Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	body_n	bread_n	transubstantiation_n	1,791	5	11.1891	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56393	Reasons for abrogating the test imposed upon all members of Parliament, anno 1678, Octob. 30 in these words, I A.B. do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God, profess, testifie, and declare, that I do believe that in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, at, or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever, and that the invocation or adoration of the Virgin Mary, or any other saint, and the sacrifice of the mass, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous : first written for the author's own satisfaction, and now published for the benefit of all others whom it may concern.	Parker, Samuel, 1640-1688.	1688 (1688)	Wing P467; ESTC R5001	62,716	138

Exception against them But to proceed this word having gain'd the Authority of so great a Council and being put into the Decretals of the Church by Gregory the Ninth in honor of his Uncle Innocent the Third it soon gained universal usage among the Latins and was adopted into the Catalogue of School Terms and was there hammer'd into a Thousand shapes and forms by those Masters of Subtlety And upon it St. Thomas of Aquin erects a new Kingdom of his own against the old Lombardian Empire but long he had not Reigned when Scotus our subtle Country-man set up against him And whatever St. Thomas of Aquin asserted for that reason only he contradicted him so that they two became the very Caesar and Pompey of the Schools almost all the great Masters of Disputation from that time fighting under one of their commands and what intelligible Philosophy both parties vented about the Substantial o● Transubstantial Presence upon supposition of the real difference between Matter and Form Substance and Accidents would be both too nice and too tedious to recite only in general the Thomists maintain the Transmutation of the Elements the Scotists the Annihilation and they proceed to abstract so long till they could not only separate the Matter and Form and Accidents of the Bread from one another but the Paneity or Breadishness it self from them all and founded a new Vtopian World of Metaphysick and Specifick Entities and Abstracts Thus far I have as briefly as I can represented the Scholastick History of this Argument in which the Authority of the Church is not at all concerned having gone no farther than to assign or appropriate a Word to signifie such a thing but all along declaring the Thing it self to be beyond the compass of a Definition I know 't is commonly said that the Council of Trent hath presumed to define the Modus and learned Men I know not by what fatal over-sight take it up on trust one from another and the Definition is generally given in these Terms That Transubstantiation is wrought by the Annihilation of the substance of the Bread and Wine the Accidents remaining To the which Annihilation succeeds the Body and Blood of Christ under the Accidents of Bread and Wine So the Bishops of Durham and Winchester represent it so Mr. Alix and the Writers of his Church and not only so but contrary to the sence of all other Churches they confound the Real Presence with Transubstantiation as this learned Man hath done through his whole Disputation upon it using the very words promiscuously as indeed all the modern Followers of Calvin do and charging the same absurdities upon both and imputing the first Invention of the Real Presence to Nicolas the Second and Gregory the Seventh in their Decrees against Berengarius But I cannot but wonder how so many learned Men should with so much assurance fansie to themselves such a Definition in the Trent Council of the Modus of Transubstantiation by the Annihilation of the Substance and the Permanency of the Accidents when the Fathers of that Council were so far from any such Design That they design'd nothing more carefully than to avoid all Scholastick Definitions The subtil Disputes about the Modus existendi as they termed it between the Dominicans and Franciscans in that Council are described at large by Father Paolo himself in the Fourth Book of his History But withal he says they were extreamly Displeasing and Offensive to the Fathers but most of all to the NUNCIO himself and therefore it was resolved in a General Congregation to determine the Matter in as few and general Terms as possible to offend neither Party and avoid Contentions and when notwithstanding this Decree they fell into new Disputes they are check'd by the Famous Bishop of Bitunto who was one of the chief Compilers of the Canons telling them they came thither to condemn Heresies not to define Scholastick Niceties And accordingly in the very First Chapter of the 13th Session in which this Article was defined when they determined the Real Presence they at the same time declare the Existendi Ratio to be ineffable and in the 4th Chapter where Transubstantiation is decreed the Canon runs thus That By the Consecration of the Bread and Wine there is a Conversion of the whole Substance of the Bread into the Substance of the Body of Christ and of the whole Substance of the Wine into the Substance of his Blood which Conversion is fitly and properly called by the Holy Catholick Church Transubstantiation In all which the Council only appropriates the Word Transubstantiation to express the Real Presence which it had before determined in the First Chapter not to be after a natural way of Existence as Christ sits at the right Hand of God but Sacramental after an ineffable manner Tho here some peevishly object the Inconsistence of the Council with it self when it declares that the thing is inexpressible and yet appropriates a word to express it Whereas all Christendom knows that the Procession of the Eternal Word from the Father is Ineffable and yet is expressed by the Word Generation and that the Vnion of the divine and humane Nature is ineffable and yet is called the Hypostatical Vnion and that the Vnity in the Trinity is ineffable and yet is expressed by the Word Consubstantial So that this Council seems to have defin'd no more than the Council of Nice did in the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity in expressing the Unity of the Three Persons by the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Distinction by the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which amounted to no more than this That as it is certain from the Holy Scriptures that in the Unity of the God-head there is a Trinity so the Holy Fathers to avoid the Niceties of contentious Men such as Arius was determine that for the Time to come the Mystery shall be expressed by the Terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but as for any Philosophical Notion of the Mystery the Church never presum'd to define it and this is the Definition of the Council of Trent of the Real Presence that there is a Conversion of the Substances under the Species or Appearances of Bread and Wine which the Church hath thought convenient to express by the Word Transubstantiation And yet tho the Council approve the Word yet it does not impose it it only declares it to be convenient but no where says 't is necessary And as for the Term Conversion it is much older than the Word Transubstantiation familiarly used by the Ancient Fathers and so is the Word Species I know indeed it is usual with School-men and Protestant Writers to translate the Words under Species of Bread and Wine by these Words under the Accidents of Bread and Wine as particularly the late Bishops of Durham and Winchester have done But this is to impose Philosophick Niceties upon the Decrees of the Church And tho perhaps all the

Churches declares his Sence in these express Words I affirm that Christ is indeed given by the Symbols of Bread and Wine and by consequence his Body and Blood in which he fulfilled all Righteousness for our Iustification and as by that we were ingrafted into his Body so by this are we made Partakers of his Substance by Virtue of it we feel the Communication of all good Things to our selves But as to the Modus if any Man inquire of me I am not ashamed to confess that the Mystery is too sublime for my Wit to comprehend or to express and to speak freely I rather feel than understand it and therefore here without Controversie I embrace the Truth of God in which I am sure I may safely acquisce He affirms that his Flesh is the Food of my Soul and his Blood the Drink It is to these Aliments that I offer my Soul to be nourished He commands me in his Holy Supper under the Symbols of Bread and Wine to take eat and drink his Body and Blood and therefore I doubt not but he gives it Here besides the express Words themselves if there be so much Mystery in the thing as he affirms there is much more than meer Figure And in another Passage he thus expresses himself That God doth not trifle in vain Signs but does in good earnest perform what is represented by the Symbols viz. the Communication of his Body and Blood and that the Figure conjoined with the Reality is represented by the Bread and the Body of Christ is offered and exhibited with it the true Substance is given us the Reality conjoined with the Sign so that we are made Partakers of the Substance of the Body and Blood. This is express enough But yet in his Book de Coena Domini he declares his Sence much more fully If notwithstanding saith he it be enquired whether the Bread be the Body and the Wine the Blood of Christ I answer that the Bread and Wine are the visible Signs that represent the Body and Blood and that the Name of the Body and Blood is given to them because they are the Instruments by which our Lord Iesus Christ is given to us This form of Speech is very agreeable to the thing it self for seeing the Communion that we have in the Body of Christ is not to be seen with our Eyes nor comprehended by our Vnderstandings yet 't is there manifestly exposed to our Eye-sight of which we have a very proper Example in the same case When it pleased God that the Holy Ghost should appear at the Baptism of Christ he was pleased to represent it under the appearance of a Dove and John the Baptist giving an Account of the Transaction only relates that he saw the Holy Ghost descending so that if we consider rightly we shall find that he saw nothing but the Dove for the Essence of the Holy Ghost is invisible But he knowing the Vision not to be a vain Apparition but a certain Sign of the Presence of the Holy Ghost represented to him in that manner that he was able to bear the Representation The same thing is to be said in the Communion of our Saviour's Body and Blood That it is a Spiritual Mystery neither to be beheld with Eyes nor comprehended with humane Understanding and therefore is represented by Figures and Sings that as the weakness of our Nature requires fall under our Senses so as 't is not a bare and simple Figure but conjoin'd with its Reality and Substance Therefore the Bread is properly called the Body when it doth not only represent it but also brings it to us And therefore we will readily grant That the Name of the Body of Christ may be transferr'd to the Bread because it is the Sacrament and Emblem of it but then we must add that the Sacrament is by no means to be separated from the Substance and Reality And that they might not be confounded it is not only convenient but altogether necessary to distinguish between them but intolerably absurd to divide one from the other Wherefore when we see the visible Sign what it represents we ought to reflect from whom it is given us for the Bread is given as a Representation of the Body of Christ and we are commanded to eat it It is given I say by God who is infallible Truth and then if God cannot deceive nor lye it follows that He in reality gives whatever is there represented And therefore it is necessary that we really receive the Body and Blood of Christ seeing the Communion of both is represented to us For to what purpose should he command us to eat the Bread and drink the Wine as signifying his Body and Blood if without some spiritual Reality we only received the Bread and Wine Would he not vainly and absurdly have instituted this Mystery and as we Frenchmen say by false Representations Therefore we must acknowledge that if God gives us a true Representation in the Supper that the invisible Substance of the Sacrament is joined with the visible Signs and as the Bread is distributed by hand so the Body of Christ is communicated to us to be Partakers of it This certainly if there were nothing else ought abundantly to satisfy us when by it we understand that in the Supper of our Lord Christ gives us the true and proper Substance of his Body and Blood. Thus far Calvin And I think it is as high a Declaration of the real and substantial Presence as I have met with in any Author whatsoever And if in any other Passages the great Dictator may have been pleased to contradict himself that is the old Dictatorian Prerogative of that Sect as well as the old Romans That whatever Decrees they made however inconsistent they were always Authentick Neither doth Beza at all fall short of his adored Master in the Point of substantial Presence In his Book against Westfalus a Sacramentarian de Coena Domini He declares freely that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or grammatical Sence of our Saviour's Words This is my Body cannot be preserved without Transubstantiation and that there is no Medium between Transubstantiantion and a meer Figure And yet the whole Design of the Book is to prove the real Presence in the Sacrament in opposition to the Figurative And in the Year 1561 The Protestant Churches of France held a Synod at Rochel and the Year following at Nimes in both which Beza sat as President where the substantial Presence was maintain'd and defin'd with great Vehemence against the Innovators as they were then esteemed for when Morellus mov'd to have the Word Substance taken out of their Confession of Faith Beza and the Synod not without some Indignation decree against them This Decree Beza declares in his Epistle to the Ministers of Zurick dated May the 17th 1572 to extend to the Protestants of France only least they who were Zuinglians should take Offence at it as a Censure particularly

Fathers of the Council believed the Reality of the New substantial Presence under the Old Accidents yet they had more Temper and Discretion than to Authorise it by conciliar Determination and therefore use only the Word Species and no other Word is used by Nicolas II Gregory VII and Innocent III that are thought the Three great Innovators in the Argument of the Real Presence that properly signifies Appearance but nothing of Physical or Natural Reality so that tho the Presence under the Species be real yet as the Council hath defined it it is not Natural but Sacramental which Sacramental Real Presence they express by the Word Transubstantiation and recommend the Propriety of the Word to the Acceptance of Christendom This is the short History of the Real Presence in the Church of Rome where as far as I can discern the thing it self hath been owned in all Ages of the Church the Modus of it never defined but in the Schools and tho they have fansied Thousand Definitions to themselves their Metaphysicks were never admitted into the Church And so I proceed to give an Account of it as it hath been defin'd in the Protestant Churches where we shall find much the same Harmony of Faith and Discord of Philosophy as in the Church of Rome And first we must begin with the famous Confession of Ausburg that was drawn up by Melancthon and in the Year 1530 presented to Charles the Fifth by several Princes of Germany as a Declaration of the Faith of the first Reformers and as the only true standard of the Ancient Protestant Religion The Confesion consists of Two parts I. What Doctrines themselves taught II. What Abuses they desired to be reformed As to the later the Emperor undertook to procure a General Council As to the former particularly this Article of the Presence in the Sacrament they have published it in two several forms In the Latin Edition it is worded thus Concerning the Lords Supper we teach That the Body and Blood of Christ are there present indeed and are distributed to the Receivers at the Lords Supper and condemn those that teach otherwise In the German Edition it is worded thus Concerning the Lords Supper we teach That the true Body and Blood of Christ are truly present in the Supper under the species of Bread and Wine and are there distributed and received And in an Apology written by the same hand and published the Year following it is thus expressed We believe That in the Supper of our Lord the Body and Blood of Christ are really and substantially present and are Exhibited indeed with those things that are seen the Bread and Wine This belief our Divines constantly maintain and we find not only the Church of Rome hath asserted the Corporeal Presence but that the Greek Church hath anciently as well as at this time asserted the same as appears by their Canon Missae The same Author Explains himself more at large in his Epistle to Fredericus Myconius I send you says he the passages out of the Ancients concerning the Lord's Supper to prove that they held the same with us namely That the Body and Blood of our Lord are there present indeed And after divers Citations he concludes That seeing this is the express Doctrine of the Scriptures and constant Tradition of the Church I cannot conceive how by the name of the Body of Christ should only be understood the sign of an absent Body for though the Word of God frequently makes use of Metaphors yet there is a great difference to be made between Historical Relations and Divine Institutions In the first matters transacted among Men and visible to the Sence are related and here we are allow'd and often forced to speak figuratively But if in Divine Precepts or Revelations concerning the Nature or the Will of God we should take the same liberty wise Men cannot but fore-see the Mischiefs that would unavoidably follow There would be no certainty of any Article of Faith. And he gives an instance in the Precept of Circumcision to Abraham That upon those Terms the good Patriarch might have argued with himself That God never intended to impose a thing so seemingly absurd as the words sound and that therefore the Precept is to be understood only of a Figurative or Metaphorical Circumcision the Circumcision of our Lusts. So far this Learned Reformer Now the Authority of Melancthon weighs more with us of the Church of England as the learned Dr. St. very well observes that in the settlement of our Reformation there was no such regard had to Luther or Calvin as to Erasmus and Melancthon whose Learning and Moderation were in greater Esteem here than the fiery spirits of the other and yet few Writers have asserted the Substantial and Corporeal Presence in higher terms than this moderate Reformer and though he may sometimes have varied in Forms of Speech he continued constant and immovable in the substance of the same Doctrine For in the Confession of the Saxon Churches at the Compiling of which he was chief Assistant drawn up in the Year 1551 to have been presented to the Council of Trent a true and substantial Presence is asserted during the time of Ministration We teach say they That Sacraments are Divine Institutions and that the things themselves out of the use desing'd are no Sacraments but in the use Christ is verily and substantially present and the Body and Blood of Christ are indeed taken by the Receivers There seems to have been one singular Notion in this Confession That the Real and Substantial Presence lasts no longer than the Ministration but that is nothing to our Argument as long as a substantial Presence is asserted In the Year 1536 an Assembly of the Divines of the Ausburg Confession on one side and the Divines of Vpper Germany on the other conven'd at Wirtemberg by the procurement and mediation of Bucer who undertook to moderate between both parties where they agreed in this form of Confession We believe according to the words of Irenaeus That the Eucharist consists of two things one Earthly the other Heavenly and therefore believe and teach That the Body and Blood of Christ are truly and substantially exhibited and received with the Bread and Wine This is subscribed by the chief Divines of both Parties and approved by the Helvetian Ministers themselves The Bohemian Waldenses in their Confession of Faith presented to Ferdinand King of the Romans and Bohemia declare expressly That the Bread and Wine are the very Body and Blood of Christ and that Christ is in the Sacrament with his Natural Body but by another way of Existence than at the Right-hand of God. In the Greek Form of Consecration this Prayer was used Make this Bread the precious Body of thy Christ and that which is in this Cup the precious Blood of thy Christ changing them by thy Holy Spirit which words are taken out of the Liturgies of St. Chrysostom and St. Basil. And Ieremias

enough in the Cause by making a Noise upon these Two loud Engines they could at pleasure drown the Dispute Now ever since this Alteration of the State of the War between the Two Churches we hear little or nothing at all of the real Presence in the Cause but it is become as great a Stranger to the i.e. their Church of England as Transubstantiation it self but the whole matter is resolved into a meer Sacramental Figure and Representation and a Participation only of the Benefits of the Body and Blood of Christ by Faith. I know not any one Writer of that Party of Men that hath ever own'd any higher Mystery but on the contrary they state all the Disputes about the Eucharist upon Sacramentarian Principles and with them to assert the true reality of the Presence of our Saviour's Body and Blood in the Sacrament as naturally resolves it self into Transubstantiation as that does into Idolatry And the main Argument insisted upon by them is the natural Impossibility of the thing it self to the Divine Omnipotence which beside the prophane Boldness of prescribing Measures to God's Attributes in a Mystery that they do not comprehend 't is as appears by the Premises a Defiance to the Practice of all Churches who have ever acknowledged an incomprehensible Mystery not subject to the Examination of Humane Reason but to be imbraced purely upon the Authority of a Divine Revelation And therefore that ought to be the only matter of Dispute For if it be a Divine Revelation as all Christendom hath hitherto believed that determines the Case without any further Enquiry and if any Man will not be satisfied with that Authority he makes very Bold with his Maker And Men of those Principles would no doubt make admirable Work with the Definitions of Articles of Faith by the Four first general Councils But to let their new way of Arguing pass it is these Men that first set up Sacramentarian Principles in this Church and then blew them into the Parliament House raising there every Session continual Tumults about Religion and it is to their Caballing with the Members that we owe these new and unpresidented TESTS Perhaps to have their own Decrees and Writings established by Law and imposed upon the whole Nation as Gospel In short if they own a real Presence we see from the Premises how little the Controversie is between that and Transubstantiation as it is truly and ingeniously understood by all reformed Churches If they do not they disown the Doctrine both of the Church of England and the Church Catholick and then if they own only a figurative Presence and it is plain they own no other they stand condemned of Heresie by almost all Churches in the Christian World and if this be the thing intended to be set up as it certainly is by the Authors and Contrivers of it by renouncing Transubstantiation then the Result and Bottom of the Law is under this Pretence to bring a new Heresy by Law into the Church of England And yet upon this Foot I find the Controversie stands at this present Day between the Bishop of Rome or the Bishop of Condom on one part and little Iulian in the Back-shop with his Dragoons on the other part The Bishop establishes the Real Presence in Opposition to the Figurative His Answerer turns the whole Mystery into meer Type and Figure by seting up a figurative Interpretation of the Words of Institution and yet confesses it at the same time to be somewhat more than a Figure To this it is reply'd I would gladly know what that is which is not the thing it self but yet is more than a meer Figure of it To this it is answered That the Presence is Spiritual but yet Real but how a Corporeal Substance should have a real Spiritual Presence is a thing that requires more Philosophy to clear it up than Transubstantiation or in the Words of the Author himself We suppose it to be a plain Contradiction that Body should have any Existence but what alone is proper to a Body that is Corporeal This is their last Resolution of this Controversie that a true real Presence is a Contradiction and so I think is a real spiritual Presence of a bodily Substance This Scent the whole Chace follows and unanimously agree in this Cry That there is no Presence but either meerly Figurative and that shuts out all Reality and is universally condemned by all the Reformation or meerly Spiritual i.e. the present Effects and Benefits of the absent Body and Blood of Christ which hath been all along equally cashiered by all other Reformed Churches as the other grand Scandal of Zuinglianism Thus the London Answerer to the Oxford Discourses There can be no real Presence but either Figuratively in the Elements or Spiritually in the Souls of those who worthily receive them So Dr. St. All which the Doctrine of our Church implies by this Phrase is only a real Presence of Christ's invisible Power and Grace so in and with the Elements as by the faithful receiving of them to convey real and spiritual Effects to the Souls of Men. The Oxford Answerer to the Oxford Discourses allows no other real Presence but the virtual Presence that is the meer Effect So the popular Author of the Discourse against Transubstantiation makes no Medium between the meer figurative Presence and Transubstantiation so that all other Presence that is not meerly Figurative comes under the Notion of Transubstantiation Now the gentlest Character he is pleased to give of this Monsieur is this That the Business of Transubstantiation is not a Controversie of Scripture against Scripture or of Reason against Reason but of downright Impudence against the plain meaning of the Scripture and all the Sence and Reason of all Mankind But besides the intolerable Rudeness of the Charge against all the Learned Men of the Church of Rome as the worst of Sots and Ideots if there be no middle real Presence between Transubstantiation and the Figure he hath cast all the Protestant Churches into the same Condemnation of Sots and Fools But howsoever rash and preposterous it may be for Presons that believe the real Presence to abjure the Word Transubstantiation ye to determine any part of Divine Worship in the Christian Church to be in its own Nature Idolatry is inhumane and barbarous IDOLATRY is a Stabbing and Cut-throat Word its least Punishment is the greatest that can be both Death and Damnation and good Reason too when the Crime is no less than renouncing the true God that made Heaven and Earth Thus Exod. 22. 20. He that sacrificeth unto any God save unto the Lord or Iehovah only he shall be utterly destroyed Deut. 13. 6. If thy Brother the Son of thy Mother or thy Son or thy Daughter or the Wife of thy Bosom or thy Friend which is as thine own Soul entice thee secretly saying Let us go and serve other Gods which thou hast not known thou nor thy Fathers namely

of the Gods of the People which are round about you nigh unto thee or far off from thee from the one end of the Earth unto the other Thou shalt not consent unto him nor hearken unto him Neither shall thine Eye pity him neither shalt thou spare neither shalt thou conceal him But thou shalt surely kill him thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to Death and afterward the Hand of all the People And thou shalt stone him with Stones that he die Because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt from the House of Bondage This was the Crime and this the Punishment of Idolatry and the Sentence was so severely Executed that for the setting up the golden Calf or Symbol of the Sun that the Aegyptians Worship'd as the supreme Deity as will appear in its proper place Three thousand of the Ring-leaders were put to the Sword by the Command of Moses Exod. 32. 27. And for this Reason it pleased God to destroy the Canaanites from off the Face of the Earth i.e. for giving Divine Worship to false and created Deities in Defiance to the Eternal Creator of it So black a Crime as this that is no less than renouncing God is not lightly to be charged upon any Party of Christians not only because of the foulness of the Calumny but the barbarous Consequences that may follow upon it to invite and warrant the Rabble when ever Opportunity favours to destroy the Roman Catholicks and their Images as the Israelites were commanded to destroy the Canaanites and their Idols But before so bloody an Indictment be preferr'd against the greatest part of Christendom the Nature of the thing ought to be very well understood The Charge is too big for a Scolding Word And how inconsistent soever Idolatry may be with Salvation I fear so uncharitable a Calumny if it prove one can be of no less damnable Consequence It is a piece of Inhumanity that out-does the Salvageness of the Canibals themselves and damns at once both Body and Soul. And yet after all we have no other ground for the bold Conceit than the crude and rash Assertions of some popular Divines who have no other Measures of Truth or Zeal but Hatred to Popery and therefore never spare for hard Words against that Church and run up all Objections against it into nothing less than Atheism and Blasphemy of which Idolatry is the greatest Instance But if they would lay aside their indecent Heats and soberly enquire into the Nature and Original of Idolatry they would be as much ashamed of the Ignorance of their Accusations as they ought to be of its Malice And therefore I shall set down a plain and brief Account of that Argument that when we understand the easie obvious and natural Notion of Idolatry it will for ever expose the Vanity of these Men's Fanatique Pretences I pray God there be nothing worse at bottom seeing it has ever been set up as the Standard against Monarchy It is a Subject that hath entertained the most able Pens in the World but I shall not presume or pretend to be so learned but shall confine all my Knowledge to the Word of God chiefly to the Mosaick Writings for there it is fully and clearly stated the Mosaick Law being enacted purely in Opposition to Idolatry Now nothing can be more obvious than that the Notion of it there is neither more nor less than this The Worship of the Heavenly Bodies the Sun the Moon and the Stars or any other visible and corporeal Deity as the Supreme God so as to exclude all Sense and Apprehension of a spiritual and invisible Godhead This evidently appears both by the Almighties several Revelations that he made of himself to the Children of Israel to preserve them from it and from the several Characters and Descriptions that himself hath upon numberless occasions made of it Most learned Men would trace its Original from before the Flood but they follow their Chase without any Scent as generally all Antiquaries do when they pursue into the first Source and Original of things The Iewish Robbies that are of too late a standing to pretend to any Authority in such Antient Matters for as they lived not above Six Ages before us so they had no other Records than what we have the Writings of Moses and the Prophets derive its Original from the Age of Enos but as their Conjecture is founded upon an ambiguous Word so it is contradicted by the State of the World at that time for by reason of the long Lives of the Patriarchs from the Creation to the Flood it is not easie to conceive That the Memory and Tradition of the late Creation of the World should be worn out in so short a time Enos being Adams's Granchild and living in the same Age with him for some Hundred Years But the plain Demonstration that there was no such Impiety before the Flood is that Moses when he reckons up the Causes that provok'd God to bring that Judgment upon the World makes no mention of the Sin of Idolatry of which if they had been Guilty as it is a Sin of the first Magnitude so it would have held the first place in the Indictment Others make Cham the Father of this Monster as they do of all other Crimes but for no other Reason beside his ill Name Others derive it from the Tower of Babel which they will have to have been built for an Altar to the Sun after the Custom of after-times when they Worshiped him upon High Towers for Altars Maimonides and his Followers find deep Footsteps in the time of Abraham who was born in Ur of the Chaldees that is say they the Country of the Antient ZABII the Founders of Idolatry and for that reason he was commanded out of his own Country to the Worship of the True God. But this Dream of the ZABII is so modern and so void of the Authority of any Antient Record that it proves it self a fond Imposture Tho in Abraham's time and that was many Centuries after the Flood we meet with the first Traces of this Apostacy For that extraordinary Discovery that God was pleased to make of himself as Supreme Lord of all things was made to Abraham in Opposition to the Idolatry of his own Country i.e. Chaldea who seemed to have been the first Founders of it and for that reason God commanded him to leave his Country his Kindred and his Fathers House and sojourn in the Land of Canaan where the Tradition of the Knowledge of the True God seems to have been much better preserved So that tho there were some Decays from the true Old Religion yet they were as yet very far from an Universal Apostacy That the Plague was then broke out in Chaldea is evident from the words of Ioshua 24. 2. Your Fathers dwelt on the other side the River in old time even Terah