after a publick and solemn repentance But that this Prince was yet a worshipper of the Sun appears by what follows when the Emperor Zenâ— had him at his mercy and made him promise fidelity to him by bowing of himself to him he to avoid the reproach of it among his People carried himself so that he seemed only to them to make his Reverence to the Sun according to the custom of his Country But it will add yet more to the conviction of T. G. and to the discovery of the Nature of Idolatry to shew that those Nations which are at this day charged with Idolatry by the Church of Rome have acknowledged one Supreme God And I shall now shew that those Idolaters who have understood their own Religion have gone upon one of these three principles either 1. that God hath committed the Government of the world under him to some inferiour Deities which was the principle of the Platonists and of the Arabians and Persians Or 2. that God is the Soul of the world and therefore the parts of it deserve divine honour which was the principle of Varro and the Stoicks Or 3. That God is of so great perfection and excellency that he is above our service and therefore what external adoration we pay ought to be to something below him which I shall shew to have been the principle of those who have given the least external adoration to the Supreme God These things I shall make appear by giving a brief account of the Idolatry of those parts of the world which the Emissaries of the Church of Rome have shewed their greatest zeal in endeavouring to convert from their Idolatries There are two Sects in the East-Indies if I may call them so from whom the several Nations which inhabit there have received what principles of Religion they have and those are the Brachmans and the Chineses and the giving account of these two will take in the ways of worship that are generally known among them For the Brachmans I shall take my account chiefly from those who have been conversant among them and had the best reason to understand their Religion Francis Xaverius who went first upon that commendable imployment of converting the Indians saith that the Brachmans told him they knew very well there was but one God and one of the learned Brachmans in his discourse with him not only confessed the same but added that on Sundays which their Teachers kept very exactly they used only this prayer I adore thee O God with thy Grace and Help for ever Tursellinus saith that he confessed this to be one of their great mysteries that there was one God maker of the world who reigns in Heaven and ought to be worshipped by men and so doth Iarricus Bartoli not only relates the same passages but gives this account of their Theology that they call the Supreme God Parabrama which in their language signifies absolutely perfect being the Fountain of all things existing from himself and free from all composition that he committed to Brama the care of all things about Religion to Wistnow another of his Sons the care of mens rights and relieving them in their necessities to a third the power over the elements and over humane bodies These three they represent by an Image with three Heads rising all out of the same trunk these are highly esteemed and prayed to for they suppose Parabrama to be at perfect ease and to have committed the care of all to them But the Brachman Padmanaba gave a more particular account of the management of all things to Abraham Rogers who was well acquainted with him and was fifteen years in those parts Next to Brama they make one Dewendre to be the Superintendent Deity who hath many more under him and besides these they have particular Deities over the several parts of the world as the Persians had They believe both good and evil Spirits and call them by several names the former they call Deütas and the other Ratsjaies and the Father of both sorts to be Brachman the son of Brama In particular cases they have some saith Mr. Lord who conversed among them and to whom Mons. Bernier refers us to one who gave a faithful account of them whom they honour as Saints and make their addresses to as for Marriage they invocate Hurmount for Health Vagenaught for success in Wars Bimohem for Relief Syer c. and I suppose incontinent persons may have someone instead of S. Mary Magdalen to pray to The custom of their daily devotion as the Brachman Padmanaba said was first to meditate of God before they rise then after they have washed themselves they repeat 24 names of God and touch 24 parts of their bodies upon Suâ— rising they say prayers and pour down water in honour of the Sun and then 〈◊〉 down upon their knees and worship him and after perform some ceremonies 〈◊〉 their Idols which they repeat in the evening The particular devotion which theâ— have to their Saints and Images aâ—â— Reliques is fully described by Boullaye-le-Gouz in his late Travels into those parts Mandelslo saith that in the time of the publick devotions they have long Lessâ—â— about the Lives and Miracles of the Saints which the Bramans make use 〈◊〉 to perswade the people to worship them Intercessors with God for them Amoâ—â— their Saints Ram is in very great estimâ—tion being the restorer of their Religiâ—â— and a great Patron of their Braman Kircher supposeth him to be the 〈◊〉 with him whom the Iaponese call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Chinese Ken Kian 〈◊〉 Kircher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Kia saith Marini and those of Tunquin Chiaga or as Marini Thic-Ca in all which parts he is in very great veneration him they look on as the great propagator of their Religion in the Eastern parts and they say he had 80000 disciples but he chose ten out of them all to disperse his opinions From whence it is supposed that the Religion of the Brachmans hath spread it self not only over Indosthan but Camboia Tunquin Cochinchina nay China it self and Iapan too where it is an usual thing for persons to drown burn or famish themselves for the honour of Xaca This Sect was brought into China 65 years after Christ from Indosthan as Trigautius or rather Matthaeus Riccius tells us for Bartoli assures us that Trigautius only published Riccius his papers in his own name which he supposes was brought in by a mistake for the Christian Religion and surely it was a very great mistake but for all that Trigautius hath found a â—trange resemblance between the Roman Religion and theirs For saith he they worship the Trinity after a certain manner with an image having three Heads and one Body they extol coelibate 〈◊〉 a high degree so as to seem to condemn marriage they forsake their Families and go up and down begging i. e. the Order of Friers
this first principle yet they all agreed in this that it was immortal and not only good in it self but the fountain of all good Which surely was no description of an Arch-Devil But what need I farther insist on those Authours of his own Church who have yielded this when there are several who with approbation have undertaken the proof of this in Books written purposely on this subject such as Raim Breganius Mutius Pansa Livius Galantes Paulus Benius Eugubinus but above all Augustinus Steuchus Eugubinus who have made it their business to prove that not only the Being of the Deity but the unity as a first principle the Wisdom Goodness Power and Providence of God were acknowledged not meerly by the Philosophers as Plato and Aristotle and their followers but by the generality of mankind But I am afraid these Books may be as hard for him to find as Trigautius was and it were well if his Principles were as hard to find too if they discover no more learning or judgement than this that the Supreme God of the Heathens was an Arch-Devil But T. G. saith that the Father of Gods and men among the Heathens was according to the Fathers an Arch-Devil Is it not possible for you to entertain wild and absurd opinions your selves but upon all occasions you must lay them at the doors of the Fathers I have heard of a place where the people were hard put to it to provide God-fathers for their Children at last they resolved to choose two men that were to stand as God-fathers for all the Children that were to be born in the Parish just such a use you make of the Fathers they must Christen all your Brats and how foolish soever an opinion be if it comes from you it must presently pass under the name of the Fathers But I shall do my endeavour to break this bad custome of yours and since T. G. thinks me a scarce-revolted Presbyterian I shall make the right Father stand for his own Children And because this is very material toward the true understanding the Nature of Idolatry I shall give a full account of the sense of the Fathers in this point and not as T. G. hath done from one single passage of a learned but by their own Church thought heretical Father viz. Origen presently cry out the Fathers the Fathers Which is like a Country Fellow that came to a Gentleman and told him he had found out a brave Covie of Partridges lying in such a Field the Gentleman was very much pleased with the news and presently asked him how many there were what half a score No. eight No. Six No. Four No. But how many then are there Sir saith the Country Fellow it is a Covie of one I am afraid T. G 's Covie of Fathers will hardly come to one at last Iustin Martyr is the eldest genuine Father extant who undertook to reprove the Gentiles for their Idolatry and to defend the Christian worship In his Paraenesis to the Greeks he takes notice how hardly the wiser Gentiles thought themselves dealt with when all the Poetical Fables about their Gods were objected against them just as some of the Church of Rome do when we tell them of the Legends of their Saints which the more ingenuous confess to be made by men who took a priviledge of feigning and saying any thing as well as the Heathen Poets but they appealed for the principles of their Religion to Plato and Aristotle both whom he confesses to have asserted one Supreme God although they differed in their opinions about the manner of the formation of things by him Afterwards he saith That the first Authour of Polytheism among them viz. Orpheus did plainly assert one Supreme God and the making of all things by him for which he produces many verses of his and to the same purpose an excellent testimony of Sophocles viz. that in truth there is but one God who made Heaven and Earth and Sea and Winds but the folly and madness of mankind brought in the Images of Gods and when they had offered sacrifices and kept solemnities to these they thought themselves Religious He farther shews that Pythagoras delivered to his disciples the unity of God and his being the cause of all things and the fountain of all good that Plato being warned by Socrates his death durst not oppose the Gods commonly worshipped but one may guess by his Writings that his meaning as to the inferiour Deities was that they who would have them might and they who would not might let them alone but that himself had a right opinion concerning the true God That Homer by his golden chain did attribute to the Supreme God a Power over all the rest and that the rest of the Deities were near as far distant from the Supreme as men were and that the Supreme was he whom Homer calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God himself which signifies saith Iustin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the truely existent Deity and that in Achilles his Shield he makes Vulcan represent the Creation of the world From these arguments he perswades the Greeks to hearken to the Revelation which the true and Supreme God had made of himself to the world and to worship him according to his own Will In his Apologies to the Roman Emperours Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius and the Roman Senate and People for so Baronius shews that which is now called the first was truely the second and that not only written to the Senate but to the Emperour too who at that time was Marcus Aurelius as Eusebius saith and Photius after him he gives this account of the State of the Controversie then so warmly managed about Idolatry that it was not whether there were one Supreme God or no or whether he ought to have divine worship given to him but whether those whom the Gentiles called Gods were so or no and whether they or dead men did deserve any divine honour to be given to them and lastly that being supposed whether this honour ought to be given to Images or no For every one of these Iustin speaks distinctly to As to their Gods he denies that they deserved any divine worship because they desired it and were delighted with it From whence as well as from other arguments he proves that they could not be true Gods but evil Daemons that those who were Christians did only worship the true God the Father of all vertue and goodness and his Son who hath instructed both men and Angels for it is ridiculous to think that in this place Iustin should assert the worship of Angels equal with the Father and Son and before the Holy Ghost as some great men of the Church of Rome have done and the Prophetick Spirit in Spirit and truth In another place he saith that they had no other crime to object against the Christians but that they did not
aether and Earth and Heaven and all things and if there be any thing above all Jupiter is it and Clemens is so far from thinking this an improper speech that he saith it was spoken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a great deal of decency and gravity concerning God By this it appears that they who boast so much of the Fathers are not over conversant with them but Father Bellarmine or Father Coccius serves them for a whole Iury of them But I commend T. G. for his modesty for when he had said this was the sense of the Fathers he produces no more but good Father Origen and he is so kind hearted to him that though I believe he hath heard how he hath been condemned for a Heretick yet he with great judgement supposes that what he said was the common sense of the Fathers But besides this Clemens quotes a saying of Heraclitus approved by Plato wherein the only Wise Being is called by the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Iove And to shew that one Supreme Being was received among the Greeks he cites farther an express testimony of Timaeus Locrus wherein he saith there is one unbegotten principle of all things for if it were begotten it were no first principle but that out of which it were begotten would be that principle which Clemens parallels with that saying of Scripture Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is one God and him only shalt thou serve I omit the testimonies of Authors cited before but to them he adds Diphilus the Comaedian who was a little younger than Menander and lived in the time of the first Ptolemy who speaks plainly concerning the omniscience providence and justice of God in the verses cited out of him and calls God the Lord of all whose very name is dreadful and whose words afterwards are so full of Emphasis that I cannot forbear setting them down although I beg pardon for mixing so much of a foreign language in an English discourse he bids those men look to it who presume upon Gods patience because he doth not at present punish them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Look to it you that think there is no God There is there is if any man do ill Let him think time is gain For certainly Suffer he shall for what he hath done amiss But withal he quotes a saying of Xenocrates Chalcedonius wherein he calls God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Supreme Iove and another of Archilochus Parius a very ancient Poet in the 23 Olympiad saith S. Cyril of Alexandria wherein he begins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O Iove thy Power is in Heaven and thou seest all that is done there whether good or evil and Menander saith that God is in all things good and Aeschylus celebrates the mighty power of God to this purpose Think not that God is like to what thou seest Thou knowest him not for he is like to that which cannot be touched or seen He makes the mountains tremble and the Sea to rage when his commanding eye doth on them look For the great God can do what he thinks fit But Diphilus saith yet farther Honour him alone that is the Father of all good things From all which Clemens concludes that the East and West the North and South have one and the same anticipation concerning the Government of one Supreme Disposer of things because the knowledge of his most common operations have equally reached to all but especially to the inquisitive Philosophers of Greece who have attributed a wise Providence to the invisible and only and most powerful and most skilful contriver of all things Although these things might be sufficient to convince a modest man that the Gentiles who were charged with Idolatry by the Primitive Fathers did agree in the acknowledgement of one Supreme Deity and were so thought to do by those who managed that charge against them yet I shall proceed from Clemens to Origen his disciple and see if the state of the Controversie were altered in his time The dispute between Celsus and him did not at all depend on this whether there were one Supreme God or no or whether Soveraign worship did belong to him for Celsus freely acknowledged both these I know Origen several times charges him with being an Epicurean but whatever his private opinion was he owns none of the Epicurean principles about Religion in his Book against the Christians wherein he declares himself to be both for God and Providence He calls God the universael Reason he acknowledges him to be the maker of all immortal beings and that all things are from him and saith that God is common to all good and standing in need of nothing and without envy nay he calls him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great God and saith that men ought to undergo any torments rather than to think or speak any thing unworthy of him that he is at no time to be forsaken by us neither night nor day in publick or private in our thoughts or actions but our soul ought always to be intent upon him Thus far Celsus seems a good Christian what is the matter then between Origen and him that they could not agree about Divine Worship since Celsus doth acknowledge the supreme excellency of God and consequently that Soveraign Worship is only due to him Why the dispute lay in this point Celsus contended with great vehemency that since God made use of inferiour spirits to govern the World that those ought to have divine honours given to them according to the customs of their several Countries that this tended more to the honour of the supreme Deity for that devotion saith he is more perfect which passeth through all to him that it was not to be conceived that God should envy the honour of his own Ministers but we ought rather to suppose that the Great God is better pleased with it So that all that Celsus pleaded for was either an inferiour service of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or at the utmost but a Relative Latria a divine worship which was to fall after an inferiour manner upon the lower Gods but to be finally terminated upon the supreme To this Origen answers two ways 1. By shewing that these inferiour Deities were not good Angels but Daemons i. e. evil Spirits which he proves many ways but chiefly by this that they seemed so covetous of divine worship from men 2. By insisting on this as the fundamental principle of worship in the Christian Religion that divine worship is to be given only to God himself and to his Son Christ Iesus This he inculcates upon all occasions this he lays down in the beginning of his Book that God alone is to be worshipped all other things whether they have beings or have not are to be passed by and although some of them may deserve honour
Stoicks forbear adultery and so may the Epicureans but the former do it because it is a thing repugnant to Nature and civil Society the latter because allowing themselves this single pleasure may debar them of many more so saith he in this matter those barbarous Nations forbear Images on other accounts than Iews and Christians do who dare not make use of this way of worshipping God Observe that he doth not say this of the way of worshipping false Gods or Images for Gods but of worshippin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Deity And he gives three principal reasons wherein they differed from those Nations 1. Because this way of worship did disparage the Deity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 again by drawing it down to matter so fashioned 2. Because the evil spirits were apt to harbour in those Images and to take pleasure in the sacrifices there offered which reason as far as it respects the blood of Sacrifices doth relate to the Heathen Images standing over the Altars at which the Sacrifices were offered But then Celsus might say what is all this to the purpose my question is why you have no Images in your own way of worship therefore he adds his third reason which made it utterly unlawful for Christians as well as Iews to worship them which is the Law of God mentioned before now I say if Origen answered pertinently he must give this as the Reason why Christians used no Images in their own way of worship and consequently was so far from thinking the worship of Images indifferent that he thought Christians ought rather to suffer Martyrdom than to worship them But to put this beyond possibility of contradiction Origen mentions a saying of Heraclitus objected by Celsus that it is a foolish thing to pray to Images unless a man know the Gods and Heroes worshipped by them which saying Celsus approves and saith the Christians were Fools because they utterly contemned Images in totum the Latin interpreter renders it To which Origen thus answers we acknowledge that God may be known and his only Son and those whom he hath honoured with the Title of Gods who partake of his Divinity and are different from the Heathen Deities which the Scripture calls Devils i.e. causally if not essentially as Cajetan distinguisheth but saith he it is impossible for him that knows God to worship Images Mark that he doth not say it is impossible for him that knows the Idols of the Heathens to worship them or the evil spirits that lurk in their Images but for him that knows the true God and his Son Christ Iesus and the holy Angels to do it Is it possible after this to believe that Origen supposed the worship of Images to be indifferent in it self and that God and Christ and Angels might be lawfully worshipped by them Was all this only periculum offensionis jealousie of offence before the Heathen Idolatry was rooted out Which supposition makes the primitive Christians in plain terms jugglers and impostors to pretend that to be utterly unlawful even for themselves to do and to mean no more by it but this yes it is unlawful to do it while there is any danger of Heathenism but when once that is overthrown then we may worship Images as well as the best of them For my part I believe the primitive Christians to have been men of so much honesty and integrity that they would never have talked at this rate against the worship of Images as not only Origen but the rest of them the best and wisest among them did as I have shewed in the foregoing Chapter if they had this secret reserve in their minds that when Heathenism was sunk past recovery then they might do the same things which they utterly condemned now Which would be just like some that we have heard of who while there was any likelyhood of the Royal Authority of this Nation recovering itself then they cry'd out upon Kingly Government as illegal Tyrannical and Antichristian but when the King was murdered and the power came into their own hands then it was lawful for the Saints to exercise that power which was not fit to be enjoyed by the Wicked of the World So these men make the most excellent Christians to be like a pack of Hypocrites The Heathens every where asked them as may be seen in Lactantius Arnobius Minucius and others as well as Origen what is the matter with you Christians that you have no Images in your Churches what if you dare not joyn with us in our worship why do not you make use of them in your own Is it only humour singularity and affectation of Novelty in You If it be you shew what manner of men you are No truly say they gravely and seriously we do it not because we dare not do it for we are afraid of displeasing and dishonouring God by it and we will on that account rather choose to dye than do it Upon such an answer the Heathens might think them honest and simple men that did not know what to do with their lives who were so willing to part with them on such easie terms But if they had heard the bottom of all this was only a cunning and sly trick to undermine Paganism and that they meant no such thing as though it were unlawful in it self but only unlawful till they had gotten the better of them what would they have thought of such men no otherwise than that they were a company of base Hypocrites that pretended one thing and meant another and that the Wicked of the World might not worship Images but the Saints might when they had the Power in their hands although before they declaimed against it as the most vile mean and unworthy way of worship that ever came into the heads of men that there could be no Religion where it obtained that it was worse than the worship of Beasts that it was more reasonable to worship the artificers themselves than the Images made by them that rats and mice had less folly than mankind for they had no fears of what men fell down before with trembling and great shews of devotion These and many such things as these the Fathers speak freely openly frequently on all occasions in all places against the worship of Images and after all this was no more meant by it but only this Thou O Heathen must not worship Images but I may And why not as well might the Heathen reply Thou must not commit adultery but I may Does the nature of the commands you boast so much of alter with mens persons Is that indeed lawful for you that is not for us Where doth the Law of Moses say Thou shalt not worship the Images that we worship but thou maist worship the Images that Christians worship And if the Law makes no difference either leave off your foolish babbling against our Images or condemn your own For to our understanding yours are as much against the Law as ours are
to the supreme God inferiour worship to the Gods under Him and so proportionably till they came to their Heroes or Deified persons to whom they allowed the lowest kind and degree of worship For it is a palpable mistake in any who think they did give the same degrees of honour and worship to all Plutarch saith That Plato did put a difference between the worship of Coelestial Gods and Daemons and so did Xenocrates between the worship of Gods and good Daemons and those sowre and morose and vindictive Spirits which lived in the Air. Plato he tells us made it the office of good Daemons to carry mens Prayers to the Gods and to bring from them Oracles and other Divine Gifts and so their worship must be suitable to their imployment which is inferiour to that of the Coelestial Deities whose station and employment was more immediately under the supreme God Apuleius thus reckons up the order of Deities according to Plato 1. The supreme God the Author and Ruler of all 2. The Coelestial Deities spiritual immortal good and infinitely happy to whom the Government of things is committed next under God but because they supposed no immediate communication between these Coelestial Gods and men therefore they ranked between them and men 3. Daemons as Intercessors between the Gods and men who were subservient to the Coelestial Gods 4. The lowest sort of Daemons he saith are souls discharged of the body which if they take care of their posterity are called Lares or domestick Gods Lar in the old Hetruscan Language signifies a Prince thence the Lares are the Gods of Families and those who were good had the Title of Gods for honours sake conferred upon them as he speaks But he confesses That there was a peculiar honour belonging to the supreme God Cum sit summi Deorum hic honor proprius and him they did solemnly invocate as not only appears by frequent passages in Plato but by that of Boethius For as Plato saith we ought to invocate the divine assistance in the least affairs therefore in so great a matter invocandum rerum omnium Patrem we ought to call upon God the Father of all things Next after him they prayed to the Coelestial Deities which prayers the inferiour order of Spirits was to carry up and to bring down answers So that the addresses were made to the Coelestial Deities which the Aereal Daemons carried to them saith Apuleius to keep a due distance between Gods and men And although the other Platonists differ from Apuleius in the manner of reckoning up the several orders of inferiour Deities as may be seen in Alcinous Proclus Iamblichus and others yet they all agree in making one Supreme God the First Author and Cause of all things and therefore making an infinite distance between him and his Creatures and that there are several degrees of the Beings that are to be worshipped under him some as the Bestowers of Blessings but subordinate to the supreme and others only as Intercessors between the Gods and Men. Diogenes Laertius saith of Pythagoras That he charged his Disciples not to give equal degrees of honour to the Gods and Heroes Herodotus saith of the Greeks That they worshipped Hercules two waies one as an immortal Deity and so they sacrificed to him and another as a Hero and so they celebrated his memory Isocrates distinguisheth between the Honours of Heroes and Gods when he speaks of Menelaus and Helena but the distinction is no where more fully expressed than in the Greek inscription upon the Statue of Regilla wife to Herodes Atticus as Salmasius thinks which was set up in his Temple at Triopium and taken from the Statue it self by Sirmondus where it is said That she had neither the honour of a Mortal nor yet that which was proper to the Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If any ask wherein the difference of these honours lay Lilius Gyraldus saith That the Gods were worshipped to the East the Heroes to the West Vossius thinks That among the Greeks and Romans it lay in having their Images carried in the publick Processions but without Sacrifices and their names put into the Saliar Hymns at Rome and inserted into the Peplus of Minerva at Athens Hesychius makes the honour of a Hero to lie in a Temple a Statue and a Fountain but Plutarch in the Life of Alexander saith That he sent to the Oracle of Ammon to know whether Hephaestion should be made a God or no the Oracle answered That they should honour him and sacrifice to him as to a Hero whence we observe that the material act of sacrifice as T. G. speaks might be common to Gods and Heroes but the inward intention of the mind made the great difference between their worship besides that which is expressed in the Inscription of Regilla viz. that the honour of one sort was looked on as a voluntary Act but the other was a necessary duty they might sacrifice and pray to the Heroes who were the Beati amongst them but no man was absolutely bound to do it but those who were devout and Religious would as Salmasius there explains the words of the Inscription And it is observed by the Criticks that among the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are words of a different importance i. e. in the Language of the Court of Rome to Beatify and to Canonize For I perceive the Heathen Heroes did stand upon their preferment as well as the Roman Saints and those who had been Beatified a competent time came to be Canonized at last So Plutarch saith of Isis and Osiris Hercules and Bacchus that for their Vertues of good Daemons they were promoted to Deities and of Lampsaca That she had at first only Heroical honour given her and afterwards came to Divine It seems by the Inscription of Herodes and by the Testament of Epicteta extant in Greek in the Collection of Inscriptions that it was in the power of particular Families to keep Festival daies in honour of some of their own Family and to give Heroical honours to them In that noble Inscription at Venice we find three daies appointed every year to be kept and a Confraternity established for that purpose with the Laws of it the first day to be observed in Honour of the Muses and Sacrifices to be offered to them as Deities the second and third in honour of the Heroes of the Family between which honour and that of Deities they shewed the difference by the distance of time between them and the preference given to the other But wherein soever the difference lay that there was a distinction acknowledged among them appears by this passage of Valerius in his excellent Oration extant in Dionysius Halicarnass I call saith he the Gods to witness whose Temples and Altars our Family hath worshipped with common Sacrifices and next after them I call the Genii of our
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