numbered Amongst them beyond the Seas I will name only Danaeus and Hottinger Daneus in his Appendix to the Catalogue of Heresies written by St. Austin recounteth the Hereticks who had offended as he thought in particular manner against the several precepts of the Decalogue And under the second Commandment he placeth the Simonians the Armenians the Papists and some others as notorious violaters of it Hottinger distributeth the false worship of the Papists into six kinds of Idolatry under the Greek names of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Bread-worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Marian-worship to wit that of the Blessed Virgin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Saint-worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Angel-worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Relick-worship and lastly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the worship of Images PART 2. Of the mitigation of the charge of Idolatry against the Papists THE learned Hugo Grotius especially in his Annotations on the consultation of Cassander in his Animadversions on the Animadversions of Rivet and in his Votum pro Pace The learned Mr. Thorndike in his Epilogue and in his Just Weights and Measures Curcellaeus in his Epistle to Adrian Patius These three together with some others have pronounced a milder sentence in this cause though they approved not of such Invocation of Saints and worship of Images as is practised in the Church of Rome But it is not my design to decide the controversie by the greater number of modern Authorities but rather to look into the merits of the cause And this I purpose to do so far only as Angels or rather Saints and Images are the Objects of this Disquisition Of Relicks and the Sacramental bread I forbear to say more than that little which follows For the first that which will be said concerning the worship of Images will help us sufficiently in judging of the worship of Relicks If they be made Objects of Religious adoration if they be honoured as pledges of Divine protection if they be trusted in as Shrines of Divine virtue at adventure and in all ages they become as the Manna which was laid up for any other than the Sabbath-day useless to the preservers offensive to God and unsavory to men of sagacious Noses Concerning that substance which after Sacramental consecration appeareth as Bread that excellent Church in whose safe communion I have always lived doth still call it Bread For the Priest after having consecrated the Elements and received the Communion himself in both kinds is required by the Rubrick of that Office to administer to others and when he delivereth the Bread to any one to use this Form The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy Body and Soul to Everlasting life Now a Discourse concerning the worship of that Substance which appeareth as Bread will in effect be a Discourse about the Corporal presence of Christ under the shews of that creature and run the Disputant into another Question which hath been industriously sifted by Thousands Neither are the printed Volumes touching this subject few or small There is a great heap of them written by the learned Messieurs Arnaud and Claud and Monsieur Aubertin hath obliged the World with a very large and laborious work about Transubstantiation in which may be seen the sense of the Ancients Forbearing then any further Discourse about the Worship of Relicks or the Sacramental bread I proceed to the Worship of Saints Angels and Images inquiring how far the Church of Rome doth by her Veneration render them Idols At the entrance of this Inquiry the trueness of her Faith in one God and three Persons is to be acknowledged and observed The Creed which is formed by order of the Council of Trent beginneth with the Articles of that of Nice though it endeth not without Additions And Dr. Rivet in his Reflections on those excellent Notes with which the acute Grotius adorned the consultation of Cassander doth in this point own the Orthodoxy of the Roman Faith In the Article of the Divine Trin-unity there is nothing saith he controverted betwixt Papists and Protestants And thus much is true if spoken of the generality of them for they herein adhere to Catholick Doctrine Thus do the Protestants of the Church of England but all do not so either here or beyond the Seas who commonly pass under the name of Protestants Curcellaeus for instance sake is called a Protestant yet may seem no other than a Tritheite as may appear by the first of those four Disputations which he wrote against his sharp Adversary Maresius The Romanists then professing the true Catholick Faith in the Article of the blessed Trinity and owning the second Synod of Nice which though it favoured Images so very highly yet it ascribed Latria to God only they seem injurious to them who do not only charge them with Idolatry but also aggravate that Idolatry as equal to the false Worship of the most barbarous Gentiles They seem unjust I say in so doing unless this be their meaning that the least degree of that crime under the light of Christianity be equal to the greatest under the disadvantages of Heathenism It is certain that the Romanists who worship the true God do not worship Universal Nature or the Sun or the Soul of the World in place of the Supreme Deity as did millions of Pagans Also for the Angels which they worship they justifie only the adoration of those Spirits who persisted in their first estate of unspotted Holiness and they renounce in Baptism the Devil and his Angels after the manner of the Catholick Church And when an Heathen is by them baptized the Priest after having signed him first on the Forehead and then on the Breast with the sign of the Cross does exhort him in this Form Abhor Idols Reject their Images But the Gentiles sacrificed to Devils and to such who by the light of nature might be known to be evil Daemons because they accepted of such Sacrifices as were unagreeable to the justice and charity and piety of mankind Sacrifices vile and bloody such whose smoke might be discerned by a common nostril to smell of the stench of the bottomless pit Yet some of the Heathens expresly denied the practice of such worship and made to the Christians this following profession We worship not evil Daemons Those Spirits which you call Angels those we also worship the Powers of the Great God and the Ministeries of the Great God For Hero's they worship those only whom they believe to have professed Christian Religion and to have been visible Members of the Catholick Church For into that whatsoever particular communion it was which afterwards they visibly owned they were at first Baptized Whereas the Gentiles worshipped many who had been worshippers of false gods Such worshippers were Castor Pollux Quirinus among the Romans These first worshipped false Deities and were afterwards worshipped themselves with the like undue honour
He seemeth not to Platonize 165 408 Saw God what it means 335 336 Whether Osiris Bacchus Apis 125 c. Bishop Montague his opinion about praying to Saints Angels Guardian Angel 207 208 Mountains British Islands 28 Moon Its character on Apis not from the beginning 118 Muggleton 's gross Deity 221 309 310 N NAils of the Cross worshipped with Latria by C. Curtius 147 284 285 Nature Pliny 's and Spinosa 's Goddess 26 27 Called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 399 Negative honouring of Images 280 Neton in Macrobius is Mnevis 131 Nice Council second what it means by adoration of Images 288 S. Nicholas made a Guardian-Saint 231 Nocca a kind of Northern Neptune 16 Nous of Plato the Intellectual world 399 400 401 Numa 's Temple and fire in it what 48 53 His zeal against Images 59 The fire in his Temple why renewed each March 53 Nysa what place 128 O ONion of what kind the Idol of Egypt was 28 Ophites their Diagram 153 Of Orders of Angels 165 166 167 212 Origen of the power of words 4 Orpheus 's one God 56 Osiris Bacchus 129. Apis 130. Moses 131. Osarsyphus Disaris 131 144 Oxen how sacred 111 112 113 114 136 353. with their faces Cherubim appear'd 337 338 P PAgod what 410 Pamelius a false charge of his against Tertullian 332 Patrocinie of Saints 194 to 256 Pectoral a lesser Ark 351 Permiseer of the Benians 58 Of Petavius 's calling Arius a Platonist 77 396 Pictures of Christ crucified lawful 277 None of Saints departed as such possible 296 297 Of Gods Shechinah 383 to 387 Pillar of Fire and Cloud what 331 Pix carried as the Ark 296 Plato he own'd one God 57 58 Yet he was an Idolater 69 76 to 81 His Triad not the Christian Trin-unity 77 78 398 399 c. Whence it came 407 408 His Ideas what 78 79 399 c. His Daemons what kind of spirits 85 86 How far he own'd Providence 81 Platonism an occasion of Gnosticism 149 150 Plutarch's Translation mended Poets how causes of Idolatry 36 37 Polytheism what kind possible 411 Pluto who 124 Porphyry his reason for the worship of God by the image of a man 74 His Translation mended 86 His abstracted worship 96 His not owning the Gods to have been men 118 Prayer our Lords said to Saints 197 Of Socrates and Simplicius 63 To Saints if only to pray for us 192 to 196 c. To fictitious persons 207 259 To some of suspected Saintship 256 to 258 Real Presence 94 181 185 346 347 Profit that which did not profit in Jer. 2. 11. meant of an Idol 338 Providence its extent acc to Maimon 84 Purgatory Fire one probable occasion of the belief of it 378 Pyramids what 42 43 Pythagoras his two Principles 15 76 155 156 393 His Image among the Gnosticks 153 His Dogma of the Imnortality of the Soul not like Christs 409 410 The form of the Oath of his Disciples 405 406 His Tetractys not the Tetragrammaton a double Quaternary what it was 404 405 406. R RApine's excess of devotion towards the Virgin 249 Representations of God unmeet 272 273 Reprisal of all things at last into Gods substance the Cabala of the Pendets 36 Resora an Indian Idol 29 Revel 22. 9. its various reading 175 Rites of worship their indecence great number taxed 5 6 7 8 Romans their Religion when corrupted 59 S. Rosa made a Patroness 232 W. Rufus his Apparition 262 S. SAbbath designed against Idolatry 99 100 Sacrifices enjoined as a means against Idolatry 100 101 Saint-worship two occasions of it 217 218 219 220 Saints little mention of their appearing unraised in SS 206 Solomon 's beginning of Idolatry 103 342 Sanedrim above what 105 Saturday where and how sacred to the Virgin 249 Sandius his conceit about the Holy Ghost 399 Scarabee the Hieroglyphick of the Sun 19 Scaliger a mistake of his 364 Not Seen his shape what it means 373 Mr. Selden answered about the Antiquity of Apis 114 to 117 Semis a Northern Idol 125 Serapis Pluto 119 124 141 His image 91 120 Seraphim what 351 to 360 Serpent which seduced Eve what and in what form 354 355 Of the Brazen-serpent 359 360 Serpents sacred 352 353 Of the fiery flying kind 352 Servetus his Frenzies 158 Signs external Idolatry by them 286 to 290. what allow'd at Trent 285 Sleep of the soul 162 Sneezing Prayer at it 10 307 Socinians make Christ a kind of thinking Machine 169 170 Sons of God in Gen. 6. 1 2. what 39 Sophocles 's one God 56 Soul of the world an assistant form 35 394 395 Varro 's God 54 called the Father in Plato 394 408 Not very God as explain'd by Plato 401 402 403 Spalato his judgment concerning saint-Saint-worship 263 Spirit moving the Chaos whether a mighty wind 409 Spirits whence their worship 34 Squango an Enthusiast of New-England 75 Statues of Idols what 30 69 88 89 90 91 Sun and Moon the first Idols 47 48 Sun a statue 68 Several Hieroglyphicks of it 115 Called the divine Harp 71 And the seat of Christ 278 323 377 Superstition described 3 4 5 Of the Pharisees what 9 Syncellus refuted 119 Shechinah whence 372 T TAbernacle of Moloch what 102 Holy Table by some called the Ark 389 390 Temple of Solomon what 339. whence occasioned acc to S. Chrysost 329. and Maimon 340. Christ the Temple 374 375 Prayers towards the Temple 369 Teraphim Seraphim Urim the same 349 350 Tertullian 's opinion of Idolatry in Seth 's time 38 Tetractys of Pythagoras 405 406. of the Gnosticks 153 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what 373 S. Thomas of Canterbury a devout servant of the Virgins 245 His shirt said to be mended by her 261 His Saintship doubted 256 Thorn a German Idol 27 28 Mr. Thorndike his opinion of worshipping Idols as ultimate objects 95. of Romish Forms of Prayer 190 191. of Idolatry as unjustly charged on the Church of Rome 176. of the peril of Idolatry in it 203 Throne and Fund of Matter what 394 Thrones Principalities Powers c. in S. Paul what 165 to 167 Tillage of Egypt 136 137 Truth by Christ in Joh. 1. 17. what 365 Trinity of its appearing under the Old Covenant 318 328 Triad Platonick how one 398 Thummim what 347 348 349 350 351 361 to 365 Two why Seraphim in the Pect Two 356 V U VAtablus 's exp of Bama 43 Of the Angel of Greece 83 Ubiquity whether ascribed to Saints and Angels by the Worshippers of them 204 205 Tho. de Villa Nova a Guardian-Saint 232 233 Ulma it s many Guardian-spirits 220 221 Viretus 's mistake about Plato 's Image of God 73 H. Virgin Forms of Prayer to her 189 190 195 198 201 211 212 225 227 230 231 235 By some Romanists parallel'd with Christ 248 249 251 Origine of her worship 251 252 A general Patroness acc to R. Rapine 234 235. and acc to the Synod of Mexico 249 Her seven joys on earth and
things and Brass and Iron because they were instruments of War and Ivory because it was the Tooth of an Elephant dead already or obnoxious to death But at last he concludeth from what reason I know not that an entire Tree or Stone might make a Mercury or an Image of a Demon. For the Europeans were not so costly and pompous in their Images till the Conquest of Asia the Fountain of Luxuries But though Platonists contented themselves with inward Ideas yet all the Gentile World did not but divers of them made and worshipped external representations of God the Creator So did the Egyptians who represented their supreme Cneph though diversly as appears from the description of him in Porphyry and his Image in Cartari So did the Greeks Porphyry himself confessing that they worshipped God in the Image of a man but making an excuse which Statuaries and Worshippers seldom thought of By God he means the supreme Deity and not some one only of the Divine Powers for he mentions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God himself and not only Divine Virtues in offering his reason for their worship by Images He there alloweth the Deity to be invisible and he yet thinks him well represented in the form of a Man not because he is like him in external shape but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because that which is Divine is Rational That was not the common Cause but an inclination to a sensible Object and an apprehension of humane Figure as that which was most excellent and which belongeth to a King and Governour under which notion in the grosser Idea of it their reverence of earthly Potentates had pictured God in their heads When Origen objected to Celsus the vanity of worshipping the invisible God in the visible form of man Celsus neither denieth the matter of fact nor apologizeth after the manner of Porphyry but retorteth the objection on the Christians who professed that man was made after the Image of God And Origen observeth that Celsus did not understand how to distinguish here betwixt being the Image of God and being made after it And that he ignorantly cited the Christians as saying “ That God made Man his Image and an appearance like himself And at this day Pagans when they entertain a Phantasm of God they are most commonly Anthropomorphites A very late and principal Actor in the ruine of the Town of Sacoe in New-England was an Enthusiastick Indian called Squango who some years before pretended that God appeared to him in the form of a tall Man in Black Clothes Now the Gentiles worshipping such Ideas or external Images as forms of God do misplace his Honour by paying their relative veneration to Objects which were not like him but infinitely unworthy of him They turned the Glory of Gods Essence into vile and despicable similitudes A worse sort of Idolatry still if worse can be were those Gentiles guilty of who by Images such as those of Baal and Pan adored Nature or the Sun as the supreme God The very Prototypes here were Idols So that in this kind of worship both the ultimate and intermediate the direct and the relative Honour of God was devolved on the creature PART 7. Of the Idolatry of the Gentiles in their worship of Demons A Second branch of the Idolatry of the Gentiles even of their Philosophers and men of deep disputation was the worship of Demons In this worship they were Idolatrous four ways First By worshipping Demons as Powers which under God had a considerable share of the Government of the World by Commission from him Secondly By worshipping Demons which were Devils or wicked and accursed Spirits Thirdly By worshipping the Images of such Demons Fourthly By their immoderate officiousness towards these inferior Deities which left them little leisure for attendance on the supreme God First The Gentiles committed Idolatry by worshipping Demons as Powers which with subordination to God did by his allowance manage a great part of the Government of the World They did not deny the supremacy of God but they imagined that he ruled not the World by his immediate Providence but by several Orders of Demons and Heroes as his Substitutes and Lieutenants Such as these were the Twelve Angels or Presidents which the Egyptians believed to govern by Ternaries the four Quarters of the World In the Flaminian Obelisk the supreme Momphta or supramundane Osiris is represented as ruling the Twelve parts of the World by Twâ—…lve Solar Demons in the form of Twelve Hawks that is of Eagles for of that kind were the sacred Accipitres of that Country There as likewise in Greece and Italy several inferiour Deities were appointed over several places persons and things He that is not otherwise furnished may read in Kircher of the Genius of Fire Air Water the Earth Agriculture of the Clouds the Sun and Moon of Heat and Moisture and of Fourty eight Asterisms as the stations of Fourty eight Deities Pythagoras and Plato themselves were in this point Authors of egregious Idolatry Pythagoras invented or rather learned from Egyptians Chaldeans Thracians Persians his two Demons or Principles the one good the Parent of Unity Rest Equality Splendor the other evil the cause of Division Motion Inequality Darkness for such were the Terms which his School used in representing their nature And these became Objects of much hope and fear which ought to have been moved not by mens devices but by considerations taken from the Almighty Power Justice and Goodness of God who is one Plato seemeth to have ascribed much both of the frame and of the government of the World to the Genii next to God By Principles whom he esteemed highly divine but not by such as he judged three Subsistences of the same supreme numerical Substance If that had been his Creed as some would have it who can find in him the mysteries of the Athanasian Articles the earliest Hereticks who denied the coequal Divinity of the Son of God and therefore believed in another kind of Logos had never come in such numbers out of his school the place from whence the Fathers fetch them With them agreeth Petavius that learned Jesuit and in this Argument as learned as in any other He saith it is most evident concerning Arius that he was a very genuine Platonist Plato's principal Idea or Logos was distinct in number and nature from his supreme Cause or God And those who follow the Faith of the Nicene Fathers reason not with consistence whilst they suppose this Idea to be the second Person and yet find in Plato such distinctness of Being and which to me seems very remarkable a plain denial of his Generation It is true that Plato cited by Porphyry does call the second Principle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word which is the Workman 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first
up their acknowledgments to the Queen of Heaven When God healeth them they sacrifice to AEsculapius as to him that removed their distemper from them This is a very great Iniquity and the common grounds or occasions of it are highly unworthy of the true God For most of them who believe not his immediate Providence do measure his actions by those of worldly Potentates They conceive him out of state to do little by his own person or out of ease and softness to commit the management of his affairs to others both by temporary command and by standing Commission As if the greatest variety of business could distract or weary him who is Infinite in Knowledg and Greatness and Power Thus St. Cyril judged of them who substituted lesser Deities under him that was supreme He thought that they impeached God of Arrogance or floth or want of Goodness which envieth none the good it can do And Isaiah tacitly upbraideth those who distrusted his Providence of the like vile opinion concerning him whilst he saith of the Creator that He fainteth not neither is weary Secondly The Gentiles were Idolaters through the worship they gave to such Demons as were evil spirits It is true that Plato owned no inferior Deities but such as were by him esteemed good He maintaineth this in his Tenth Book of Laws and St. Austin confesseth it to be his judgment He saith in his Phaedo That none were to be registred among the gods but such who had studied Philosophy and departed pure out of this life When he speaketh of Demons who afflict men he is to be interpreted rather of good Spirits executing Justice than of evil Angels venting their malice But whatsoever his opinion was it is most evident that the generality of the Heathens worshipped such Demons as were morally malignant And such Porphyry esteemed those Genii who had bloody Sacrifices offered to them The Gentiles sacrificed to Devils to the Powers of the Kingdom of Darkness which were not only not God but enemies and professed Rebels against him They were in Porphyry's account Terrestrial Demons such who had gross Vehicles and consequently were of the meaner and viler sort of their Genii and as they love to speak sunk deepest into matter Psellus and Porphyry represent them as united to a body of so gross contexture that they could smell the Odors of the Sacrifices and be fat with the steam of human blood Lucian in his Book de Sacrificiis abounds with pleasant or rather to them who pity the decays of human nature with very sad stories of the Revels of Demons Whether they were Terrestrial ones or not I here forbear to dispute but I conclude concerning them that they were evil Their nature shews it self by the services which they accepted by the persons whom they have favoured and by the appearances and wonders with which they sometimes encouraged them The Rites with which they were worshipped were bloody rude unclean such as an honest man would be ashamed to observe Porphyry though a Gentile hath recorded many of the bloody Sacrifices offered by the Rhodians Phoenicians and Graecians and he telleth of a man in his time sacrificed in Rome at the Feast of Jupiter Latialis The like barbarity was commonly used in the worship of Moloch and Bellona And he must have such a measure of Assurance as will suffer him no more to blush than his Ink who writes down all the Obscenities used in her worship whom they usually called the Mother of the Gods Origen telleth Celsus concerning the Christians That they had learned to judg of all the Gods of the Heathen as of Devils by their greediness of the blood of their Sacrifices and by their presence amidst the Nidors of them by which they deceived those who made not God their refuge And in another place he proveth this truth out of their own Histories and he instanceth particularly in their Deity Hercules and he objecteth against him his immoral love and that vile effeminacy which their own Authors record I will not tell over again their foolish stories so very often told already but offer to the Reader a Relation of fresher date out of Idolatrous America In Mexico saith an Author who had sojourned in that City the Heathens had dark houses full of Idols great and small and wrought of sundry Metals these were all bathed and washed with blood the blood of men the walls of the houses were an inch thick with blood and the floor a foot The Priests went daily into those Oratories and suffered none other but great Personages to enter with them And when any of such condition went in they were bound to offer some man as a Sacrifice that the Priests might wash their hands and sprinkle the house with the blood of the Victim With such Sacrifices no good Angel could be pleased wherefore the worship of such being an honour done not to God or his Ministers but to the Devil and his Angels who live in perfect defiance of true Religion is an Idolatry so detestable that I have not at hand a name of sufficient infamy to bestow upon it PART 8. Of their Idolatry in worshipping the Images of Demons THirdly The Gentiles were Idolaters in worshipping the Statues or Images of Demons or Heroe's either as those Powers were reputed the Deputies of God or as they were really evil spirits The Religious Honour given to the Prototype was Idolatrous and therefore the Honour done to the Image respecting the Prototype was such also So he that bows towards the Chair of an Usurper does give away the honour of the true Soveraign because the external sign of his submission is ultimately referred to the Usurper himself The Honour which the Gentiles did to their Statues redounded generally to their Demons for their Theology did not set up such Images whatsoever vulgar fancy or practice did as final objects of worship or Gods in themselves It set them up as places of Divine Residence wherein the Genii were thought to dwell or to afford their especial presence in Oracles and other Supernatural aids as the true God was said to dwell amidst the Cherubims The Egyptians as Ruffinus storieth entertained this superstitious perswasion amongst a multitude of others That if any man had laid violent hands on the Statue of Serapis the Heavens and the Earth would have been mixed together in a new Chaos Olympius the Sophist exhorteth the Gentiles still to adhere to the Religion of their Gods notwithstanding the Christians defaced their Statues And he gave them this as the reason of his counsel Because said he though the Images be corruptible things yet in them did dwell Virtues or Demons which from the ruins of their Statues took their flight to Heaven This Opinion Arnobius and Lactantius acknowledg to have been common among the Gentiles and we may still read it in the writings of the wiser shall I say
some Goropius Becanus would confidently say that the truth shineth so fairly through the Fable that we may discern in it Moses Bacchus Osiris Apis to be one man under four several names Other Particulars might still be added in this Argument as that some Heathens imagined Bacchus to have been worshipped in the Temple of the Jews under the Emblem of the Vine and that Osiris as well as Harpocrates is described with his finger upon his mouth representing as some would guess the slow speech of Moses But enough I think has been said already to render it probable that Moses was Apis the thing which by such proofs and reasons as Philology admitteth in other cases was to be evinced PART 7. Why Moses might be Idolized among the Egyptians I Have been long already in this disquisition but I am not yet at the end of it For the curious may further offer to me with pertinence these following Questions First How Moses came to obtain such Divine Veneration among the Egyptians on whom he drew very grievous plagues and from whom he removed a great Army of their necessary servants Secondly Why Moses was honoured by an Ox Thirdly Whence that Symbol received the name of Apis Fourthly At what time this Idolatrous Worship of the Symbol of Moses commenced in Egypt Fifthly When and for what reason it was divided into the Worship of Apis and Mnevis I shall return something in answer to each Query but I do not sooth up my self with the vain hope of giving such an answer as shall fully satisfie others or so much as my self This caution would have been the less necessary if all the other Queries had been as easie to be resolved as the first concerning the Worship given in Egypt to the Symbol of Moses It is not my opinion alone that he was there honoured after death with Religious Veneration Saint Cyril of Alexandria said the same many ages ago And it was not his bare opinion but he proved it by the Authority of Diodorus Siculus The place of St. Cyril which I here refer to is this Moses was well known to the Greek Historians For Polemon in his first Book of Grecian History maketh mention of him So do Ptolemaeus Mendesius Hellanicus Pholochorus and Castor and many others Diodorus who inquired very curiously into the affairs of Egypt says he heard of him from their Wisemen and of him he thus writeth After the ancient way of living in Egypt that which they talk of under their Deities and Heroes the people as they report were first brought to live by written Laws by a man of a very great mind and of a most memorable new way of life among the Jews one Moses who was called a God For as St. Cyril proceedeth to note on this place of Diodorus when they saw Moses most accomplished with every virtue they called him a God and as I think of some of the Egyptians they gave him divine honour being ignorant that the supreme God had said thus to him Behold I have given thee as a God to Pharaoh Here we have it asserted that Moses was highly honoured in Egypt And there were reasons enough for the honouring of him and they might prove the occasions of making him an Idol For Idolatry is veneration overmuch strained Moses was born and educated in Egypt he was reputed the Son of Pharaoh's daughter he was learned in all the Learning of the Egyptians he shined in that Court as the Moon amongst the little and confused Lights of the Galaxie He was the Instrument of God in doing mighty wonders mighty beyond the power of Natural Artificial or Diabolical Magick And these wonders God wrought by him in the eye of the African World The holy Scripture reporteth of him that He did marvellous things in the fields of Zoan or Tanis the Metropolis of the lower Egypt Also that that he was very great in the land of Egypt in the sight of Pharaohs servants and in the sight of the people The Son of Syrach calleth him The beloved of God and man and sheweth the favour of God towards him in making him glorious in the sight of Kings And though he fled out of Egypt he was even then a benefactor removing a people whom the Egyptians dismissed with gifts and causing their Plagues when himself disappeared to vanish away And though he had no way proved a Benefactor his very power of sending Plagues had been enough to deifie him with that people who scarce distinguish'd as we do betwixt good and bad Angels but looked on them that wrought temporal evil as Ministers of Justice and not as envious and malicious spirits Power to do hurt was reverenced by them and they worshipped Typhon as well as Osiris At the Red-sea he astonished Egypt with a Miracle too great and difficult for the united power of all their gods who could neither oppose it nor do any thing equal to it And though hereby he conveighed Israel out of Egypt yet that deliverance of them could not but represent him to all that heard the fame of it as a kind and compassionate man who saved his own Nation from the tyranny of a Prince whose rage swelled more than that of the waves in which he perished Pharaoh certainly oppressed his own people as well as the Israelites For a proud and cruel Prince is like a Wolf who has no kindness for any beast though he be fiercest towards the sheep And the fall of a Tyrant makes an agreeable sound in the ears of all the slaves which he hath bored whatsoever the hand be by which he is humbled Moses still grew in Eminence by his conversation with God by his conduct by his delivery of the Law by the success of his arms which Philo esteemeth very extraordinary whilst he warred without money the nerve of War and last of all by the power of his Miracles He was so eminent a person that R. Josua the Son of Sohib hath exalted him not only above the Patriarchs but even above all Creatures in Heaven and Earth placing the very Angels at the feet of this Prophet Artapanus likewise relateth concerning him that he was in singular favour with the people and obtained the name of Hermes and honour equal to their Deities From the same authority of Artapanus Eusebius reporteth that in memory of the Rod of Moses a Rod was preserved with veneration in every Egyptian Temple and particularly in the Temple of Isis. Egypt then never enjoying so great a person as Moses if I except the Messiah carried thither in the days of his Infancy and there obscured It is not exceeding strange that a Nation so apt to multiply her gods should Canonize him Neither is it on the other hand to be admired that in latter Ages their Reverence should be abated In the days of Diodorus Siculus the Egyptians reviled Moses so far were they from adoring him as a god The cause
to the eluding of the force of such places that he believed an acknowledgment of Christ as Creator was in effect a confession of his Godhead This then being by Arius granted and by Socinus denied that Christ created the Natural World it is that single point in which Arius apart from Socinus is chargeable with Idolatry And certainly he is not accused upon slight and idle suspicion if the charge be drawn up against him either from Scripture or Reason In the Scripture God himself doth prove himself to the World to be the true one God by his making of all things In what other sense will any man whose prejudice does not bend him a contrary way interpret the following places Who hath measured out the waters in the hollow of his hand and meted out the Heavens with a span and comprehended the dust of the Earth in a measure and weighed the Mountains in scales and the Hills in a ballance Who hath directed the spirit of the Lord or being his counseller hath taught Him Thus saith the God the Lord he that created the Heavens and stretched them out He that spread forth the Earth and that which cometh out of it He that giveth breath unto the people upon it and spirit to them that walk therein I am the Lord that is my name and my Glory I will not give to another Thus saith the Lord that created thee O Jacob and formed thee O Israel Fear not Before me there was no God formed neither shall there be after me The Lord is the true God he is the living God and an everlasting King or the King of Eternity Thus shall ye say unto them the Nations The gods that have not made the Heavens and the Earth even they shall perish from the Earth and from under these Heavens He hath made the Earth by his Power he hath established the World by his Wisdom and hath stretched out the Heavens by his Discretion Thus speaketh the Scripture In the next place let it be considered whether Reason can dissent from it What notion will Reason give us of the true God if it supposeth such wisdom and power in a creature as can make the World For does not Reason thence collect her Idea of God conceiving of him as of the mighty and wise framer of the Universe thus the very Americans themselves I mean the Peruvians did call their supreme God by the name of Pachaia Chacic which signifies as they tell us the Creator of Heaven and Earth In this then Arius is particularly to be condemned in that he supposeth the Creator a Creature and yet professeth to worship him under the notion of the Maker of all things It is true that Arius gave not to Christ the very same honour he did to the Father And his Disciples in their Doxologies were wont in cunning manner to give Glory to the Father by the Son And such a Form Eusebius himself used and we find it at the end of one of his Books against Sabellius Glory be to the one unbegotten God by the one only begotten God the Son of God in one holy Spirit both now and always and through all Ages of Ages Amen Neither do the Arians give any glory to Christ but that which they pretend to think enjoined by God the Father But if Christ had been a Creature the Creator would not by any stamp of his Authority have raised him to the value of a natural God and such a God they honour whatsoever the terms be with which they darken their sense for he is honoured by them as Creator and Governour and dispenser of Grace PART 3. Of the Idolatry of the Socinians THe point in which Socinus offendeth by himself is the Worship he giveth Christ whilst he maketh him but a man and such a man as is but a machine of animated and thinking Matter for though he declineth not the word soul or spirit I cannot find at the bottom of his Hypothesis any distinct substance of a Soul in Christ. If that Principle had been believed by him why doth he suppose the Lord Jesus bereaved of all Perception as long as his Body remained lifeless in the Grave Why do his Followers maintain that the dead do no otherwise live to God than as there is in him a firm purpose of their Resurrection for so the Vindicator of the Confession of the Churches of Poland written by Shlichtingius is pleased to discourse We believe said he not only that the Soul of Christ supervived his Body but also that the Souls of other men do the like But if Cichovius thinketh that the dead do otherwise live to God than as it is always in the hand and power of God to raise them up and restore them to life let him go and confute Christ where he saith I am the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living Now Reason the great Diana of Socinus though he often took a cloud of fancy for his Goddess can't but judg it a disparagement to the Idea of a God to suppose such Divinity as can govern the World and hear and act in all places at once as Christ is by Socinus confessed to do in a portion of living Matter not six-foot square reserved in the Heavens and perceiving by the help of motion on its organs Arius advanced the Idea of Divinity to a much higher and more becoming pitch for he overcome with the plain evidence of Scripture maintained the Praeexistence of the Logos and supposed him to be a distinct substance from Matter And he might consequently affirm with consistence to his Principles that Christ could know without the mere help of motion and be spread in his substance to an amplitude equal with that of the Material World For the Material World is but a Creature one Body of many Creatures and it implieth no contradiction to say of God that he can make one Creature as big as the collection of all the rest But notwithstanding such amplitude there would still be wanting infinite Wisdom For in the Idea of God we have no other notion of it than as of such a Wisdom as sufficeth to frame the World and to govern it after it hath been framed Now this latter Point is that in which both Arius and Socinus are together condemned whilst both worship Christ as one who under God disposeth and governeth all things It is true that he is such but such he had not been if he had not been consubstantial with the Father In that sense he is the Father's Wisdom and whilst Arius and Socinus adore him as Gods Wisdom yet not as God they ascribe to the Creature the Attribute by which the Creator is known For the Scriptures they in opposition to all other gods do as well ascribe the Government as the Creation of the World to that one God of Israel Hear them speaking in this matter with so
though it may be and it is certain they have not in all Ages known according to what is in the Prophesie of St. John what Jesus Christ will do next yet that still by the spirit of Prophesie as it were the Saints have been guided to seek for those things at the hands of God and Christ which he was about to accomplish Also that the Saints in Heaven before the day of Judgment have a share and an hand in Christs government of the world and that they have a knowledg by the Angels that are continually Messengers from Heaven to Earth of the great things that are done here And he that writeth the Epistle to the Reader maketh this Application of Mr. Goodwins Doctrine Now saith he what may we think the Saints in Heaven who within these ten years last past lost their lives in the Cause of Christ he meaneth the Army-Saints from the year forty-four to that of fifty-four who dy'd in maintenance of the Bad Old Cause are EMPLOYED ABOUT at this time they understanding by the Angels what great changes are come to pass on our Earth Those of whose Saintship we have better assurance though in a state of rest and light are esteemed by the Fathers but a kind of Free Prisoners not being acquitted by the publick Sentence of the General Judgment And their opinion who give them a Lieutenancy under God in the Government of the World before that day does recall to my mind the Argument used by that truly great man Sir Walter Raleigh in his own unhappy Case He pleaded that the grant of a Commission from the King did argue him to be absolved and that he who had power given him over others was no longer under a sentence against his own life Abraham and Isaac do not now rule us and it may be they are ignorantt of us which whilst I affirm I do not wholly ground my Assertion on the Text in Isaiah That soundeth otherwise whether we take it in its positive or hypothetical sense It s positive sense may be this Doubtless thou art our Father notwithstanding we live not under the care of Abraham or Isaac but are by many generations removed from them who therefore knew us not or own'd us not we being not men of their times we are their seed however though at a great distance and to such also was thy promise made And for the Hypothetical sense it may be this Be it supposed that Abraham knows nothing of us yet certain we are that thou art the God of Israel whose knowledg and care of thy people never faileth I admit here that the Saints pray for the Church in general that Angels are concerned in particular Ministrations but that Angels and even Saints have shares of the Government of the World though in subordination to God so as to be Commission-Officers under the King of Heaven and not only Attendants on his Throne and as it were Yeomen and Messengers of his Court the general condition of the Angels I cannot admit without peril of Idolatry This in my conceit is the great resemblance betwixt the Romanists and the Gentiles Both of them suppose the World to be ruled under God by several Orders of Daemons and Heroes though I have confessed already that they are not so exactly alike but that Rome-Christian may be distinguished from Rome-Pagan For the Gentiles so much hath been shewn already and it may appear further from the place of the Greek Historian cited in the Margent And for the Romanists that too hath already been manifested in part and shall be further declâ—…red and Rivallius in his History of the Civil Law or Commentary on the Twelve Tables does very honestly confess it He having commented on that Law which ordereth the worship of the Heathen gods both Daemons and Heroes letteth fall words not unfit to be here gathered up by us Christians saith he meaning those of the Roman Communion retain a Religion like to this for they worship God immortal and for those that excel in Virtue and shine with Miracles first with great pomp and inquisition they register them among the Deities or Saints and then they worship them and after that they erect Temples to them as we see in the case of S. John S. Peter S. Catherine S. Nicholas S. Magdalen and other Deities In this point then let us join issue and offer on our side the manifestation of these particulars First On what occasions this worship of Ruling-spirits came into the Church Secondly How it derogateth from the honour of God as Governour of the World Thirdly How it derogateth from the honour of Jesus as the Mediator and King ordained by God First For the occasions of this Worship I conceive them to be especially these two The Celebration of the Memory of the Martyrs at their Tombs and the compliance of the Christians with the Northern Nations when they invaded Italy and other places in hope of appeasing them and effecting their conversion First I reckon as an occasion of this Worship the celebration of the memory of the Martyrs at their Tombs and Monuments and Reliques and in the Churches sacred to God in thankfulness for their Examples The thankful and honourable commemoration of the Martyrs was very ancient and innocent at the beginning For as the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna concerning the Martyrdom of St. Polycarp testifies They esteemed the bones of the Martyrs more precious than Jewels They kept their Birth-days that is the days of their Martyrdom on which they began most eminently to live they pursu'd them with a worthy affection as Disciples and Imitators of Christ but they worshipped none but Christ believing him to be the Son of God But laudable Customs degenerate through time And this in the fourth Century began to be stretched beyond the reason of its first institution as appeareth by the Apostrophe's of St. Basil St. Gregory Nazianzen and others of that Age. Afterwards the vanity of men ran this Usage into a dangerous extreme and those who had been commemorated as excellent and glorified Spirits and whose Prayers were wished were directly invoked and worshipped as the subordinate Governours of Gods Church This Veneration of the Martyrs which superstition thus strained was occasioned by the Miracles which God wrought where his Martyrs were honoured Times of Persecution at home and of Invasion from abroad required such aids for the Encouragement of Catholick Christians and the Conversion of Infidels and misbelievers Thus in the days of St. Austin in whose Age the Getae or Goths sacked Rome and many of the barbarous people imputed the present misfortunes of Italy to the Christian Religion God pleased to work Miracles at the Bodies of the Martyrs Protasius and Gervasius in the City of Milan Thus as is reported by Procopius and Egnatius he miraculously saved those Christians at Rome and Pagans also both in the time of Alaricus and Theudoricus who
fled to the Churches of St. Paul and St. Peter And he did it saith Grotius by a Providence like to that by which they were saved in Jerusalem who had kept the Law which was signified by the Letter Thau that is Thorah the Law written on their foreheads as is said in Ezekiel They went out of Babylon or Rome to the holy places which stood without the City and there remained in undisturbed peace more by Gods protection than the Gothick Clemency though by the Edict of Alarick such Churches were made the Sanctuaries of Christians This Instance no doubt heightned the veneration of many towards the Martyrs though God wrought such things not as testimonies of the power of the Martyrs but as supports to the Christian Religion And this being an Instance in the Gothick story it reminds me of The second occasion of the worship of Spirits as Rulers of the World in certain Precincts especially in this Western Church to wit the Invasion of the Northern Nations who sought their preferment by quitting their own Country In Rome it self a great number of the Senators worshipped Idols in the very reign of Theodosius the Great And many worshippers of false gods upon the Sack of Rome by the Goths under Alaricus did saith St. Austin in the Argument of his Book of the City of God charge the calamity on the Christian Religion and blaspheme the true God with bitterer words than it was their custome to use And this as he declareth stirred up his zeal and moved him for the stopping of their ungodly mouths and refuting their Errors to write that Book For the Goths themselves the general body of them was barbarously Idolatrous though some of that people had received betimes the Christian Faith for Theophilus a Gothick Bishop was at the Council of Nice and the Vandals were wholly Pagans Neither were there under Heaven a people more zealously devoted to Daemons than the Scythians Getes or Goths Of the Thracian Getes Pausanias saith in his Baeoticks that they were a more acute Nation than the Macedonians and by no means so negligent in the worship of their gods Schedius in his Dissertations concerning the German-gods hath remembred very many Gothick Deities and there is a Learned man of our own Nation who tells us that he hath not numbred the half of them Of Herald the first King of Norway it is reported by Crantzius that he offered two of his own Sons unto his Daemons for the obtaining at Sea such a Tempest as might disperse that Armado of Herald the sixth King of Denmark which was prepared against him and that he obtained that for which he had bidden so dear and bloody a rate After the further Conversion of those Northern people none more corrupted their worship than they with the observance of Tutelar Saints In the Chronicle of Swedeland the inferior Deities of that place exceed the number of the Villages and I need no further instance than that which I find in Felix Faber a Monk of Ulma A Town saith he night to Ulma is Seflingen in which is the Blessed Virgin presiding in the Garden of Virgins and keeping on the West the Walls of that City On the South is situate the Village of Wiblingen in which St. Martin armed both with the Temporal and Spiritual Militia is the Patron of the Church and the Guardian of the Ulmenses Nigh also is Schuvekhofen an ancient Town where at this day standeth a Church in which S. John the Evangelist watcheth over Ulma On the East is the Village Pful where standeth the Mausoleum of the Blessed Virgin in the publick street There she demonstrates by certain Miracles that she dwells in that place Thence she looks upon Ulma with the eyes of mercy and defends it In that Village S. Udalricus is Patron of the Church an excellent Guardian of the Citizens who implore his Aid On the North on the Royal Mountain of Elchingen is placed a lofty Throne of the Blessed Virgin to the terror of all that have evil will at Ulma He further mentions St. George St. Leonard all Saints with the Virgin in the midst of them St. James and St. Michael as Patrons and defendants of that place And for St. Michael he is placed on a Mountain on the West-side as a Watchman looking over the whole City and in Armour as the Protector of it Now the Northern Barbarians being so inclined to the worship of Tutelar Daemons it is no wonder if many Christian Romans to mollifie their savageness and to induce them to Christianity so far complied as to offer them Tutelar Saints and holy Angels instead of their evil Guardian Spirits This I suppose they did because I find the Concurrence of their Invasion and stay in Italy and of the rise and growth of Daemon-worship there both happening in the fourth and fifth Centuries And it may not be unworthy the Observation of the Reader that in the fifth Century St. Michael the Archangel a most eminent Patron as we just now heard from Felix Faber among the Northern Christians was first Commemorated in the Western Church by a solemn Feast I would here further note that Woden not the Mercury but the Mars of the Northern Idolaters was in highest esteem among them That Michael answereth to him being as the Roman Litanies stile him the Prince of the Heavenly Host That this Feast of St. Michael was then instituted when Peace was desired betwixt Odoacer King of the Heruli who came first from Scandanivia and were called afterwards Lombards and Theodorick the first King of the Goths in Italy Having thus aimed at the resolution of the fiast Inquiry the occasion of Daemon-worship in the Church I proceed to shew in the second place That this worship derogateth from the Honour of God as Governour of the World by his immediate self though also by a Substitute for he is likewise the same Essential God It is both by the Romanists and the Reformed acknowledged that God is the Governour of the World That in him we live and move and have our being That he giveth us life and breath and all things That to him all glory is to be referred Neither hath he anywhere declared that he hath divided the Regiment of the World into several Lieutenancies of Angels or Saints He hath no-where shewed us that he hath given to this Angel and that Saint not to a Saint especially a Commission to rule in such a Precinct or a Patent to practice as a Supernatural Physician in such a City or Town or any-where in the cure of such a disease or Orders to assist at this Mass and that Confession If therefore such effects of Protection Health and assistance follow and are believed to comefrom this or the other Saint though as subordinate to God the supreme Governour and infinite Physician yet a degree of Trust is put in them as Plenipotentiaries or Substitutes of the King of the
World and a degree of thanks is given to them as to such Delegates And God seemeth robbed of the honour of dispensing particular favours though the general Grant be derived from him Whereas it may be in many cases God himself hath done all without so much as the Ministry of an Angel much less of a Saint and consequently ought to have received the whole honour of which good part being though by mistake a mistake soon rectified by them who examine things ascribed to the Creature is therefore in that degree Idolatrous A good part is in these cases generally ascribed to Saints and it is well if some look up any higher at the time of their deliverance We see in the administration of political affairs that Subjects though owning notionally the supremacy of their Prince yet go often no further in their trust or thanks than to those men who by their Place and Office and deputed Authority can very effectually dispatch their affairs without higher Application And he that is protected as a servant to a Senator pays all his acknowledgment to his Master who received him kindly into his service and not to the King who is but the more remote though the supreme Author of this priviledg And it is plain from Romish History it self that the pay goes to that Saint who is believed in Commission whilst God is by supine inadvertence scarce remembred So the Liber Festivalis tells us That when S. Gilbert was afflicted with a soar Throat The Virgin took her feyre pappe and milked on his Throat and went her way and anon therewith he was hole and thanked our Lady ever after I will clear my meaning a little further by proposing more instances of which the first shall be made in the Annalist Baronius and applied unto the present occasion This laborious Writer is looked upon as the very Champion of the Papacy His Twelve Tomes of Ecclesiastical story are reputed so many Pillars of the Roman Cause That Great man in the Papacy Sixtus Quintus gave great encouragement to the Author and his work The Archbishop of Gnesna in Poland as likewise other great and zealous men who were Bygots for the Papacy thought it fit to be translated into all languages and set on foot a Polonian Italian and German Version If he speaks not like a true Roman Catholick from whom shall we hear the words of a son of that Church Hear him then at the end of his several Tomes and you will find him owning indeed the supremacy of God for that was an Article of his Faith But withal you will find him zealously asserting a delegation of considerable power to the Blessed Virgin as also making very thankful remembrances of her favours in the guidance and success of his Pen. And these remembrances are in such manner expressed that if by them nothing is meant of Assistance from the Virgin besides the help of her prayers for him I must search out some new Dictionary for the Interpretation of his Latin At the end of the first Tome of those his Annals he doth as it were hang up a Table in acknowledgment of those powers who had conducted him through that vast Sea as he rhetorically calls it of the matters of the first Age. His Doxology is offered to the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and likewise to the most holy Virgin under the Title of the Conciliatrix of the Deity For to her saith he as we refer all these our works they being received from her so likewise to her we offer them That the same Virgin may offer them how mean soever to her beloved Son That she may sanctifie them with the vouchsafe of her blessing and obtain that favour for the oblation that he may be to us a portion in the Land of the living And over the words of this Address she is pictured Crowned and with her Son as an Infant in her Arms and with a Retinue not only of Angels in General but of Cherubims the Attendants on Gods throne For his Second Tome this is a part of the Conclusion of it Here then let our Discourse wearied with a longer journey opportunely repose it self And being mindful of the benefit let it thankfully cast it self as is our custom at the feet of the most holy Mary the Mother of God That it may offer to her from whom it acknowledgeth the whole to be received whatsoever it understandeth it hath obtained of God by her Prayers And let it cast into her as into a most holy and living Treasury after the manner of the Widow two mites collected in poverty with great labour the two Tomes I mean of the Annals now finished Let that very Virgin be to us the most safe Ark in which our labours may be kept and in safe custody protected lest a thief breaking thorough to wit the appetite of vain-glory steal them away or the moth and rust adhering to them to wit vain and fallacious hopes corrupt them or eat through them For she is the true and divine Ark made of Shittim-wood which preserveth from corruption those things which are committed to her care In his third Tome this is his Peroration Seeing now as saith Ecclestastes Rivers return to the place whence they came that they may flow again it is plainly fit that to that Fountain whence all our labours have flowed they be recalled as to their proper Original and by reciprocal flux be thither refunded that thence they may be poured forth upon us in greater plenty To her therefore by whom the whole of this gift comes to us from God to the most holy Virgin I say Mary the Mother of God we offer very humbly this third Tome of Annals as we have already done those other which we have published His Peroration in his fourth Tome thus beginneth Now by your Aid Virgin Mary Mother of God pay we down the fourth part of our Task and to you we pay it from whence we received it For you have found it Wool and Flax and wrought it with the counsel of your hands Wherefore for the rest of the work perform it your self and weave those threds whatsoever they be and in your hand undoubtedly they will be golden into those Sacerdotal garments of which David thus speaketh Let thy Priests be clothed with righteousness I will deck her Priests with salvation I beseech thee make for us those two Garments for those of thy Family are said to be doubly clothed The fifth Tome hath a like conclusion to this sense This fifth issue Mother of God received from your favour conceived by your Prayers I here bring for a thankful acknowledgment as Anna did Samuel to you the living Tabernacle of God The sixth Tome endeth thus We are now in the Haven in which men sail not We contract our sails and we fasten our Cable to a solid Rock intending in due time to set sail again Now then what remaineth but
them who on earth can reveal to us whilst eye hath not seen it neither hath ear heard it But for the Images or Pictures of the Saints in their former estate on earth if they be made with discretion if they be the Representations of such whose Saintship no wise man calleth into question if they be designed as their honourable Memorials they who are wise to sobriety do make use of them and they are permitted in Geneva it self where remain in the Quire of the Church of St. Peter the Pictures of the twelve Prophets on one side and on the other those of the twelve Apostles all in wood also the Pictures of the Virgin and St. Peter in one of the Windows And we give to such Pictures that negative honour which they are worthy of We value them beyond any Images besides that of Christ we help our memories by them we forbear all signs of contempt towards them But worship them we do not so much as with external positive signs for if we uncover the head we do it not to them but at them to the honour of God who hath made them so great Instruments in the Christian Church and to the subordinate praise of the Saints themselves They who worship such Images do either worship them as the Statues of such invisible Powers as do under God govern the world or of holy Spirits who hear them in all places and pray to God particularly for them or who only pray for them in general or as so many Shechinahs of ruling or interceding Saints And First If they worship them as Representations of ruling Daemons they are Idolatrous For they thereby give away the honour of Gods reserved power to a Creature They honour as Clients the statue of a Saint whilst God is by right their Patron Secondly If they worship the Images of Saints only as holy spirits who pray for them and hear them in any place by the help of that God whose essence is every-where and who enabled the Prophet to know the actions of Gehazi when he was out of his sight they are still thereby in peril of Idolatry for if God does not enable them to hear and they pray with confidence in them as hearing they relye on a power in the Creature which God hath not communicated to it Thirdly If they honour the Images of Saints only as holy spirits who in general pray for them they are not to be thence condemned as Idolaters for should they so far debase their reason as to give to the Image the same honour which is due to the Saint they honour but a creature that is inferior with the honour of a creature superior to it who prayeth for them in the mass of mankind And if they bow to such an Image that external sign of worship can't reasonably be interpreted by the beholders as a sign of Divine honour because they bow to that which appears no other than the Image of a Saint and not a Crucifix or Image of Christ the eye sufficiently distinguishing these and therefore it hath no higher honour than the Prototype which is a Creature I except here such bowing and kneeling to the Image of a Saint as is in use in the Roman Church and is accompanied with a form of Prayer proper to be addressed to God and particularly that form which Christ hath taught us For though the Catechism of Trent requireth the Parish Priest to let the people understand that when any one pronounceth the Lords-Prayer to the Image of a Saint he should think only that he joineth his Prayers with those of that Saint to God for him Yet the people are not so apt to receive the instruction and to be free from mistake and this the Catechism it self supposeth whilst it speaketh of the need there is of the greatest caution in this matter need of it not only for the moment of the thing but for the easiness of erring in it Fourthly If they worship them as Shechinahs of ruling Daemons they honour that as the presence of a power which God is pleased every-where to exercise and which he hath not fixed in such Statues in order to any eminent operation Wherefore they give the honour of Gods Schechinah to that which is not such and their trust is in an Idol And here the practice of the Church of Rome is scandalous if its constitution be not There is a common perswasion among that people that Prayers are more effectually heard and that Miracles are sooner done before an Image than in the absence of it That one Image is a more excellent Shechinah than another that our Lady will perform things at Loretto which she will not do at Rome it self And they who desire blessing of St. Winifred think they soonest attain it at her well The Liber Festivalis as they called it in use here in England in the time of Henry the seventh aboundeth with stories of Divine power working in Images and amongst other tales it telleth of the power of the Image of St. Nicholas in keeping mens Goods in safety and how certain Thieves who were permitted for a time to steal a few Goods committed to its care were by St. Nicholas forced to speedy restitution We read in Krantzius that Count Gerhard Uncle to Waldemare of Sleswick went to battel against the Danes with the Image of the Virgin about his neck after the manner of Sylla the Dictator who used in such emergencies certain little statues of Apollo or Jove one of which after his escape in a very dangerous Fight he kissed saying O Jupiter I had almost fallen with you this day and you with me And the Books of the most learned Papists are full of Legends which by telling of the motion of the Images themselves in wonderful manner or of the miraculous events succeeding the Addresses made at them do incline the people to come thither with confidence as to the Shechinahs of God Curtius the Provincial of Belgium is one of these writers and I find this story in him There was a certain poor man who in extreme need beseeched our Saviour to preserve him from perishing by some small Alms. At this Prayer the Image or rather Christ in the Image bowed himself and gave to the beggar his right shoo as a help in his need Away went the man with this new prize but the neighbours hearing of it redeemed the shoo with the equal weight in gold But that shoo to this day could never be fitted again to the foot but is supported with a Chalice It seems this Crucifix was made of Cedar by Nicodemus himself but methinks with no good fancy the Artist having carved a Crown of Gold instead of one of Thorns upon the head of our holy Lord. Lipsius a man rather learned than wise telleth of the many drops of blood which distilled from a certain wooden Image of the Virgin at Halla And on this he looked as on a miracle
the bread of common Tables and not the natural body of Christ Also before the Administration of it which is done in a form of Prayer which requireth our Reverence the people are generally on their knees in devotion to God If any begin then to kneel their kneeling is by the Church declared to be at the Sacrament not to the Elements of it as they of Rome do towards which she alloweth not so much as a Prosopopeia in her Prayers and which are neither the Statues nor the Pictures of Christs Person though they be apt memorials of his Passion and are more safely received in their ordinary form than with such Figures as the Roman Church impresseth upon them of which great variety is to be seen in the Electa of Novarinus Further The Church of England to avoid all pretence of cavil and exception hath besides her Article against the Corporal Presence given to the world an express declaration of her design in the injunction of Kneeling She declareth that this is done in reverence and humility to Christ and not to the shews or substance of the Elements or to the natural body of Christ under the shews of Bread They who are acquainted with the writings of Monsieur Daille have no more reason to think him a Romanist than they have to take Bellarmine for a zealot amongst the Reformed Now this is the acknowledgment of that grave and learned person in his Apology for the Reformed Churches Whilst the Church of England declareth as it doth against the adoration of the external Elements their kneeling at the Communion cannot be taken for the worshipping of the Bread nor be thought any thing else but the worship of Christ himself reigning in the Heavens In this external Adoration of Christ the Church of England followeth the ancient Church which though it often adored by bowing and not kneeling yet sometimes it used that gesture and was never wanting in some sign of Reverence Such Adoration is mentioned by St. Chrysostom and particularly the gesture of kneeling or prostration in some places though Monsieur Larrogne hath not pleased when he had just occasion so to do to take notice of it That eminent Father in his third Homily on the Epistle to the Ephesians thus upbraideth the irreverent and indevout Communicant The Royal Table is prepared the King himself is present and standest thou gaping about Thy Garments are unclean and art not thou at all concerned at it But they are pure that is the Royal Table and the King of that Marriage-Feast wherefore fall down and communicate For the third Ceremony the bowing at the name of Jesus it is also enjoined not as duty in its nature necessary to salvation but as a decent sign of our inward esteem of that inestimable benefit which that name brings to our mind Of that just esteem and not meerly of the outward Ceremony I hope that zealous Gentleman spake who is reported to have wished that every knee might rot which would not bow at the Name of Jesus By bowing at this Name we advance not the Son above the Father but adore the whole Trinity whilst by the cue or sign of this name we are reminded of the greatest mercy that ever God vouchsafed the Name of Jesus displaying the wisdom and mercy of God beyond those of El Jah Adonai or Jehovah And for us to bow when-ever we hear that Name solemnly pronounced is no more to commit Idolatry than is our crying out at the reading of the Gospels Glory be to thee O Lord or O the depth of the riches of Gods mercy in Christ. For these words and that gesture are but external signs of the same inward acknowledgment and adoration And they who think we worship the very name when we bow at it are as grosly mistaken as the ignorant people in Athenaeus for some there mentioned when they heard others cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God save you or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God grant you life at the sneezing of any conceited that they adored either the very sternutation or the brain of man which then discharged it self of the fumes which oppressed it The Church of England doth not enjoin men to bow to the Name of Jesus as to an Object but only at it as at a signal by which they are admonished of the time of paying Reverence to God Neither is there any such form used in our Church as in the Church of Rome which to the Priests travelling into England prescribeth this out of the Missal of Sarum O God who hast made the most glorious name of our Lord Jesus Christ thy only begotten Son amiable to the faithful with the highest affection of suavity and terrible and dreadful to evil spirits mercifully grant that all they who devoutly worship this name on earth may perceive in this present life the sweetness of holy consolation and obtain in the life to come the joy of exultation and endless Jubilee by the same Lord. It is my opinion that the Judicious of that Church mean by that Name our Saviour himself as Redeemer of the World but the Church expresseth it self in such manner that to the people the Name of Jesus soundeth like some distinct adorable object For it speaketh of worshipping that Name it hath the Mass of the Name of Jesus the Litany of the Name of Jesus and such-like Forms which are apt to entangle common Hearers St. Ludgard would have such honour done not only to Christs Name but to that of the Virgin and he adviseth that when these words in the Tc Deum are repeated When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man thou didst not abhor the Virgins womb that then we bow down to the very ground And it is said d of St. Gerard Bishop of Canadium that is of Chonad in Hungary that by his zeal for the honour of the holy Virgin he brought it at length so to pass in that Country that when they heard the Name of our Lady pronounced they straightway fell on their knees and bowed their heads towards the earth And indeed nothing stoopeth lower than Superstition But in the Church of England the bowing is neither that of Superstition nor Idolatry but of Religious Reverence at the hint of a word which setteth forth to us all the dimensions or rather the infinity of the Divine Wisdom and Love Lee not then the ignorance or malice of men who make Court to nothing but their own Diana accuse that excellent Church of Idolatry which hath so carefully purged her self of Idols though not of all manner of Rites That had been to have swept away the convenient Ornaments of Gods house together with the durt of it the name which the Jews give to an Idol Of some in England who have rent themselves from the safe Communion of that Church there may be juster reason for such complaint What can judicious men think of the true
glory vastly differing from and surmounting any Image all Images of things visible or invisible in in this Creation So 't is fitly expressed saith he in Heb. 7. 29. He was made higher than the Heavens He was heightned to a splendour enlarged to a capacity and a compass above the brightest beyond the widest Heavens From this Heavenly Throne Christ will come at the day of Judgment in a Shechinah of Clouds and flaming-fire the mention of which fire sometimes in the Scripture and in the Commentaries of the ancient Fathers without express addition of that great day has as I conjecture accidentally led part of the Christian World into its mistakes about Purgatory in relation to which place I must yet confess my self to be one of the Nullibists This Shechinah in milder but most inexpressible luster I suppose to be that which the Schools call the Beatifick Vision and which the Scripture intendeth in the promise of seeing God face to face PART 7. Of the Usefulness of this Argument of Gods Shechinah THis Argument of Gods Shechinah may be many ways useful if Intelligent persons draw such inferences from it as it offereth to their judgment I will hint at some of them for to insist on any unless it be those which concern the worship of Angels or Images is beyond my scope And first of all by due attention to the premisses an Anthropomorphite may blush at his rude conceit about the humane figure of the Divine substance whose spiritual and immense amplitude is incapable of any natural figure or colour though God by his Logos using the ministry of inferiour creatures hath condescended to a visible Shechinah Hence secondly those people who run into the other extream the Spiritualists and abstractive Familists may be induced to own the distinct substance of God and the visible person of Christ and not to subtilize the Deity and its Persons and all its appearances into a meer notion or into some quality act or habit of mans spirit or to bow down to God no otherwise then as he is the pretended light or love in their own breasts Thirdly If this consideration had entered with sobriety into the minds of those German Anabaptists who with zeal contended that the very essence or substance of the Father was seen in the Son and the very substance of the Spirit in the Dove their disputations would have been brought to a speedy issue or rather they would never have been begun They would have known how to have distinguished betwixt the invisible God and the visible face or Shechinah not as the very shape but as the emblem and significative Presence of the Divinity Fourthly For want of some such notion as this many other men of fanatick heads such as were most of the Hereticks who introduced novelty and tumult into the Church about the Persons of the Trinity and nature of Christ have plunged themselves into unintelligible conceits Of this number were the Basilidians who call'd the body of the Dove the Deacon and the Valentinians who stil'd it the spirit of cogitation which descended on the flesh of the Logos thereby darkning the understanding with phrases If they had apprehended the Logos in his Praeexistence or Incarnation as the Shechinah of God and would have expressed that notion without phantastical or amusing terms they might have instructed others and seen the truth also better themselves when they had clothed it in fit and becoming words Fifthly This notion may not be unuseful for the unfolding the Scriptures which speak of the Praeexistence of Christ before he was God-man and explain them naturally and not with such force and torture as they are exposed to in the Soâ—…inian Comments He that saith Abraham saw the Shechinah of the Praeexisting Logos and thence inferreth that Christ was before that Patriarck speaketh plain sense But he that says Christ was not till more than 2000 years after Abrahams death yet that he was before him because he was before Abraham was Abraham or before all Nations were blessed in his seed the Gentiles not being yet called such a one speaks like a Sophist not an honest Interpreter and forgets that Christs answer before Abraham was I am follows upon this Interrogatory of the Jews Thou art not yet fifty years old and hast thou seen Abraham Sixthly This notion may further shew the error of those Semi-Socinians such as Vorstius and his Disciples who confound the Immensity of the God-head and the visible Glory of the Shechinah which God hath pleased as it were to circumscribe They will allow this King of the world no further room for his Immense substance than that which his especial Presence irradiates in his particular Palace Which conceit though in part it be accommodable to the Shechinah yet is it a presumptuous limitation of the great God when it is applied to his substance which Heaven and Earth together cannot contain Furthermore it is from hence in part that we see and pity the blindness of some of the modern Jews who notwithstanding they are the professed enemies of Divine Statues and Images and have reason enough to believe that the Ark of God hath dwelt among us in a body of flesh and now shineth in the Heavens do yet hope some say for an especial presence of God by furnishing with a Chest and Roll of their Law the places of their Religious Assemblies Again by considering with St. Chrysostome the Temple of Solomon as a Type not only of the sensible but also of the invisible world and by considering further the Shechinah and Ark of God more especially in the Holiest of all than in the Sanctuary and more exterior Courts and spaces we may illustrate that very useful and most probable notion of the degrees of Glory and of the several Mansions prepared for several Estates in the Kingdom of Glory where notwithstanding every part will be so far though inequally filled with luster that all may be said with open face to behold the Glory of God and not those only next the Coelestial Ark or Throne in the most holy place But these things as I said are beyond my scope though appertinencies to my Argument and therefore I will no further pursue them but proceed to those uses of the notion which lye more directly in the way of my design The first of them concerneth the worship of Angels the second of Images PART 8. Of the Usefulness of this Argument of Gods Shechinah with relation to the Worship of Angels and Images FIrst The Worshippers of Angels plead for their practice from those places in the Old Testament which seem to speak of high Veneration used towards them T. G. argueth from the Prayer which indeed is rather the wish of Jacob where he saith The Angel who delivered me from all evils bless these Children The Manual called the Abridgment of Christian Doctrine would prove the Worship of Dulia to belong to Angels from the falling of