Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A61535
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A defence of the discourse concerning the idolatry practised in the Church of Rome in answer to a book entituled, Catholicks no idolators / by Ed. Stillingfleet ...
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Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.
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1676
(1676)
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Wing S5571; ESTC R14728
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413,642
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908
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Imprimatur G. Iane R. P. D. Henr. Episc. Lond. Ã sac domesticis June 3. 1676. A DEFENCE OF THE DISCOURSE Concerning the IDOLATRY Practised in the CHURCH OF ROME In ANSWER to a BOOK Entituled Catholicks no Idolaters By ED. STILLINGFLEET D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty The two First Parts London Printed by Robert White for Henry Mortlock at the Sign of the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard and at the White-Hart in Westminster-Hall 1676. TO THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER in GOD HENRY Lord Bishop of LONDON One of the Lords of His Majesties Most Honourable Privy Council My Lord I Have heard that in some famous Prophetick Pictures pretending to represent the Fate of England the chief thing observable in several of them was a Mole a creature blind and busie smooth and deceitful continually working under Ground but now and then to be discerned by the disturbance it makes in the Surface of the earth which is so natural a description of a restless party among us that we need no Iudge of Controversies to interpret the meaning of it Our Forefathers had sufficient Testimony of their working under Ground but in our Age they act more visibly and with that indefatigable industry that they threaten without great care to prevent them the undermining of our Church and the Ruine of our established Religion Which since they cannot hope so easily to compass alone they endeavour to draw in to their Assistance all such discontented parties who are so weak if any can be so to be prevailed on to be instruments to serve them in pulling down a Church which can never fall but they must be stifled in its Ruins One would think it were hardly possible for any to run into a snare which lies so open to their view or to flatter themselves with the vain hopes of escaping better than the Church they design to destroy But such is the admirable Wisdom of Divine Providence to order things so above all humane Discretion that when the Sins of a Nation have provoked God to forsake it he suffers those to concurr in the most pernicious Counsels for enslaving Conscience who pretend to the greatest zeal for the Liberty of it So that our Church of England in its present condition seems to stand as the Church of Corinth did of old between two unquiet and boisterous Seas and there are some very busie in cutting through the Isthmus between them to let in both at once upon it supposing that no strength will be able to withstand the force of so terrible an inundation It is a consideration that might dishearten those who are engaged in the Defence of our Religion against the common Adversaries to see that they promise themselves as much from the folly of some of their most seeming Enemies as from the interest and Power of their Friends thus like S. Paul in Macedonia we are troubled on every side without are fightings and within are fears If men did but once understand the things which belong to our Peace we might yet hope to weather out the storms that threaten us and to live as the Church hath frequently done in a tossing condition with waves beating on every side But if through Weakness or Wilfulness those things should be hid from our eyes the prospect of our future condition is much more dreadful and amazing than the present can be If it were reasonable to hope that all men would lay aside prejudice and passion and have greater regard to the Common Good than to the interests of their several parties they could not but see where our main strength lies by what our enemies are most concerned to destroy And that no men of common understanding would make use of disunited Parties to destroy one Great Body unless they were sure to master them when they had done with them And therefore the best way for their own security were to unite themselves with the Church of England That were a Blessing too great for such a People to expect whose sins have made our Breaches so wide that we have too great reason to fear the common enemy may enter through them if there be not some way found out to repair those Breaches and to build up the places which are broken down For my own part I cannot see how those who could have joyned in Communion with the Christian Church in the time of Theodosius the Great can justly refuse to do it in ours For that is the Age of the Church which our Church of England since the Reformation comes the nearest to Idolatry being then suppressed by the Imperial Edicts the Churches settled by Law under the Government of Bishops Publick Liturgies appointed Antiquity Reverenced Schism discountenanced Learning encouraged and some few Ceremonies used but without any of those corrupt mixtures which afterwards prevailed in the Roman Church And whatever men of ill minds may suggest to the disparagement of those times it is really an Honour to our Church to suffer together with that Age when the Christian Church began to be firmly settled by the Countenance of the Civil Power and did enjoy its Primitive Purity without the Poverty and Hardships it endured before And the Bishops of that time were men of that exemplary Piety of those great Abilities of that excellent Conduct and Magnanimity as set them above the contempt or reproach of any but Infidels and Apostates For then lived the Gregories the Basils the Chrysostoms in the Eastern Church the Ambroses and Augustins in the Western and they who can suspect these to have been Enemies to the Power of Godliness did never understand what it meant It were no doubt the most desirable thing in our State and Condition to see the Piety the Zeal the Courage the Wisdom of those holy Bishops revived among us in such an Age which needs the conjunction of all these together For such is the insolency and number of the open contemners of our Church and Religion such is the activity of those who oppose it and the subtilty of those who undermine it as requires all the Devotion and Abilities of those great Persons to defend it And I hope that Divine Spirit which inflamed and acted them hath not forsaken that Sacred Order among us but that it will daily raise up more who shall be able to convince Dissenters that there may be true and hearty zeal for Religion among our Prelates and those of the Church of Rome that Good Works are most agreeable to the Principles of the Reformation Nay even in this Age as bad as it is there may be as great Instances produced of real Charity and of Works of Publick and pious uses as when men thought to get Souls out of Purgatory or themselves into Heaven by what they did And if it were possible exactly to compare all Acts of this nature which have been done ever since the Reformation with what there was done of the same kind for a much longer time immediately before
Popes Toe is of the worship that is given to him Why should it be more unlawful to worship God by worshipping Fire or Water or the Earth or any inferiour creature supposing God to be the Soul of the World than it is to shew Reverence to the Pope by kissing his Toe which I suppose can be upon no other reason but because it is a part of his body which is animated by the same Soul in all the members of it 4. That Aquinas doth not therefore say that the Heathens worshipped Devils because the Supreme God whom they worshipped was an Arch-Devil as T. G. saith but because none but evil Spirits would draw men to give divine worship to any thing but God himself and then that evil Spirits did appear to heighten and encourage this devotion by acting and speaking in Images The consequence of which I desire T. G. to consider And this testimony of Aquinas is the more considerable not only for his great Authority in the Roman Church and because Pius 5. in the approbation of his Works A. D. 1567. very gravely mentions Christs speaking to him from a Crucifix when he was praying before it that he had written well concerning him it seems the Crucifix was animated too but because I find this Book so highly applauded by Possevin and others for the best account of the Christian Religion in opposition to Heathenism Card. Cajetan in his Commentaries on Aquinas speaking of the Images of God he distinguishes them into 3. sorts 1. Some that were to represent the Divinity which he utterly condemns 2. Some to set forth the appearances of God mentioned in Scripture 3. Some by way of Analogy that by sensible things we may be brought to the veneration of insensible as the Holy Ghost in the form of an old man holding a globe in his hand which last way saith he comes near to the custom of the Heathens who represented God diversly as he is the cause of divers effects as under the form of Minerva by reason of his Wisdom and the like Would Cajetan ever have parallel'd the Custome of the Church of Rome with that of the Heathens if he had thought they had only pictured the Devil under these representations In another place he puts this Question how it could be said that all the Gods of the Heathens were Devils since although they worshipped many Gods yet withal they worshipped one Supreme God To which he answers 1. That the Devils were the causes of Idolatry and so they were Devils causally though not essentially 2. That although those they worshipped were not in themselves Devils as the heavenly intelligences yet they were so as they were the Gods of the Heathens i. e. as they had divine worship given to them And the true God himself he saith was not worshipped according to what he was but according to what they conceived of him But he grants before that they conceived of him as the Supreme God which was a right conception of him but if he means it was imperfect is it not so in those who worship him most truly Martinus Peresius Ayala a learned Bishop in Spain treating the Question of the worship of Images saith expresly That S. Augustine condemned all divine worship or Latria to be given to any kind of Images not saith he in regard of their matter for there was no need to give caution against that but in regard of their representation and he calls them Idolaters which give that worship to Images which is due to God with T. G 's leave I translate Simulachra Images for so I am sure Peresius understands it Neither saith he was S. Augustine ignorant that there were few or none among the Gentiles who thought the matter of their Idols so fashioned to be Gods or God let T. G. mark that but on that account he seems to condemn them that they gave divine honour to their Images as they represented God for there were many Idols among them in which there was no Devil who gave answers but they only represented God as their benefactor neither did all the things which the Gentiles worshipped signifie a false God For there was an Altar at Athens to the unknown God Ioh. Ferus saith that the intention of the Heathens was through their Idols to give worship to the true God Now T. G. knows that humane acts dâ— certainly go whither they are intended so that according to Ferus these Heathens did truly worship the true God Athan. Kircher layes it down as a certain principle that there never was in any Age any People so rude and barbarous which did not acknowledge and worship one Supreme Deity the first principle and Governour of all things But saith he that they might teach the people that the Supreme Being whom we call God wâ—â— present in all places therefore they maâ—â— abundance of Gods in all places and ovâ—â— all things So that as Max. Tyrius saith no place was left without a Deity Petavius not only makes use of the arguments produced by the Heathens to prove one Supreme God and thinks them considerable but saith that S. Paul demonstrates mark that that the Gentile Philosophers attained to the knowledge of God by the works of Creation and quotes the saying of Max. Tyrius with approbation that however the several Nations of the world differed from each other in customs and languages and modes of worship yet they all agreed in this that there was one God Lord and Father of all and saith that the Testimony of Orosius is most true that both the Philosophers and common Heathens did believe one God the authour of all things and to whom all things are referred but that under this God they did worship many inferiour and subservient Gods and he adds that passage of S. Augustin that the Heathens supposed all their Gods to come at first out of one substance but I wonder he omitted what is very observable in the same chapter viz. that Faustus the Manichean holding two first principles saith that the Christians joyned with the Heathens in believing but one and S. Augustin confesseth that the greatest part of the Heathens did believe the same with the Christians in that point but the difference he saith lay here that they worshipped more Gods than one and therein the Manichees agreed with them and the Christians only with the Jews but the Manichees in that were worse than the Heathens that these worshipped those things for Gods which were but were not Gods but they worshipped those things which were so far from bein Gods that they were not at all Faber Faventinus in his discourse against Atheists insists upon this as an argument of some weight to prove a Deity because all mankind had so settled a notion of one first principle in their minds from which all things come and by which they were governed and however they differed in other conceptions about