the other because he allowed the practice of it and it was sufficiently known among the people of the Iews that they had no intention to worship either the Ark or the Cherubims 3. Where there is only a local circumstance of worship the same thing would be worshipped supposing that circumstance changed but where any thing is an object of worship that being changed the same thing is not worshipped This makes the difference between these two easie and intelligible by all If a Iew should worship towards the East or Christians towards the West the same object of their worship continues still for they worship the same God both waies but if the Image of Christ or the B. Virgin be taken away from the Altar a Papist cannot be said to worship the same thing there that he did before Which plainly shews that there is a real difference between these two which is of great moment to clear the Iewish worship of God towards his holy place and to shew how different it was from the worship of Images 2. But T. G. pretends to bring clear Scripture for the Iews worshipping the Ark Adore ye the foot-stool of God for it is holy Psal. 98.5 so all the ancient Fathers he saith read it without scruple and S. Hierome he saith confirms it And why was it placed in the Holy of Holies and why were the people commanded to adore or bow down before it but to testifie their reverence to it To this I answer 1. One might venture odds against T. G. that when he quotes all the Fathers for him he hath very few of his side Nothing less will content him here than all the Fathers reading it without scruple for It is holy when Lorinus saith That all the Greek Fathers not one dissenting that he had seen read it For He is holy and among the Latins he confesses That S. Hierome and S. Augustine both read it so for
which he hath not the least colour from Scripture or Reason as will appear by the following particulars 2. From the intolerable folly of desiring Aaron to make that God which before he was made delivered them out of the Land of Aegypt For so the People say This is thy God or these are thy Gods which brought thee out of the Land of Aegypt Is it possible to suppose people so extreamly stupid to imagine a God just then made should before it was made deliver them out of Aegypt But T. G. is a notable man and hath made a rare discovery viz. that Calvin said some such thing before me I thank him for the discovery for I do assure him it was more than I had ever read in Calvin but T. G. hath a great mind to make Calvin my Master in every thing I should not be ashamed to learn from a man of so great abilities but it falls out unhappily that I do not find one thing he charges me with following Calvin in but it is from him that I learn what Calvin said And if he had pleased he might have quoted an Author of their own for these words neque enim tam stupidi erant saith Ferus quod crederent Aaron posse facere Deum they were not so stupid to believe that Aaron could make a God and therefore he saith very honestly that the Israelites worshipped the True God by the Calf But suppose Calvin did say this is there ever the less reason in the saying But we can imagine as sottish things of them viz. that they terminate their worship on the Images although they deny any Divinity to be in them Is it indeed so sottish a thing to terminate their worship on the Images what becomes then of all their Divines who plead for it and say that by the Decrees of their Councils worship ought to be terminated on the Images themselves as T. G. may see in the precedent Chapter But the Scripture T. G. saith represents the Israelites as a people void of understanding and they were without learning and oppressed for four hundred years together by the most Idolatrous Nation in the world and served their Gods Ezek. 20.8 I grant the Scripture gives that severe character of them but it was because they did not consider the consequence of their disobedience as appears by the next verse Deut. 32.29 Must we because of this imagine them to be such Fools and Sots that no Idolaters in the World can be parallel'd with them viz. to make a God which did mighty things for them before it was made Therefore the meaning of making a God can be nothing else but making a Symbol or representation of God and the Question then is whether it were the representation of an Aegyptian Idol or the God of Israel That it was not the former I proved 3. From the way of worship used by the Israelites which was an abomination to the Aegyptians Exod. 8.26 To this T. G. returns not the least word of Answer but he shall not escape so for from hence I shall make it appear beyond contradiction that it was not Aegyptian Idolatry which the Israelites fell into for which we must consider the sacrifices that were offered to the golden Calf And they rose up early on the morrow and offer'd burnt-offerings and brought peace-offerings and the people sate down to eat and to drink and rose up to play S. Stephen saith And they made a Calf in those dayes and offered sacrifice unto the Idol and rejoyced in the Works of their own hands Now the burnt-offerings and peace-offerings are expressed Exod. 20.24 to be their Oxen and their Sheep and immediately before Moses his going up into the Mount it is said that they offered burnt-offerings and sacrificed peace-offerings of Oxen unto the Lord where the very same words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are used and the LXX there render the word we translate oxen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Vulg. Lat. Vitulos the same word which is used for the Golden Calf Now I shall shew that nothing could be more repugnant to the Aegyptian Idolatry than such sacrifices as these For which we have this considerable Testimony of Horus in Macrobius Nunquam fas fuit Aegyptiis pecudibus aut sanguine sed precibus ture solo placare Deos. It was never lawful for the Aegyptians to sacrifice with Cattel and blood but only with prayers and incense and from thence he proves that the Worship of Saturn and Serapis were but lately received among the Egyptians in the time of the Ptolemies and after they were received their Temples were without the Cities that they might not be polluted with blood within the Cities And every one knows that the Feasts were upon their sacrifices but the Satyrist says of the Egyptians Lanatis animalibus abstinet omnis Mensa nefas illic foetum jugulare capellae Anaxandrides in Athenaeus saith that a Greek could have no conversation with an Egyptian because the one worshipped an Ox which the other sacrificed and Herodotus saith that the Egyptians would not touch so much as the knife or spit or pot which the Greeks had used so great an aversion had they from those who either eat or sacrificed the Creatures they worshipped Herodotus indeed saith that the Thebans abstained from sheep and offered Goats the Mendesians on the contrary abstained from Goats and offered Sheep but this was on the account of the particular Religion of those two Provinces for they differed very much among themselves as to particular animals but all the Egyptians agreed as Herodotus there saith in the worship of Osiris and Isis Now Diodorus Siculus affirms that Apis and Mneuis the Bulls of Heliopolis and Memphis were sacred to Osiris Plutarch saith that the Ox was the Image of Osiris and Strabo that Apis was the same with Osiris and Mela that Apis was the Deity of all the Egyptians Strabo gives the most particular account of the Egyptian worship and what creatures were worshipped in the several Provinces but he saith there were three universally worshipped whereof the first is the Ox and it was an universal practice not to touch or hurt those creatures that were sacred among them as the Oxen were quite through Egypt from whence Moses desired to go into the Wilderness to sacrifice for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the Lord our God Lo shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes and will they not stone us i. e. saith the Targum of Onkelos because the Egyptians worship Oxen. Because Lambs are the Idols of the Egyptians saith Ionathan If we kill saith S. Hierome the things which they worship I leave it now to the consideration of any man whether the Israelites using their accustomed burnt-offerings and sacrifices and Feastings upon them as they did in the Worship of
who acknowledge one Supreme God As to the Heathens who are confessed to be Idolaters I have such plenty and choice of evidence in this matter that it is not easie to know which to leave out for if either the Testimony of the Heathens themselves may be taken or the Testimony of the Writers of the Roman Church concerning them or the Testimonie of the Scriptures or of those Fathers who disputed against their Idolatry or of the Roman Church it self I do not doubt to make it evident that those Heathens who are charged with Idolatry did acknowledge one Supreme God In so great store I have reason to consider the temper of the person I have to deal with For if I produce the Testimony of the Heathen Writers themselves it may be he may suspect that the Devil dwelt in their Books as well as in their Images and being a very cunning Sophister that he might perswade their Philosophers to write for one God that he might have the worship belonging to him as O. C 's Instruments were for a single Person that the Government might be put into his hands But I have a better reason than this viz. that this Work is already undertaken by a very learned Person of our Church The Testimony of Scripture is plain enough in this matter to any unbyassed mind as appears by S. Pauls saying to the men of Athens when he saw the Altar to the unknown God Whom ye ignorantly worship him I declare unto you Did S. Paul mean the Devil by this Did he in good earnest go abroad to preach the Devil to the world yet he preached him whom they ignorantly worshipped i. e. the Devil saith T. G. Although S. Paul immediately saith it was the God that made the World and all things in it and afterwards quotes one of their Poets for saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For we are his offspring and it is observable that the words immediately going before in Aratus are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he useth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 twice more in the verses before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the very word that T.G. saith doth signifie an Arch-Devil Doth S. Paul then say we are all the Devils off-spring and not an ordinary one neither but the very Arch-Devils Was this his way of perswading the Athenians to leave the worship of Devils to tell them that they were all the Devils off-spring No it was far enough from him for he infers from that saying of Aratus that they were the offspring of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that if Saint Paul may be credited rather than T. G. their Iupiter was so far from being the Arch-Devil that he was the true God blessed for evermore And it is observable that S. Paul quotes one of their Poets for this saying notwithstanding T. G 's sharp censure of them out of Horace with which the force of S. Pauls testimony is overthrown But he was not alone in making this to be the Poets sense for Aristobulus the Iewish Philosopher produces it to the same purpose and adds that although he used the name of Jove yet his design was to express the true God Minucius Felix saith wisely in this case They who make Jove the chief God are only deceived in the name but agree in the Power so far was he from thinking their Iupiter Father of Gods and men which he applauds the Poets for saying to have been the Arch-Devil But T. G. quotes Origen for saying that the Christians would undergo any Torments rather than confess Jupiter to be God for they did not believe Jupiter and Sabaoth to be the same neither indeed to be any God at all but a Devil who is delighted with the name of Jupiter an enemy to men and God I grant Origen doth say so but suppose St. Paul and Origen contradict one another I desire to know whom we are to follow Yet if T. G. had considered Origen as he ought to have done he would have seen how little had been gained by this saying of his For when Celsus had said it was no great matter whether they called the Supreme God Jupiter or Adonai or Sabaoth or Ammon as the Aegyptians did or Pappai as the Scythians Origen answers 1. That he had spoken already upon this subject which he desires may be remembered now in that place he saith that by reason of the abundance of filthy and obscene fables which went of their Jupiter the Christians would by no means endure to have the true God called by his name having learnt from Plato to be scrupulous about the very names of their Gods 2. Origen hath a particular conceit about the power of the Hebrew names and hath a very odd discourse unbecoming a Philosopher and a Christian about the power of words in enchantments and that the same words had great force in their Originals which they lost being translated into other Languages and if it be thus saith he in other names how much more ought we to think it so in the names of God And therefore he would by no means have those powerful names of Adonai and Sabaoth to be changed for any other By which for all that I can see Origen would as much have scrupled calling the Divine Being God as Iove If Vossius his conjecture be true that God is the same with the old German Gode or Godan and according to the common permutation of those letters Wodan who was the chief God among the Germans 3. He saith that it was no fault at all for any persons to call the Supreme God by the names used in their own language as the Aegyptians might call him Ammon and the Scythians Pappai and then why not the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and I do not see he finds much fault with them for it but he would not have those names brought into the Christian Religion which had been defiled by such impure stories and representations among the Heathens which is the best thing that he saith to this purpose But we see that Origen himself doth not deny that either the Greeks or Aegyptians or Scythians did own a Supreme God or that they had proper names to express him by but he would not have the Christians bring those names into their Religion And that Origen grants that the Heathens did acknowledge the Supreme God will be proved afterwards But whatever his opinion was we are sure S. Paul by the God that was known among the Heathens did not mean the Devil For was the believing the Devil to be the Supreme God that holding the truth in unrighteousness which S. Paul charges the Heathens with Was this indeed that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That which is known of God which he saith not only was manifest in them but that God himself had revealed it to them Was this that eternal Power and
subjects to give homage to him and another day to be placed upon the Altar as he is after his election by the Orders of the Roman Church there to receive adoration from the Cardinals as the Vicar of Christ would any man say he could see no difference in these because the same postures may be used in both Although then the outward acts may be the same yet the signification of those acts may be far from equivocal because determined by the circumstances which do accompany them I grant then that the meer external act of adoration in bowing or kneeling may be given both on the account of honour and worship i. e. upon the account of excellencie and superiority as some of the Patriarchs bowed to Angels as a token of honour of their excellencies and not out of Religious worship and men may bow and kneel to their Soveraign Princes on the account of civil worship and Children to their Parents in token of their subjection to them as well as creatures to their Creator in their solemn acts of devotion but I say in all these cases the different signification of these acts is to be gathered from the circumstances of them And that acts of Religious and civil worship might be distinguished from each other came the appointment of set times and places and solemn rites for the performance of Religious worship From hence Cicero gives that definition of Religion Religio est quae superioris cujusdam naturae quam divinam vocant curam ceremoniamque affert therefore they thought the solemn rites and circumstances of Religious worship were sufficient to discriminate the nature of that worship from any other and these they thought so peculiar to the divine nature that whatever Being they gave this solemn worship to they thought to deserve the name of a Deity although inferiour and subordinate because these acts of worship were appropriated to a Divine Being Aquinas cannot deny that there are some external acts of Religion so peculiar to God that they ought not to be given to any other and on this account he makes Religion a moral vertue and a part of justice because it is its office reddere cultum debitum Deo to give God the worship which belongs to him now saith he because the excellencie of God is peculiar to himself being infinitely above all others therefore the worship which belongs to him ought to be peculiar Ad Religionem pertinet saith Cajetan exhibere reverentiam uni Deo secundum unam rationem in quantum sc. est primum principium creationis gubernationis rerum But since this reason of Religious worship from the creation and government of the world is so peculiar to God as to be incommunicable to any else besides him is there not all the reason in the world that the Acts of this worship should be peculiar to him too And upon this ground Aquinas doth grant it in the case of sacrifice hoc etiam videmus in omni Republica observari quod summum Rectorem aliquo signo singulari honorant quod cuicunque alteri deferretur esset crimen laesae Majestatis ideo in lege divina statuitur poena mortis iis qui divinum honorem aliis exhibent From whence we infer not only that there ought to be peculiar external acts of Religious worship appropriated to God but that the giving the worship done by those acts to any creature is a crime of the highest nature The same Aquinas disputing against the Heathens saith that it is an unreasonable thing to those that hold one first principle to give divine worship to any other besides him and we give worship to God not that he needs it but that hereby the belief of one God may be confirmed in us by external and sensible acts which cannot be done saith he unless there be some peculiar acts of his worship and this we call divine worship Besides this external worship is necessary to men to raise in their minds a spiritual reverence of God and we find that custom hath a great influence on mens minds but it is a custom among men that the honour or worship given to the Supreme Governour should be given to none else therefore it ought to be much more so towards God because if a liberty be allowed of giving this worship to others of a higher rank and not only to the supreme then men and Angels might give divine worship to one another To which he adds that the benefits we receive from God are peculiar to him as that of creation and preservation and that he is our Lord by a proper title and Angels and the best of creatures are but his servants therefore we ought not to give the same worship to them that we do to God as our Lord. In his disputation about Idolatry he shews that the command Exod. 20. doth reach to external as well as internal worship and he argues against those who pleaded that all visible and external worship ought to be given to other Gods and only internal to the supreme God as being much better upon this principle that the external belongs only to him to whom the internal belongs and he disputes against those Hereticks who thought it lawful in time of persecution to give external worship to Idols as long as they preserved the true faith in their minds for saith he the external worship is a profession or sign of the internal but as it is a pernicious thing for a man to speak contrary to his mind so it is to act contrary to it and therefore S. Augustin condemned Seneca as so much the more culpable in the worship of Idols because he acted against the sense of his own mind In the next article he shews that Idolatry is a sin of the highest nature for saith he as in a commonwealth it is the greatest crime to give the honour due to the Soveraign to any other for this is as much as lies in a man to put all things into disorder and confusion so among the sins that are committed against God that seems to be the greatest whereby a man gives divine worship to a creature and saith that it includes blasphemy in it because it takes away from God the peculiarity of his dominion Cajetan there saith that the Idolater as much as in him lies tollit à Deo suam singularem excellentiam qua solus est Deus robs God of that peculiar excellencie whereby he is God alone Thus we see the necessity of some peculiar external acts of divine worship is asserted by these men in order to the preserving the belief and worship of one God in the world Suarez grants that as the excellency of God is singular and above all creatures so he ought to have a singular and incommunicable worship as is plain from those words of Scripture Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve but then he makes this worship
peculiar to God to consist chiefly in the internal acts of the mind which only in themselves and of their own nature are such as do belong to the worship of God but external acts are not so determined of themselves but they may be given either to God or to the creature however he grants that although outward acts be in themselves indifferent yet when sufficient Authority hath apprepriated some acts as peculiar to divine worship they ought to be used for no other purpose and that if these acts of worship be applied to a creature it makes that worship at least external Idolatry if it be not done ex animo and out of a false opinion In this point of the external acts of divine worship these two things may be observed of the Divines of the Roman Church 1. That in the general they confess that there ought to be some peculiar external acts of divine worship as most agreeable to Gods incommunicable excellencie and in particular when they are pressed with any difficulties from Scripture or Fathers about not giving divine worship to a creature then they are sure to tell us those places are to be understood of the worship that is proper only to God Thus they think to escape the force of that place which is so evident that it blinds them with the light of it Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve which was certainly understood of an external act of worship for the Devil said to Christ Fall down and worship me Yes say they that is very true of the adoration proper to God but what is that for they say there is no outward act of adoration but is common to God and his Creatures Tannerus excepts no creature inanimate or animate but only the Devil yet lest he should have gone too far in this he saith afterwards that physically speaking God may be worshipped in any creature but then men must have a care that they do not truely and properly worship the thing it self but only use the external signs of divine honour before it applying them to what is represented I confess this gives a very slender account of our Saviours answer for it seems he might physically speaking have worshipped God by falling down before the Devil all the danger was in the scandal and indecencie of it but being done in a Wilderness the scandal of it as to men at least had not been great Vasquez resolves the case that if the Devil appear to a man he may do all the external acts of adoration before him provided he be not well assured it is the Devil and that he direct his worship to God and that he proves by this demonstrative argument because all external acts of adoration are to be directed by the inward intention of the mind but he confesses many of their Divines allow only a conditional adoration in this case however it seems our Saviour spake a little too peremptorily in utterly refusing it upon any terms But then they tell us the Devil was too fancy and demanded the absolute worship proper only to God i. e. saith Vasquez not meerly the external act of adoration but that inward submission of mind which is only due to God which is more than appears by the words Bellarmine and the rest of them say that our Saviour refused to give the worship of Latria to the Devil by which it seems our Saviour did not answer to the purpose for the Devil expressed no more than falling down and worshipping him which according to them might be done without Latria by the same external act but not the same intention of mind which not being in the power of him that demands but only of him that gives nothing had been more necessary than to have expresly required the intention of the mind otherwise the Devil might have been easily cheated by directing the intention of the external act quite another way but for all that we can see the Devil was then to learn these subtilties However this now serves to turn off the plainest places that would seem to prove that all external acts of Religious worship are to be given only to God The Hereticks saith Arriaga object many things out of Scriptures and Fathers and Councils in which it is said that God only is to be worshipped but to all these we answer in one word that they only speak of the worship of Latria which is proper to God and so they would have answered thousands of places more as well as those that are urged against them so that the reserving this worship as peculiar to God serves them to very good purpose viz. to turn off as with a wet finger whatever is urged against them So Bernardus Pujol without more ado sends away all the Testimonies of the Fathers Ad loca sanctorum Patrum respondemus illa intelligenda esse de adoratione Latriae quae soli Deo tribuitur and so fare them well without any farther examination And yet some of these men upon better thoughts have concluded that some of the places of Scripture cannot be understood of the worship of Latria For although Aquinas Tannerus and several others answer the instance of Mordecai refusing to worship Aman with the common shift that he would not give Latria to him yet Cajetan Suarez Vasquez Pujol and Arriaga all conclude that this is not to be understood of the worship of Latria but that Mordecai refused to use the same external act of adoration which among the Iews they were wont to give to God wherein Cajetan thinks he was not so wise as he might have been because Jacob worshipped his Brother Esau Arriaga that he did well though he followed an erring conscience Suarez Vasquez and Pujol that he did prudently because the constant using of that act of adoration to Aman which among them did belong to the worship of God would have tended to the dishonour of God and Religion and have been a great scandal to the Iews Neither is Cajetan satisfied with the same answer to the instance of St. Iohn's offering to worship the Angel for this were saith he to charge St. John with committing a very great sin which the Angel hindred him from the consummation of but saith he St. John intended no more than the greatest external act of Reverence but because so great reverence ought to be reserved only to God that some outward reverence might be appropriated to Him therefore the Angel forbad him giving it to him Suarez confesses that it cannot be understood of Latria but that the Angel put it off with a complement as St. Peter did to Cornelius and with him the rest agree either as a complement to his Person or to humane nature since the Incarnation but Aquinas pertinently saith it was to avoid the occasion of Idolatry because the Angel immediately adds Worship God Thus far we find they go in the avoiding of
on him but because he is at the same time called upon as a Patron and Advocate with God But saith T. G. Honour is nothing but a Testimony or Protestation of some excellency and whether thanks be given to God by words or by sacrifice for the Gifts and Graces he hath bestowed on such a person it is an evident Protestation of such excellency in that person and consequently for his honour though both words and sacrifice be directed to God and not to him Who denies that it is for the honour of a Person to praise God for him but the Question is if sacrifice be appropriated to the sole Honour of God how the Honour of Saints comes to be declared by it For a man whose understanding is not shrunk up as Beggars arms use to be might have stretched it at least so far as to have considered that sacrifice being an external sign there are two things to be looked at in it 1. The signification of that sign 2. The term to which it is directed Now the main thing to be regarded in it as to Honour is not the direction of it to its term by the mind for that is secret but the external signification of it among men For saith Aquinas the reason of sacrifices is that men by some sensible external Actings should make a Protestation by offering them to God of the subjection and Honour that is due to him now if this sign may be made use of to signifie any other thing it is not a peculiar and appropriate sign only for that purpose to testifie our subjection to God And to return the kindness of his twitch by an example far more pertinent to the purpose than his was how strange would it have been thought among the Persians where prostration was appropriated to their King as a sign of subjection to him alone for a man to have said to him Sir I fall down before you in honour of the Captain of your Guards or of such and such a Minister of State would the King have taken this for an appropriate act of Honour to himself So that though he falls down only to the King if he declares he intends it for the honour of another he takes away by his words the significancy of his action Thus if sacrifice be so appropriate to the honour of God that it cannot signifie any thing else then it is nonsense to sacrifice to God for the Honour of another if it may signifie any thing else and be so used in the Church of Rome then they do not reserve so much as sacrifice for an appropriate sign of the absolute worship of God 2. Religious adoration is appropriated to God in Scripture for so the command runs as it is explained by our Saviour Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve They who would make the restrictive particle belong to the latter clause and not to the first do not attend to the reason of our Saviours using these words which was to reject the Devils temptation about adoration and it would not have had force against the temptation if men were more at liberty as to worship than they are as to service And it is observed by those who have most considered the importance of the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it doth not signifie an act of the mind but of the body either by incurvation or prostration Although adoration be sometime taken for all the external acts of Religious worship as Iohn 4.20 Acts 8.27 yet the general signification of it is that act of Religious Worship which is performed by the motion of the body And so adoration is accounted in the Schools one particular part of proper Religious worship Aquinas puts it before sacrifice and makes that place of our Saviour the foundation of it and among external signs he makes this the greatest and that it is intended not barely to declare our inward Reverence but that by the use of this our inward devotion may be more excited it being natural for us to proceed from sensible to intellectual acts And it is observed by Ysambertus a late Professor of Divinity in the Sorbon That where ever the Scripture speaks of adoration it is alwayes expressed by some external sign as a note of subjection in him that adores towards him that is adored which observation if understood of a corporeal sign is not intended for Angels but men for adoration is in Scripture attributed to Angels And he well observes as to the sense of Aquinas That he must make the external sign necessary to the formal act of adoration because he ranks prayer among the internal acts which he could do upon no other reason but because prayer may have its compleat act in the mind which he supposed that adoration could not and withal he proves contrary to the opinion of Suarez That the internal acts of vertue though designed by the mind as a token of submission to God cannot be the proper acts of adoration because they are not adequate and proportionable signs to express our submission to God And therefore Damascen defined adoration to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sign of subjection and Anastasius Bishop of Antioch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an outward expression of honour by which saith Vasquez he doth not mean any bare honour but that which implies subjection But Damascen yet more fully saith it is a sign not barely of honour but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of submission and humility not as it is taken for that particular vertue whereby an inordinate value of our selves is repressed but as it implies an acknowledgement of Gods superiority and dominion over us And it is observable that St. Augustine where he speaks of those things which are most peculiar to the worship of God he joyns adoration and sacrifice together Putaverunt quidam deferendum Angelis honorem vel adorando vel sacrificando qui debetur Deo eorum sunt admonitione prohibiti jussique sunt haec ei deferre cui uni fas esse noverunt whereby we see he makes external adoration as peculiar to God as sacrifice and Ludovicus Vives there saith That he meant by the Angel that refused adoration the Angel that forbad St. John and bad him to worship God Which makes me wonder that T. G. should make the act of adoration aequivocal and only sacrifice according to St. Augustin to be appropriated to signifie the absolute worship of God for St. Augustin joyns both together and makes one as unlawfal to be given to any creature as the other How then comes St. Augustin's authority to be quitted for the one and so greedily embraced for the other Is it that sacrifice doth of it self more properly signifie our inward and total subjection of our selves to God than the other doth But it would become T. G's learning to inform us in this matter since the best learned of their
appears more probable both of him and Lot by Heb. 13.2 then it was only an expression of civil respect to them 4. Out of a sudden transport as St. Iohn did to the Angel twice which he would not have done a second time if he had considered his being checked for the first Rev. 19.10.22.8 9. Now if these things may by their circumstances and occasions be apparently differenced from each other and from that Religious adoration which God doth require to be given to himself then there can be no reason from thence to make the signification of external adoration to be equivocal There is the same nature in these acts that there is in words of different significations which being taken in general are of an equivocal sense but being considered with all their particular circumstances they have their sense so restrained and limited that it is easie to discern the one from the other That we call therefore Religious adoration which is performed with all the circumstances of Religious worship as to time place occasion and such like as if men used prostration to any thing within the Courts of the Temple wherein some of the Iews thought that posture only lawful if it were done in the time of Sacrifice or devotion if the occasion were such as required no respect of any other kind as when the Devil demanded of Christ to fall down and worship him in these and such like circumstances we say adoration hath the determin'd signification of Religious worship and is an appropriate sign of it by Gods own institution Thence the Psalmist saith O come let us worship and bow down let us kneel before the Lord our Maker and God forbids bowing down to and worshipping any graven Image or similitude where the bowing down is one act of worship and was so esteemed by the common consent of mankind as might be easily made appear by the several customs of external adoration that have been used in all parts of the world and it might for the universality of the practice of it vye with Sacrifice So that on this account as well as the proper signification of it adoration ought to be esteemed as significant and peculiar a sign of absolute worship as Sacrifice There are only two things that seem yet to make this adoration not appripriate to God for the instances of Balaam and Saul are not worth mentioning and those are Ioshua's Religious adoration of the Angel that appeared to him and the adoration that the Iews performed towards the Ark the latter is easily answered the Ark being only a Symbol of the divine presence of Gods own appointing towards which they were to direct their adoration but of this at large when I come to the worship of Images the other cannot be denied to be Religious worship but we are to consider what Aquinas saith to this place that it may be understood of the absolute worship of God who did appear and speak in the person of an Angel And St. Athanasius expresly saith that God did speak in an Angel to Moses at the burning Bush when Moses was bid to put off his Shooes as Ioshua was now and by the description on of him as Captain of the Host of the Lord it is apparent Ioshua looked not on him as an ordinary Angel but as the Angel of whom God said that he should go before them and whom they were bound to obey and by comparing the places in Exodus together where God afterwards threatens to send an Angel and Moses would not be satisfied till God said His Presence should go with them it is evident this Angel of His Presence was more than a meer Angel and therefore the Fathers generally suppose it was the Eternal Son of God who appeared in the Person of an Angel as Petavius hath at lage proved and is sufficiently manifest from hence that they make use of Adoration as a certain argument to prove that Christ was not a creature which argument were of no force at all if they did not believe that adoration was an appropriate sign of that absolute worship which belongs only to God and therefore they observe that when meer Angels appeared they refused adoration as the Angels that appeared to Manoe and St. Iohn but when adoration is allowed or commanded it was the divine nature appearing in the person of an Angel 3. The erection of Temples and Altars is another appropriate sign of divine worship which I need not go about to prove from Scripture since it is confessed by our Adversaries Ad Latriam pertinent templa altaria sacerdotia sacrificia festivitates ceremoniae hujusmodi quae soli Deo sunt exhibenda saith Durandus Mimatensis from Innocentius 3. and the applying these things to any but God he makes to be Idolatry Bellarmin joyns Temples and Altars together with Sacrifice as peculiar to God Templum saith Cardinal Bona est domus Numini Sacra a house Sacred to God and yet Bellarmin had the confidence to lay down this proposition Sacrae domus non solum Deo sed etiam sanctis recte aedificantur dedicantur and he is not satisfied with the answer of some Moderns that say That Temples cannot properly be erected to any but God any more than Sacrifice can be offered to any but him but because there are many Temples dedicated to God that they may be distinguished from each other they have their denomination from particular Saints which is an answer we find no fault with if they do not proceed to the worship and invocation of those Saints to whose memory the Churches are dedicated as the particular Patrons of it but Bellarmin hath found out a subtlety beyond this for he saw well enough this would not reach home to their case and therefore he saith That sacred places are truely and properly built to Saints but how not as they are Temples but as they are Basilicae For saith he Temples have a particular relation to sacrifice but Basilicae have not and he confesses it would be Idolatry to erect them as Temples to Saints but not as they are Basilicae This is a distinction without any difference for Isidore who certainly well understood the signification of these words as used among Christians saith Nunc autem ideo divina Templa Basilicae nominantur quia ibi Regi omnium Deo cultus sacrificia offeruntur and that which we insist upon is not the names that Churches are called by nor the preservation of the memories of Saints in them but the erecting them to Saints as places for the worship and invocation of them And the vanity of this distinction of Temples from Basilicae because Temples relate only to sacrifice will easily appear if we consider that the proper signification of Templum was Domicilium as Turnebus observes which is that which Varro calls Templum naturâ and in this sense he saith Naevius called the Heaven Templum magnum Iovis
such an act of adoration as is peculiar to God 4. The burning of Incense as a token of Religious worship For otherwise it is of the nature of the outward act of adoration and may be done on meerly civil accounts and so far T. G. was in the right when he said that burning incense is a ceremony of the like nature with bowing i. e. it may be accommodated to several uses but as I have proved that Religious adoration is a peculiar act of divine worship so I shall now do concerning the burning of incense when it is used as a token of Religious worship If there were any difference under the Law between the Altar of burnt offerings and the Altar of incense this latter seems to be more particularly appropriated to the worship of God For the High Priest is not only commanded to burn upon it perpetual incense before the Lord but it is said to be most holy to the Lord and it stood in a more holy place And we see by our Saviours interpretation of the precept of worship although the restrictive particle were not in the words of the Law yet he shews us that it was in the sense of it and that certainly is to be understood where a thing is said to be most holy to God i. e. appropriated to himself after a peculiar manner and we have seen by Maimonides that incense is joyned with sacrifice so that a person is made by their Law as guilty of Idolatry if he burns incense to an Idol as if he offered Sacrifice But we need not depend on the Iews testimony in this matter for the Scripture is express in it where it speaks of Hezekiah's breaking in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made for in those days the Children of Israel did burn incense to it Bellarmine cannot deny that burning of incense was a sacrifice among the Iews and that was the reason that Hezekiah brake the brazen Serpent in pieces but he saith it is not a sacrifice now But how comes it to change its nature hath it lost any part of its definition if not hath the Church power to make that which was a sacrifice to become none i. e. to take away an appropriate sign of Gods absolute worship for so they acknowledge sacrifice to be Paulus Maria Quarti in his late Commentaries on the Rubricks of the Missal confesses that all the material parts of the definition of a sacrifice agree to the burning of Incense in the Roman Church for it is an oblation made to God for his honour by the change of a sensible thing but he saith from Suarez that it is not a sacrifice among them but only an accidental appendix to a sacrifice and might not the same have been said among the Iews and yet himself afterwards grants that it is a part of Religious worship as honour is thereby given to those that are incensed and is to be determined according to the nature of the object if it be given to God it is Latria if to Saints it is Dulia c. It seems now it is become more than an appendix being a proper act of worship but all their care is to avoid its being a sacrifice because they give it to Saints and Images and when they are off from that difficulty they think they can dispose of it as they please Catharinus grants that burning of incense had the proper nature of a sacrifice among the Iews and that the reason why Hezekiah brake in pieces the brazen Serpent was because they did not direct their incense to the thing represented by it but terminated their worship on the sign but 1. it seems then the Scripture gives a very lame account of the reason of it for that mentions no more but their burning incense before it which was no fault of it self but only that they did not direct their intention far enough 2. It seems that sacrifice it self may be offered to an Image for Catharinus grants that this had the nature of sacrifice and there was no harm in the meer oblation but only in the shortness of the intention Sanders saith that God commanded the Iews to give Religious worship to the brazen Serpent for he saith their very looking upon it was such and from thence he proves it lawful to worship Images but Cope or rather Harpsfield will not allow it to be of the same nature with Images easily discerning that the breaking of it down would make more against the worship of Images than the setting of it up ever made for them For Vasquez saith the peoples looking upon it in order to their being healed was no part of worship being no token of submission and that God intended no worship should be given to it And he ingenuously confesses that when Hezekiah brake it in pieces it was not because it was worshipped for a God among them or had the worship terminated upon it but because the people gave the same kind of worship to it which in the Roman Church they give to their Images but he thinks that worship was unlawful to the Iews which is lawful to Christians And then why not the offering sacrifice to Images as well as burning of Incense But T. G. thinks that perhaps the smoke of the incense when used as a sign of Religious worship troubles my eyes so that I cannot distinguish between the use of it as applied to God and as applied to his servants or other things relating to him It is pity T. G. had not been Hezekiahs Confessor to have better informed him about the Iews burning of Incense before the brazen Serpent for he would in all probability have done his endeavour to have preserved it and if Hezekiah had pleaded the Law that appropriated incense to the worship of God he would have desired him to clear his eyes a little better for then he might discern that burning incense was an indifferent ceremony and may be applied either to God or the creature and that the difference of these depends on the intention of the persons who do them now how could any man tell by the outward act what the intention of these persons was For all that appeared they intended only to honour God by it in memory of the great miracles he had wrought by means of it and then it was so far from being evil that it was an act of Latria to God And why should Hezekiah destroy the brazen Serpent for being an occasion of Gods honour This were fitter for Senacherib or Rabshakeh to do than one that professed to worship the true God Is not incense used daily in the Temple are not the Altar and the vessels of the Temple perfumed by it Why then should the brazen Serpent be profaned by that which sanctifies other things Therefore only advise them to direct their intention aright and there can be no harm in the use of such an indifferent ceremony and let
could be no created Wisdom So that neither Iews nor Christians did believe the Invocation of Angels to have been practised in the Church of Israel 3. In this case it is reasonable to appeal to the sense of Iewish Writers who must be presumed to understand their own customs best especially in respect to Idolatry which they have suffered so much for and they unanimously declare it to be against the sense of the Law to make Saints or Angels to be Mediators between God and them Maimonides makes this to be consequent upon the precept against Idolatry and makes it the fifth Fundamental of the Law That we ought to worship God alone and to make no Mediators between God and us neither Angels nor Stars nor Elements nor any such things because we ought to direct all our thoughts to God alone And Abravanel in his Commentary upon the Fundamentals of the Law saith their wise men interpreted that verse the Lord our God is nigh unto us in all that we call upon him for that they should only invocate God and not Michael or Gabriel c. and saith presently after That this sort of worship belongs only to God and to none else according to the sense of their Wise-men Maimonides saith That none of the Idolaters were ever so mad to think there was no God besides the Idol they worshipped or that the Figure they worshipped made and governed the World but they worship them as Mediators between the great God and them and so he interprets that place Mal. 1.11 Incense shall be offered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not Nomini meo but propter me as though the Incense they offered to their Idols were for his sake and so it is a meer relative Latria and he adds That the Idolaters did believe one God but offended against the precept which commands Him alone to be worshipped The Paraphrase of Ionathan upon 1 Kings 18.21 If the Lord be God follow Him renders it thus Is not God thy Lord therefore serve Him alone and why do ye wander after Baalim in which there is no profit But I need mention no more since a Learned person of our Church hath proved in a set Discourse from the several Testimonies of Aben-Ezra Kimchi Iarchi Moses bar-Nachman R. Bechai Alschech and others of greatest reputation among the Iews that they were guilty of Idolatry by their Law who believed one true God but gave Religious worship to other things as Mediators between God and them 6. The last I shall mention as an appropriate act of divine worship is making Vows to God which the Scripture hath so fully declared to belong to God as a part of divine worship that our Adversaries do not offer to deny it For Vows are not only said to be made to God Numb 30.2 Deut. 23.21 23. but they are joyned with Sacrifice and Oblations Isa. 19.21 And therefore Aquinas makes vowing one of the proper acts of Latria and Bellarmin confesses That it is an act of Religion due only to God Who could now have imagined after such confessions to have found them in the Church of Rome making vows to Saints as solemnly as to God himself so that if ever men did condemn themselves for Idolatry they seem to do it by such plain confessions of both parts viz. that Vows are a part of the worship due only to God and that they give this worship to Creatures Here one would think we had them fast yet if we do not look to our selves they will slip through our fingers and escape Is not say I a Vow a part of Latria that is due only to God Yes say our Adversaries it is so Do not you make Vows to Saints as formally and solemnly as to God himself as the Dominicans Vow at entrance into their Order as Cajetan saith is made Deo Beatae Mariae Beato Dominico omnibus sanctis True say they this cannot be denied Do not you then give to the creature the worship proper to God which you confess to be Idolatry Hold say they we distinguish but about what about making Vows to Saints together with God for may not we make a Vow to men and to God too and who will say that is Idolatry as for instance may not a man Vow to A. and B. that he will give a hundred pound to an Hospital here the Vow is made both to God and to A. and B. But here A. and B. are only witnesses to the Vow but the formality of the Vow lies in the promise made to God to do such things for his service and honour and A. and B. have no concernment in this But may not men Vow obedience to Superiours and that is more than making them witnesses Very true but then this obedience is the matter of the Vow or the thing that is vowed and in all Vows of obedience there are many limitations implyed but there are none in the Vows made to God or the Saints but withal they Vow to God and the Saints that they will obey their Superiours So that their obedience to Superiours is but the matter of the Vow made to God and the Saints Well then say they suppose we do make the Saints the object of our Vows as well as God yet we do not consider the Saints as rational creatures but as they are Dii participativè as Cajetan and Bellarmin both say And is not this the very answer of the Heathens that they gave divine worship to creatures not as creatures but as Gods by way of participation Is it indeed come out at last that we are to look on the Saints as inferiour Deities and on that account may give to them the worship proper to God Votum non convenit sanctis saith Bellarmin nisi quatenus sunt Dii per participationem I see truth may be smothered a long time and kept under by violence but it will break out at last one way or other I began to suspect something when I found the Master of Controversies speak of the Saints being praepositi Ecclesiae set over the Church but I could hardly have expected to have found them owned for inferiour Deities for what are Gods by participation but such as derive their power from God and are employed by Him to take care of these lower things So he saith the Saints do curam gerere rerum nostrarum take care of our affairs and now I do not wonder to see them make Vows to them or perform any other act of Religious worship to them as well as to God But after all this ado may we not Vow to God upon a higher account and to the Saints upon a lower Yes no doubt just as a man may swear Allegiance to his Prince upon the account of his Soveraign Authority and to one of his Subjects as a less soveraign For if Allegiance be peculiar to Soveraign Authority how can it be given to any one that hath it not And in this case
wayes as worship may become due Idolatry may be committed Cannot God make any of the former appropriate acts of worship to become due only to himself cannot he tye us to perform them to him and then they become due to him and cannot he restrain us from doing them to any other and then they become due only to him and is not then the doing of any of these prohibited acts to a creature the giving to them the worship due only to God Is the outward act of sacrifice due only to God antecedently to a prohibition or no If it be due only to God antecedently to his will it is alwayes and necessarily due to him and to him alone and let T. G. at his leisure prove that antecedently to any Law of God it was necessary to worship God by sacrifice and unlawful so to worship any else besides him If it depends on the will of God then either it is no Idolatry to offer sacrifice to a creature and then the Sacrifice of the Mass may be offered to Saints or Images or if it be then real Idolatry may be consequent to a prohibition But he thinks he hath a greater advantage against me by my saying that any Image being made so far the object of divine worship that men do bow down before it doth thereby become an Idol and on that account is forbidden in the second Commandment This is downright trifling for if I should say that taking away a mans goods against his consent is Theft and on that account is forbidden in the eighth Commandment would any man imagine that I must speak of Theft antecedent to the Command for it implyes no more than that it is contrary to the Command But as it is in the case of Theft that is alwayes a sin although the particular species of it and the denomination of particular acts doth suppose positive Laws about Dominion and Property so it is in the case of Idolatry the general nature of it is alwayes the same viz. the giving the worship to a creature which is due only to God although the denomination of particular acts may depend upon positive Laws because God may appropriate peculiar acts of worship to himself which being done by him those acts being given to a creature receive the denomination of Idolatry which without those Laws they would not have done So that still the general notion of Idolatry is antecedent to positive Laws but yet the determination of particular acts whether they are Idolatry or no do depend on the positive Laws which God hath given about his worship And if T. G. had understood the nature of humane acts as he pretends he would never have made such trifling objections as these For is it not thus in the nature of the other sins forbidden in the Commandments as well as Idolatry that are supposed to be the most morally evil antecedent to any prohibition Suppose it be murder adultery or disobedience to Parents although I grant these things to have a general notion antecedently to any Laws yet when we come to enquire into particular acts whether they do receive those denominations or no we must then judge by particular Laws which determine what acts are to be accounted Murder Adultery or Disobedience as whether execution of malefactors be prohibited Murder whether marrying many Wives be Adultery whether not complying with the Religion of ones Parents be disobedience These things I mention to make T. G. understand a little better the nature of Moral Acts and that a general notion of Idolatry being antecedent to a prohibition is very consistent with the determining any particular acts as the worship of Images to be Idolatry to be consequent to that prohibition But I perceive a particular pleasure these men take to make me seem to contradict my self and here T. G. is at it as wisely as the rest thus blind men apprehend nothing but contradictions in the diversity of colours by the different reflections of light but the comfort is that others know that it is only their want of sight that makes them cry out contradictions But wherein lyes this horrible self-contradiction Why truly it seems I had said that an Image being made so far the object of divine worship that men do bow down before it doth thereby become an Idol and on that account is forbidden in the second Commandment Well! and what then where lyes the contradiction Hold a little it will come presently in the mean time mark those words on that Account but I say that the worship which God denyes to receive cannot be terminated on him but on the Image Is this the contradiction then No not yet neither The conceit had need be good it is so long in delivering but at last it comes like a thunder-showre full of sulphur and darkness with a terrible crack either I mean that this worship cannot be terminated on God antecedently to the Prohibition because on that account the worship of an Image is forbidden in the second Commandment or if it cannot be terminated on the account of the Prohibition then it is not on that account forbidden What a needless invention was that of Gunpowder T. G. can blow a man up with a train of consequences from his own words let him but have the laying of it Could I ever have thought that such innocent words as on that account should have had so much Nitre and Sulphur in them For let any man read over those words and see if he can find any thing antecedent to the prohibition in them For having in that place shewed that the words Idolum sculptile imago are promiscuously used in Scripture I presently add By which it appears that any Image being made so far the object of divine worship that men do bow down before it doth thereby become an Idol and on that account is forbidden in this Commandment By which it appears mark that this T. G. pares off as not fit for his purpose i. e. from the sense of the word in Scripture that any Image being made so far the object of divine worship that men do bow down before it i. e. if men do perform that act of worship to an Image which God hath forbidden the doing towards it what then then say I it becomes an Idol for whatever hath divine worship given to it is so and on that account i. e. of its having that act of divine worship done to it by bowing before it it is forbidden in this Commandment i. e. it comes within the reach of that prohibition the meaning of all which is no more than to shew that adoration of Images is Idolatry by vertue of that Commandment But thus are we put to construe and paraphrase our own words to free our selves either from the ignorance or malice of our Adversaries But with this fetch T.G. stands and laughs through his fingers at the trick he hath plaid me and bids me with a secret pleasure at his notable
compared to good Hezekiah And so very learnedly he falls to the commending the brazen Serpent and inveighing against that insolent King that broke it in pieces Was not this a hopeful piece of Infallibility After this our learned Historian saith the Pope declared him not only an Heretick but an Heresiarch for what I beseech him for being of the same opinion as to the worship of Images that his Predecessour Gregory had been of But see how the case is altered in a hundred years In my mind the Emperour Leo asked a very pertinent Question of the Pope How comes it to pass that the six General Councils never said a word of Images if they were such necessary things And the Pope made as impertinent an answer And why saith the Pope did they say nothing of eating and drinking it seems Images in his opinion were as necessary to Religion as meat and drink to our bodies for he saith the Fathers carried their Images to Council with them and travelled with them and I suppose slept with them too as Children do with their Babies 5. The artifices and methods ought to be observed whereby such a cause as the worship of Images was advanced and defended For being destitute of any colour from Scripture Reason or Antiquity there was a necessity of making use of other means to supply the want of these Such as 1. Representing their Adversaries to the greatest disadvantage which is done to purpose in the fifth Action of the second Nicene Council The demolishing of Images was condemned in Serenus by Gregory as an act only of intemperate zeal and indiscretion but now it was become heresie worse than heresie Iudaism Samaritanism Manichaism nay worse than all these This Tarasius offers to prove in the beginning of that Action from S. Cyril he compares them with Nebuchadnezzar who destroyed the Cherubim from Simeon Stylites to the Samaritans and Iohn the pretended Vicar of the Oriental Bishops saith the Samaritans are worse than other hereticks therefore they ought to be called Samaritans and Constantinus Bishop of Constantia in Cyprus saith they are worse than Samaritans Afterwards the same Iohn saith see how clearly we have demonstrated that the Accusers of Christians in this matter of Images are partakers with Nebuchadonosor and Samaritans and Iews and Gentiles and Manichees and those who denyed that Christ was come in the Flesh. Why what is the matter what article of the Christian Faith have they denied what have they renounced Christianity and been circumcised No but worse being Christians they call the worship of Images Idolatry O dangerous heresie and horrible blasphemy But it may be worth our while to consider a little the account which Tarasius desires Iohn to give the Council of the beginning of this most detestable heresie viz. that after the death of Solyman Caliph of the Arabs Homar succeeded him after whom followed Ezid or Jezid a vain man in his time there was at Tiberias one Sarantapechys a Leader of the Iews and a Magician who promised long life to the Chaliph on condition he would do what he would have him which he presently undertook with great promises of rewards to him then the Iew required an Edict for the demolishing and defacing all the Images in the Christian Churches which was accordingly executed by the Iews and Arabs The news of which excited the Bishop of Nacolia and those about him to do the same thing but Jezid lived not above two years and a half after and his Son Ulid destroyed this Iew and the Images were again restored This was the story told and approved in the Council but Zonaras saith they were two Iews who perswaded Jezid to publish his Edict against Images and that he dyed within the year and that his Son seeking to punish them they were fled into Isauria where they met with Leo then a young man to whom they foretold the Empire and made him promise them that when he came to is he would do one thing for them which one thing proved to be the destruction of Images and they challenging their promise when he was now Emperour gave the occasion to the terrible persecution of Images Cedrenus saith that a few years before the Reign of Leo some Iews of Laodicea in Phoenicia went to Jezid and obtained the Edict against Images and then he tells the rest of the story as Zonaras did Theophanes saith it was but one Iew of Laodicea and that Jezid dyed before the Edict was published in all parts of his Dominions and saith this was in the seventh year of the Empire of Leo. Constantinus Manasses and Michael Glycas only mention the Iews foretelling the Empire to him and putting him upon the destruction of Images without the other circumstances Let the Reader now judge whether this be not a probable story and purposely invented to cast the odium of rejecting the worship of Images on the Iews and Saracens as though it could never have come from any Christian. It was one Iew saith the Vicar of the Oriental Bishops they were two Iews or more say the Greek historians It was a Iew of Tiberias saith Iohn no saith Cedrenus they were two Iews of Laodicea but one saith Theophanes These Iews met with Leo when he was a young man and foretold the Empire to him say Zonaras Manasses and Glycas but a few years before the Reign of Leo saith Cedrenus nay saith Theophanes it was in the seventh year of Leo in the eighth saith Baronius for Jozid did not reign before Was there ever a more consistent story than this But the Author of the late history of the Iconoclasts thinks he hath found out a salvo for these contradictions For he makes two several Edicts under two Jezids that were Chaliphs the former of the two Iews about A. D. 686. who were the men that foretold the Empire to Leo and the other of Sarantapechys to Jezid the second in the time of Leo this he hath borrowed from the French Author as he hath done all his quotations and I much question by his manner of citing them whether he ever saw the Books he quotes in his Life But this is said without the least shadow of proof for no one of all the Historians ever mention two Edicts of the several Iezids but all pretend to tell the very same story And is it probable that the two Iews who foretold the Empire to Leo A. D. 686. should come to Constantinople to Leo after A. D. 723. when Leo began to oppose Images meerly with a design to extirpate Images without proposing any other advantage to themselves by the Emperour as the Greek historians say Credat Iudaeus They are a sort of people that know how to improve such an advantage to better purposes and their zeal against Images was never so great as the love of their own Profit But our English Historian is not content with the Fables of the Greeks but
and the very way was sprinkled with blood after these the Magistrates of the City followed and the Consuls and Senatours all bearing torches before the Host which was carried under a silken Canopy with a most profound Reverence then came in the last place the Governour the Nobility and a vast multitude of all sorts of people and for eight dayes together many people walked the same round out of great devotion I do not think this Procession can be matched by the supplications and the Pompa Circensis of old Rome or by any of the Processions with their Idols which Peter della Valle describes among the Heathen Indians which he confesses to be very like those used among Christians when the Images of Saints are carried in procession when any Body or Fraternity go in Pilgrimage to Loreto or Rome in the Holy Year The Iesuits boast very much of their zeal in setting up the worship of the Images of the B. Virgin in Flanders and especially of these solemn processions with her Images particularly at Courtray for nine dayes together wherein there have been nine thousand persons In the year 1636. the plague raging there a solemn supplication was appointed with a Procession of the Image through the City with wonderful devotion and at Bruges A. D. 1633. with an incredible number of people and a thousand torches of Virgin wax and the like solemnities were set up by their means at Brussels Antwerp Mechlin and other places Otho Zylius a Iesuite sets down the order of the Procession wherein the Image of the B. Virgin that was before worshipped at Boisleduc was carried to Brussels upon the shoulders of four Capucins the Infanta Isabella following it with all the Nobility and infinite number of people with the highest expressions of Pomp and Devotion and at last it was placed in the middle of a Chappel just over the Altar where it hath solemn worship given to it and wonderful cures are said to be wrought by it I cannot conclude this Discourse without giving some account of another notable Procession at Brussels of an Image of the B. Virgin the occasion whereof was this a new confraternity was instituted in Spain of the Slaves of the B. Virgin by one Simon Rojas whose custome was to salute one another with those words Ave Maria instead of Your humble Servant and this Sodality was established with large Indulgences by Paul 5. and afterwards was begun in Bruges A. D. 1626. having fetters as the badge of this Slavery and new Indulgences from Urban 8. for the establishing this Society it happened luckily that an officer of the King of Spain 's Fleet being sick at Dunkirk pretended to discover a great Secret to Barth de los Rios then Preacher to Isabella Clara Eugenia viz. that he had a most admirable Image of the B. Virgin which had been worshipped for 600 years in the Cathedral Church of Aberdene and had spoken to the last Catholick Bishop and had miraculously escaped the Hereticks hands and was designed for a present to Isabella but he wretch that he was upon a promise made by the Franciscans of his own Countrey in Spain of praying for his Soul and his Families had intended to have carried it thither which he found was displeasing to the B. Virgin by his dangerous sickness and he hoped upon this confession she would have mercy upon him and therefore he desired him to present this Image to her Highness in the name of the Catholicks of Aberdene which was received by her with wonderful devotion and she said her prayers before it morning and evening but this did not satisfie her for she resolved to have this Image carried to Brussels with a solemn procession and for that purpose obtained an Indulgence from Urban 8. for all those who should attend it and a rich and magnificent Altar was erected over which the Image was to be placed and banners were made with this inscription In Nomine Mariae omne genu flectatur c. after which on May 3. the Procession was performed with all imaginable Pomp and kept for eight dayes together and yet after all this one Maxwel a learned Scotchman shewed in a Discourse presented to Isabella that upon the best enquiry he could make this famous Image was a meer imposture and a trick of a crafty merchant to procure some advantage to himself by it but the poor man was imprisoned for this discovery and forced to make a publick Recantation and the Worship of this Image was advanced and a solemn supplication and procession with it observed every year as the same Author informs us and the Confraternity of the slaves of the B. Virgin highly promoted by it Several other solemn processions are related by him as of B. Maria de Remediis B. Maria de Victoriâ with the Popes Bulls for establishing the Society of slaves of the B. Virgin but these are enough to shew that the Roman Church in its constant and allowed practises doth not come behind old Heathen Rome in this part of the Worship given to Images CHAP. III. Of the Sense of the second Commandment HAving endeavoured with so much care to give a just and true account of the Controversie between us as to the Worship of Images and therein shewed from the Doctrine and Practice of the Roman Church 1. That they set up Images in Churches over Altars purposely for worship 2. That they consecrate those Images with solemn prayers for that purpose 3. That they use all the Rites of Worship to them which the Heathen Idolaters used to their Images such as bowings prostrations Lights Incense and praying 4. That they make solemn Processions in honour of Images carrying them with as much Pomp and Ceremony as ever the Heathens did their Idols The Question now is whether these Acts of Worship towards Images were unlawful only to Heathens and Iews but are become lawful to Christians But if these Acts of Worship be now equally unlawful to us as to them then Christians performing them are liable to the same charge that the Iews and Heathens were and if the Scripture calls that Idolatry in them it must be so in Christians too as much as Murder or Theft or Adultery is the same in all for the words of the Law of God makes no more difference as to one than as to the other We are therefore to enquire on what account the Sense of this Law is supposed to be consistent with the practice of the same things among Christians which were utterly forbidden by it to Iews and Heathens The words of the Law are these Thou shalt not make to thy self any Graven Image nor the Likeness of any Thing which is in Heaven above or in the Earth beneath or in the Waters under the Earth Thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them for I the Lord thy God am a Iealous God c. My Adversary T. G. denies that God
herein did forbid himself to be worshipped by a Crucifix or such like sacred Image and he asserts that the design of the Law is only to forbid the Worship of Idols The first part he saith toucheth not the worship of Images nor of God himself by them but only the making them the second forbids indeed in express terms to bow our selves down to the Images themselves but speaks not one word of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of worshipping God himself by them To bow our selves down to the Images themselves without any relation to God is by the concession of all to worship them instead of God The Iews we know did worship God by bowing down before the Ark and the Cherubims and yet they did not worship them instead of God therefore he asserts that by Image an Idol is to be understood and that by Idol such an Image as is made to represent for worship a figment that hath no real Being and by similitude an Image or resemblance of some real thing but falsely imagined to be a God This is the sense which T. G. gives of the second Commandment But if I can make it appear 1. That there is no reason to take the word he translates Idol here for the representation of a meer figment set up for worship and that if it were so taken it would not excuse them 2. That the worship of God before the Ark and the Cherubims was of a different nature from the Worship of Images here forbidden and that the sense of the Law doth exclude all worship of Images then this interpretation of T. G. will appear to be very false and groundless 1. That there is no reason to understand what we render Image of such an Idol as represents a meer figment set up for worship If there were any colour of Reason for such an acception of the word Idol here it must either be 1. From the natural importance of the word or 2. From the use of it in Scripture or 3. From the consent of the Fathers or 4. From some Definition of the Church But I shall shew that there is no ground for affixing this sense to the Commandment from any one of these 1. Not from the natural importance of the word He that reads such an express prohibition in a divine Law of something so displeasing to God that he annexes a very severe sanction to it had need be very well satisfied about the sense he gives to the words of it lest he incurr the wrath of God and be found a perverter of his Law If a man should reject all humane Authority because the First Commandment saith Thou shalt have no other Elohim besides me but in Scripture Magistrates and Iudges are called Elohim therefore it is unlawful to own any civil Magistrates he would have much more to say than T. G. and his Brethren have in restraining the sense of the Law about Images to such Idols as are only representations of Imaginary Beings For the Original word hath no manner of tendency that way it signifying any thing that is carved or cut out of wood or stone and as I told T. G. before it is no less than forty several times rendred by the LXX by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and but thrice by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and which is very observable although Exod. 20.4 they render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet in the repetition of the Law Deut. 5.8 the Alexandrian MS. hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Deut. 4.16 in some copies of the LXX the same word is translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Isaiah 40.18 they translate it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is properly an Image and the Vulgar Latin it self useth Idolum Sculptile and Imago Isa. 44.9 10 13. all to express the same thing To this T. G. replyes that the LXX generally translating it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had some particular reason to render it Idol here and because this is a word of stricter signification it ought to regulate the larger and in the other places he saith there is still some term or clause restraining the words to such a graven thing or Image as is made to be compared with God or to be the object of divine worship that is to be an Idol Then it seems a graven Image when it is made the object of Divine worship becomes an Idol in T. G's sense and yet an Idol in the Commandment is the representation of a meer Figment but might not that be the sense of an Idol in this place which he grants is meant in another where the words are express concerning the representation of God as in Isaiah 40.18 And if he allows this to be the meaning of an Idol in the Commandment I will grant that the LXX had a particular reason to render Pesel by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here For Aquinas well observes that this Commandment doth not forbid the making any sculpture or similitude sed facere adorandam to make it for worship because it follows thou shalt not fall down to them and worship them And Montanus expresses the sense of the Commandment after this manner simulathrum divinum nullo pacto conflato Signa cultûs causa ne facito and Nicolaus Faber both learned men of the Roman Church Sculptilibus nè flecte genu pictaeve tabellae and again Non pictum sculptúmve puta venerabile quidquam If this be T. G's sense of an Idol I freely yield to him that the LXX had very good reason so to render Pesel in this place where it is supposed to be an object of divine worship But how can this agree with what T. G. saith that the Law speaks not one word of the unlawfulness of worshipping God himself by an Image For doth not the Law condemn the worship of an Idol And doth not T. G. say that an Image when it is made an object of Divine worship becomes an Idol And doth it not then follow that the Law in express terms doth condemn the Worship of God by such an Image Nay is it not the self-same T. G. that saith that the making such Images as are conceived to be proper Likenesses or representations of the Divinity is against the Nature and unalterable Law of God But what Law of God is there that doth forbid such Images if it be not this And if this Law doth forbid such Images then the signification of an Idol is not here to be taken for the representation of a Figment but of the greatest and most real Being in the World Have not I now far better reason to return his own words upon him such frequent self contradictions are the natural consequences of a Discourse not grounded upon Truth and although the Reader may think I take delight to discover them in my Adversary yet I can assure him it is a much greater grief to me to see so subtle a Wit so often intangled in them
more innocent than those which he calls Images for the one might bring men to erroneous conceits of the Deity but the other being Symbolical were not apt to do it Plutarch saith That when they represented Mercury by the Image of a man with the head of a Dog they only intended thereby to represent Care Watchfulness and Wisdom and that they represented Osiris by a Scepter with an eye in it by a Hawk and by the figure of a man now by Osiris he tells us They meant the most powerful God and so doth Apuleius and Tacitus saith The same God which was called Jove among others was called Osiris by them These Images and many other of very strange shapes with a mixture of very different forms are supposed in the Mensa Isiaca and the Egyptian Obelisks to represent the most true and perfect Being in regard of his nature and production of things as Athanas. Kircher hath endeavoured at large to shew If therefore the Egyptians did make such Symbolical figures with respect to the most real Being and yet these Images were Idols properly so called then it follows that some representations of the true God are Idols and condemned in the Second Commandment 3. The Scripture uses the word Idol for the representation of all sorts of things which are made the objects of worship Thus in the first place the LXX makes use of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is taken for the Teraphim of Laban Gen. 31.19 34 35. which are supposed to be of humane shape not only from the general opinion of Jewish Writers but because of the mistake of the Teraphim for David 1 Sam. 19.13 The Images of Baal are called Idols 2 Chron. 17.3 Jer. 9 13. and what the LXX render 2 Kings 11.18 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Images of Baal in the parallel place 2 Chron. 23.17 they express by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Idols of Baal Whether by Baal be understood the Assyrian Belus or the Phoenician Beel Samen i. e. whether a representation of a man or of the Sun we are sure this was an Image of a real Being and yet the LXX call it an Idol Idols are joyned with Molten Gods by the LXX Levit. 19.4 i. e. what ever Images are set up for Divine worship And all the Gods of the Heathen are said to be Idols 1 Chron. 16.26 but they were not all meer figments of mens brains being either dead men that were worshipped as S. Hierome saith by the Idols of the Heathens we understand imagines Mortuorum the representations of dead men or the works of the Creation especially the heavenly bodies which was the most early and the most common Idolatry of the Eastern parts and most frequently condemned in Scripture If it be said That although they had real Beings yet their Deities were fictitious I answer 1. That is not to the purpose for the question is whether the proper signification of an Idol be the representation of meer imaginary Beings Sphinxes Tritons Centaures but what a ridiculous answer is this to that question to say that although their being real yet their Deity is fictitious for this is to grant that Idols are not representations of imaginary Beings but of imaginary Deities which I readily grant 2. This will equally hold against all representations of created Beings that have divine worship given to them for by giving them any part of divine worship they are so far made Gods but since they are not truly so they are still but the representations of imaginary Deities although they be of real Saints or Angels In which sense the Scripture calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothings and vanities and S. Paul saith That an Idol is nothing in the world not because it represented that which was not but because neither the Image nor the thing represented were any real Deity 4. The far greatest part of the Idols expressly mentioned in Scripture were the representations of real Beings not only that the things had Subsistence which were represented by them but that the very Images were of some creatures existing in the world Lyra saith That Moloch was in the fashion of a man and so Benjamin Tudelensis supposes when he saith That two femal Images stood of either side of him Kircher shews from Baal Aruch that Asima was worshipped in the form of a Goat and from other Jewish Authors That Nibcas had the figure of a Dog Thartak of an Ass Adramelech of a Mule and Anamelech of a Horse Bel and Nebo of Serpents and Beasts Succoth Benoth of a Hen and Chickens Astaroth of Sheep Will T. G. say that these were not Idols because they were Images of real Beings If he doth he must excuse the grossest Idolatry condemned in Scripture if he doth not he must then confess that this is not the notion of an Idol in the sense of Scripture viz. a representation of what hath no existence but in the imagination as Sphinxes Tritons Centaures and the like 3. But T. G. would have us believe that this is the sense of the Fathers for he quotes Origen and Theodoret for this interpretation of the second Commandment It is well known that Origen had a great many of T. G.'s Idols in his head viz. imaginations of things that were not and therefore it is ill fixing upon an interpretation of Scripture of which he was the first Author But I have proved at large from the unanimous consent of the Fathers in charging the Arians with Idolatry and the Gnosticks in worshipping the Images of Christ with divine honours that this could not be their sense For if this were the notion of an Idol to represent what hath no existence neither the Arians nor the Gnosticks could be accused of worshipping an Idol but the Fathers do in express terms call Christ an Idol if he had divine worship given him and yet were not God And it is farther observable 1. That the second Council of Nice confesses that the Arrians were justly condemned for Idolatry not only by one or two Fathers but by the Catholick Church from whence it is evident that the Catholick Church did declare that T. G.'s sense of an Idol is false 2. That when the Fathers repeat the second Commandment instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they use other words which they would never have done if they had thought there had been any peculiar importance of the word Idol in that place different from Image Iustin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho the Iew repeats the words of the Law thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou shalt not make any Image or similitude Clemens Alex. makes the thing forbidden to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to worship graven Images and the thing required to be not to make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either a graven or a molten Image And even Origen himself layes so little weight on his observation
saith S. Augustine Quis sanctus est in cujus honore ador as scabellum pedum ejus Genebrard acknowledges likewise that S. Hierome translates it so and Suarez yields that not only the Greek but S. Augustine and S. Hierome read it For He is holy 2. Those words do not imply that the Iews did make the Ark the object of their worship for the Chaldee Paraphrast renders them Worship Him in His Sanctuary and the last verse of the Psalm where the same sense is repeated interprets this Worship at his holy hill for the Lord our God is holy where the holy Mountain is the same with the Foot stool before mentioned and so Muis confesses who saith withal That by the phrase of worshipping His Foot-stool no more is meant than worshipping God at His Foot-stool and the Sanctuary he saith is called Gods Foot-stool not only by the Chaldee Paraphrast and Kimchi but Lament 2.1 And so Lyra interprets it Ante scabellum pedum ejus worship before His Footstool or worship at His Footstool as it is Psalm 182.7 And it would be very strange if the Psalmist should here propose the footstool for an object of worship to them when the design of the whole Psalm is to call all Nations to the worship of God as sitting between the Cherubims Psal. 99.1 i. e. in His Throne which is surely different from His Footstool I will not contend with Suarez about the sense of the Footstool of God here mentioned although he confesses that Basil and Vatablus understand the Temple by it but I will yield him that the Ark is most probably understood by it because of his sitting between the Cherubims being mentioned before in which respect the Ark may properly be called his Footstool For the Cherubims were the Mercabah or the Divine Chariot and so called 1 Chron. 28.18 where the Vulgar Latine renders it Quadriga Cherubim in such a Chariot Pyrrhus Ligorius the famous Italian Antiquary saith The Deities were wont to be drawn and Livy and Plutarch take notice of it in Camillus as an extraordinary thing that he made use of such a Triumphal Chariot which had been before looked on as proper to Iove the Father of Gods and Men. Such a Triumphal Chariot I suppose that to have been in the Holy of Holies but without any representation of the Divine Majesty and this Chariot is that we call the Cherubim and the Ark was a kind of Footstool to the invisible Majesty that sate between the Cherubims and there delivered his Oracles Now I appeal to the understanding of any reasonable man whether God being represented as sitting upon His Triumphal Chariot without any visible Image of Him the worship was there to be performed to the invisible Deity or to the visible Chariot and Footstool which is all one as to ask whether persons approaching to a Prince on his Throne are to worship the Prince or his Footstool or Chair of State But Lorinus and Suarez say The Hebrew particle being added to a word implying worship doth not denote the place but the object of worship which is sufficiently refuted by those two places before mentioned viz. the last verse of this Psalm and Psalm 132.7.3 Those of the Fathers who understood this expression of the object of worship do declare by their interpretation that it was not lawful to worship the Ark after that manner Therefore Lorinus saith most of the Fathers understood it of the humanity of Christ as S. Ambrose S. Hierome S. Augustine and others generally after him and among the Greeks he reckons S. Athanasius and S. Chrysostome But what need all this running so far from the literal sense in case they had thought the Ark a lawful object of worship Let S. Augustine speak for the rest The Scripture saith he elsewhere calls the Earth Gods Footstool and doth he bid us worship the Earth This puts me in a great perplexity I dare not worship the Earth lest He damn me who made the Heaven and the Earth and I dare not but worship His Footstool because He bids me do it In this doubt I turn my self to Christ and from Him find the resolution of it for His Flesh was Earth and so he runs into a discourse about the adoration due to the flesh of Christ and the sense in which it is to be understood And elsewhere saith That the humane nature of Christ is no otherwise to be adored than as it is united to the Divinity Which plainly shews that he did not think the Ark literally understood to be a proper object of worship But T. G. adds that S. Hierome saith That the Iews did worship or reverence the Holy of Holies because there were the Cherubims the Ark c. It is well he puts in Reverence as well as worship for Venerabantur signifies no more than that they had it in great veneration and that not only for the sake of the Ark and Cherubims but for the pot of Manna and Aarons Rod and doth T. G. think in his conscience that the Iews worshipped these too But S. Hierom explains himself when he saith immediately after That the Sepulchre of Christ is more venerable than that which he interprets by saying It was a place to be honoured by all And are these the doughty proofs which T. G. blames me for not vouchsafing an Answer to them I think he ought to have taken it as a kindness from me Let him now judge whether I have neither Scripture nor Father nor Reason to abet me in saying That the Iews only directed their worship towards the place where God had promised to be signally present among them As to the worship of the Cherubims all his attempts come only to this They might be worshipped although they were not seen and if it were lawful for the High Priest to worship them once a year it was alwaies lawful but I deny that the High Priest ever worshipped them for he only worshipped the God that sate upon His Triumphal Chariot and their being hid from the sight of the People was an argument they were not exposed as objects of worship as Images are in the Roman Church Their being Appendices to the Throne of God he saith was rather a means to increase than diminish the Peoples Reverence to them If by Reverence he means worship we may here see an instance of the variety of mens understandings For no less a man than Vasquez from hence argues That the Cherubims were never intended as an object of worship because they were only the Appendices to another thing but a thing is then proposed as an object of worship when it is set up by it self and not by way of addition or ornament to another thing with whom Lorinus Azorius and Visorius agree And even Aquinas himself grants That the Seraphim he means the Cherubim were not set up for worship but only for the sign of some Mysterie nay he saith the Iews
were expressly forbidden to worship them Thus I hope I have made it appear how very little the worshipping of God before the Ark and the Cherubims doth prove towards the lawfulness of the worship of Images in the Roman Church The second Argument of T. G. is From the judgement of S. Augustine who makes that which we call the Second Commandment to be only an explication of the First Which I thought so weak and trifling an Argument that I gave a short answer to it in these two particulars 1. That S. Augustine did not seem constant to that opinion 2. That supposing he were yet it doth not follow that according to his judgement these words are only against Heathen Idols and not against the worship of God by Images Here T. G. thinks he hath the bit fast between his teeth and away he runs raising a dust to blind the eyes of beholders but he must be stopt in his carier and brought to better Reason I asked T. G. how he was sure this was S. Austins constant judgement since in his latter Writings he reckons up the Commandments as others of the Fathers had done before him upon this he insults and calls it a new way of answering Fathers and the readiest he ever met with except it be that of denying them and if this be allowed when an express Testimony of a Father is alledged there is no more to do than to ask how he is sure that the Father did not afterwards change his mind but he saith he is sure he hath his judgement professedly for him in his former Writings and that I ought to bring better evidence of his being of another mind than I have done But if I do evidently prove that S. Augustine was of our mind in the main point as to the unlawfulness of the worship of God by Images then what matter is it whether it be the first or second or third or fourth Commandment so we are sure it is one of the Ten And I have already produced sufficient Testimonies from him to this purpose For doth not S. Augustine declare That it is unlawful to worship God by an Image when he saith it were impiety for a Christian to set up a corporeal Image of God in a Temple and that they who do it are guilty of the Sacriledge condemned by S. Paul of turning the glory of the incorruptible God into an Image made like to corruptible man Doth not St. Augustine commend Varro for speaking so reproachfully concerning the very manner of worshipping the Deity by an Image and he saith That if he durst have opposed so old a corruption he would have both owned the unity of the Godhead Et sine simulachro colendum esse censeret and have thought he ought to be worshipped without an Image Doth not S. Augustine when he purposely explains that which he accounts the First Commandment say That any similitude of God is thereby forbidden to be worshipped because no Image of God is to be worshipped but what is God himself i. e. his Son And can any one speak more expressly our sense than S. Augustine here doth Let not T.G. then boast of his possession of S. Augustine unless it be as he did lately of all the Fathers and in truth the reason is much alike for both But as to the division of the Commandments he is of T. G 's side and what is that to our business If S. Augustine be of our side as to the sense of the Commandment I can allow him to find out something of the Mysterie of the Trinity in having three Commandments of the First Table and I can be contented with this that the generality of the Fathers were for the other division and upon more considerable Reasons But T.G. saith That S. Augustine translates this Precept Thou shalt not make to thy self any Idol and the sense of the Law to be the forbidding the giving the worship of God to Idols One would think by this S. Augustine had no other word but Idolum here whereas he uses both figmentum and simulachrum both which words he elsewhere uses about the Images of the True God But this is their common method if they meet with a word in the Fathers that sounds their way they never stay to consider the sense of it but presently cry out Idolum Idolum and then with the Man at Athens take all that comes for their own So doth T. G. boast of the possession of the Fathers upon as slight grounds as he did and makes up by the strength of Imagination what is wanting in the goodness of his title if at least imagination can sway him so much against the plain evidence of Reason Having thus cleared the way by removing these mighty difficulties which T. G. had laid in it to obstruct our passage I now come to consider the several methods I proposed for finding out the sense of this Law The first whereof was from the general Terms wherein it is expressed which are of so large and comprehensive a sense as to take in all manner of representations in order to worship and I challenged him to shew where the word Temunah which they render similitude as well as we is ever used in Scripture to signifie such an Idol as he supposes this Law intends And to what purpose are words of the largest signification put into a Law if the sense be limitted according to the most narrow acceptation of one word mentioned therein for there is no kind of Image whether graven or painted whether of a real or imaginary Being but is comprehended under the signification of the words set down in the Law To this T. G. answers that how large soever the signification of this word Temunah or similitude be when taken by it self yet in our present case it is limited by the following words Thou shalt not bow down to them nor serve them to signifie something which is made to be worshipped as God that is to be an Idol And so by the word Idol in the Commandment he understands such an Image as is made to represent for worship a Figment that hath no real Being and by similitude an Image or resemblance of some real thing but falsely imagined to be God but he saith it was nothing to the purpose to put the word similitude in its largest meaning that is as signifying any Image whatsoever though made with respect to the worship of the true God when God himself commanded the Ark and the Cherubims to be made with that respect doth he mean to represent the true God or to be objects of worship which I have already shewed to be false That which I am to prove he saith is that the word Similitude is to be taken so here whereas he affirms that the word similitude is to be restrained to the similitude of false Gods And to make all sure he interprets similitude only of the representation of false Gods and
because in some he may see Moses painted with Horns on his Forehead I do not think our Church ever determined that Moses should have horns any more than it appointed such an Hieroglyphical Representation of God Is our Church the only place in the World where the Painters have lost their old priviledge quidlibet audendi There needs no great atonement to be made between the Church of England and me in this matter for the Church of England declares in the Book of Homilies that the Images of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost are expresly forbidden and condemned by these very Scriptures I mentioned For how can God a most pure Spirit whom man never saw be expressed by a gross body or visible similitude or how can the infinite Majesty and Greatness of God incomprehensible to mans mind much more not able to be compassed with the sense be expressed in an Image With more to the same purpose by which our Church declares as plainly as possible that all Images of God are a disparagement to the Divine Nature therefore let T. G. make amends to our Church of England for this and other affronts he hath put upon her Here is nothing of the Test of Reason or Honesty in all this let us see whether it lies in what follows 2. He saith That Images of God may be considered two waies either as made to represent the Divinity it self or Analogically this distinction I have already fully examined and shewed it to be neither fit for Pulpit nor Schools and that all Images of God are condemned by the Nicene Fathers themselves as dishonourable to Him 3. He saith That the Reason of the Law was to keep them in their duty of giving Soveraign Worship to God alone by restraining them from Idolatry This is now the Severe Test that my Reason cannot stand before And was it indeed only Soveraign worship to God that was required by the Law to restrain them from Idolatry Doth this appear to return his own words in the Law it self or in the Preface or in the Commination against the transgressors of it if in none of these places nor any where else in Scripture methinks it is somewhat hard venturing upon this distinction of Soveraign and inferiour worship when the words are so general Thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them And if God be so jealous a God in this matter of worship he will not be put off with idle distinctions of vain men that have no colour or pretence from the Law for whether the worship be supreme or inferiour it is worship and whether it be one or the other do they not bow down to Images and what can be forbidden in more express words than these are But T. G. proves his assertion 1. From the Preface of the Law because the Reason there assigned is I am the Lord thy God therefore Soveraign honour is only to be given to me and to none besides me Or as I think it is better expressed in the following words Thou shalt have no other Gods but me and who denies or doubts of this but what is this to the Second Commandment Yes saith T. G. The same reason is enforced from Gods jealousie of his honor very well of His Soveraign Honour but provided that supreme worship be reserved to Him He doth not regard an inferiour worship being given to Images Might not T. G. as well have explained the First Commandment after the same manner Thou shalt have no other Soveraign Gods besides me but inferiour and subordinate Deities you may have as many as you please notwithstanding the Reason of the Law which T. G. thus paraphrases I am the only supreme and super-excellent Being above all and over all to whom therefore Soveraign Honour is only to be given and to none besides me Very true say the Heathen Idolaters we yield you every word of this and why then do you charge us with Idolatry Thus by the admirable Test of T. G's reason the Heathen Idolaters are excused from the breach of the First Commandment as well as the Papists from the breach of the Second 2. He proves it from the necessary connexion between the prohibition of the Law on the one side and the supreme excellency of the Divine Nature on the other For from the supreme excellency of God it necessarily follows that Soveraign Worship is due only to it and not to be given to any other Image or thing but if we consider Him as invisible only and irrepresentable it doth not follow on that account precisely that Soveraign worship or indeed any worship at all is due unto it Which is just like this manner of Reasoning The Supreme Authority of a Husband is the Reason why the Wife is to obey him but if she consider her Husband as his name is Iohn or Thomas or as he hath such features in his face it doth not follow on that account precisely that she is bound to obey him and none else for her Husband And what of all this for the love of School Divinity May not the reason of obedience be taken from one particular thing in a Person and yet there be a general obligation of obedience to that Person and to none else besides him Although the features of his countenance be no Reason of obedience yet they may serve to discriminate him from any other Person whom she is not to love and obey And in case he forbids her familiarity with one of his servants because this would be a great disparagement to him doth it follow that because his Superiority is the general Reason of obedience he may not give a particular Reason for a special Command This is the case here Gods Supreme Excellency is granted to be the general Reason of obedience to all Gods Commands but in case he gives some particular precept as not to worship any Image may not he assign a Reason proper to it And what can be a more proper reason against making or worshipping any representation of God than to say He cannot be represented Meer invisibility I grant is no general reason of obedience but invisibility may be a very proper reason for not painting what is invisible There is no worship due to a sound because it cannot be painted but it is the most proper reason why a sound cannot be painted because it is not visible And if God himself gives this reason why they should make no graven Image because they saw no similitude on that day c. is it not madness and folly in men to say this is no Reason But T. G. still takes it for granted That all that is meant by this Commandment is that Soveraign worship is not to be given to Graven Images or similitudes and of the Soveraign worship he saith Gods excellency precisely is the formal and immediate Reason why it is to be given to none but him But we are not such Sots say the
those are either from Scripture or Fathers 1. From Scripture where they are charged with forsaking God Deut. 32.15 16 17 18. As though the Israelites committed no Idolatry in the Wilderness but that of the Golden Calf whereas it is well known that they worshipped Baal Peor Moloch and Remphan of which a blacker character is given than of the other But the Psalmist saith that in worshipping the Calf they did forget God Psal. 106.19 20 21. And was not that forgetting the God that appeared with such a terrible Majesty on Mount Sinai to turn His glory into the similitude of an Ox that eateth grass But in the expressions of Scripture to forget God is to disobey Him Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God in not keeping His Commandments and His Iudgements and His Statutes which I command thee this day And was not this forgetting God in this sense so openly to break one of the Laws he had so lately given them That which seems to come nearest the matter is the expression of S. Stephen That our Fathers would not obey but thrust Him from them that is the true God saith T. G. whereas the words are plainly meant of Moses and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt saying Make us Gods to go before us which relates not to the object but to the manner of worship by such a Symbol of worship as was in greatest veneration among all the Egyptians This is the force of all that he brings out of the Scripture 2. From them he betakes himself to the Fathers and he quotes two passages of S. Athanasius and S. Hierome and a doubtful place of S. Chrysostom to his purpose This is the first time I have found T. G. citing the Fathers truly and pertinently and it were too hard dealing with him not to allow him these Testimonies especially about the exposition of a place of Scripture wherein their best Commentators take so much liberty of receding from them when they apprehend the scope and circumstances of the place do enforce another sense as I have already shewed at large concerning this And to these Fathers I shall oppose the Testimony of others who make the Egyptian Ox to be only a Symbolical representation of the Patriarch Ioseph and say that on this account the Israelites made choice of the Golden Calf so the Author of the Book De Mirabilibus S. Script in S. Augustins Works as good an Author as the Homilist de Poenit. whom he quotes under S. Chrys. name saith That the Egyptians set up the Image of an Ox by the Sepulchre of Joseph and for this cause the Israelites made choice of that similitude when they made an Idol in the Wilderness Iulius Firmicus Maternus saith That the Neocori did preserve in Egypt the Image of Joseph by which he understands Apis or the Sacred Bulls the same is affirmed by Rufinus and Suidas From whence it follows that this being looked on as the Symbol taken up in Egypt in remembrance of the service of Ioseph it was very unlikely that the Israelites should look on the Image it self as so powerful a thing as the Testimonies of Athanasius and S. Chrysostom imply to be able even before it was made to deliver them out of Egypt which is such a horrible contradiction that we had need to have better Testimonies than those to make us think the Israelites such Sots to believe it But if it were only looked on as a Symbol of Gods presence this gives a probable account why the Israelites should make choice of this before any other of the Egyptians Images because by it the Kindness of Ioseph who by Moses is compared to a young Ox was supposed to be remembred by them But 2. We are to enquire whether supposing that the Israelites did revolt to the Egyptian Idolatry in the worship of the Golden Calf that be sufficient to prove that they did not worship the True God under this Symbol For if the Egyptians themselves did worship the Supreme God under Symbolical representations of Him then although the Israelites might return with their hearts into Egypt yet this doth not prove that they did not worship the true God by the Golden Calf Plutarch who discourseth largely concerning the Egyptian Worship saith That the Golden Bull was the Image of Osiris which was shewed for four daies together from the seventeenth of the Month Athir And it was a common practice in Egypt to have Golden Images effigies sacri nitet aurea Cercopitheci wherein Lucian saith The barbarous Nations did exceed the Greeks who made their Images of Wood or Ivory or Stone For there were two sorts of Images of their Gods among the Egyptians Those Images and representations which were in their Temples or places of worship and those which they accounted the living Images of their Gods viz. Beasts such as the two famous Bulls Apis and Mneuis the one at Memphis the other at Heliopolis both in honour of Osiris which places were as the Dan and Bethel of Egypt Memphis being the Metropolis of the upper Heliopolis of the lower Egypt wherein the Israelites lived and saw the worship of the sacred Bull of Heliopolis Plutarch saith The Egyptians looked on Apis as the Image of the Soul of Osiris Diodorus saith That they looked on the soul of Osiris as passing by transmigration into Apis from which doctrin the worship of Beasts was not only entertained in Egypt but is so in the East Indies to this day in which case the Beast is only the material object of worship but the formal Reason is the Presence of some Divine Soul which they suppose to be there which on their supposition ought to have divine worship given to it by the principles of the Roman Church as the Elements of Bread and Wine on a supposition more extravagant viz. of Transubstantiation But whether the worship of Animals came into Egypt from the doctrine of transmigration or from their usefulness or from some politick Reasons which are mentioned both by Plutarch and Diodorus this is certain that Plutarch thinks Their wiser men did not worship the Animals themselves but looked on them only as representations of some divine perfection which they discerned in them and on that account gave worship to them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Those persons ought to be most esteemed who did not worship the Animals themselves but through them did worship the Deity and they ought to be looked on as clearer and more natural representations of God than inanimate things and we ought to esteem them as the Workmanship and Instrument 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the God that orders all things And there is all the reason to imagine that what hath a soul and sense is better than that which hath none viz. an Image and the Divine Nature is not seen in colours and Figures and smooth Superficies which are worse than dead creatures for these
think the Name of Iesus equal to an Image of Christ. I am now come to his last Instance viz. bowing towards the Altar he would insinuate as though the Church of England were for giving some kind of worship to the Altar although under the degree of Divine Worship due to God alone and saith that as the allowing this would render me a true Son of the Church of England so the allowing the like to the sacred Images of Christ would make me in this point a perfect Proselyte of the Church of Rome Which is in effect to say that the Church of England in allowing bowing to the Altar doth give the very same worship to it which their Church requires to be given to Images and that they who do one and not the other do not attend to the Consequence of their own Actions I shall therefore shew 1. That the Church of England doth not allow any worship to be given to the Altar 2. That the adoration allowed and practised in the Church of England is of a very different Nature from the Worship of Images 1. That the Church of England doth not allow any Worship to be given to the Altar For this I appeal to that Canon wherein is contained the Explication of the sense of our Church in this particular Whereas the Church is the House of God dedicated to his holy Worship and therefore ought to mind us both of the Greatness and Goodness of his Divine Majesty certain it is that the acknowledgement thereof not only inwardly in our hearts but also outwardly with our bodies must needs be pious in it self profitable unto us and edifying unto others We therefore think it very meet and behooveful and heartily commend it to all good and well affected People members of this Church that they be ready to tender unto the Lord the said acknowledgement by doing Reverence and obeysance both at their coming in and going out of the said Churches Chancels or Chappels according to the most ancient Custome of the Primitive Church in the purest times and of this Church also for many years of the Reign of Q. Elizabeth The reviving therefore of this ancient and laudable custome we heartily commend to the serious consideration of all good People NOT WITH ANY INTENTION TO EXHIBITE ANY RELIGIOUS WORSHIP TO THE COMMUNION TABLE THE EAST OR THE CHURCH or any thing therein contained in so doing or to perform the said gesture in the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist upon any Opinion of the CORPORAL PRESENCE OF THE BODY OF JESUS CHRIST ON THE HOLY TABLE OR IN THE MYSTICAL ELEMENTS but ONLY for the advancement of Gods Majesty and to give him ALONE that honour and glory that is due unto him and NO OTHERWISE And in the practice or omission of this Rite we desire that the Rule of charity prescribed by the Apostle may be observed which is That they which use this Rite despise not them who use it not and they who use it not condemn not those that use it This is the full declaration of the sense of our Church about it made by those who met in Convocation and were most zealous for the practice of it Agreeably to this Archbishop Laud speaks when this was charged as an innovation To this I answer saith he First That God forbid that we should worship any thing but God himself 2. That if to worship God when we enter into his House or approach his Altar be an Innovation it was a very old one being practised by Jacob Moses Hezekiah c. And were this Kingdom such as would allow no holy Table standing in its proper place yet I would worship God when I came into his House And afterwards he calls it doing Reverence to Almighty God but towards his Altar and Idolatry it is not to worship God towards his holy Table Now with us the People did ever understand them fully and apply them to God and to none but God From whence it appears that God is looked on as the sole Object of this Act of Worship and that our Church declares that it allows no intention of exhibiting any Religious worship to the Communion Table or East or Church or any Corporal Presence of Christ. 2. That the adoration allowed and practised in the Church of England is of a very different nature from the worship of Images For as I have fully made it appear in the State of the Controversie the Church of Rome doth by the Decrees of Councils require Religious worship to be given to Images and that those who assert this inferiour worship do yet declare it to be truly Religious worship and that the Images themselves are the Object of it whereas our Church declares point-blank the contrary nay that those Persons are looked on by the Generality of Divines in the Roman Church as suspected at least if not condemned of Heresie who practise all the external acts of adoration to Images but yet do not in their minds look on them as Objects but only as Occasions of Worship which make the difference so plain in these two cases that T. G. himself could not but discern it But to remove all scruple from mens minds that suspect this practice to be too near the Idolatrous worship which we reject in the Roman Church I shall consider it not only as to its Object which is the main thing and which I have shewed to be the proper Object of worship viz. God himself and nothing else but as to the nature of the act and the local circumstance of doing it towards the Altar 1. As to the nature of the act so it is declared to be an act of external adoration of God which I shall prove from Scripture to be a lawful and proper act of Divine Worship I might prove it from the general consent of Mankind who have expressed their Reverence to the Deity by acts of external adoration from whence I called it a natural act of Reverence but I rather choose to do it from Scripture and that both before the Law had determined so punctually the matters of Divine Worship and under the Law by those who had the greatest regard to it and under the Gospel when the spiritual nature of its doctrine would seem to have superseded such external acts of worship 1. Before the Law I instance in Abraham's servant because Abraham is particularly commended for his care in instructing his Houshold to keep the way of the Lord in opposition to Heathen Idolatry and this was the Chief Servant of his House of whom it is said three times in one Chapter That he bowed his head worshipping the Lord the Hebrew words signifie and he inclined and bowed himself to the Lord for the word we translate worship doth properly signifie to bow and both the Iews and others say It relates to some external act of the body whereby we express our inward Reverence or Subjection to another
So it is said of the People of Israel when they heard that the Lord intended to deliver them out of Egypt They bowed their heads and worshipped when Moses declared the Institution of the Passeover to all the Elders of Israel it is said again The People bowed their heads and worshipped 2. Under the Law when they were so strictly forbidden in the same words to bow down or worship any Image or similitude yet the outward act of adoration towards God was allowed and practised So Moses commanded Aaron and the seventy Elders of Israel to bow themselves a far off the very same word which is used in the second Commandment And when God had so severely punished the Israelites for bowing to the Golden Calf yet when He appointed the Pillar of Fire for the Symbol of His own presence it is said That when all the People saw the Cloudy Pillar stand at the Tabernacle door they rose up and bowed themselves every man in his Tent-door When God appeared to Moses it is said That he made hast and bowed his head toward the earth and worshipped And when Moses and Aaron came to the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation they are said to fall upon their faces In the time of David upon his solemn thanksgiving to God it is said All the Congregation blessed the Lord God of their Fathers and bowed down their heads and worshipped the Lord and the King And in the time of Hezekiah When they had made an end of offering the King and all that were present with him bowed their heads and worshipped 3. Under the Gospel we are to observe the difference between the same external act of worship when it was used towards Christ and toward His Apostles When the Syrophoenician woman came to our Saviour in one place it is said She worshipped Him and in another That she fell at His feet but in no place is there the least mention of any check given to her or any others who after that manner worshipped Christ But when Cornelius came to S. Peter and fell down at his feet and worshipped him he would by no means permit it but said Stand up I my self also am a man And when S. Iohn fell down at the feet of the Angel he would not suffer it but bade him worship God That which I observe from hence is that even under the Gospel the external acts of Religious adoration are proper and peculiar to God so that men are to blame when they give them to any Creature but no Persons are condemned for giving them to God And I desire those who scruple the lawfulness of giving to God such external adoration under the Gospel how they can condemn those for Idolatry who give it to any Creature if it be not a thing which doth still belong to God But if all the scruple be about the directing this Adoration one way more than another I say still it is done in conformity with the Primitive Church as our Canon declares and which every one knows did worship towards the East and this at the most is but a local circumstance of an Act of Worship which I have already shewed to be very different from an Object of it when I discoursed of the Nature of the Israelites worshipping toward the Ark and the Cherubims Thus through the Assistance of God I have gone through all the material points of T. G's Book which relate to the General Nature of Idolatry and have diligently weighed and considered every thing that looketh like a difficulty in this Controversie about the Worship of Images and do here sincerely protest that I have not given any Answer or delivered any Opinion which is not agreeable not only to the inward sense of my Mind but to the best of my understanding to the sense of Scripture and the Primitive Church and the Church of England And if the subtilties of T. G. could have satisfied me or any other Argument I have met with I would as freely have retracted this Charge of Idolatry as I ever made it For I do not love to represent others worse than they are but I daily pray to God to make both my self and others better and therein I know I have the hearty concurrence of all who are truly Good FINIS 2 Cor. 7.5 Concil Tolet. 3. 〈…〉 Marian. de rebus Hisp. l. 5. c. 14 15. Marian. l. 6. c. 1. Greg. Registr l. 1. ep 41. §. 1. T. G. p. 203. p. 64. p. 203. 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