Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	church_n	know_v	scripture_n	7,570	5	6.9072	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48813	An answer to the Bishop of Oxford's reasons for abrogating the test impos'd on 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 of adoration of the Virgin Mary, or any other saint, and the sacrifice of the Dais, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous / by a person of quality.	Lloyd, William, 1627-1717.	1688 (1688)	Wing L2673; ESTC R977	35,814	60

Ministery of Angels or by immediate Inspiration given to Holy Men Prophets and Apostles and consigned by them into the Holy Writings we call Scriptures All which after Revelations are to be tryed and Tested by their compare with and Agreement to former Revelations as is most manifest in all parts of Scripture and by the constant and continual Appeal of the Old Testament to the New So that this prerogativ'd Legislative Church that is pleaded into so high and rampant a Power that All-seeming wavings of its Authority must be an Invasion of Christ's Kingdom a Deposing of Him an affronting his Commission smells strong of the Pride and Ambition of that City which first as a City and then as a Church hath always aspir'd to have a Kingdom over the Kings of the Earth as also of the Luciferian Ascent of the Beast that carries it with and upon which I doubt not the Sacriledge and Blasphemy will be found Who exalts himself above all that is called God or worshipped who sitteth in the Temple of God shewing Himself that he is God. But to us there is but one Law-giver who is able to save and to destroy One Father who is in Heaven One Master who is Christ and all we are Brethren One Legislative-Lord and the chiefest in his Church are Servants Ministring his Word in the Scriptures the onely law of Divine verities And therefore in this prerogative-Prerogative-sense dare not receive the title of Masters or Fathers nor can those who receive the Law of Christ made evident from the Scriptures to be his Law by their Ministry upon such Ministration yield them therefore the Names of Masters or Fathers in a Legislative sense For they know they ought to Preach Christ the Lord and themselves onely Servants for Christ's sake that they have no Dominion over the Faith of Christians who are however called the Laity yet are Christ's Clerus but only are Ensamples of the Flock who attends the motion of the Chief Shepherd the Lamb Christ Jesus whithersoever he goes and will not follow Strangers Princes and States by Light offer'd them by the Ministerial labours and services of the Bishops and Elders of the Church who labour in the word and Doctrine are to direct their Power according to that Light they receive by such Ministrations but together and not without their own search into Scriptures and constant meditation therein And the People are to obey in Agreement with that Law and word of Christ which they are to know for themselves in that Light diffus'd by the preaching of the word to them in season and out of season which I say they are to know for themselves and not others for them by the deep research of their own minds into Scripture to see whether those things are so or not For wisedom hath written to them even to them as may be seen by all the Epistles of the Apostles that they might know the certainty of the words of truth and have their trust in the Lord and not an Implicit Faith in Men and might be able by Apologies for the hope that is in them to answer the words of Truth to those who send to them either in a way of advice or challenge Whatever is contrary to this undoubted evidence of the Word of God and sound Reason seeing every one must give an account of himself to God as well as those who are set over them who by faithfull Offers of Truth discharge themselves whatever I say is so propos'd as by a Catholick Church and its prerogative I affirm savours of that intoxicating Cup of Abominations in the hand of that Sorceress that calls her self the Mistress of Churches and would Sit the Lady of the Christian World and of the power that bears it who under pretence of the Kingdom of Christ undermines it and hath in the unsearchable Judgment of God delay'd thus long its appearance to all the World and is the Baalam lofty Prophet of that Romish Pergamus 2. The pretended practice of the Church of God in all Ages can give no presidency in this Case beyond what is thus asserted For in the times of the Old Testament Religious Princes did by the general advice and Doctrine of the Prophets and of those Priests who kept their Faith to the Law of God themselves govern and reform according to that of which each King was to have a Copy Written by himself which was to be with him and he was to read it all the days of his Life That he might Learn to fear the Lord his God and to keep his Laws And whereas in that precedent Law enquiry of the Priest in the place God should choose was commended it plainly insinuates the divine Responses God gave at that time by the Vrim and Thummim immediately from himself were intended but yet all was to be founded in the Written Law there all was to be shown and from thence to be learnt or not to be receiv'd no not under a power of seeming Miiracles Deut. 12. In the first times of Christianity for three hundred years there were no Christian Magistrates who would wait for the Churches Oracle's But for the Determination of the Church without a Lay-Concurrence it is most apparently opposite to that grand instance of the first Council wherein the people if any distinguishingly styl'd the Church and who made most manifestly one of the Estates if I may so express it in the whole Conciliary management The Apostles the Elders the Brethren and the whole Consultation and Determination mov'd upon the Poles of express Scripture as will be most visible to any enquirer into those Conciliary Acts For he that runs may read Acts 15. In the days of that first and most Religious Emperour Constantine although he as all pious Princes and Christians would receiv'd light from the Ministers of sacred truth yet so that he us'd his own Judgment together with it deploring the weaknesses he observ'd among these who seem'd to be pillars of light but yet it must be acknowledg'd that that Apostasie the Mystery of iniquity that began to work in the Apostles days was well grown up and advanc'd and a Legislative Church was Towring up its Power in the Christian World at that very time But it is undoubted There is nothing so Ancient as Divine Truth in the Law and in the Testimony consenting with that Law of Reason Engraven in man's Heart and to these we must goe Fot whatsoever speaks not according to these there is no Morning to it nor from it but a Night even to a Midnight ensues upon it what Antiquity soever it pretends to 3. That I may yet give a more direct Answer to this Reason the Test-Act is not a Law of an Ecclesiastick Nature For it is onely an Exploration and Touch upon Persons whether they are Romanists or not it is no Canonical Determination of the Point of Transubstantiation it binds no Decree with a Spiritual or Ecclesiastick Anathema or Excommunication which are of

the Essence of Ecclesiastick Laws as they have been always Solemniz'd and Ratified in the Christian-Antichristianizing World upon light occasions But this Test presumes Two Things suppos'd before to be sufficiently certain 1. That no Romanist will deny his Transubstantiation nor consent that his Invocation of the Virgin Mary and of other Saints and that the Sacrifice of the Mass is Superstitious and Idolatrous The Test does not determine nor pretend Canonically to Define of these Things it onely proposes this as a certain Discovery of the Votaries of a Foreign Church nor does it mind to decide the Truth of those Matters It is enough to it to know who do or who do not assent to their presumed Truth and thereby to discover Men not to Decree points of Faith. 2. Nor is it Ecclesiastick but purely Civil and pertaining to the State onely whom it will judg safe to commit the Affairs of this Nation unto and into what Hands to entrust its Interests and having by more than a hundred years experience deemed it not safe for a Protestant Nation to be overgrown by a Papal Power it hath thus Resolved and Enacted not at that Time enquiring after the Truth of the Things concern'd in the Test but satisfied with the Assurance that a Roman Catholick as he is call'd will not assent to them as they are there laid Which are here onely taken notice of as matters of State and their Doctrinal Truth it supposes elsewhere to have been sufficiently Ascertain'd as shall be afterward consider'd 4. For indeed the Church of England hath both in Convocation in continual printed manifestations of its sense in daily preachings and ministrations of the Truth of the word of God abundantly and beyond all Controversie open'd explained and asserted concerning these things out of and according to Scripture so that not in a Humane Light or Determination but in the very Beams of Scripture and Divine Truth which are plainly to be seen streaming from the fountain of light the word of God there is warranty enough without any Invasion upon Christ's Kingdom or the Rights of the Officers of it supposing them what we can suppose rhem for a Parliament safely to proceed as it did supported by as many Assurances as it could desire that if the Lips of the Ministry of the Church of England preserv'd knowledge and that the Law was to be enquired at its mouth the Resolution of that Church in all those cases was sufficiently known and no injury could be done to it 5. Of this the presence of the Bishops in Parliament not Remonstrating nor Protesting against this Law his consenting however the Author judges it to their shame are security enough That they understood the Test-Law to be no Invasion of the Rights of the Church but according to the whole Doctrine and Government of it as by Law established For seeing as hath been before argued every Body nor Estate of Men in Parliament knew so quick and feelingly for themselves and specially such a Body as the Episcopacy of a Nation it can never be suppos'd they would as by a common Conspiracy agree to betray their own Rights and Priviledges having at hand always that freedom of entring their Protestations of Dissent So that although it is acknowledg'd they sit in Parliament by the Grace of the King and by the Constitution of English Parliaments and not by Power deriv'd from Christ nor as a Convocation according to the Laws of England in that case yet it is always to be forethought that they sit with their Understandings with their Consciences with their Senses with their Sentiments of Self-preservation about them and that therefore they would not be Felones de se by consenting to the Destruction of their noblest Rights and on account of which they are judg'd worthy to sit as an Estate and to vote in Parliament viz. as Bishops of the Church of Jesus Christ. 6. But lastly it can never be understood but that according to the Bishops own limitation if that be the Standard of Church-Power and Praerogative or his setting up another Power and Praerogative to mute it the Parliament have well done in this Test-Law For seeing the Civil Power may restrain the Exer●ise of Ecclesiastical Praerogative as they shall judg meet for the ends of Peace and the Interest of the Commonwealth and may punish it too at their own discretion if it shall at any time intrench upon the Prerogative of the State and that it may praevent or correct Abuses who can determine whether the States have not done according to what they might and ought to do in preventing and correcting Abuses For if they may prevent and correct Abuses they must be able to judg of them they must determine when they ly they must judge also of the best means to prevent them And what more lyable to such judgment of Abuses and to undergo the best and most effectual methods of Praevention than the things to be declar'd against in the Test as shall be manifestly prov'd in the following Reason And seeing that upon these very accounts it is notorious that even in this Nation Church Power and Prerogative hath swoln beyond all bounds and entrench'd with a vengeance upon the Power of the State why then may not the State continue the correction and punishment of it by After Acts seeing the Bishop allows these punishments at their own discretion and restrain and lock down men Certainly all the Avenues to such an Exercise and Notions again of that Power that they hav found in all Ages so destructive to the Peace and Interest of the Commonwealth And here I cannot but reflect upon the strange Irreconcileableness of the Bishop's Church-Prerogative and of the Civil Power as he hath stated it For that such a Seeing Judging Prerogative and Legislative Power that can alter make Decrees concerning Divine Verities should not know how to keep within its own bounds nor so to learn its Power but that it must be restrain'd for the Ends of Peace and the Interest of the Commonwealth and be punish'd too at discretion for its aptness to praesume and to intrench upon the Power of the State nay and beyond all this to be so extravagant that its Abuses may have need to be praevented and corrected Who can imagine Jesus Christ should be so nearly concern'd in such a Prerogative and Legislative Power as to be disown'd neglected affronted if that he be Christ risen and that the usurpation of it should lie so near Sacriledge and Blasphemy as that his Kingdom should be invaded and Himself deposed and on such an account that it should be such a Seeing and Holy Catholick Church and yet that this Civil Power that is suppos'd to know so little in Divine Verities may bind its hands punish praevent correct its Abuses What must Christ so closely importuned in it suffer in the mean time What kind of Kingdom and Power is here allow'd in the mean time What Governour would accept such

that so monstrous contradiction to all our Faculties is the Transubstantiation of the Elements into the Body and Blood of Christ. And whereas the Test runs thus And that the Invocation and Adoration of the Virgin Marie or any other Saint and the Sacrifice of the Mass as they are now used in the Church of Rome are Superstitious and Idolatrouus The Bishop thus That the Invocation of the Mother of God and of Saints is Idolatrous Leaving out Adoration and as in the Church of Rome and for Superstitious and Idolatrous putting in the word is Idolatrous But although greater exactness in this Proposition had been more becoming yet I must confess in my own sense the Amount is the same These things being thus adjusted how empty of sound Sense and Reason must that Tragical Harangue that follows be in of the Monstrousness and Inhumaneness of the Barbarity that could never have entred into the Thoughts of any Man but the Infamous Author to oblige the whole Nobility of a Nation to swear to the Truth of such abstruse and uncertain Propositions which they neither Do nor Can nor Ought to understand and this upon the Penalty of forfeiting the Priviledges of their Birth-right Of the same Nature is That which comes after for what immediately follows I will be as uncertain in as the Argument it self is as also in the two Famous Burgesses of Oxon. But those Words viz. what is meant by Transubstantiation is altogether unknown to the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation being onely the Wars between School-men who have quarrelled about nothing more than the Notion of Transubstantiation And that therefore it is more uncapable to impose upon the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation to Abjure a thing that is morally impossibl for them to understand and therefore it must be a profane Affront to Almighty God in whose Presence they Swear and shews men will Swear to any thing before the Searcher of Hearts rather than lose any Worldly interest are to be cast into the main Heap Together with all this an Appeal is subjoyn'd to the Honourable Members of both Houses whether they have any distinct Idea or Notion in their minds about what they Renounce and that if every man gave his own account of Transubstantiation it would be a Babel This is what is declaim'd with relation to the first Proposition on which Fallacie the Historical Account of Transubstantiation design'd certainly on purpose to amuse for it doth not add one Cubit to the Stature of the Argument above and beyond what is here summ'd up Taking therefore the words of the Test as they stand in the Test it self I will sum up the Answer in these two Heads I. That all the Abstruseness Darkness and difficultie in the Notion of Transubstantiation and this Bishop's amusing Historie of it doth not in the lest prejudice the reasonableness of the Test but make it more reasonable II. That the very Point of Transubstantiation is the most reasonabl of all others to settle the Test upon and the more reasonable because of the difficultie of that Notion 1. Let the first be consider'd with Relation to the most Unknowing and Uninquiring Men of all who can be suppos'd to be concern'd in the taking the Test. And after the word made common English to them which very ordinary use does to most Men in the Nation much more to any likely to be concern'd whether they can sound the Word or hammer the Notion or not is not material For still what is more easy then to declare their Belief according to their Senses and that the Bread and Wine that they see before the Words of Consecration and in which they are agreedly not mistaken are the same Bread and Wine after Consecration Who would be afraid to Declare and Profess they Believe it so and that it is unchang'd Vntransubstantiated into the Flesh and Bloud of a Human Body Let a Man be Unprejudic'd Unprepossess'd and what the least Shade of Doubt could fall upon him in this Matter Call in Thousands together to observe the Progress from the beginning to the end of the Celebration And would they not consent upon Oath that they fully believed there was no such Transubstantiation Let but their minds be free undisturb'd unperplex'd and the whole world of Touch of Taste of Sight of Smell of Hearing so far as hearing can have interest in the trial would be at perfect agreement concerning it their minds and understandings judging by the senses alike in all Let such persons hear there are many Disputes and much variety of Opinions concerning it and how little would it affect them except with wonder at the folly and madness of any difference And let them know some of the wisest and most learned men in the World are of their Opinion or rather of their Knowledge by their senses although there are others of a contrary Opinion men of Name too for Knowledg and Learning and it is easie to know whose minds they would be of viz. of theirs whose Learning and Senses go together Thus let the thing be brought within the Verge of Scripture-judgment and upon that so very controverted This is my body and discussed before the most plain and inartificial apprehensions and let the general manner of Scripture expressing it self oft in familiar Figures be laid before them They would easily conclude on the side of their Senses and that Scripture intended no violence on their Faith against their Senses on the side of so incredible a change of the Elements into a Humane Body Nothing but the charms or inchantments rather of a false Religion and the Sorcery of it which are the things to be discover'd by the Test the slavery of an implicit Faith except under the terror of a severe Persecution for a contrary Perswasion can endanger any mans falling into such an unaccountable wilful professed blindness The Test therefore requires not onely the easiest most unperplexed Assent Belief and Declaration but that which all Mankind with violence runs into if not bewitcht with Superstition upon the lest motive of apprehension about the matter 2. If sense goes thus far with the plainest and most unthinking men how much more doth Reason and rational Faith assure the thinking and intelligent who not onely by Sense determine the Bread is Bread and the Wine Wine but know it can be no other and the whole circle of Absurds that crowd in upon the change into the Body and Blood of Christ that have been so often arang'd against such a Figment encompass them that with highest reason and assurance they can declare their Belief as the Law of the Test requires them to do Whatever then may be the various shapes this Proteus or Camelion of Transubstantiation hath put on throughout the long Historie of the Metamorphos'd Notion whatever dress of Representation the Eloquence of the Fathers the Canon of the Ecclesiastics or the Difficiles Nugae or the vain curiosities and subtilties of the School-men have

Bloud on the account of which such Butcheries and Burnings of Men alive have been committed that the so mis-stil'd Barbaritie and Inhumanitie of the Test-Act compared herewith is not only Mercie andHonor to the Persons concerned but a Monument of greatest Equitie and Philanthropie or Love to Humane Nature to endeavour to extinguish out of the Nation the very Principles of so much Bloud-Guiltiness and Bloud-Thirst of the greater heinousness becaus if the Bishop be to be credited in the Case it was for not believing a Transubstantiation which it was Morally impossible for those Martyrs to know and such abstrusities which they neither did nor could nor indeed ought to understand 4. To press and force a litteral Sense upon the Holy Scriptures Free Familiar Condescension to our Weakness in expressing things of a high Spiritual Nature in such Language as we in Humane Bodies most easily take things into our minds by as in the Sacrament the real Spiritual Union and Communication of the Value Vertue and Efficacy of the Sacrifice of Christ Himself and in the Union of and Communion and Communication of his Spirit to us is express'd by eating his Body and drinking his Bloud Now I say to force a litteral Sense upon this is such a piece of Rudeness Barbaritie and Ingratitude that if the same measure were meeted to all other parts of Scripture would even in the Judgment of those very Men who are either Atheists or Bigots in this matter not only turn it into Horrible and Abominable Burlesque but even Martyr and Murther those two Witnesses as some have expounded them To vindicate therefore those Sacred Volumes the Pandects of our most Holy Religion from having to do with so mid-night and Sphingian a Riddle in so plain and merciful an Institution so humble and even Domestic in a spiritual Sense as the Lord's Supper is a Riddle set on work to so much Cruelty and Bloud-shed is worthy the Spirit of a truely Christian and nobly English Senate and to set the danger of its return into use at the utmost impossibility Humane Providence could attain without the expectation of Miracle For what is meant by Transubstantiation the Bishop himself says is altogether unknown and uncertain especially to the persons chiesly concern'd viz. the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation and which they neither do can nor ought to know What obligation can they then have to believe it except with such a blind Faith as all Religion and Reason abhors However if they have no Faith concerning so fugitive a thing that like a shadow cannot be catch'd or like the Phantom of a Body that hath no flesh and bones to be seen and felt as all Bodies have and as Christ as it were prophetically expos'd his Body to the Experiment of when it was really there that no such Imposture concerning it should be palm'd upon the World I say if the Nobility and Gentry have no Faith of such a thing why may they not profess and declare they do not believe it For the Bishop seems either not to be awake or to dissemble a slumber that his Discourse of mens swearing to any thing his Burlesque on the famous Burgesses of Oxon and his Appeal to the Honourable Members concerning their Idea's of Transubstantiation and the Babel thence arising the whole Notion is indeed a Babalism or pertaining to Babylon the Great had been very good if the Test had requir'd them to declare their belief of such a Transubstantiation But now his Arguments hunt counter and impeach the Roman Tyranny of horrid Murthers upon persons for not believing what they neither do can nor ought to know what they can so hardly pronounce the sound of much less hammer the sturdy sullen Notion it self For who can know what there is no knowledge of But what more innocent than to declare when lawfully requir'd though before the Searcher of Hearts a man does not believe what he cannot nor ought to know nor so much as anvil a Notion of If it were never so true real knowable and worthy to be believed any one might without guilt when justly demanded to do so declare he did not believe it while he knew it not so as to find reason to believe it it were double Hypocrisie to do otherwise and all the Bishop's arguing and storying can never make it otherwise Indeed the whole recoyles upon himself and dashes out the brains of all he hath writ upon it which sure he crasly oversaw or thought all his Readers were such Fools as to be couzen'd with the gloss For if the infidelitie were ever so culpable it were a Dutie when adjur'd by a Law to declare it but how can the infidelitie be blam'd when after the Bishop's hunting down the Notion through the whole Historie of the Controversie He hath prey'd only upon a Ghost miss'd of all comprehension and he pronounces the summ and result of all to be what is meant by that Transubstantiation is a thing altogether uncertain and unknown and there is no one thing in which Christendom more both agrees and differs all Parties agree in the Thing and differ in the manner Now it so happens the Test was so sagaciously compos'd though it might lawfully have done much more that it modestly leaves the Thing free and requires only to declare a Belief of such Manner of Transubstantiation as of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the Bodie and Bloud of Christ and requires the Declarers own Belief alone and nothing of censure upon any others Belief in this branch of the Test which surely any man may lawfully make that makes it truly and seeing the whole Issue of the Notion is Scepticism the Bishop himself being Judg and what can the man do that comes after the ishop may not every man then say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I do not comprehend it therefore I do not believe it Indeed if there were Revelation for it like what there is concerning the Father Word and Spirit one God concerning the Incarnation and Hypostatic Vnion of the Eternal Word with Humane Nature leaning not on figurative expression but plain assertion wrought into all the discourse and whole Argument of Scripture all Disputes were silenc'd But when there is no pretext of Revelation but such a manner of speaking as if it were press'd alike into a literal sense through the whole Book of God it must overthrow all Theologie To refuse then a Figure there where it is so absolutely necessary that else Christ must eat his own flesh while it remain'd entire before the Apostles and drink his own bloud while it was circulating in his Veins and no amaze nor so much as question upon it is such a setting the Scripture to be broken upon the Wheel such a Barbarity as exceeds a thousandfold all the Barbarities and Inhumanities spoken of throughout the Bishop's whole Book Especially when our Lord declares in a like manner of speaking and doubts upon it His words were spirit and

life and the flesh profited nothing Why then should men bring the Scripture to the Engine to torture it into the confession of what as God speaks never came into his heart And so I may fairly dismiss the Bishop's longsom Historie of Transubstantiation seeing the mouth of his Canon turns upon himself for what he can and what should a man be shie of in declaring his Non-belief of what is against all the sense and reason of mankind what hath no ground in Revelation and what all the Wits and Subtilties the Canonists and School-men yea the very Councils of the Roman Vassalage can when set upon the utmost stretch make nothing of but a meer Babel if we may believe the Bishop in what he determines upon the whole search in favour of it Not like Solomon's conclusion of the matter into the whole of man but like the conclusion of Babel all was Jargon Nonsense Confusion and Rubbish and worse than that the conclusion will be like that of Babylon the Great a perpetual Desolation and Burning They therefore who have like Slaves bor'd their Ears to this spiritual Egyptian slavery and under the Plague of its Darkness to be even felt how just is it to disengage them from taking the Rights of their Prince and Country into their trust whether their contented Slavery rise from some weak part or a worse depravedness which inclines their always bowed down Backs and their Eyes laden with slumber under such a monstrous Bigottism I come therefore to consider of the second Proposition which however it runs in the Bishop's Text is thus express'd in the Test 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 In which although I confess in my own Judgment the very Extremity as of Sense that the words can reach are supported by the demerit of the things Declared against Yet because it is a Test publickly offered the refusal of which suspends so great an Interest as all share in Government as the Bishop expresses it It will not be unfit to observe all the Lenitives that are by the Prudence of the Composers whoever they were it makes no matter contriv'd into it 1. Therfore I do believe is prefix'd to the whole Test by common Equity of Construction to be supplyed I do believe the first Proposition That in the Sacrament c. And in the second I do believe that the Invocation c. Now it is Evident a Man may Swear to his own Belief if he knows he does really so Believe although he be mistaken in the grounds of his Belief because it is onely matter of Fact within himself 2. There is a Limitation As these things are us'd and now us'd in the Church of Rome whether by express Command or by Approbation or Connivence so that the very grossness and stupidity of the most Dull and Ignorant who stick in the very thick Matter and are able to extricate themselves as the finer Wits pretend to do are to be taken into that Vsage and that most Meritoriously seeing if the Church of Rome leads such unwary and unapprehensive Persons in Obedience to it to the very brink of the Precipice into so deep and impure a Mud and that so unnecessarily it is to be chang'd with the Vsages as in it self And then those words of the Test As it is now used signifies the first beginnings of these things were not so fresh as now they are arriv'd to be 3. In that the word Superstitious is first set as the lesser and most undoubted and then not the downright full-out word Idolatry but Idolatrous It takes off the full Blow of the Censures for Idolatry imports a great danger suspicion and nearness to Idolatry but not absolute Idolatry it self And this the Bishop ought in all candid dealing to have taken Notice of and to have allowed the Caution with which the Test is worded for the Stabbing and Cut-throat word Idolatry is not used and so the Piquancy of that his remark false But letting slip all things that do not enter into the substance of the matter it is first to be observed that absolutely and in earnest all that dreadful Representation of the punishment of Idolatry in this World is disown'd by all sober Christians and those rigid Laws or any such Zelotic Spirit of Elias as among the Jews on the account of Idolatry are reversed under the milder temper and more moderate climate of Christian Religion and the compassionate Spirit of it as repeated by our Saviour expresly in those words to the Disciples that were for demanding Fire from Heaven upon the Samaritans Luke 9.54 To which our Lord rejoyned Ye know not what spirit ye are of the Son of man came not to destroy mens lives but to save them We disown all such torrid Enthusiasm where-ever it is found upon this Authority and such Ravagings upon the Lives of men meerly for their notwithstanding so great delusions in so plain a point of Divine Worship are not so much as thought of in the Test Cruelties and inhumanities of that kind are left as the proper Inheritance of the Idolatrous who indeed cut Throats and cause innocent Persons to pass through the Fire alive in the rage of their Moloch-Sacrafice And I am fully perswaded the principal end of the Test-Act was to secure the Lives and Fortunes of a Protestant Nation from the fury and blood-thirstiness of that name of Religion by which it is as much known as the Scarlet and Purple it is arraied in and that in the Historie of some Ages past and so cannot but be still suspected The prevention indeed of such the public practise of those Superstitions and Idolatrousnesses is worthy the care of a Protestant Magistracy to prevent and to take care the Contagion may not spread much less that a Protestant Kingdom should come under the Girdle of its Ministerial Government although with all Loyalty it owns their Soveraign according to the Christian Law and of the Nation and then for to set such Bounds to it as may most indemnifie it self But for the securities of Divine Justice upon Idolatry whenever they com to be manifested they wil be just and bring their conviction along with them which may be speedier than men are aware the Measure of Iniquity growing now full as of more then one God is Idolatry so of more than one Mediator is a Parallell Idolatry And as letting fall any glances of Respect upon any Creature Person or Thing Angel or Diamon Sun Moon or Stars or the inferiour Creatures as partial Gods conveying the Benifits of the Supreme God to us is foul Idolatry so any partial or inferiour Mediators are alike Idolatry under the Gospel And as the making to our selves any likeness either in Heaven above or the Earth beneath c. as a Medium to Worship God by so the making to our selves

any likeness of the Mediator For though we had known him after the flesh yet saith the Apostle we know him so no more are alike Idolatrous How certainly then are the Invocations of the Virgin of Saints Idolatrous as giving them a share of the incommunicable Mercy Omnisciency Omnipresence seeing they are not visible to us we cannot speak with them at certain times or places we know them not we know not they know us there are no kinds of Communion between us a Vail of thick Darkness is spread betwixt us which nothing but Infinity can pierce The Infinity of the Father the Infinity of the Mediator God-man Men indeed whom we see whom we converse with to whom we can make our selves and our condition known we are allowed by God to Address to give and receive mutual Religious Respects and of Civility and Kindness according to the Stations of Honour and Subordination we stand in one to another But how both Senseless and Idolatrous would it be with hope of good to pray to any Person upon Earth at great or even at the smallest distance one from another where no Communication passes by Word Messages and Letters as in our private Closets and Thoughts this were to make them as God Omniscient Omnipresent And to pray to Saints or Angels as Mediators is Idolatry committed against the Mediator as if he had not that whole Sum of Mediatorial Mercy Grace Priviledges in himself How certainly then are their Invocations continually us'd at Rome not only Superstitious but Idolatrous And indeed all Superstition is Idolatry against the Second Commandment Devising an Image a Likeness to go to God by them How certainly are those abundance of Images Pictures Statues Representations us'd at Rome Their Incensing Bowing Kneeling uncovering the Head to Images and Pictures us'd at Rome Idolatrous For even Job's Mouth kissing his Hand was an Indication sufficient of an enticed Heart Their Elevation Adoration Geniflexian given to the Bread as the Body of Christ are of the same guilt seeing Christ was never Worshipped Bodily on Earth when his Apostles were daily with him but in the Emanations of his Divinity how much more now we are to know him no more after the flesh therefore are we not to Worship him Bodily not in an Imaginary Transubstantiation of the Elements into Flesh Doth not he abhor such a Worship For whatever we do in pretence of Worship to God and Christ that is not either the pure Issues of that Law of the Mind or of the Natural Conscience it self or is revealed to us in his Word The Worship call it how you will Dulia or an inferiour Worship not so warranted passes before God for no other but Superstition and Idolatry Even the Worship of the Man Christ Jesus onely as united to the Eternal Word is justified by Divine Revelation so tender and severe a thing is the Worship of the Holy Jealous God who as he is separated from all Creatures in his Purity and Perfection so in his Worship and tne manner of his Worship appointed only by himself And so Holy Holy Holy and infinitely separate from all Creatures is IEHOVATH the Mediator with whom none can be named even as none can know but by the Revelation of the Father All Worship therefore given to Creature-Mediators all Worship given to him not according to his Word is but Superstitious and Idolatrous in his Account How near therefore is it to the Blasphemy of which the Author confesses Idolatry is a principal instance when he speaks of the Cherubins being worshipp'd who indeed had by God's immediate Command a Place of Attendance by the Mercy-Seat this Type of Christ over which God filling the Tabernacle and so the Temple after with his Glory that none could enter and so only gave a remaining Symbol of his Presence there but likewise of God to be seen but the People are warn'd over and over to take notice they saw no Likeness or Similitude of God nor is there the least shadow of any direction of Worship to those Cherubins but to that God who was pleas'd to promise his Presence there where his Glory had appear'd in Christ the propitiation so that by pure spiritual Acts they might pray towards that place call'd by his Name without any prophaning God by sense From which he is always in an infinite retirement for sense is the Foundation of Idolatry And agreeably what was in the Holy of Holies not being seen was a warning to retire all into a spirituality and a sense of the incomprehensibleness of God the enjoyment of him being in pure spirituality And as false it is that the Scripture speaks onely of the Idolatry of Worshipping the Heavenly Body For from the heights above to what is most below the changing of the Glory of the incorruptible God with any corruptile Image or the Worship directed by the Mediation of any Image is Abomination to him as in numberless places of Scripture besides the Second Commandment particularly Duet 4.16 Rom. 1.23 For that I can hardly believe my eyes in reading the Bishop's Definition of Idolatry and so it is as to the Redeemer or one Mediator who is not to be worshipped by any Image of his Humanity nor by so despicable a Thing as Bread which he made only the Element of a spiritual Communication of himself as a most familiar Emblem without the least design of Worship to it most abhorred by him Most false it is therefore that there is no Idolatry if Men do not worship Images of false Gods or make corporeal Images of his divine Nature For Angels thô his Servants and Saints departed become false Gods and Names of Blasphemy when worshipped with any sort of Worship as the Apocaliptick Angel testifies chap. 21. v. 22. and the Host so worshipped is the Symbol of a false God as turn'd into a Likeness and Image before the jealous God and Mediator who will have all pure Spirituality in the Worship of them And yet in the mean time I must acknowledge that the Bishop hath rightly observed concerning that Idolatry which he is willing to allow to be Idolatry viz. the Worship of the heavenly Bodies and I am sure it will follow of all other Idolatry that it is to be proportionably admeasur'd to It is an iniquity to be punished by a Judge viz. By the Civil Magistrate And this determination concerning Idolatry is recorded in that admirable Book of Natural Religion the Book of Job Now the Laws of Natural Religion are irreversible and unchangeable so that were it not that in the great degeneracie of humane Nature the generality of the Nations of the World were early drench'd and even plung'd in this great evil Natures Laws had always so prevail'd Whereas alas too too soon that Government grew to weak too establish it self and were that Government the Government of the Law written in Mans Heart restor'd it must proceed with all Efficacy to the extirpating this Evil and where it was so