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
of Divine worship and see upon what grounds they become guilty of Idolatry which will not reach home to themselves Card. Bessarion hath written an elaborate vindication of Plato against Trapezuntius wherein he shews that Plato did assert the Unity Power and Goodness of God and the Creation of all things by him and that he doth this frequently and constantly in his Parmenides Phaedrus Phaedo Philebus Timaeus Sophista Laws Politicks Epistles every where But Trapezuntius charges Plato that although he did acknowledge God he did not worship him and that he sacrificed only to the inferiour Gods to this Bessarion answers that in his Books of Laws which were made for the People he doth not expresly prescribe any worship to God under the name of One or First or Ineffable which were the Titles he had given him in his Dialogues and were not known to the People but in his eighth book of Laws he appoints twelve solemn Feasts to the twelve Gods of whom Iupiter was chief under which name the Supream God was known among the People than which name in the proper importance of it none could have been more significant of the Nature of the Supreme God and that he retained the other common names of the Gods worshipped among them that he might not seem to innovate any thing in Religion although the Philosophers understood them in another sense than the common people did by Iove they meant the First Being or Supreme Deity by Minerva Wisdom by Mercury Reason by Saturn Eternity by Neptune Form by Iuno Matter by Venus Nature by Apollo the Sun by Pan the Universe but when they spake to the People about the worship of them they did not mention Wisdom or Reason or Eternity but Minerva Mercury Saturn and he saith it would have been folly in them to have done otherwise the People being accustomed to worship the Gods under these names and nothing more was requisite but to make them understand them aright But for Plato himself he saith he worshipped the Supreme God after the best manner i. e. with inward Reverence and adoration in Plato's own expressions by thinking the best and most worthy things of him which Bessarion interprets in Spirit and in Truth and he adds that Plato looked on Sacrifices and Images as unworthy of him who was a pure mind and could not be represented by any Image to men But Plato's Adversary charges him with giving the worship of Latria to inferiour Gods and Creatures to which Bessarion saith that Latria among the Heathens signified only a stricter kind of service which some men paid to others that were above them and that the worship by sacrifice by a long custome from the time of Zamolxis and Orpheus was looked on as common to all things worshipped by them but saith he he referred all that worship which others gave to many and different Gods to the First and Chief Principle of all things and again mentions that saying in his Epinomis that the most suitable worship of God is to think honourably of him Which I suppose Plato would have said was the same thing which those of the Church of Rome call Latria and that he could by no means understand how sacrifices come to be appropriated to it and to this purpose Bessarion quotes the saying of Porphyrius that God is to be worshipped in Silence and with a pure mind and with the sacrifice of a good life And as to other Deities which Plato allowed to be worshipped he saith that he supposed them to be inferiour and subordinate to the Supreme and dependent upon him and that he did not worship empty Statues but one God the principle of all Which being compared with Plato's Law and practice about worshipping according to the Custome of the Countrey doth imply that he worshipped Images with a respect to the True God Let now the Reader judge whether according to the judgement of this learned Cardinal Plato was guilty of worshipping only the Images of false Gods But Trapezuntius still urges hard upon Plato that if he allowed the worship of a second and third Order of Gods which were but creatures he might on the same ground worship any creatures because all creatures are infinitely distant from the Creator Bessarion like an understanding man tells him that this argument would hold as well against the Church of Rome as against Plato which worships Angels although they be Creatures but yet he doth not think the argument will reach to the worship of all creatures because though all creatures be equally distant as to existence yet some come nearer than others as to perfection This Trapezuntius takes off by saying that Plato worshipped Daemons which Bessarion grants but by Daemons he saith Plato and Aristotle and other Philosophers did not understand such evil Spirits as we do but certain aereal Beings lower than Gods and above men whom they looked on as Mediators and intercessours between God and men but for evil Spirits he saith they were not received into their Religion and that Lucifer was looked on as accursed by them under the name of Ate. And he shews farther from S. Augustin that all the Poetical Theology was rejected by Plato So that the whole dispute with Plato about worship must come to these two points 1. Whether it be lawful to worship the Supreme God by external and visible representations supposing that a man direct his intention aright towards the honour of God by them 2. Whether it be lawful to give an inferiour worship to any Created Beings whose excellencies are supposed to be far above mens in order to their intercession between God and Us And now let T. G. judge whether I have not brought my Discourse home to their own doors I omit Marsilius Ficinus as a man that may be supposed too partial to Plato but I hope Augustinus Steuchus Eugubinus may pass for a sound Catholick being an Italian Bishop and a Roman Courtier that had so much zeal as to vindicate Constantines Donation against Valla and therefore his Testimony cannot be rejected He undertakes at large to prove that Plato acknowledged one True and Supreme God and that all other Beings are created by him and when he seems to attribute Divinity to other things it is only a Divinity by way of gift and participation such as Angels and holy men are said to have which doth not hinder our believing them to be all at first created by one God There were three sorts of inferiour Deities he saith asserted by the Philosophers viz. Daemons or Gods with aërial bodies who have a particular care of humane affairs Intelligences or the Spirits which animate and move the Stars and Coelestial Deities who converse with the Supreme God now all these he makes appear from many passages in Plato especially the famous one in his Timaeus to have been made by God And that when in his Books of Laws and the Epinomis or Appendix to
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
God-head which was to be seen by the things that were made so as to leave them without excuse Was this their knowing of God and that incorruptible God whose glory they turned into the Image of a corruptible man c Was all this nothing but Iupiter of Crete and the Arch-Devil under his name But what will not men say rather than confess themselves Idolaters Although these Testimonies of Scriture be never so evident yet I am not sure but T. G. may be the Polus mentioned in Erasmus now whom he mentions for my sake more than once and may espy a red fiery Dragon even the old Serpent there where I can see nothing but the discovery of the True God Therefore supposing that the Testimony of Heathens or the Scriptures may not weigh much with him methinks he might have considered what the Learned men of their own Church have said to this purpose Th. Aquinas confesseth that the most of the Gentiles did acknowledge one Supreme God from whom they said all those others whom they called Gods did receive their being and that they ascribed the name of Divinity to all immortal substances chiefly by reason of their wisdom happiness and Government Which custom of speaking saith he is likewise found in Scripture where either the holy Angels or Men and Iudges are called Gods I have said Ye are Gods and many other places Franciscus Ferrariensis in his Commentaries on that place saith that Aquinas his meaning was that the Scripture only agreed with the Heathens as to the name but that they called their Gods properly so whereas the Scripture speaks of them only by way of participation And did Aquinas mean any otherwise of the Heathens when he saith that all their inferiour Gods derived their very being from the Supreme The same Aquinas in his Book purposely written against the Gentiles gives this account of their Principles of Religion that some of them held one God the first and universal principle of all things but withall all they gave Divine Worship Latriam next to the Supreme God to intellectual substances of a heavenly nature which they call Gods whether they were substances separated from bodies or the Souls of the heavenly Orbs and Stars in the next place to intellectual substances united to aerial bodies which they called Daemons whom they made Gods in respect of men and thought they deserved divine worship from men as being Mediatours between the Gods and them and in the last place to the Souls of good men as being raised to a higher state than that of this present life Others of them suppossing God to be the Soul of the World did believe that divine worship was to be given to the whole world and the several parts of it not for the sake of the Body but the Soul which they said was God as a wise man hath honour given him not for the sake of his Body but of his mind Others again asserted that things below men as Images might have divine worship given to them in as much as they did participate of a Superiour nature either from the influence of heavenly bodies or the presence of some Spirits which Images they called Gods and from thence they were called Idolaters And so he proves that they were who acknowledging one first principle did give divine worship to any other being because it weakens the notion and esteem we ought to have of the Supreme Being to give divine worship to any other besides him as it would lessen the honour of a King for any other Person to have the same kind of respect shewed to him which we express to the King and because this divine worship is due to God on the account of Creation which is proper only to him and because he is properly Lord over us and none else besides him and he is our great and last end which are all of them great and weighty reasons why divine worship should be appropriated to God alone But saith he although this opinion which makes God a separate Being and the first Cause of all intellectual Beings be true yet that which makes God the Soul of the World though it be farther from truth gives a better account of giving divine worship to created Beings For then they give that divine worship to God himself for according to this principle the several parts of the world in respect of God are but as the several members of a mans body in respect of his Soul But the most unreasonable opinion he saith is that of animated Images because those cannot deserve more worship than either the Spirits that animate them or the makers of them which ought not to have divine worship given them besides that by lying Oracles and wicked Counsels these appear to have been Evil Spirits and therefore deserve no worship of us From hence he saith it appears that because divine worship is proper only to God as the first principle and none but an ill disposed rational Being can excite men to the doing such unlawful things as giving the worship proper to God to any other Being that men were drawn to Idolatry by the instigation of evil Spirits which coveted divine honours to themselves and therefore the Scripture saith they worshipped Devils and not God From which remarkable Testimony we may take notice of these things 1. That he confesseth many of the Gentiles whom he charges with Idolatry did believe and worship the Supreme God as Creator and Governour of the world 2. That divine worship is so proper to the true God that whosoever gives it to any created being though in it self of real excellency and considered as deriving that excellency from God is yet guilty of Idolatry 3. That relative Latria being given to a creature is Idolatry for so he makes it to be in those who supposed God to be the Soul of the world And I desire T. G. or any other cunning Sophister among them to shew me why a man may not as lawfully worship any part of the world with a relative Latria supposing God to be the Soul of the world as any Image or Crucifix whatsoever For if union contact or relation be a sufficient ground for relative Latria in one case it will be in the other also and I cannot but wonder so great a judgement as Aquinas had should not either have made him justifie the Heathens on this supposition or condemn the Christians in giving Latria i. e. proper divine worship to the Cross. For there is not any shadow of reason produced by him for the one which would not held have much more for the other For if the honour of the Image is carried to the Prototype is not the honour of the members of the Body to the mind that animates them If the Image deserve the same worship with the person represented by it is not much more any part of the body capable of receiving the honour due to the Person as the
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
worship the same Gods with them nor offer up libations and the smoak of sacrifices to dead men Nor crown and worship Images that they agreed with Menander who said we ought not to worship the work of mens hands not because Devils dwelt in them but because men were the makers of them And he wondered they could call them Gods which they knew to be without soul and dead and to have no likeness to God it was not then upon the account of their being animated by evil Spirits that the Christians rejected this worship for then these reasons would not have held All the resemblance they had was to those evil Spirits that had appeared among men for that was Iustins opinion of the beginning of Idolatry that God had committed the Government of all things under the heavens to particular Angels but these Angels prevaricating by the love of Women did upon them beget Daemons that these Daemons were the great corrupters of mankind and partly by frightful apparitions and by instructing men in Idolatrous rites did by degrees draw men to give them divine worship the people not imagining them to be evil Spirits and so were called by such names as they liked best themselves as Neptune Pluto c. But the true God had no certain name given to him for saith he Father and God and Creator and Lord and Master are not names but titles arising from his works and good deeds and God is not a name but a notion engrafted in humane nature of an unexpressible Being But that God alone is to be worshipped appears by this which is the great command given to Christians Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve with all thy heart and with all thy strength even the Lord God that made thee Where we see the force of the argument used by Iustin in behalf of the Christians lay in Gods peremptory prohibition of giving divine worship to any thing but himself and that founded upon Gods right of dominion over us by vertue of creation In his Book of the Divine Monarchy he shews that although the Heathens did make great use of the Poets to justifie their Polytheism yet they did give clear testimony of one Supreme Deity who was the Maker and Governour of all things for which end he produces the sayings of Aeschylus Sophocles Orpheus Pythagoras Philemon Menander and Euripides all very considerable to this purpose In his works there is extant the resolution of several Questions by a Greek Philosopher and the Christians reply in which nothing can be more evident than that it was agreed on both sides that there was one Supreme God infinitely good powerful and wise Nay the Greek Philosopher looks upon the ignorance of God as a thing impossible because all men naturally agree in the knowledge of God But there are plain evidences in that Book that it is of later date than Iustins time therefore instead of insisting any more on that I shall give a farther proof that in his time it could be no part of the dispute between the Christians and Heathens whether there were one Supreme God that ought to be worshipped by men and that shall be from that very Emperour to whom Eusebius saith Iustin Martyr did make his second Apology viz. M. Aurelius Antoninus It is particularly observed of him by the Roman Historians that he had a great zeal for preserving the Old Roman Religion and Iul. Capitolinus saith that he was so skilful in all the practices of it that he needed not as it was common for one to prompt him because he could say the prayers by heart and he was so confident of the protection of the Gods that he bids Faustina not punish those who had conspired against him for the Gods would defend him his zeal being pleasing to them and therefore Baronius doth not wonder that Iustin and other Christians suffered Martyrdom under him But in the Books which are left of his writing we may easily discover that he firmly believed an eternal Wisdom and Providence which managed the World and that the Gods whose veneration he commends were looked on by him as the subservient Ministers of the Divine Wisdom Reverence the Gods saith he but withal he saith honour that which is most excellent in the world that which disposeth and Governs all which sometimes he calls the all-commanding reason sometimes the Mind and Soul of the World which he expresly saith is but one And in one place he saith that there is but one World and one God and one substance and one Law and one common reason of intelligent beings and one Truth But the great objection against such Testimonies of Antoninus and others lies in this that these only shew the particular opinions of some few men of Philosophical minds but they do not reach to the publick and established Religion among them which seemed to make no difference between the Supreme God and other Deities from whence it follows that they did not give to him any such worship a◠belonged to him Which being the most considerable objection against the design of this present discourse I shall here endeavour to remove it before I produce any farther testimonies of the Fathers For which we must consider wherei◠the Romans did suppose the solemn and outward acts of their Religion to consist viz. in the worship appropriated 〈◊〉 their Temples or in occasional prayers and vows or in some parts of divination whereby they supposed God did make known his mind to them If I can therefore prove that the Romans did in an extraordinary manner make use of all these acts of Religious worship to the Supreme God it will then necessarily follow that the controversie between the Fathers and them about Idolatry could not be about the worship of one Supreme God but about giving Religious worship to any else besides him The Worship performed in their Temples was the most solemn and frequent among them in so much that Tully saith therein the people of Rome exceeded all Nations in the world but the most solemn part of that Worship was that which was performed in the Capitol at Rome and in the Temple of Iupiter Latialis in Alba and both these I shall prove were dedicated to the Supreme God The first Capitol was built at Rome by Numa Pompilius and called by Varro the old Capitol which stood at a good distance from the place where the foundations of the great Temple were laid by Tarquinius Priscus the one being about the Cirque of Flora the other upon the Tarpeian Mountain There is so little left of the memory of the former that for the design of it we are to judge by the general intention of Numa as to the worship of the Deity of which Plutarch gives this account That he forbad the Romans making any Image of God either like to men or beast because the First Being is
wood and silver and Gold to be Gods and consequently give divine worship to them but if these are infinitely distant from each other as far as the clay is from the Potter which forms and fashions it why are we charged with impiety for not giving the same honour to the Clay that we do to the infinitely wise Framer of these things And if the artificer shews his skill in the vessels he makes the honour is given to him and not to the vessels so it is here the honour and glory is not to be given to the matter but to the wise contriver who is God himself therefore if we look upon any of the several parts of matter as Gods we shall thereby discover how little sense we have of the true God by making things corruptible equal to him that is eternal But wherein could they make them equal not believing them to be equal in Power and Wisdom for he supposed before that one Supreme God was allowed on both sides it could be therefore no otherwise than by giving divine honour to the creature as well as to the Creator and that not for their own sakes for he still supposeth them to be thought the Works of God but although it were designed to give honour to the Supreme Architect by falling down before any parts of matter he thought it as senseless and unreasonable a thing as for a man to honour an artificer by falling down before his Work It was not then we see the supposing evil Spirits to dwell in Images which made the Christians so peremptorily deny divine worship to them but because in so doing they should make the creature equal to the Creator Although saith he the beauty and greatness and capacity and figure and order of the world deserve our admiration yet we ought not to worship the world but only the Maker of it As when any of your Subjects make their addresses to you would it be well taken for them to pass you by and turn themselves to your Palaces but men are not so foolish as to do so but they admire the beauty and excellency of them in passing by and pay their whole respect and service to your selves If we look upon the World as a Musical instrument well tuned and harmoniously struck we ought not therefore to worship the instrument but him that makes the Musick and those who are the Iudges at the Musick exercises do not crown the Vial but him that plaid upon it If it be said that all this proceeds upon the supposition that the Supreme God is passed by and hath no peculiar honour given to him I answer 1. The contrary appears by what I have already said for they did give particular honour to the Supreme Deity as such 2. It is unreasonable to suppose that those who believe one Supreme God to be the Maker of all things should in their inward intention wholly pass him by in the worship they give to his creatures Mr. Thorndike indeed saith suposing in a man as uncorrupted opinion of the incomparable distance that indeed is found between God and the most excellent of his creatures it is impossible for him to attribute the honour due to God alone to that which he conceiveth to be a meer creature Which would be true if all the honour due to God did lie only in the inward esteem of our minds but as Card. Tolet well observes although Idolatry do suppose an errour in the mind yet that errour lies in judging that to deserve divine honour which doth not which may be consistent with the belief of the Supreme excellency of God And I do not deny that those who acknowledge one Supreme God may have their minds so corrupted as to judge it fit to give that divine worship to a Creature which is only due to the Creator but I say it is unreasonable to suppose that as long as they acknowledge them to be creatures they should not give at least that relative Latria to them which T. G. saith is carried to the Creator at last But of these things afterwards 3. The reasons which Athenagoras gives do equally hold supposing the true God not to be wholly passed by for the creatures are still at as great a distance from the Creator which is the main reason he gives against the the worship of them 4. It is possible to suppose that those who believe a Supreme excellent Being may yet give him no eternal adoration at all not out of any disrespect to him but out of the great esteem they have of his excellency looking upon him as far above all our service and adoration And that this is not a bare supposition of a thing only possible appears by that testimony of Porphyrius produced by S. Cyril against Iulian Let us sacrifice but aâ— becomes us to the God over all i. e. as a Wise man said by offering up no sensible thing to him For every material thing is impure when compared with an immaterial Therefore the best sacrifice to God is to offer up our Lives to him for even our words and thoughts are below him which is the most proper Hymn to him and the most beneficial to ourselves And the same S. Cyril observes out of Dionysius Halicarnasseus that aâ— Numa would allow no Image of God in the Temples because unsuitable to his nature so he would not have any material sacrifices to be offered up to him on the same reason and some of the Platonists are quoted by him saying thaâ— the Supreme God being incorporeal stand in need of nothing without him but the other Gods especially those that are visible ought to be pleased with inanimate sacrifices Therefore we ought not to conclude that the Heathens did not believe one Supreme God if we do not find any peculiar and external sacrifices that were offered to him for we see they might forbear them out of the opinion they had of his supereminent excellency Aquinas supposeth this to have been one of the principles of the Heathens that only visible sacrifices belonged to other Gods and internal acts of the mind as being better to the Supreme God And the Supreme and Invisible God's being so far above any need of our service was the reason given by the Mandarins in China and the Ynca's of Peru why they shewed so little outward Reverence towards him whom they believed to be the Supreme God Were these persons Idolaters for the worship they did not give to the Creator or for the worship they did give to his Creatures and it is plain by Athenagoras the latter was the matter of their dispute for they did not quarrel with the Christians about the worship of the Supreme God but for not worshipping those things they looked on as his Creatures and if their fault only had been that they wholly passed by the Creator this would have been no reason against the Christians who might have worshipped the Creator and the creatures
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
or these are not faithful servants to him by bringing in visible objects of worship by setting up Images and perswading men to make oblations and offer sacrifices to them And because it was so hard a matter to choke those natural motions of mens minds towards the Supreme God and Father of all therefore they endeavour'd to draw men farther from him by tempting them to all manner of impiety Whereas the good Angels we read of in Scripture always directed men to pay their honours and adoration not to themselves but only to the Supreme God and teach men that it is not fit to give them to any of his Ministers and Servants but these Deities of Iulian are willing to receive worship from men and their prayers and acknowledgements and praises and gifts and sacrifices where we see he joyns them all together as parts of that divine worship which is proper only to God But Iulian is very much displeased at the Second Commandment and would have been glad to have seen it struck out of the number of ten as some in the World have done because God therein expresses so much jealousie for his own honour Cyril in answer to him shews that this is no way unbecoming God to be so much concerned for his honour because mens greatest happiness as Alexander Aphrodisiensis said in his Book of Providence lies in the due apprehension and service of God By which we see that the controversie about Idolatry as it was hitherto managed between Christians and Heathens did suppose the belief of one Supreme God in those who were charged with the practise of it After these it may not be amiss to consider what the ancient Author of the Recognitions under Clemens his name saith upon this subject of the Heathen Idolatry he lived saith Cotelerius in the Second Century if that be true his Authority is the more considerable however it is certain Ruffinus translated this Book and thâ—â— makes it ancient enough to our purpose He brings in the Heathen Idolaters pleading thus for themselves We likewise acknowledge one God who is Lord over all but yet the other are Gods too as there is but one Caesar who hath many Officers under him as Praefects Consuls Tribunes and other Magistrates after the same manner we suppose when there is but one Supreme God he hath many other inferiour Gods as so many Officers under him who are all subject to him but yet over us To this he brings in S. Peter answering that he desires them to keep to their own similitude for as they who attribute the name of Caesar to any inferiour Officers deserve to be punished so will those more severely who give the name of God to any of his Creatures Where the name is not to be taken alone but as it implies the dignity and Authority going along with it and the professing of that subjection which is only due to that Authority for what injury were it to Caesar for a man only to have the name of Caesar but the injury lies in usurping the Authority under that name so the nature of Idolatry could not lie in giving the name of Gods to any Creatures but in giving that worship which that name calls for and yet this worship here is supposed to be consistent with the acknowledgement of the supreme excellency of God If we now look into the sense of the Writers of the Latine Church against the Heathen Idolaters we shall find them agreeing with the other Tertullian appeals to the consciences of men for the clearest evidence of one true and Supreme God for in the midst of all their Idolatries they are apt upon any great occasion to lift up their hands and eyes to Heaven where the only true and great and good God is and he mentions their common phrases God gives and God sees and I commend you to God and God will restore all which do shew the natural Testimony of conscience as to the unity and supreme excellency of God and in his Book ad Scapulam God shewed himself to be the powerful God by what he did upon their supplications to him under the name of Iove Minucius Felix makes use of the same arguments and saith they were clear arguments of their consent with the Christians in the belief of one God and makes it no great matter what name they called him by as I have observed already and afterwards produces many Testimonies of the Philosophers almost all he saith that they acknowledged one God although under several names Arnobius takes it for granted that on both sides they were agreed that there was one Supreme God eternal and invisible and Father of all things from whom all the Heathen Deities had their beginning but all the dispute was about giving divine worship to any else besides him Lactantius saith there was no wise man ever questioned the being of one God who made and governed all things yet because he knew the World was full of Fools he goes about to prove it at large from the testimonies of Poets and Philosophers as so many had done before him and for T. G 's satisfaction he saith that Orpheus although as good at feigning as any of the Poets could not by the Father of the Gods mean Jupiter the Son of Saturn yet who can tell but such a Magician as Orpheus is said to have been might mean an Arch-Devil by him But I am sure neither Lactantius nor any of the Fathers ever thought so for if they had they would not so often have produced his Testimony to so little purpose And to the Greek Testimonies mentioned before by others Lactantius adds those of Cicero and Seneca who calls the infeririour Gods the children of the Supreme and the Ministers of his Kingdom Thus far we have the unanimous consent of all the Writers of the Christian Church against the Heathen Idolatry that the Heathens did acknowledge one Supreme God S. Augustin tells us that Varro thought that those who worshipped one God without images did mean the same by him that they did by their Jove but only called him by another name by those S. Austin saith Varro meant the Iews and he thought it no matter what name God is called by so the same thing be meant It is true S. Augustin argues against it from the Poetical Fables about Saturn and Iuno but withal he confesses that they thought it very unreasonable for their Religion to be charged with those Fables which themselves disowned and therefore at last he could not deny that they believed themselves that by the Jove in the Capitol they understood and worshipped the Spirit that quickens and fills the world of which Virgil spake in those words Iovis omnia plena But he wonders that since they acknowledged this to be the Supreme if not only Deity the Romans did not rather content themselves with the worship of him alone than run about and
make so many addresses to the petty and Inferiour Deities This indeed was a thing to be wondred at and yet no doubt they thought they had as good reasons for it as T. G. gives why incontinent persons should rather make their addresses to S. Mary Magdalen in Heaven than to her Sister Martha or to God himself So the Roman women thought Lucina and Opis better for a good hour than Ceres or Minerva and Levana and Cunina for new born Children than Vulcan or Apollo and yet S. Augustin tells us many of them did not esteem these as any distinct Deities but only as representations of the several powers of the same God suitable to the conditions of persons but T. G. will not say that by S. Mary Magdalen he only understood the power of Gods Grace in converting incontinent persons but if he had he had given a much better reason of their praying to her yet even in such a case S. Austin thinks it were better to pray directly to God himself And the old Roman Matrons would have thought they could have directed such persons to Temples proper for them viz. those of Virtue and Chastity the one of which stood ad Portam Capenam the other in vico longo But I need not give such particular directions for I am afraid their Ruines are scarce left in Rome for neither Marlianus nor Alexander Donatus in their accurate descriptions of Rome can tell where to find them For our better understanding the controversie about Idolatry as it is represented by S. Augustin we are to consider that not only Scaevola and Balbus in Cicero but Varro and Seneca and the rest of their wiser men did with great indignation reject the Poetical Theology as they called it and wished several things reformed in the popular Religion and thought themselves as unjustly charged with the practises of the People as T. G. doth for their Church to be charged with all the ridiculous addresses that some make to Saints among them for Varro confesses that the People were too apt to follow the Poets as in the Church of Rome they are to pray by their Legends but they thought the people were better let alone in their fopperies than to be suffered to break loose from that subjection which their Superstition kept them in and with these S. Austin reckons the Philosophers with whom he saith the Question to be debated was this whether we are bound only to worship one Supreme God the Maker of all things or whether it be not lawful to worship many Gods who are supposed to be made by him And after he hath discoursed against Varro and those of his opinion who reduced all their Theology to Nature and made God to be the Soul of the World and the several parts of the world capable of divine Worship on that account in his eighth Book he undertakes those who asserted one Supreme Deity above Nature and the Cause of all things and yet pleaded for the worship of inferiour Deities he confesses that they had the knowledge of the true God and brings the several places of S. Paul mentioned in the entrance of this discourse to prove it and enquiring how the Philosophers came to such knowledge of him he first propounds the common opinion of the Fathers that they learnt it in Egypt meeting with the Books of Scripture there but he rather and with good reason resolves it into the natural knowledge of God for saith he that which was known of God was manifest to them for God had revealed it to them But it seems by S. Augustin that there were two opinions among them at that time about divine worship for some of whom he reckons Apuleius the chief were for the worship of Daemons although they acknowledged them to be subject to evil passions yet they looked on them as intercessors between men and the Gods and therefore to be worshipped but others who kept closer to the doctrine of Plato believed none to be Gods but such as were certainly good but were shy of declaring their opinion against the worship of Daemons for fear of displeasing the people by it and with these S. Augustin declares he would have no controversie about the name of Gods as long as they believed them to be created immortal good and happy not by themselves but by adhering to God which he saith was the opinion either of all or at least the best of the Platonists And now we are come to the true state of the Controversie as it is managed by S. Augustin in his tenth Book which is whether those rites of Religious worship which are used in the service of the Supreme God may be likewise used toward any created Being though supposed to be of the highest excellency and as near to God as we can suppose any creature to be And that this and this only is the state of the Controversie I appeal to his own words which I shall set down in the language he writ them that I be not blamed with artificial turning them to my own sense Hoc est ut apertius dicam utrum etiam sibi an tantum Deo suo qui etiam noster est placeat eis ut sacra faciamus sacrificemus vel aliqua nostra seu nos ipsos Religionis ritibus consecremus i. e. That I may speak plainly whether it be pleasing to them viz. good spirits that we offer divine worship and sacrifice to them or that we consecrate our selves or any thing of ours to them by Religious rites And this saith he is that worship which is due to the Deity which because we cannot find one convenient word in Latin to express it by I would call Latria as that service which is due to men is called by another name viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he gives this reason why he made choice of Latria to signifie divine worship in the Latine Tongue because the Latine word colere is so very ambiguous it being applied to the tilling of land inhabiting of places and therefore cultus could not so properly be applied only to divine worship nor yet ReligioÌ„ because that according to the custom of the Latins is applyed to other senses and the same reason he gives as to other names For my part I quarrel not at all with S. Augustins use of the word and think it proper enough to apply it in his sense which comprehends in it not meerly sacrifice but all those Religious Rites whereby we give Worship to God And nothing can to me appear more senseless than to imagine that S. Augustiâ—â— should here speak only of Soveraigâ— Worship proper to God in regard of his Supreme Excellency distinguishing that from an inferior kind of Religious Worship due tâ— created Excellency when it was agreed on both sides that there was one Supremâ— Excellency which was incommunicable to any creatures so that the dispute abouâ— Worship must suppose those
signifying Daughters implies the lesser Deities and Olla taal the Supreme God as the words signifie which he proves from Sharestanius that the old Arabs did acknowledge Abraham Ecchellensis speaking of the Religion of the old Arabians saith that those who were of the Sect of Chaled went upon this principle that there was one Creator and Governor of all things most Powerful and most Wise Besides these there were those who worshipped Intelligences or Celestial Spirits and these saith he although they confessed one Creator of the World most holy wise and powerful yet they said we had need of Mediators to him therefore they invoked those Spirits with all rites of Religious worship and these saith he were called the Daughters of God as they are in the Alcoran not much different from these were the worshippers of Images whom he describes as we have done before But he tells us there was a Sect of Dahritae among them whom he calls Philosophers who were meer Atheists and asserted the Eternity of the World and these being excepted he saith that the ancient Arabs did believe the creation of the world and he tells out of them their particular history of it But Ecchellensis was aware of the parallel between the worship practised in the Church of Rome and that among the Arabians supposing they acknowledged one true God and therefore puts the Qustion whether they did worship their Idols for Gods without relation to any Superiour or only took them for second causes and gave them the name of Gods only Analogically It was a question seasonably put but not so wisely answered For as if he had quite forgotten what he had said before he saith without all doubt the most of them looked upon the Gods they worshipped as of Supreme Authority and Majesty and Independent of any other What although they acknowledged but one Supreme God and called all the lesser Deities his Daughters Although all of them a very few excepted believed the creation of all things by one most Wise and Powerful Being But alas he did not think of this Question when he said the other things and he was not bound to remember them now but to say what served best for his present purpose to clear the Roman Church from Idolatry I will not deny then but there might be a Sect of Dahritae who did only in name own any thing of God and Religion that did assert the Eternity of the world and that there were no other Gods but the Sun Moon and Stars both among the Phoenicians and Chaldeans as well as Arabians but I say these were Atheists and not Idolaters those who where charged with Idolatry among them were such as believed a Supreme Deity but gave Divine Honours to Beings created by him The like is suggested by some concerning the Persians as though they attributed omnipotency and divine worship only to the Sun and those who take all things of this nature upon trust meerly from Herodotus or Iustin or other Greek and Latin writers may think they have reason to believe it but if we look into those who have been most conversant in the Persian writings we shall find a different account of them Iac. Golius in his Notes on Alferganus saith that the Persians gave the names of their Gods to their Months and Days according to the ancient Religion of the Persians and Magi whereby they did believe their Gods to preside over them for it was a principle among them as well as other Nations of the East that the things of this lower world are administred by Angels and accordingly they had their particular prayers and devotions according to the several Days and Months and not only so but their very meat drink clothing and perfumes were different and they had their Tables or Rubricks to instruct them And what worship they gave to the Planets was not saith he to themselves but to those Intelligencies which they supposed to rule them nay they supposed particular Spirits to rule over all the material parts of the world the Spirit over fire was called Adar and Aredbahist the Spirit over Herbs and Trees Chordad the Spirit over Bruits was Bahmen the Spirit over the Earth was Asfendurmed and so they had an Angel of Night and another of Death and the Spirit over the Sun was called Mihrgîan from Mihr the Sun whence the word Mithras but above all these they believed there was one Supreme God whom they called Hormuz and Dei and the Persian Writers say that Zoroaster appointed six great Festivals in the year in remembrance of the six days creation And to this is very agreeable what the Persees in Indosthan do to this day deliver of the principles of their Religion for they affirm God to be the maker of all things but that he committed the Government of the world to certain Spirits and they worship the fire as a part of God and call the Sun and Moon Gods great witnesses and the description of them in Varenius fully accords with this that they acknowledged one Supreme God every where present that governs the world but he makes use of seven chief Ministers for the management of it one over men another over bruits another over fire as is before described and under these they place 25 more who are all to give an account to the Supreme God of their administration With this account agrees the relation of Mandelslo concerning them who saith that the Parsis believe that there is but one God preserver of the Universe that he acts alone and immediately in all things and that the seven servants of God for whom they have also a great veneration have only an inferiour administration whereof they are obliged to give account and after the enumerating these with their particular charges he reckons up 26 under them with their several names but they call them all in common Geshoo i. e. Lords and believe he saith that they have an absolute power over the things whereof God hath intrusted them with the administration Whence it comes that they make no difficulty to worship them and to invocate them in their extremities out of a perswasion that God will not deny them any thing they desire on their intercession Schickard relates a particular story of the Persian King Firutz or Perozes which shews the acknowledgement of a Supreme Deity among the Persians in his time which was about the time of the Council of Chalcedon there happened a mighty drought in Persia so that it rained not for seven years and when the Kings granaries were utterly exhausted and there was no hope of further supplies he called his People out into the open Fields and there in a most humble manner he besought the great God Lord of Heaven and Earth to send them rain and gave not over praying till a plentiful shower fell upon them which saith he is another example after the Ninivites of Gods great mercy
misinterpretations of it by an Atheistical Sect among them they were satisfied by plain and perspicuous testimonies out of their Books that they could mean no other than the true God and that he to whom the King every year offers sacrifice is a pure Mind free from all mixture governing all things and therefore to him all the acts of soveraign worship are performed such as Sacrifices Vows Prayers and thanksgivings Therefore the worship they give to the Tutelar Spirits or Guardian Angels as they suppose them must be of an inferiour nature and yet the Congregation of the Cardinals by the direction of the Pope condemn this for Idolatry That giving an Inferiour Worship on the account of created excellency when it appears to be Religious is utterly unlawful among Christians For this is the only imaginable reason why the Congregation did so absolutely condemn the worship of Confutius and their Ancestors and Hurtado in the explication of this decree confesses that the Chineses did not esteem Confutius as a God but only looked on him as a holy and vertuous Philosopher yet saith he because they did those acts to him which are only proper to God they commit manifest Idolatry in it For saith he they who give to a creature the worship due only to God do commit Idolatry and from hence the Gentiles who acknowledged one God were Idolaters because they gave to the creatures the honour due to him in the doing of which they made an acknowledgement of divine excellency in the things they gave it to By which it appears that there are some external acts of worship so proper to God that although a man hath never so clear apprehension in his mind of the Supreme excellency of God above the creatures he worships yet the giving that worship to them makes his act Idolatry The Iesuits to excuse these things speak very high things of Confutius and of his admirable Life and doctrine and surely not without great reason if their relations hold true as I see no reason to suspect them but the more Confutius is extolled the worse they make their own case for all these acts of external worship towards him are condemned for Idolatry and how then comes the worship of Ignatius Loyola to be otherwise who I dare say never was so great a Philosopher nor did so much good in the world as the Iesuits say Confutius did But at last they would have all these honours to Confutius to be only civil honours although Trigautius confesses that he hath a Temple in every City that his Image with that of his Disciples is set up in it that these Disciples are looked on as a sort of Divi i. e. as Canonized Saints that bere they make use of all the rites of adoration genuflections wax-candles incense oblations prayers only excepted but we see notwithstanding all their pretences the Pope and Congregation of Cardinals have condemned them as guilty of Idolatry That the Pope and Congregation of Cardinals were not of T. G 's mind that acts do certainly go whither they are intended For all these acts of worship were directed by the intention of the persons to the secret Crucifix which lay among the flowers upon the Altar but notwithstanding this in their opinion were a fit object of worship yet other circumstances did so much alter the nature of it that they declare these acts to be in themselves unlawful By actions going whither they are intended I do not mean as T. G. suggests that the Physical act of the mind doth not pass to the object whither the act is directed i. e. that I do not think of that which I do think of but my meaning is that such a directing the intention of the mind doth not give a moral denomination to the nature of the action viz. that it becomes lawful or unlawful by vertue of such an intention of the mind but that the Law of God may so determine the nature of our acts of worship as to make them unlawful whatever the intention of the mind be And thus the Congregation of Cardinals here resolves the case the Persons used only those acts of adoration that may be directed to God by a secret intention of the mind they suppose a Crucifix a fit object for divine worship and going together into an Idolatrous Temple and using all the external equivocal acts as T. G. calls them which the rest did they direct their acts by vertue of this intention to the Crucifix yet although the Congregation thought this intention rightly directed they condemn the acts as in themselves unlawful But of these things hereafter the first observation being sufficient to my present purpose viz. to shew that according to the present sense of the Roman Church the practice of Idolatry is consistent with the acknowledgement of one Supreme God From the Idolatry of the East-Indies I proceed to that of the Tartars whose Dominion hath extended it self over that vast Continent from the utmost North-East parts to the borders of Europe that way and this acount I shall give from the least suspected witnesses in this matter viz. the Emissaries of the Roman Church who had conversed most among them and made it their design to understand their Religion In A. D. 1246. after the horrible devastations made by the Tartars in Poland and Hungary Pope Innocent 4. sent Iohannes de Plano Carpini as his Legat or Nuncio to them and after a year and four months stay among them he gives this account of their Religion unum Deum credunt quem credunt esse factorem omnium visibilium invisibilium credunt eum tam bonorum in hoc mundo quam poenarum esse factorem non tamen orationibus vel laudibus aut ritu aliquo ipsum colunt They believe one God whom they believe to be the maker of all things visible and invisible and to be the Author of all worldly goods and punishments and yet he saith they had no manner of worhip of him but their worship they gave to Images which he there at large decribes But there is an inferior Deity whom he calls Itoga Paulus Venetus Natagay which they believe to be the God of the earth and him they worship with great superstition and besides they worship the Sun Moon and Fire and make oblations to the Image of their first Emperour and the same thing is affirmed by Vincentius Bellovacensis After him Lewis the ninth of France sent William de Rubruquis a Franciscan A. D. 1253. who passed through the several Courts of the Tartarian Princes and gave an exact account to his Prince of the Religion he found among them In the conference he had with Mangu-Chan who was then Emperour about Religion the Emperour told him We Moals which is the name they call themselves by that being the name of the Tribe from whence Iingiz-chan came the Tartars being another Tribe but better known to the Europeans We saith he believe that
believe the seasons of the year and the affairs of humane life to be managed by certain Spirits under him whom they endeavour to propitiate by certain rites of worship Leo Africanus testifies concerning some of the ancient African Idolaters that they worshipped Guighimo i. e. the Lord of Heaven which part of Religion he saith was not delivered to them by any Prophet or Teacher but was inspired into them by God himself Varenius takes notice of the false and imperfect description which is commonly given of the Religion of the Negroes and saith he understood by those who lived long among them that although they worship many Gods yet they acknowledge one Supreme whom they call Fetisso and believe him to be the Author both of the good and evil they receive and therefore endeavour to appease him by many Sacrifices Ceremonies and Prayers Mandelslo saith of the Inhabitants of Madagascar that he was informed that they believe there is one God who made Heaven and Earth and will one day punish bad actions and reward the good Ioh. de Barros saith that the Inhabitants of Monomotapa believe in one God whom they call Mozimo and if we believe him they worship nothing else besides him the same others say of the Mordui a people that inhabit the farther parts of Muscovy who declare that they worship only the Creator of the Universe to whom they offer the first fruits of all things even of their meat and drink casting some parts of them towards Heaven but they have no Idols nor baptism and say they live according to nature but Brietius saith they worship Idols or are Mahumetans Texeira and Pimenta say that the Sect of the Baneans called Lon Kah worship only the Supreme God without Idols but Mexery hath Idols and doth worship them Iosephus Indus a Native of Cranganor saith that the Gentile Idolaters there did worship the God of Heaven under the form of a Statue with three faces and his hands folded whom they called Tambram and he saith the King of Calecut is of the same Religion with them of Cranganor and Ludovicus Vartomannus saith that in Calecut they call the Great God Tamerani whom they believe to be the maker of the World but he adds that they believe him to live at ease and that he hath committed the Government of the world to Deumo whose Image they worship having on his head saith Vartomannus just such a Crown as the Popes of Rome have only it hath three horns upon it and the same is confessed by Iarricus The people of Narsinga likewise believe one Supreme God but worship Idols as the rest of the Indians do Linschoten gives this general testimony of them that although they worship the Sun and Moon yet they acknowledge one God Creator and Governor of all things and do believe the rewards and punishments of another life to be according to mens good or bad actions in this life But withall they worship Idols called Pagodes after such a terrible representation as we make of Devils whom they assert to have lived formerly upon earth and to have been famous for sanctity and miracles and to whom they address themselves as Mediators to the Supreme God for them The Kingdom of Siam is supposed to have been the ancient Seat of the Bramans from whence the Religion of the Indies did spread it self and here Schouten who lived long among them saith that the common perswasion of the Gentiles although different in other points is that there is one Supreme God who created all things and after him many inferiour Gods in Heaven that men shall receive rewards and punishments in another life according to their actions here And that this Religion hath been delivered down to them by the succession of many ages and confirmed by the Testimony of Saints whose memory they worship in their Images which they have set up like so many lesser Deities who have merited Heaven by their good Works The Ceremonies of their worship the nature of their Images the manner of their Oblations the customs of their Talapois or Friers are such that some few things excepted one would imagine no great difference between the Varelles of Siam and the Iesuits Church and devotions there M. de Bourges who hath given an account of the late French Mission into those parts confesses that their external devotion to their Images is extraordinary that they offer no bloody sacrifices but all their oblations are of the fruits of the earth and that they free themselves from the charge of Idolatry because they acknowledge and worship one God who is Lord over all and that their Images are intended to preserve the Memories of their Saints that by the sight of them the people might be excited to imitate their vertues And it is very true saith he that the Priests of Siam do thus answer the Christians who charge them with Idolatry and think themselves no more guilty than the Missionaries of the Church of Rome who charge them But he thinks he hath cleared the difference between them by saying that those of Siam are more uncertain in the belief of the Supreme God and defective in giving any peculiar worship to him and that they terminate their worship absolutely upon their Idols and ask of them those things which God alone can give As to the former we have seen the general consent of the Indians in the belief of a Supreme God which is no token of their uncertainty and that many of them did think internal worship most proper to him and for the latter if they suppose those Deities to be so by participation and subordinate to the Supreme I do not see how the difference is made appear between the addresses they made to their Saints by their Images and those made in the Church of Rome unless it be sufficient to say that the Pope at Rome hath only power to Canonize Saints and not the High-Priest of Siam And therefore Campanella very wisely confesses upon these principles the Heathens were no more guilty of Idolatry than themselves in case the persons they worshipped had real vertues and he doth not blame the wiser Gentiles but the common people who forgot the true God and worshipped their Varelles or Images with the worship of Latria which the Church of Rome likewise gives to the Cross but of these things afterwards If from the Indies the model of this Discourse would allow us to search into the Idolatries of these Northern parts we should find that the Nations which were the deepest sunk into Idolatry did yet retain a sense of one Supreme Deity Among whom we may justly reckon our Saxon Ancestors and yet from the Gothick Antiquities which have been lately published we have reason to believe that there was a Supreme God acknowledged among them too For in the Edda of Snorro Sturleson which contains the ancient Religion of the Goths the first
lives on the account of their intercession for them and that they trusted more to them especially to the Blessed Virgin than to Christ himself And that what interpretations soever some men put upon those titles of the Queen of Heaven Mother of Mercy c. the common people did not understand them according to their sense of them Nay Erasmus goes farther saying that their very Preachers worshipped the Blessed Virgin with more Religion or devotion than they did Christ himself or his Holy Spirit calling her the Mother of Grace By all which we see that the doctrine of Divine worship is not so clearly stated by them but that the more ingenuous men who have lived and dyed in the communion of that Church have thought not only the people but the Teachers very much to blame in it 2. My business now is to give an account of the sense of the Fathers in this dispute about the notion of divine worship not to handle particularly the Testimonies of the Fathers in dispute between us which belongs to the Question of Invocation of Saints but to shew that they went upon the same principles I have here laid down in the distinction between the Honour and the Worship of them and while they speak most for the Honour of the Saints they deny any Religious worship to be performed to them Origen in the beginning of his Book against Celsus makes that to be the property of the doctrine of Christ that God only was to be worshipped but that other might be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worthy of honour but not of worship And in another place he speaks as plainly as words can express his meaning although saith he we should believe that Angels were set over these things below yet we only praise and magnifie them but all our prayers are only to be made to God and not to any Angel and only Iesus Christ is to offer up our prayers to God and lest any should imagine he meant only some kind of prayers he saith expresly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all prayer and supplication and intercession and saith that we ought not to pray to them who pray for us But now what saith T. G. to these places which excepting the first I had objected against the practice of invocation of Saints and Angels in my former discourse Why truly he saith that Origens meaning is partly that we are not to pray to them in the same manner that we do to God but we may pray to them after another manner But is that inferiour sort of prayer prayer or not when we desire them to pray for us is not that desiring their intercession for us but Origen denyes that any prayer is to be made to them or any one to be prayed to although it be only to intercede with God for us but only the Son of God I remember an answer of a devout servant of the Blessed Virgin much like this of T. G. For when it was objected that she could not be the Mother of Redemption for mankind because it is said Isa. 63.3 I have trodden the wine-press alone and of the people there was no man with me True saith he there is no man with thee but there might be a woman for all that So doth T. G. deal with the testimonies of the Fathers let them be never so express against all sorts of prayers and Invocations they hold only of such a sort of prayer but there may be another and inferiour sort notwithstanding But is there any sort that is not comprehended under all And that Origen cannot be understood in these passages of such prayer only as supposeth the supream excellency in God most evidently appears by the dispute between Celsus and him which was not about the worship of the Supream God but of Inferiour Spirits and Ministers to him as hath been fully proved already The Church of Philomelium in that noble Testimony concerning the Martyrdom of Polycarp makes the same distinction between honour and worship for they utterly deny giving any worship to a creature as inconsistent with Christianity but at the same time they confess the honour and esteem they had for the Martyrs which they expressed by meeting at the places of their Martyrdom keeping their Anniversary dayes and recommending their examples to the imitation of others In the former Discourse I produced the Testimonies of Iustin Martyr Theophilus Antiochenus and mentioned many others to the same purpose viz. that all Religious worship was due only to God and with this double caution to prevent cavils 1. That it was without making any distinctions of absolute and relative worship which they must have been driven to in case they had given Religious worship to any besides 2. That when the Christians refused to give adoration to the Emperour it could not be understood of the adoration proper to the Supream God for none can be so sensless to imagine they required that but such kind of Religious worship as they gave to the Images of their Gods To all this T. G. replyes I. That these Testimonies are impertinent because they are to be understood only of that divine worship which is due to God alone and not of the Inferiour worship which belongs to Saints or Angels Might he not as well have said that they prove that no man might be worshipped but a woman might For the force of the Testimonies did not lye meerly in this that they attributed divine worship only to God but that they made use of the most general terms which signified worship without any distinction of the nature and kind of that worship supposing it to be on a Religious account For no men of common sense would have written as they did if they had believed that some sort of Religious worship were lawful to be given and another not Doth T. G. think that he should ever escape censure in his Church if he should say peremptorily that it is unlawful to give any kind of Religious worship to a creature when the very Indices of the Fathers cannot escape the Index Expurgatorius for blabbing so great a Truth No we should have T. G. presently out with his distinctions worship is of two sorts Supream called Latria inferiour called Dulia Religious may be taken in two senses 1. That which proceeds from the vertue of Religion and that is proper to God 2. That which tends to the honour of Religion and that may be given to creatures And thus would the Fathers have written if they had ever looked over Aristotles threshold and been of T. G's mind and therefore my argument which proceeded upon the general terms of the Fathers without intimating any such distinction doth hold good that either they did not write like understanding men or they knew no such distinctions as these 2. That although Justin Martyr and Theophilus deny divine worship to be given to Emperours yet they both imply that lawful worship
in another place he tells us what that worship did consist in which he there calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which we are certain what he meant by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before and so he reckons up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the first place their prayers or supplications and then vows hymns oblations and sacrifices the giving of any of these to Saints were to worship them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not as the ignorant or wilfully blind Writers of the Roman Church when they meet with this word they cry out presently mark that not with Latria and presently imagine that what sense a word hath obtained among them if they meet with it in the Fathers it must needs signifie the same thing when the sense of words hath been so strangely perverted by them as will more particularly appear by this very distinction of Latria and Dulia which they make S. Augustine the Author of but have carried it far beyond his meaning I come therefore to consider S. Austins mind in this matter which I am the more obliged to do since T. G. so unreasonably triumphs in S. Austins opinion in this matter and is not only content to drag me at his Chariot wheels but he makes a shew of me and calls people to see by my example to what miserable shifts and disingenuous arts they are put who will shut their eyes and fight against the light of a noon-day truth when I first read these words I began to rub my eyes and to look about me and to wonder what the matter was and I find my self as willing to see light as another and my conscience never yet accused me of using disingenuous arts in dealing with them if T. G. can clear himself as well it is the better for him I am sure by standers have not thought so as appears at large by Dr. Whitby especially in his last Chapter against him But it is not my business to recriminate hopeing sufficiently to clear my self in this matter It seems I had said that S. Augustine denyes that any Religious worship was performed to the Martyrs this T. G. again saith I could not affirm without shutting my eyes and yet I thank God by the help of my eyes I find S. Augustin saying the same thing still For is it not S. Augustin that saith non sit nobis Religio cultus hominum mortuorum let not the worship of dead men be any part of our Religion for if they have lived piously they do not desire such honours from us but they would have us to worship him by whom we may become partakers of their happiness honorandi ergo sunt propter imitationem non adorandi propter Religionem Is it possible for any man to speak plainer than S. Austin doth that they are not to have Religious worship given to them but such honour as may excite us to an imitation of them And this not by chance or in some incoherent passage but in a set discourse on purpose where he argues with strong reason against the Religious worship of Angels as well as Saints to the end of that Book And saith the utmost they expect from us is the honour of our love and not of our service and therefore S. Augustin did not by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 understand the service of Saints and Angels which he there disputes against from our happiness coming only from God our being the Temples of God the Angels prohibiting S. John to worship him and bidding him to worship God and that the very name of Religion is from tying our Souls to God alone Whosoever of the Angels loves God saith he loves me for worshipping him and he that hath Gods favour hath the favour of all that are good Therefore let our Religion bind us faster to one omnipotent God between whom and us there is no creature interposed with much more to the same purpose Is it not the same S. Austin that saith Haec est Religio Christiana ut colatur unus Deus this is the Christian Religion to worship one God and that for this reason because God only can make the Soul happy for saith he it is made happy only by the participation of God and not of a blessed Soul or Angel Not as though this were intended only against the expectation of our blessedness wholly from Saints or Angels but he makes use of this as an argument to prove that we ought to worship God alone who only is able to make us happy Is it not the same S. Austin that saith this is the character of the true Religion that it unites us only to one God without giving worship to any other Being how excellent soever and he looks on this as a divine and singular part of the Christian doctrine nullam creaturam colendam esse animae that no creature have the worship of our Soul what did he then think of praying to creatures not only with our voyce but our mind too as the Council of Trent saith it is profitable for us to do and not only for their prayers but for their help and assistance but saith good S. Austin the most wise and perfect man the most accomplished and happy soul is only to be loved and imitated and honour given to it according to its desert and order for thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve Could any man speak more plainly and fully against giving any Religious worship to creatures than he doth Is it not the same S. Austin that tells Maximus Madaurensis that in the Christian Church none that were dead were worshipped and nothing adored as God that is made by God but only one God who created all things Here T. G. smiles and thinks to avoid this presently for S. Austin speaks of any thing being adored as God which they abhor to do but his smiling will be soon over if he considers what being adored as God there means for no one ever suspected that the Christians believed the Martyrs to be the Supream God but only that they worshipped them as Gods of a lower rank by participation from the Supream And is not the very same thing said and defended in the Roman Church that the Saints are Gods by participation and they have the care and government of the Church committed to them and on that account are worshipped and if this be not being adored as Gods in S. Austins sense I know not what is Is it not the same S. Austin that undertakes to prove against the Platonists that good Spirits are not to be worshipped per tale Religionis obsequium by such Religious worship very right saith T. G. not by the worship of Sacrifices but S. Austin saith neither Sacris nor Sacrificiis which two comprehend all the Rites of Religious worship which were then used For he makes use of several phrases to express the acts of Religious worship sometimes by joyning those two
Lord of heaven and earth and that we are his offspring therefore we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone graven by art or mans device where I observed that the Apostle doth not speak meerly against their other objects of worship besides the true God nor their supposing their Gods to be present in their Images nor taking their Images for Gods but against their supposition that there was any resemblance between God and their Images or that he was capable of receiving any honour by them The same argument I added S. Paul useth to the Romans speaking of those in whom that which may be known of God is manifest even his Eternal Power and Godhead yet these persons who knew God did not glorifie him as God but changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an Image made like to corruptible man c. where changing his glory into Images is I said immediately opposed to the glorifying him as God in respect of his Eternal Power and Godhead so that these two are inconsistent with each other to glorifie God by an Image and to glorifie him as God For here the Apostle doth not discourse against the most gross and sottish Idolaters of the Heathens but as S. Chrysostom well observes against the Philosophers and the Wisest among them who although they differed in their opinions of Religion extreamly from the Vulgar yet they concurred with them in all the external practices of Idolatry And therefore the Apostle doth not charge them with false notions of a Deity for he saith that they held the Truth in unrighteousness and that they did know God but they shewed their vanity and folly in thinking they had found out subtiller wayes of defending the common Idolatries among them and instead of opposing them made use of their Wits to excuse them To which I added this material observation That the most intelligent Heathens did never look on their Images as any other than Symbols or representations of that Being to which they gave divine worship for which purpose I produced several Testimonies of Celsus Porphyrie Athanasius Arnobius S. Augustin Max. Tyrius Iulian and Eusebius from whence I desired to know whether these men who worshipped Images on those grounds did amiss or no in it I do not ask as my words are expresly whether they were mistaken as to the objects of their worship but on supposition they were not whether they were to blame in the manner of serving God by Images in such a way as they describe if not wherefore doth S. Paul pitch upon that to condemn them for which they were at not all to blame in He ought I said to have done as the Iesuits in China did who never condemned the people for worshipping Images but for worshipping false Gods by them and perswaded them not to lay them aside but to convert them to the honour of the true God and so melted down their former Images and made new ones of them Can we imagine S. Paul meant the same thing when he blames men not for believing them to be Gods but that God could be worshipped by the work of mens hands and for changing thereby the glory due to God in regard of his infinite and incorruptible Being into mean and unworthy Images thinking thereby to give honour to him And upon these grounds I there shew that the Primitive Fathers disputed against the Heathen Idolatry for the making use of corporeal representations makes the Deity contemptible saith Clemens of Alexandria Origen saith that Christians have nothing to do with Images because of the second Commandment and on that account will rather dye than defile themselves with them and that it is impossible any one that knows God should pray to them That it is no sufficient excuse to say they do not take them for Gods but only for Symbols or representations of them for they must be ignorant mean and unlearned persons who can imagine the work of an Artificer can be any representation of a Deity I shewed further that many of the wiser Heathens themselves condemned the worship of God by Images as incongruous to a divine nature and a disparagement to the Deity as Zeno Xenophanes Antisthenes Xenophon Numa Varro and many others Having thus laid down so much of my former Discourse together as was necessary to understand the State of the Controversie I come now to consider what T. G. doth answer to it 1. To the places of S. Paul Acts 17.24 and Rom. 1.19 he saith that no one ever denyed the unsuitableness of the worship of such Images to the Divine Nature as are conceived to be proper likenesses or representations of the Divinity of which S. Paul speaks in the first place or of the Images of the false Gods of the Heathens of which he speaks in the latter In reply to this I begin with the first place Acts 17.24 where he saith it is plain from S. Pauls words that they thought the Divinity to be like to the Images they made of gold and silver and this was a mighty argument from the mouth of S. Paul to drive that erroneous conceit out of the minds of the Athenians who believed the Divinity to be like the Images they made but none at all from my pen against Catholicks who detest the thoughts of having or making any such Image This then is the question between us whether S. Paul's discourse against the Athenians did proceed only on the supposition of the Divinity being like to their Images or whether the dissimilitude between them be not made use of by the Apostle as an argument to shew that Images are not a proper suitable means whereby to worship God For which we are to consider the Apostles scope and design which certainly was to convince them of their Idolatry For it is said ver 16. that his Spirit was stirred within him when he saw the City wholly given to Idolatry and in the beginning of his speech he takes notice of their Bigoterie in the Heathen worship ver 22. 23. that among their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Idols saith Theophylact he had espied an Altar with this Inscription To the unknown God and upon this he takes an occasion more fully to discover him whom they ignorantly worshipped and withal to shew the unreasonableness of their worshipping God at all by Images If the Apostles design had been as T. G. imagines to drive that erroneous conceit out of the minds of the Athenians that the Divinity was like to their Images his Spirit should not have been moved at the sight of their Images but at their discourses about them when he heard them own the Divinity to be like them For in case they only looked on their Images as helps to their devotion or as Analogical representations of some divine perfections although they did worship God by them T. G. must think then S. Paul a
little too hasty to be so soon angry at the sight of them for upon this ground his Spirit might be stirred within him at the sight of the Altars and devotions in Rome as well as Athens But S. Paul did not wait for any decree of the Areopagus in this matter he saw enough to inflame his zeal in their practices and publick worship without looking after any distinctions of their Sophisters and School-Divines although there were many upon the place ready to justifie every rite of their worship and that would not let go one tittle of their grossest superstitions for all the truth and Reason in the world They could find out as many Analogies and Metaphorical significations as other men and thought it as little disparagement to the Deity to worship him under the several representations of Minerva Ceres or Bacchus when by these they understood the several effects of Gods Wisdom and Goodness in giving the fruits of the earth as others can in representing him as an Old man with a Popes Crown on his head or with one Head and three Faces as some that are no Athenians have done For Gods sake which of the two are more apt to beget in mens minds such apprehensions of God that he is like to men those who make and expose such Images of the God they worship or such who made an Inscription upon an Altar to the Unknown God And if he were Unknown how came they to know him to be so like themselves What need S. Paul take such pains to drive a conceit out of their heads which for all that we see never entered into them If indeed S. Paul had seen over that Altar a grave Image of a man in Pontifical Robes with an hoary head a long beard and a Triple Crown he would probably have asked them how the Athenians that were witty men could be guilty of such an absurdity to call that an Altar to the Unknown God when they were so familiarly acquainted with him as to know the very cut of his beard and fashion of his Crown But as Superstitious as the Athenians were they were not so ridiculous but yet because they supposed this God might be pleased with the worship of the Idols that were not only in the Temples but in the Streets and Forum of Athens where Thucydides saith there were twelve Altars therefore S. Paul discourseth of this God after such a manner as to shew how unsuitable such a way of worship was to his Nature and Perfections 1. From his Infinite Power v. 24 25. God that made the world and all things in it seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth dwelleth not in Temples made with hands neither is worshipped with mens hands Can any thing be plainer than that here S. Paul disputes against their worship and not their opinion He finds no fault with their opinion about the true God but only that it was not clear and distinct enough in that he was too much the Unknown God among them he takes it for granted that one Supream God Creator of the world was acknowledged by them and from the consideration of that Infinite Power of his he shews how unreasonable it was for them to circumscribe him within their Temples or to worship him by their Images For what are all these Images of yours which you are so fond of and so unwilling to part with although they were the Statues of Phidias or Polycletus or the Pictures of Xeuxes or Apelles yet still they are but the Work of mens Hands and what are these to the Heavens and the Earth which he hath made If any Image deserve worship it is one of Gods making and not of your own but since no Image can represent the infinite Perfections of the great Creator never think to honour him by your foolish Puppets and Babies of Dirt and Clay This is the design of the Apostles argument but what doth this signifie to their thinking the Divinity to be like themselves For whether God were like or unlike to their Images yet still they were the work of mens hands as a picture is still the work of the Painter although never so unlike the person for whom it is intended but S. Paul condemns them for worshipping God with the work of mens hands i. e. with Images and Statues as being infinitely below the greatness of that Divine Power for the sake of which we give divine worship to him 2. From his infinite perfection manifested by his Self-sufficiency Needing nothing v. 25. and from his communicating to his creatures what is needful for them Seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things Now what can there be more unsuitable to the honour of such a Being than to be worshipped by such dull senseless contemptible pieces of earth which have not in them the perfection of the meanest animal to whom God hath given life and breath that are so far from representing the perfection and self-sufficiency of the Divine Nature that they are not in the least able to help themselves But when by the help of Wedges and Beetles an Image is cleft out of the Trunk of some well grown Tree that little dreamt of the honour which was like to come to the dullest part about it after it should pass through the several refinings of the Carpenters Ax whose blows it endured with admirable patience and of the Painters Pencil whose Miniature adds much beauty and glory to it yet after all the skill of Artificers to set forth such a Divine Block it cannot one moment secure it self from being eaten by Worms or defiled by Birds or cut in pieces by Axes or if any of these sail from decaying through meer standing Or suppose this Worshipful Idol be made of a harder substance and after its being digged out of the earth and sawed and carved and polished and with much ado brought into the resemblance of a man and a rude symbol of the Deity and set up for the adoration of mankind yet still it wants the things which are above the utmost power of man but are given to the least mite viz. life and sense and motion and an admirable contrivance of the instruments of these yet such mean and pittiful things as these will the folly of mankind find out to represent the greatest and the most perfect Being in the world Judge now whether things that want life and breath and all things are fit means whereby to worship him who giveth all these things to his creatures or whether those things which need the art of man to make them and his continual care to preserve them are fit to represent that Being which stands in need of nothing 3. From his Infinite Presence v. 27 28. That they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him though he be not far from every one of us For in him we live and move and have our Being One of the most plausible arguments of
their opinion about a Deity or at least seemed to make him of an inconvenient form to deceive the people Even Democritus himself doth not please him for although he makes his Images to be Gods yet he did not by them understand such as T. G. doth but he means no other than his Atoms which Laertius calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that first matter whence they arise but saith Velleius while he destroys an Eternal Being Democritus must needs overthrow the very opinion of a Deity however he would give the title of it to his Images or matter or the minds of men He grants that according to Plato God is an incorporeal mind but then he saith he must want sense and prudence and pleasure i. e. Epicurean pleasure but withall he adds that Plato contradicts himself making the world and the Heavens and Stars and Men to be Gods which are both false in themselves and inconsistent with each other This charge against Plato seems to be the most material and therefore deserves to be more fully cleared which shall be afterwards done when I come to the Platonick doctrine about Divine Worship where it will be made appear that Plato did assert one supreme and incorporeal Deity and that the worship allowed by him to inferiour Gods was of the same nature with that which is practised in the Roman Church and that he no more believed Images to be like the true God than they do I now proceed to the rest of the Philosophers opinions in this matter Xenophon is charged by the Epicurean to be guilty of the same fault with Plato and that in the Memoires of Socrates written by him he saith that men ought not to enquire after the Form of God and that it is impossible for us to know it for we only know saith he that he is great and powerful who makes all things to quake and tremble Antisthenes acknowledged but one God in Nature although there were many of the Peoples making by which saith Velleius he destroyed the force and nature of the Gods and upon the Epicurean supposition that they were like to men he thought it necessary for their pleasure that there should be more than one to keep up good fellowship among them And because Speusippus said That the Divine Nature did imply a Governing Spirit he thought this as bad as the denying his Being it being to his apprehension impossible to be happy and to Govern He grants that Aristotle affirmed God to be an incorporeal Being however he saith that he was not constant to himself sometimes making nothing to be God but only Mind at other times attributing Divinity to the Heavens and parts of the World but as the late Commentator on that part of Tully observes the former was only the First Eternal Infinite God the other a secondary limited and participative Divinity and rather an Image of the Divinity than it self as he proves from comparing several places in Aristotle together and concludes with that excellent description of God drawn out of Aristotle by Du Vall God is an Eternal substance and Act without potentiality and Matter without magnitude parts division passion change intelligible by himself the principle of Motion but immovable the Cause of Heaven and nature and infinitely happy Mirare Lector saith Du Val hominis Ethnici Theologiam See how far Aristotle was from thinking the Athenian Images to be proper Likenesses of the Deity If to these now we add the Stoicks who asserted God to be a Divine Reason and Spirit actuating the World we have a full Discovery that by the confession of those who were of another opinion all the famous Sects of Philosophers agreed in rejecting that principle that the Gods were of humane shape and consequently the Idolatry they were guilty of in the worship of Images could not lie in this that they thought their Images to be proper Likenesses of God Of the same mind with these were the freer Philosophers of following Ages among whom Cicero deserves a name were it only for that excellent description of God which Lactantius and S. Augustin quote out of him with great approbation Neither can God himself be otherwise understood by us than as a Mind free and disentangled from all corporeal mixtures perceiving and moving all thing The same thing might be proved of Seneca Epictetus Plutarch Alcinous Plotinus Proclus Sallustius and others but I purposely forbear both because these are sufficient for my purpose and because it may be said by those who have nothing else to say in this matter that they came to have truer apprehensions of God only by the means of the Christian Religion Nay I might prove that many of the very Poets themselves had much nobler conceptions of the Deity than to imagine him to have any thing corporeal but I shall only mention these Verses out of the ancient Tragoedian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Think not that God is like to mortal flesh From whence we see that if there were any so foolish among the Athenians to imagine their Gods to be just like their Images they did it not for want of instruction to the contrary and if the nature of their Idolatry did lie in this scarce any understanding man among the Heathens that did really believe a Deity was guilty of it 2. But if they did not suppose their Images to be the proper Likenesses of God yet they worshipped the Images of false Gods or they worshipped their Images themselves for Gods and therefore saith T. G. the Apostle condemns them Rom. 1. To make my Discourse come home to them I must shew saith he that the Images by which they honour Christ and his Saints are worshipped by them as Gods or as the Images of false Gods as those were of which the Apostle speaks in that place That is it I aim at to bring my discourse as home to them as may be and therefore to give him full satisfaction I shall enquire whether the Heathen Idolatry condemned by S. Paul did consist in one of these two things either 1. That they worshipped only the Images of false Gods Or 2. That they took the Images themselves for Gods 1. Whether their Idolatry lay in worshipping the Images of false Gods If I can prove 1. That they did intend to worship the true God either by an Image purposely for him or to direct the worship through the Gods and Images they worshipped to him And 2. That there is no greater repugnancy in the manner of their worship than is used in the Roman Church I hope I shall bring my Discourse home enough to T. G. To do this more convincingly I shall give an account of the principles of Divine worship among the Heathens from their own Writers which I suppose will be another way of bringing it home to them and because T. G. particularly charges Socrates and Plato I shall make choice of the Platonick principles
them he so much sets forth the Divinity of the Stars and the Heavens he must either contradict himself or attribute only an inferiour Divinity to them and that he did not speak so clearly of the worship of the Supreme God because he looked on him as incomprehensible and that he could not so well know in what way it was fit to worship him However he invocates him in several places especially when he was to speak concerning the Gods and in his Epistle to Hermias Erastus and Coriscus which he writ when he was grown old he calls to witness the God over all Governour of all things and times and Father of the Lord and Cause of things but as to the publick manner of worship he saith that no man ought to teach unless God himself direct him He farther shews that notwithstanding Plato spake so much and so well concerning the true God yet he attributed the title of Divinity to several ranks of Spirits to the Heavens the Sea to the World to Zamolxis to Mercurius Trismegistus and to good men in general to whom he commands sacrifices and other acts of worship to be performed Quod in Religione nostra justissimè fit Sanctis Divis which is with great reason done among us to Saints and Deified men I now appeal to T. G. whether Aug. Steuchus doth not bring this matter very home to them when he saith that they either worshipped Angels so he saith Philo renders their Daemons or Saints as they verily believed and supposed the honour of these was very well pleasing to the Supreme God whom they constantly acknowledged as he at large proves not only concerning Plato but Aristotle and all the Philosophers of any reputation and he saith that Socrates in Plato not only confessed the true God but that he ought to be worshipped and observed by men and that for his sake men ought never to forsake the way of righteousness and therefore he resolved rather to follow God than the advice of his Friends 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which cannot be better rendred than in the Apostles words It is better to obey God than men It would be endless to repeat the places wherein he shews at large that Plato and the rest of the Philosophers did acknowledge the Unity Power Wisdom Goodness and Providence of the Supreme God And after all these acknowledgements is it possible to conceive that they should never intend to refer the honour they gave to inferiour Deities and their Images to this Supreme God nay it is not possible say some they should do otherwise since they believed all the other Deities they worshipped to be created and dependent Beings But I need not make use of such a way of proving it Paulus Benius Eugubinus hath made it appear he saith that according to Plato the Supreme God is to be worshipped after a singular and peculiar manner And he gives this account of the Platonick principles of divine worship as to inferiour Deities 1. That Plato's Gods were no other than our Angels and that he sets God the maker of them at a mighty distance from them 2. That when he speaks so much of the worship of the heavenly Bodies he doth not thereby intend the worship should be given so much to the bodies as to those Blessed Minds that moved them yea saith he to them properly and precisely and so that they being removed no honour or worship is to be given to the bodies themselves Which certainly is no more Idolatry on this supposition than adoration of the Host is upon one far more extravagant But he saith by one place in Plato's Epinomis it may be questioned whether he intended the stars should be worshipped otherwise than as Images of the Gods and therefore saith he very ingenuously Plato did scarce at all differ unless in words from the doctrine of the Roman Church in this matter 3. That Plato did put a difference in the nature and kind of the worship which he gave to inferiour Deities and that which was due to the Supreme God and the same kind of difference as is made among them and that when he acknowledges them to be created by him he could not give Soveraign worship to them 4. That when Plato gave worship to Daemons the difference is only about words because by Daemons he understood an inferiour Order of Angels whom he supposed to be good and holy and to have a care of mankind The only difference then that this learned man could find worth taking notice of between Plato's worship and theirs was this that they worshipped those for Saints and Deified men and the Images of such who were not truly Saints not being Canonized by the Pope but if they had been such he then confesses that they did nothing amiss in the worship they gave to them or their Images Alioquin saith he ea cultus venerationisque ratio cum nostra magnopere congrueret So that all the dispute comes to this whether Mercurius Trismegistus were not as good a Saint as Thomas Becket and as much deserved to be worshipped or Socrates as Ignatius Loyola not whether we account them so but whether they upon their supposition of their excellencies and vertues might not as innocently worship them as the Papists do the other P. Lescalopier a late Iesuit saith that Plato makes so palpable a distinction between the Supreme God maker of all things and other Deities that no one but an Epicurean Backbiter can deny that Plato did openly and constantly assert one God and that he did not give equal honour to any as he did to him and delivers this as the substance of his opinion Unum Deum imprimis adorandum cujus gratiâ caetera numina colenda sunt One God to have Soveraign worship given him and others to have a relative and inferiour worship And now I hope I have brought this matter home to T. G. and made it appear from their own Writers that these Philosophers went upon the same principles of Divine Worship that they do in the Roman Church The only appearance of difference is about the worship of Deified men and that not as to the nature and kind of the worship but only as to the persons and yet as to this it ought to be considered 1. That it was only a mistake such a one as many may be guilty of in the Roman Church who it is possible may worship those for Saints in Heaven who are in a worse place 2. Many of those worshipped by the Heathens are confessed to have been good men so Campanella confesses of Ianus whom he took to be Noah and he said deserved to be worshipped as well as Moses and Peter and Paul and the Prophets and he saith farther that many Wise and Vertuous men were worshipped by the Heathens who did not look on them as essentially Gods Thus many learned men have shewed that the Veneration of Adam and Eve of Noah
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
Ancestors to whom we give 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the second Honours next to the Gods as Celsus calls those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the due honours that belong to the lower Daemons which he contends ought to be given to them From which we take notice that the Heathens did not confound all degrees of divine worship giving to the lowest object the same which they supposed to be due to the Coelestial Deities or the supreme God So that if the distinction of divine worship will excuse from Idolatry the Heathens were not to blame for it 2. If this pretence doth excuse from Idolatry the Carpocratian Hereticks were unjustly charged by Irenaeus Epiphanius and S. Augustin for they are said To worship the Images of Christ together with the Philosophers Pythagoras Plato and Aristotle Wherein lay the fault of these Hereticks was it only in joyning the Philosophers together with Christ If that had been all it had been easie to have said That they worshipped the Philosophers together with Christ but they take particular notice of it as a thing unusual and blame-worthy that they worshipped the Images of Christ which they pretended to have had from Pilat which had been no wonder if there had been as many Images of Christ then extant as Feuardentius pretends viz. the Image of Christ taken by Nicodemus not I suppose when he came by night to our Saviour that at Edessa besides those which S. Luke drew of Him if there had been so many Images abroad of Him in veneration among Christians why should this be pitched upon as a peculiar thing of these Gnosticks That they had some Images painted others made of other matters which they crowned and set forth or worshipped as the Heathens did among which was an Image of Christ as Irenaeus reports it And supposing they had worshipped the Images of Christ as the Gentiles did worship their Images wherein were they to blame if the honour given to the Image be not the honour of the Image but of that which is represented by it And since Christ deserves our highest worship on this pretence they deserved no blame at all in giving divine worship of the highest degree to the Image of Christ. 3. The Primitive Christians did utterly refuse to worship the Images of Emperors although they were acknowledged to be Gods Creatures therefore I say according to their sense acknowledging the Saints to be Gods Creatures is not a sufficient ground to excuse the worship of the Images of Saints from Idolatry As in Pliny's Epistle to Trajan mentioned before one of the tryals of Christians was whether they would Imagini tuae thure ac vino supplicare use the Religious rites that were then customary of Incense Libation and Supplication before the Emperours Image this Minucius calls ad Imagines supplicare to pray before their Images which Pliny saith No true Christian could ever be brought to but would rather suffer Martyrdom than do it S. Hierome speaking of Nebuchadnezzars Image saith Statuam seu Imaginem cultores Dei adorare non debent the worshippers of God ought not to worship an Image Let saith he the Iudges and Magistrates take notice of this that worship the Emperours Statues that they do that which the three Children pleased God by not doing By which we see it was not only the Statues of Heathen Emperours which the Christians refused to give Religious worship to but of the most pious and Christian which out of the flattery of Princes those who expected or received Honours were willing to continue under Christian Emperours but it was at last absolutely forbidden by a Constitution of Theodosius of which I have spoken already in the Discourse about the Nature of divine worship But upon what reason came this to be accounted unlawful among Christians if it were lawful to worship the Images of Saints supposing them to be Gods Creatures Is it possible they should think the Emperours to be otherwise I do not think that the Souldiers who were trepann'd by Iulian to offer Incense to his Image at the receiving the Donative and after they understood what they did were ready to run mad with indignation at themselves crying out in the Streets We are Christians and ran to the Emperour desiring they might suffer Martyrdom for the Christian faith which they were supposed to deny by that act of theirs as Gregory Nazianzen and Theodoret relate the story did imagine that Iulian was any other than one of Gods Creatures or that they had any belief of his being a God but the Christians looked on the act it self of offering incense as unlawful to be done to the Image of any Creature or to the Image it self because it was a Creature and that of the meanest sort viz. the Work of mens hands 4. It is not enough for any of Gods Creatures to be worshipped under the Notion of Saints if any worship be given to them which is above the rank of Creatures i. e. any of that worship which belongs to God For none can have greater confidence of the Saintship of any Persons whose Images they worshipped those excepted which are revealed in Scripture than many of the Heathens had of the goodness of the Deities which they worshipped And if we observe the method which Origen S. Cyril S. Augustin and other Christian Writers took to prove them to be evil Spirits which they worshipped we shall find the great argument was from the Nature of the worship given to them For say they we find in Scripture that good Angels have refused that worship which they seem so desirous of and therefore there is just reason to suspect that these are not good Angels although they firmly believed them to be so and Hierocles saith God forbid we should worship any other And the Heathens in S. Augustin say peremptorily they did not worship Devils but Angels and the servants of the Great God So say I as to those who are worshipped under the name of Saints or Angels if in or at their Images such things are spoken or done which tend to the encouraging that worship which the Primitive Christians refused as Idolatry there is the same reason still to suspect those are not good but evil Spirits under whose name or representation soever they appear For it is as easie for them to play the same tricks among Christians which they did among Heathens for then they pretended to be Good Spirits and why may they not do the same still If we have a fuller discovery of their design to impose upon the world the folly of men is so much the greater to be abused by them and the Gentiles were in that respect far more excuseable than Christians because God had not discovered the Cheat and artifices of Evil Spirits to them so as he hath done to us by the Christian Religion Whatever pretence of miracles or visions or appearances there be if the design of them be to advance a way of
worship contrary to the Law of God we have the same reason to believe that evil Spirits are the Causes of them as the Primitive Christians had that evil Spirits were worshipped by the Heathens under the notion of Good 5. The Arrians believed Christ to be a Creature and yet were charged with Idolatry by the Fathers If it be said that they did give a higher degree of worship to Christ than any do to Saints I answer that they did only give a degree of worship proportionable to the degrees of excellency supposed to be in him far above any other Creatures whatsoever But still that worship was inferiour to that which they gave to God the Father according to the opinion of those Persons I dispute against For if it be impossible for a man that believes the incomparable distance between God and the most excellent of his Creatures to attribute the honour due to God alone to any Creature then say I it is impossible for those who believed one God the Father to give to the Son whom they supposed to be a Creature the honour which was peculiar to God It must be therefore on their own supposition an inferiour and subordinate honour and at the highest such as the Platonists gave to their Coelestial Deities And although the Arrians did invocate Christ and put their trust in him yet they still supposed him to be a Creature and therefore believed that all the Power and Authority he had was given to him so that the worship they gave to Christ must be inferiour to that honour they gave to the Supreme God whom they believed to be Supreme Absolute and Independent But notwithstanding all this the Fathers by multitudes of Testimonies already produced do condemn the Arrians as guilty of Idolatry and therefore they could not believe that the owning of Saints to be Gods Creatures did alter the State of the Controversie and make such Christians uncapable of Idolatry 2. I come to the second Period wherein Images were brought into the Christian Church but no worship allowed to be given to them And I am so far from thinking that the forbearance of the Use of Images was from the fear of complyance with the Pagan Idolatry that I much rather believe the introducing of Images was out of Complyance with the Gentile worship For Eusebius in that memorable Testimony concerning the Statue at Paneas or Caesarea Philippi which he saith was said to be the Image of Christ and the Syrophoenician woman doth attribute the preserving the Images of Christ and Peter and Paul to a Heathen custome which he saith was done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. saith Valesius inconsideratè imprudenter contra veterem disciplinam incautè very unadvisedly and against the ancient Rules of the Church And yet to my great amazement this place of Eusebius is on all occasions produced to justifie the antiquity and worship of Images if it had been only brought to prove that Heathenish Customes did by degrees creep into the Christian Church after it obtained ease and prosperity it were a sufficient proof of it Not that I think this Image was ever intended for Christ or the Syrophoenician Woman but because Eusebius saith the people had gotten such a Tradition among them and were then willing to turn their Images to the Stories of the Gospel Where they finding a Syrophoenician Woman making her address to our Saviour and a Tradition being among them that she was of this place and there finding two Images of Brass the one in a Form of a supplicant upon her Knees with her hands stretched out and the other over against her with a hand extended to receive her the common people seeing these figures to agree so luckily with the Story of the Gospel presently concluded these must be the very Images of Christ and the Woman and that the Woman out of meer gratitude upon her return home was at this great expence of two brass statues although the Gospel saith she had spent all that she had on Physitians before her miraculous cure and it would have been another miracle for such an Image of Christ to have stood untouched in a Gentile City during so many persecutions of Christians especially when Asterius in Photius saith this very Statue was demolished by Maximinus I confess it seems most probable to me to have been the Image of the City Paneas supplicating to the Emperour for I find the very same representations in the ancient Coines particularly those of Achaia Bithynia Macedonia and Hispania wherein the Provinces are represented in the Form of a Woman supplicating and the Emperour Hadrian in the same habit and posture as the Image at Paneas is described by Eusebius And that which adds more probability to this conjecture is that Bithynia is so represented because of the kindness done by Hadrian to Nicomedia in the restoring of it after its fall by an earthquake and Caesarea is said by Eusebius to have suffered by an earthquake at the same time and after such a Favour to the City it was no wonder to have two such brass statues erected for the Emperours honour But supposing this tradition were true it signifies no more than that this Gentile custome was observed by a Syrophoenician Woman in a Gentile City and what is this to the worship of Images in Christian Churches For Eusebius doth plainly speak of Gentiles when he saith it is not to be wondered that those Gentiles who received benefits by our Saviour should do these things when saith he we see the Images of his Apostles Paul and Peter and Christ himself preserved in Pictures being done in Colours it being their custome to honour their Benefactors after this manner I appeal to any man of common sense whether Eusebius doth not herein speak of a meer Gentile custome but Baronius in spight of the Greek will have it thus quod majores nostri ad Gentilis consuetudinis similitudinem quà m proximè accedentes at which place Is. Casaubon sets this Marginal Note Graeca lege miraberis but suppose this were the sense of Eusebius what is to be gained by it save only that the bringing of Images among Christians was a meer imitation of Gentilism and introducing the Heathen customes into the Christian Church Yet Baronius hath something more to say for this Image viz. that being placed in the Diaconicon or Vestry of the Church of Paneas it was there worshipped by Christians for which he quotes Nicephorus whom at other times he rejects as a fabulous Writer And it is observable that Philostorgius out of whom Nicephorus takes the other circumstances of his relation is so far from saying any thing of the worship of this Image that he saith expresly the contrary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 giving no manner of worship to it to which he adds the reason for it because it is not lawful for Christians to worship either Brass or any other matter no not
a Book no one suspects that his praise is therefore directed to his Book Thus it is in the acts of worship the Object is that Being to which the worship is directed but because external Acts must have some local circumstances by the position of our countenances and the tendency of our posture either towards Heaven or towards some place as the more immediate Symbol of a divine presence the difference is apparent between such a direction of the act towards a place and the direction of it towards an Object in case it can be made appear that may be a place of worship which is not an object of it For which we must consider 1. That the object of worship is that to which the worship is given either for its own sake or for the sake of that which it represents but a local circumstance doth only circumscribe the material act of worship within certain bounds And the proper object of worship is a Person either really present or represented as present The Idolaters who worshipped their Images as Gods if at least any considerable number of them ever did so it was upon this account that they supposed some Spirit to be incorporated in the Image and so to make together with it a Person fit to receive worship Those who worshipped the Elements or heavenly bodies did it not on the account of the matter whereof they were made but of those spirits which they believed to rule over those things they worshipped as I have already shewed in the general discourse But it is not necessary in order to an object of worship that the Person be really present for if men by imagination do suppose him present as represented by an Image that makes those who worship that Image perform the very same acts as if he were actually present and in the Church of Rome they do make this representation by an Image a sufficient ground for making that an object of worship which we say is the very thing forbidden in the Second Commandment viz. that any Image should be worshipped on the account of what it represents and therefore it forbids all kind of representations to be worshipped by men because an Image seems to have such a relation to the thing it represents that they may pretend they give worship to it on another account than meerly its matter and form viz. the thing represented by it Thus when the Reason of the worship of Images is drawn from the exemplar as it is both in the Councils of Nice and Trent they thereby shew that they do make the Image a true object of worship although the reason of it be drawn from the Person represented But suppose men worship God towards the West as the Iews did or towards the East as the Christians did what is there in this that doth represent God to us what is there that we fix our worship upon but only himself God hath no where forbidden men to worship Him towards the place of His presence for even our Saviour hath bid us pray Our Father which art in Heaven and supposing God had promised a more peculiar presence in His Holy Temple it was as lawful to worship God towards that as towards Heaven but that which God hath strictly forbidden is the worshipping of any thing on the account of the representation either of himself or of His creatures for this doth suppose that Image to be made the object of worship although it be on the account of what it represents 2. Supposing the same external acts to be performed towards an Image and towards a place of Gods particular presence yet the case is not alike in both these if those who do them declare they do them not with a design to worship that place For to the making any thing an object of worship there must be some ground to believe that they intend to worship it either from the nature of their actions or the doctrine and practice of the Church they live in but in case it be expressly declared that what they do is only intended as a local circumstance there is no ground to charge them with making it an object of worship Thus those in the Church of Rome who declare that they do not worship the Image but only worship God before an Image although they perform the same external acts of worship yet are condemed of Heresie because hereby they declare they do not give worship to Images which is contrary to the decrees of their Councils Much more certainly will those be condemned by them who declare it unlawful to worship any thing on the account of representation and that they do only determine the acts of outward worship towards a particular place without any intention to worship that place but only to worship God that way And this was the case of the Iews as to the worshipping of Images and of God towards the Holy of Holies they declared it utterly unlawful to do one because God had strictly forbidden it and they though it as lawful to do the other because he allowed the practice of it and it was sufficiently known among the people of the Iews that they had no intention to worship either the Ark or the Cherubims 3. Where there is only a local circumstance of worship the same thing would be worshipped supposing that circumstance changed but where any thing is an object of worship that being changed the same thing is not worshipped This makes the difference between these two easie and intelligible by all If a Iew should worship towards the East or Christians towards the West the same object of their worship continues still for they worship the same God both waies but if the Image of Christ or the B. Virgin be taken away from the Altar a Papist cannot be said to worship the same thing there that he did before Which plainly shews that there is a real difference between these two which is of great moment to clear the Iewish worship of God towards his holy place and to shew how different it was from the worship of Images 2. But T. G. pretends to bring clear Scripture for the Iews worshipping the Ark Adore ye the foot-stool of God for it is holy Psal. 98.5 so all the ancient Fathers he saith read it without scruple and S. Hierome he saith confirms it And why was it placed in the Holy of Holies and why were the people commanded to adore or bow down before it but to testifie their reverence to it To this I answer 1. One might venture odds against T. G. that when he quotes all the Fathers for him he hath very few of his side Nothing less will content him here than all the Fathers reading it without scruple for It is holy when Lorinus saith That all the Greek Fathers not one dissenting that he had seen read it For He is holy and among the Latins he confesses That S. Hierome and S. Augustine both read it so for
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