the Poets attribute to Jupiter in express terms Clemens saith are spoken with great decorum of God and at the same time he grants that they meant God by their Jupiter what then follows but that although they used the name Jupiter yet under that name they spake those thinks of God which were very agreeable to him No saith T. G. this is not his meaning but that they spake those things concerning their Jupiter which being applied to the true God would be spoken with great gravity and decency Which in plain terms is that they attributed the perfections of God to the Arch-devil which was very ill done of them one would think and horrible blasphemy but however saith T. G. these things may be said to be spoken with great gravity and decency concerning God because if you take them from the Devil and apply them to God they are decent expressions Let us suppose James Naylor riding through the streets of Bristol assuming to himself the title of the Son of God and some of his followers crying Hosanna to the Son of David would T. G. say this were spoken with decency aâ—d gravity because it would be so if it were rightly applied to his Son Christ Jesus T. G. doth not seem here to consider wherein the decency of speech lies for there is the greatest indecency nay blasphemy in the misapplication of the best titles and most glorious attributes And were there no other reason to convince me of the sense of the Fathers in this matter this alone were sufficient that if T. G.'s hypothesis were true all those great things which the Heathens spake of their Jupiter were most abominable blasphemies for the Divine Perfections were attributed to the chief of Devils And if to attribute the miraculous works of God to the Devil be the sin against the Holy Ghost what then is it to give to the Devil all the perfections of God himself And yet if T. G. say true the Fathers must believe that the most learned and wise of the Heathens did so when they spake of the Wisdom and Power and Goodness of their supreme Jupiter and if they did believe they were guilty of such horrible blasphemy would they so often quote approve extol these sayings as they do Would they not rather have reproved censured condemned them for them as the most intolerable reproaches of the Divine Nature Would they have born such things in Plato Euripides or any other Philosopher or Poet For to call a Stone a Stock a dead Man a God to attribute life sense understanding to meer matter were tolerable blasphemies in comparison with making the Devil to be the supreme Governour of the world to be One and All to be infinite Wisdom as well as Power and yet all these must be thus given to the Devil by the wisest Poets and Philosophers which the Heathens ever had Nay farther their best and most understanding men who are most commended by the Fathers themselves must be the greatest blasphemers of all others and be thought so by the Fathers at the same time when they magnifie their sayings for the Wisdom Gravity and Decency contained in them This is so gross so wild so absurd an imagination as could hardly enter into any mans head who had any manner of esteem for the Fathers And I would advise T. G. rather to let the Fathers quite alone than to fix such absurdities upon them R. P. Methinks you are grown very warm of a sudden but I have another Father to cool you and he is Minucius Felix P. D. He is but a Paterculus a very diminutive Father as T. G. speaks however I hope he is able to speak for himself R. P. He saith the impure Spirits lurking in the consecrated statues gained to themselves the Authority and Esteem of a Deity that was there present P. D. And what then How often must you be told that the question is not whether the Devils were not assisting in the practice of Idolatry which Dr. St. never questioned either by presence in consecrated Images or by assuming divine honours under the names of Deified men but this doth not come up to the question in hand which is whethers the Fathers did not believe they did intend to worship the supreme God under the name and Titles of Jupiter O. M. I will make this plain to you that if possible you may understand the difference of these questions You know what boasts are made in your Church of the Miracles wrought by our Lady of such and such a place as of Mointague Hall Loretto c. what do you mean by this but that such Images which are there of her did effect them not by the power of the Wood or Stone but of some spiritual power which was present in or about them suppose now a person who hath heard of the coming of Satan with signs and lying wonders should believe that the evil spirits did endeavour to retrieve Idolatry in the Christian World after the way by which they advanced it in the Heathen World and so concludes that they work these pretended miracles might not such a one say that impure spirits lurk in your consecrated Images and there receive Divine Worship under the names of Saints and Angels and yet at the same time believe that you worship one supreme God R. P. But here the case is different for Minucius saith that Saturn and Serapis and Jupiter mark that confess themselves to be Devils P. D. Two wayes Jupiter might be a Devil and yet not prejudice Dr. St.'s assertion 1. As he assumed the honours given to the Poetical Jupiter who was really a Prince of Creet but the Poets by attributing to him the villanies of many others as to the ravishing of women c. had made him one of the greatest monsters of Wickedness that ever was and therefore it was no wonder the Devil should be worshipped under his name not intentionally but terminatively in as much as all this worship ended in the service of the Devil who was alwayes very active to subdue the minds of men to the Folly and Wickedness of Idolatry 2. As he was busie about consecrated Images even to the supreme Jupiter Thus although the Greeks and Romans might set up Images with Scepters and Globes and Thunderbolts in their hands on purpose to declare that they intended to worship the supreme God by them yet this way of worship being so disagreeable to the Divine Nature and Perfections God might justly suffer the impure Spirits to be active in those very Images which were consecrated to himself and they might by this means run away with that honour which they intended to give to the Divine Majesty But the Question still remains whether notwithstanding all this the Heathens did not design to worship the supreme God under the name of Jove and nothing of this nature doth shew that the Fathers believed the contrary and as to Minucius Felix Dr. St. had produced a material passage out
as the younger sister to the Whore of Babylon never a barrel the better herring only we can have liberty of Conscience with one and not with the other It is all one to me to bow to an Image and to bow to the Altar to worship Images and to kneel at the Sacrament P. D. I am in hopes you are now coming to the point I pray keep there without any farther rambling F. C. Call you this rambling You know Amesius saith even in controverted points much respect ought to be had to the experience of Gods people I tell you I have found it thus with me and you ought rather to hear me teach you than dispute with me P. D. All this shall not serve I must have your arguments since you urge me thus F. C. Why look ye now d' ye see how petulant and malapert these Divines of the Church of England are But since nothing will satisfie you but arguing I have an argument ready for you will do your business To Worship the Bread is Idolatry But to kneel at the Sacrament is to Worship the Bread Ergo. P. D. I am glad to find you come to any kind of Reasoning I deny that in kneeling at the Sacrament we do worship the Bread for our Church expresly declares the contrary in this Rubrick F. C. What do I care for your Church or her Rubricks I say you do worship the Bread and prove it too That which you kneel before and look towards when you worship you do give the worship to But you kneel before and look towards the bread when you worship Ergo. P. D. I begin to be afraid of you now for you do not only prove by this argument kneeling at the Sacrament but reading the Common Prayer to be Idolatry For if that which we kneel before and look towards when we worship must be the object of our worship it is plain we must indeed make an Idol of the Common Prayer for every time we read it we kneel before it and looks towards it when we worship F. C. Look you to that I alwayes took the Common Prayer for an Idol but I did not think I had proved it now P. D. I shall endeavour to undeceive you in this matter Since we are not pure spirits but must worship God with our bodies by kneeling and looking towards something in our Acts of Worship we must not determine that to be the object of our Worship which our bodies are bended towards or we look upon in our worship unless there be some other reason for it for then Idolatry would be necessary and unavoidable For we cannot kneel with our eyes open but we must look upon some creature which according to your way of arguing must be the object of our Worship I pray Sir without being angry give me leave to ask you whether a man kneeling in the Fields and praying with his eyes lifted up to Heaven be an Idolater or not F. C. I think not P. D. Yet he kneels towards some creature and looks upon some creature when he worships therefore you must prove by some other way that we do make the bread the Object of our Worship But this we utterly deny and say the doing it is Idolatry and to be abhorred of all faithful Christians And will you make us worship it whether we will or no F. C. But you use the same postures which the Papists do and yet you charge them with Idolatry P. D. Because this is a thing many of you stumble at I will make the difference of our case and theirs plain to you In all moral Acts we are to have a great great regard to their circumstances from whence they take a different denomination He that kills a man by accident and he that kills a man out of malice do the very same thing as to the substance of the Act yet no man will say it is the same act upon a moral consideration We kneel and the Papists kneel but we declare when we kneel we intend no adoration to the Elements but the Papists cannot deny that they do give proper adoration to that which is before them which we say is bread and they say the Body of Christ under the species of bread and yet not meerly to the invisible Body of Christ but taking the species of bread as united to that Body of Christ and so directing their worship to these two together as the proper objects of divine adoration And to make this evident to you their adoration is performed at the Elevation of the Host and at the carrying it about in processions and at the exposing it on their Altars and not meerly in the participation of it Whence it is observable that the Church of Rome doth not strictly require kneeling at the participation which it would do if it looked on the kneeling at receiving as a proper Act of Adoration The Rubricks of the Mass do not that I can find require the Priest to kneel in the Act of receiving and the Pope when he celebrates receives sitting Espencaeus saith in the Church of Lions many of the People did not receive kneeling and upon complaint made about it they were by the advice of two Cardinals left to their old custome And I wonder your Brethren have not taken notice of the difference of kneeling at the elevation of the Host and in the Act of receiving it the one was required by the Constitution of Honorius and was intended for an act of adoration to the Host the other was derived from the ancient Church which although it did not alwayes use the same posture of adoration that we do yet it is sufficient for our purpose if they received the Sacrament in the same posture in which they worshipped God And this I could easily prove if this were a place or season for it F. C. Well Sir I do not love disputing I pray go on with your former Adversary R. P. Sir I thank you for the diversion you have given us if you please I will now return to the place where we left I was about to tell you the Answer T. G. gives to Dr. St.'s third Argument from the Rubrick at the end of the Communion The words are It is here declared that by kneeling no adoration is intended or ought to be done either unto the Sacramental bread or wine there bodily received or unto any corporal presence of Christs natural Flesh and Blood For the Sacramental bread and wine remain still in their very natural substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians and the natural Body and Blood of Christ are in Heaven and not here it being against the truth of Christs Natural Body to be at one time in more places than one About which Dr. St. charges T. G. first with Ignorance in saying it was not yet above a douzen years since it was inserted into the Communion Book whereas he might have
peculiar to the Divine Nature in regard of his Soveraignty over us and the infinite distance between him and his Creatures 3. That the giving this solemn worship which is due to God to any Creature is the invading the Rights of his Soveraignty Thence he shews from Aquinas that worship is not given to God because he needs it but that the belief of one God may hereby be confirmed in us by external and sensible Acts which cannot be done unless there be some peculiar Acts of his Worship And external worship is a profession of internal acts being expressive of our minds as well as words Thence he determines that Idolatry is a sin of the highest nature because it invades Gods peculiar Rights and implyes blasphemy in it because it takes away from God the peculiarity of his dominion Are not these arguments drawn from the nature of the thing and not meerly from a positive Law 2. Notwithstanding these dictates of natural Reason concerning the worship of God yet he supposes mankind to have been so corrupted as to have lost the sense of the sinfulness of giving divine worship to creatures Which he saith they did chiefly on a threefold supposition 1. That God committed the Government of the world under him to some inferiour Deities Or 2. That God was the soul of the world and therefore the worship given to the parts of it did redound to him Or 3. That external adoration was below him and that the service due to God was that of our minds and the other might be given to Creatures 3. That God saw it necessary to revive the peculiarity of his worship by his Law given in the Decalogue which although given to the Jews was of an eternal and immutable nature being not built on any reason peculiar to them but common to all mankind and on this account the Christian Church did look on the same Law as obliging all Christians as the Doctour hath proved in several places before cited 4. That when the Apostles went abroad to reclaim the world from Idolatry they made use of no other notion of it than what was received among the Jews and by the Reasons on which the Law of God was founded they convinced the world of that sin of Idolatry which by the corruption of mankind and the custom of the world they had lost the sense of And this was plainly the meaning of Dr. St.'s words to any unprejudiced mind as appears by laying these things together which are all contained in the same discourse If we say the Gentiles had lost the sense of other sins as it is evident they had and the Apostles made use of the Law of God to convince them doth it hence follow that the sinfulness of those things did barely depend upon a positive Law And therefore the notion of Idolatry may be said to be new not as though it were not against the principles of Natural Religion but because they had lost the sense of them so the Law of Moses was a new Law though it revived the Law of Nature in its moral precepts the doctrine of Christ was a new doctrine to the world although most agreeable to the principles of natural reason 2. The sinfulness of Idolatry according to natural Religion consists in these things 1. In taking away the due sense of the Distance between God and his Creatures which is a violation of the Rights of his Soveraignty and consequently it is crimen laesae Majestatis Divinae or Treason against the Divine Majesty 2. In neglecting to give God the worship which was proper to him And this was the consequent of Idolatry and not as though the Nature of Idolatry did lye barely in not giving to God the worship due to him as T. G. seems to suggest but when men did accustome themselves to the worship of Idols they grew so fond of their own inventions that they had five Ave Maries for one Pater Noster and so the worship of God came to be almost lost in the croud of Deities which they joyned with him 3. In worshipping bad Spirits instead of good ones which craftily insinuated themselves among the Idolaters under the pretence of Inferiour Deities For so the people still believed them to be good Spirits and their learned men defied all those who said they worshipped any other as Dr. St. hath shewed yet the Christians proved they were evil because they received that worship from them which the good ones would not do 4. In disparaging the Divine Nature by making Images to represent him which suggested mean thoughts of God to their minds lessening the apprehensions of the Greatness of his Majesty and hoping to please God by worshipping such representations of him Which he thought so dishonourable to himself that he forbids it by a severe Law and punished the transgressours of it and from hence the Christian Church hath accounted the same thing unlawful to them because so dishonourable to God 5. In taking away that dependence upon God which he expects from his Creatures For when they suppose that God hath committed the care of these things to any inferiour beings they are apt to make their addresses to them more frequently because of a vicinity of Nature to them and to depend upon them for help in time of need which takes off that entire trust in God which is most agreeable to his Wisdom Goodness and Providence 6. In giving divine worship to vile and wicked men instead of God This was an aggravation of Idolatry and increased the sinfulness of it although the nature of Idolatry doth not lye in giving divine worship to bad men but to any Creatures And in this particular lay the abominable sinfulness of the Poetical Idolatry among the Greeks and Romans which was in this respect worse than of the most barbarous Nations we ever read of 7. The more vile the practices the more mean the submissions the more gross the errours of Idolaters were the greater was the sinfulness of Idolatry Hence the filthy and obscene Actions of the Eastern Greek and Roman Idolatries the mean submissions and the gross errours of the Egyptian Idolatries heightned the sinfulness of them These are the main things wherein the sinfulness of Idolatry did consist abstractly from any positive Law You see how freely I give them to you upon such an invitation and much good may they do you If Dr. St. had thought T. G. had desired any such thing from him I do believe he would have added not only a seventh but an eighth Chapter for his sake on such a subject as this which it is so easie to inlarge upon But I stop for fear T. G. should think I am only patching up a Sermon out of Note-books yet I think I have not taken leave of my Text. R. P. Did you ever hear of the speaking Trumpet P. D. What hath the speaking Trumpet to do with Idolatry I am afraid I waked you out of some
that the Heathens offered to Devils and not to God and will you make S. Paul to contradict himself P. D. S. Paul doth not there speak of their intention and design for they professed to worship the true God and good spirits as inferiour Deities but what their worship was in Gods account which being so abominably corrupted with Idolatry and Superstition was so far from being pleasing to God that it could be acceptable to none but impure spirits From whence you may do well to observe that Worship is not terminated according to the iâ—â—ention of the persons but according to the nature and design of the Worship For the Heathens when they were urged did stifly maintain that the spirits they worshipped were good in themselves and kind to us and utterly denyed that they worshipped any other as Dr. St. hath shewed but notwithstanding this S. Paul doth charge them with the worshipping of Devils and not of God And the main argument the Fathers had to prove them to be evil spirits was because they received such worship from men which good Spirits would never have done This observation is of necessary use for understanding both Scripture and Fathers when they charge the Heathen Idolaters with worshipping Devils and not God as will appear by our following discourse This place doth not therefore prove that the Gentiles did not intend to worship the true God under the title of Jupiter O. M. but that Idolatrous worship doth not tend to the honour of God but to the service of the Devil R. P. Do not you remember when at Lystra the Priest of Jupiter would have offered Sacrifice to S. Paul as Mercury and to Barnabas as Jove in whose shapes they supposed those Gods to have appeared S. Paul not only forbad them to do it but told them their design was to convert them from those vain things to the living God and can you now think that S. Paul meant Jupiter by this living God when he taught them to convert themselves from those vain things their false Gods to the living God i. e. to Jupiter Was this his way to perswade the men of Lystra to leave the worship of their Gods to tell them that he came to teach them to worship Jupiter P. D. Is there no difference between these two Questions whether the true God might not be worshipped among the Heathens under the title of Jupiter O. M. and whether Jupiter of Creet as worshipped by them was not a false God This later Dr. St. never denyed and the former was all he pleaded for as pertinent to his purpose When they did make such a description of him as to his Power and Goodness as could not agree to such a wretch as the Cretan Jupiter was described by the Poets when they rejected the Poetical Fables and declared as plainly as men could do that they understood the supreme Governour of the World as Dr. St. hath at large shewed the question is whether under the name of Jove they meant the true God or not But doth he ever so much as intimate that Jupiter of Creet was not a false God or that S. Paul and the Apostles did not go about to convert mankind from the vanities of Idol-worship in the sacrifices they made to this Jupiter and Mercury as well as any other of their inferiour Deities To make this matter more clear which concerns the worship of Jupiter among the Heathens we are to observe 1. That the name was more ancient in Greece for an object of Divine Worship than Jupiter of Creet If this can be made out then although this name might be applyed to a particular person as it was usual in the Eastern parts to call their Princes by the name of their Gods yet originally it belonged to the Deity and consequently might still be properly attributed to him and under that name they might well understand the Supreme God For the proof of this I make use of an observation of Pausanias and of others from him viz. that Cecrops was the first who called the supreme God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Jove Eusebius hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hic primus omnium Jovem appellavit saith Isidore It is well known that Cecrops came out of Egypt from whence Herodotus observes the Greeks took the names of their Gods Cecrops lived in the time of Moses and before the flood of Deucalion saith Varro it happened in his time say Eusebius and S. Hierome in which great part of Thessaly and Greece were overwhelmed But Jupiter of Creet by whom Europa the daughter of Agenor was taken was the fifth in descent from Deucalion according to Diodorus being the son of Tectamus the son of Dorus the son of Hellen the son of Deucalion His proper name Diodorus saith was Asterius whom Eusebius follows S. Augustin calls him Zanthus and Strabo Zathus whose son Jon carryed the Colonies of Greeks into the twelve Cities of Asia from him called Jonia From hence it appears that the name of Jupiter did not properly belong to him of Creet but was assumed by him when he affected divine honours 2. This Jupiter of Creet did obtain Divine honour under that name among the rude and barbarous Greeks And this was the great discovery made by Euhemerus from the inscription in the Temple of Jupiter Triphylius in Greece from whence it appeared that this King of Creet was a very busie and active Prince having great command both at Sea and Land and was very successful in reducing the barbarous people under Laws and Government and in many useful inventions for the benefit of humane Life which made the people after his death in Creet bestow the greatest Divine honours upon him and worship him under the most sacred name For it had been a custome long before among the Greeks to Deifie the most useful men as S. Augustine observes of Phegous the Brother of Phoroneus of Apis King of the Argives who dyed in Egypt of Argus who had a Temple and Sacrifices allotted to him of Phorbas Jasus Sthenelus who were all Princes among the old Greeks And therefore it was no wonder such people should give Divine Worship to this Prince who had brought them into so much order in comparison of what they were in before From hence we find him not only worshipped in Creet where he had several titles from the places where his Temples stood as Idaeus Dictaeus Arbius Asius Temillius and Scyllius c. but in Greece as Ithometes Atabyrius Triphylius Olympius Cithaeronius c. and whereever the Colonies of Greeks in Asia were as at Tarsus S. Paul's own Countrey and he was called Sardessius from a City of Lycia Chrysosoreus from a place in Caria Tarantaeus from a City in Bithynia Dolichaeus from a City in Comagene Abretanus from a place in Mysia and Asbameus from a Fountain in Cappadocia Is this now any such mighty argument to prove that Jupiter could not be
clear and distinct Thirdly that it be general But I shall shew you that this account fails in all those particulars and withall that it doth not clear the Image worship of the Roman Church 1. That it is not full because it supposes all their Idolatry as to Images to lye in taking the Images of Deified men for Gods on the account of the presence of evil Spirits in them But I find another reason alledged out of the Fathers against the Worship of Images by Dr. St. which T. G. takes no notice at all of viz. that Image Worship was very unsuitable to the Divine Nature as well as repugnant to the Will of God and although the latter reason may seem to hold only for those who received the Scriptures yet the former doth extend to all mankind For he shews from the Fathers that Zeno the Stoick Antisthenes Xenophon Numa and others condemned the Worship of Images on this account because they were a disparagement of the Divine Nature And for this he produces the Testimonies of Clemens Alexandrinus Justin Martyr Athenagoras Origen Lactantius and many others Is this account true or false if false why is it not proved to be so if true why is it not allowed Is this fair or honest dealing in pretending to answer and not taking notice of the main objections or to give account of the Fathers opinions of this matter and to say not one word to all this But it is one thing to write an Answer to a Book and another to write a Book which must pass for an Answer 2. This account is not clear and distinct For it doth not express whether it were Idolatry or not to worship Images where there was no incorporation supposed of evil Spirits nor doth it shew how it could be Idolatry on that supposition I do not deny that there was such an opinion among the Heathens that Spirits might possess Images and be incorporated with them but I say this was a particular opinion and not the general belief For Hermes from whom S. Augustin gives the most exact account of this hypothesis from the Asclepian Dialogue looks upon it as a Divine and peculiar art of drawing invisible Spirits into Images in such a manner as to animate them and thereby making Gods Which he saith is the most wonderful of all wonders that it should be in mens power to make Gods Not by producing the Divine Being but by so uniting it to the Image as to make that a fit object for divine worship But you of the Church of Rome pretend to do as much as this comes to with five words and somewhat more for you pretend to annihilate a substance which they did not but as to the main wonder yours is of the same nature viz. so to unite the Divinity to the species of Bread and Wine as to make them together a fit object for divine worship And therefore T. G. doth not at all clear the nature of Idolatry as to Images by such an Hypothesis which doth justifie the Worship of Images upon his own grounds For this principle being supposed that God was really incorporated in the Image it was as lawful for them to Worship that Image as for you to Worship the Host. If you say those were evil Spirits and not the true God that doth not clear the matter For we are not now disputing whether they were good or bad Spirits which were in those Images but on what account they were charged with Idolatry in the Worship of Images If it were for worshipping their Images as Gods on the account of one of their Gods being incorporated in the Image this I say is no account at all on T. G.'s principles for then such an Image was as fit an object of worship on their supposition as the adoration of the Host is on yours So that this is rather a clearing the Worship of Images from the charge of Idolatry among the Heathens than giving any account of it all the Idolatry in this case lying in the worship of Evil Spirits and not in the Worship of Images 3. This Account is not general as to the Heathens For many and those the most learned among them declared that they did not take their Images for Gods as Dr. St. proved in his First Book not barely from the Testimonies of the Heathens but from the Fathers too which passages he repeated and urged against T. G. in his Defence And among others he produced the Testimony of Eusebius speaking of the Heathens in general who saith they did not look on their Images as Gods and of him T. G. saith that no man understood the Heathens Principles better And yet after all this T. G. hopes to have it pass for a good account of the Heathens Idolatry as to Images that they took their Images for Gods 4. This Account doth not clear the practice of your Church in the Worship of Images R. P. There I am sure you are mistaken For do we take our Images for Gods And T. G. well observes that when the Fathers spake against the Worship of Images from their vileness and impotency they did not found their arguments meerly on the matter of the Images and the Art of the Artificers but upon these two conditions conjoyntly taken viz. that they were held to be Gods and yet were made of such materials whereas we do not believe our Images to be Gods nor worship them as such as the Heathens did For the Council of Trent declares that it believes no Divinity in them for which they ought to be worshipped P. D. This is the utmost which can be said in your Defence and to shew you how far this is from clearing your Worship of Images I shall consider 1. The force of the Fathers arguments 2. The difference of the Heathens opinions from yours as to the Divinity of Images And if their arguments be such as equally hold against your practises and your answers do not really differ from theirs then the parallel will hold good between your Idolatry and theirs in this particular 1. For the force of the Fathers arguments the thing to be considered is whether they held only in conjunction with believing their Images to be Gods What connexion was there between this Hypothesis and the disparagement which Images did imply to the Divine Nature For this was wholly on the account of representation and this is the great argument the Fathers insist upon The infinite distance between God and the Work of mens hands the disproportion that dull and senseless matter however Carved and Adorned doth bear to a Divine Majesty that no Image of God ought to be worshipped but what is what he is i. e. his Eternal Son the light of Nature teaching men that it was greater purity of Worship greater reverence to the Deity less danger of errour to mankind to worship God without an Image are all arguments used and pressed by the Fathers against the
charged with Idolatry If I were given to quoting ends of Verses I would cry risum teneatis amici R. P. Secondly the force of the Parallel lies in Citations P. D And what then ought he not to examine and disprove them R. P. No such matter he hath found out a far better away than that he proves that Dr. St. hath forfeited all right of being believed in things of that kind P. D. Commend me to T. G. for shifting This is really the notablest trick I ever met with He finds abundance of Authors quoted both new and old to prove something he doth not like What should he do Must he search and examine them one by one no that is intolerable and how if they prove true Therefore the only way is to say he hath lost all credit in his citations Which is as much as to say he deserves to stand in the Pillory for suborning Witnesses and why should he be credited in any thing he saith But this is a very high accusation and T. G. in common justice is bound to prove it or else he deserves the same infamy himself R. P. Yes he proves it by his notorious misrepresenting and corrupting the Fathers P. D. I think I have sufficiently cleared the Doctours integrity and faithfulness therein but I am sure you cannot so well clear T. G. from bearing false Witness against his Brother R. P. But he gives one instance in this case viz. a testimony of Trigautius wherein he translates certum Triadis modum inducit quo tres Deos in unum deinde Numen coalescere fabulatur They worship the Trinity after a certain manner with an Image having three heads and one Body T. G. saith an ordinary Reader will here find neither Head nor Foot P. D. That is very strange when there are three But must T. G.'s quibble destroy all Dr. St.'s credit Any one that reads Trigautius will find he exactly expressed his sense but our Dionysius will make him construe word for word or else he must be set in the Pillory for suborning Testimonies Methinks this savours a little too much of Dionysius indeed R. P. But he charges him more with another Testimony of Trigautius where he leaves out the Emphatical words which shew the difference between the Worship which the Chineses give to Confutius and to the Tutelar Spirits For first he omits the Ceremony of the Magistrates taking the Oath before the Tutelar spirits then he leaves out what Trigautius affirms that the worship was not the same 3. He omits nam and Divinam which shew the reason of the difference to be the Divine Power which they believed to be in the Tutelar Spirits P. D. And what if T. G. be mistaken as to every one of these shall we not applaud him for a man of wonderful integrity and most commendable ingenuity 1. Dr. St. doth not omit the Ceremony of the Magistrates taking their oath to or before these Tutelar Spirits for he saith expresly that the Mandarines are to swear in the Temple of the Tutelar Spirit when they enter into their office and he particularly insists upon it as one of the instances of the allowances the Jesuites gave to their Converts to go and perform all external Acts of adoration in the Temple of the Tutelar Spirits provided they directed all those Acts to a Crucifix which they held in their hands or conveyed secretly among the flowers of the Altar 2. He distinguishes the Worship of Confutius from that of the Tutelar Spirits For he saith in that very place that they make no prayers to him neither seek nor hope for any thing from him but that they acknowledge the Tutelar Spirits to have power to reward and punish Is not this enough to shew the difference of their Worship to any men of common sense 3. Is not a Power to reward and punish in the Tutelar Spirits set down by Dr. St. out of Trigautius and to what end should he then leave out nam and Divinam but that he thought them needless when the sense was expressed But the birchen Scepter would be of little use unless Dionysius shewed his Authority upon such occasions Judge you now whether upon the account of such pitiful cavils Dr. St. hath forfeited his right of being believed in his Citations R. P. T. G. gives a third reason viz. because it appears from his own Citations that these modern Idolaters either worshipped a false God for the true one or false Gods together with the true one if they worshipped him at all P. D. This can be no reason at all for Dr. St.'s design was to shew that inferiour Deities were false Gods and that it was Idolatry to give Divine Worship to Creatures although men did acknowledge one supreme God But unless T. G. can prove these false Gods to have been Gods truly and properly so called i. e. absolute and independent Deities his Hypothesis is utterly overthrown by this discourse of Dr. St. which was the true reason he had no mind to meddle with it R. P. Lastly It is not credible he saith that the Cardinals de propaganda Fide with the full consent of the Pope should make such Decrees about Idolatrous Acts as should condemn the giving external Acts of Worship to Saints and Images as Idolatrous P. D. Dr. St. punctually produced the resolution made by the Cardinals about the Worship of Confutius and the performance of external Acts of Idolatry in the Temple of the Tutelar Spirits by the Jesuits Converts in China He names the Date the Place of Printing it and saith the Copy he had seen was attested by a publick Notary nay he directs T. G. where he might see not only the Decree but an explication of it And after all is not this Credible R. P. Dr. St. sets down the resolutions and doth not let us know what the Quaeres were P. D. He thought those might be easily understood by the Case viz. about performing the same external Acts of Worship with Idolaters but with a different intention i. e. the Mandarins were permitted by the Jesuites to go into the Temple of Tutelar Spirits and to use all the external Acts of adoration which others used provided they directed them to the Crucifix and not to the Idol which the Cardinals declare to be utterly unlawful notwithstanding this Intention From whence Dr. St. observed 1. That they called the Worship of the Tutelar Spirits Idolatry although they looked on them only as inferiour Deities and consequently Idolatry doth not consist in worshipping many absolute and independent Gods or truly and properly so called 2. That inferiour Worship on the account of created excellency is unlawful when it appears to be Religious This he proved from their condemning the Worship of Confutius which the Jesuits allowed And T. G. is so much mistaken in thinking that Dr. St. had any design to corrupt the Testimony of Trigautius by confounding the Worship of Confutius and the Tutelar Spirits that
be given to God How else can the giving it to a Creature make it Idolatry F. C. I do not well understand you but as far as I can guess you speak of bodily worship but alas we know that God must be worshipped in Spirit and in Truth P. D. Who denies that But observe what follows then no man is guilty of Idolatry that doth not worship an Image in Spirit and in Truth but the Law forbids bowing down to them and worshipping of them do you think that bowing down is meant of the Mind or of the Body F. C. What is it you would have by all these Questions P. D. No more but this that it is lawful to give external adoration to the Divine Majesty F. C. And what then P. D. Is it lawful to give God that worship which it is lawful to give absolutely in a place set apart for his Worship F. C. That is a strange question indeed P. D. See now what you have brought your self to to acknowledge that to be lawful which you so rashly called Idolatry F. C. What is that P. D. Bowing in the Church in testimony of our adoration of the Divine Majesty F. C. That is not it but it is bowing to the Altar P. D. Who knows best Those that made the Canon or you They declare they meant nothing else than what I have said and deny any Religious Worship to be given to the Altar And would not you think it hard for us to accuse you for worshipping your Hats in prayer because you put them before your faces when you pray as you do us for worshipping the Altar because we bow towards it F. C. But you look towards the Altar when you bow P. D. And are not your eyes upon your Hats when you pray And is not prayer a part of Gods immediate Worship F. C. But we call it bowing to the Altar P. D. We may as well call yours praying to the Hat F. C. Some do assign the reason of their worship from the Communion Table and we never do from our Hats P. D. They do not assign the reason of their worship but the reason of that circumstance of it why that way rather than another which they parallel with the Jews worshipping of God towards the Ark and the Cherubims which yet were no objects of Divine Worship either by Gods appointment or the Jewish practice or in the opinion of some of the most learned Divines even of the Roman Church who make the most advantage they can of it as Dr. St. hath at large proved in his Answer to T. G. and I do not hear of any Reply T. G. hath made to it R. P. But the Patronus bonae Fidei saith the Papists have more reason to worship Christ on the supposition of Transubstantiation than you have to worship P. D. What Speak out The Altar we deny it to be any Object of Worship to us If he means than to worship God with external adoration towards the Altar let him do that which he never yet did prove what he saith viz. that there is more reason to worship Christ under the bread on supposition of transubstantiation than for our giving external adoration to the Divine Majesty For to give this adoration to God needs no other supposition but of his infinite Majesty and Omnipresence but to worship Christ on the Altar under the species of Bread doth not only suppose the truth of one of the most absurd suppositions in the world that the substance of the Bread is changed into the Body of Christ and the Body of Christ is there invisibly present under the species of Bread but it supposes likewise these things 1. That the Body of Christ as united with the species of Bread is a proper object of Divine Adoration i. e. that these two do make up one entire object of Divine Worship and then it follows that the sacramental species are a partial object of Divine Adoration for whatever goes to make up an object entire must have share with it which is quite another thing from an accidental connexion as of a Princes Robes together with his Person for no man ever said the Princes Garments made up with his Person an Object fit to be kneeled to in token of Subjection But here is an union supposed between Christs Body and the Accidents and such an union by vertue whereof Divine Worship is directed to the species of Bread and consequentially to the Body of Christ as united thereto 2. It supposeth that the Body of Christ being thus united with the species of bread may receive all that worship which is due to God alone Which is not very easie to prove Because it doth not follow that where-ever a Body is there those things must be which do not result by necessary concomitancy from the being of a Body For since it doth not follow by vertue of the Hypostatical union that where-ever the Divinity is the humane nature of Christ must be there also how doth it necessarily follow that where-ever the Body of Christ is the Divinity is so present as to make that Body become an Object of Divine Adoration We say the Foot is united to the Soul as well as the Head but do we therefore say that whatever is in the Soul is equally present in the Foot as in the Head as that the Foot reasons considers directs as the Head doth It is not therefore bare union but the manner of Presence which doth make an Object fit for adoration That Presence ought to be if not glorious and becoming the Divine Majesty in that respect yet so well attested as the Divinity of Christ was in his humane nature by the voice of Angels by Testimony of God himself from Heaven by miracles by Prophecies c. But here is nothing like this no evidence being given of the Divine Presence under the Elements neither from sense nor reason nor Scripture For the Scripture is only pretended to speak of the Body of Christ and not of his Divinity R. P. But by vertue of the hypostatical union where-ever the Body of Christ is his Divine Nature must be present too P. D. That I know very well is commonly said by you but I pray consider these two things 1. If the Body of Christ may be present by reproduction of the same Body as some of your greatest and latest Divines have asserted then there is no such necessity of concomitancy of the Divinity of Christ because they say God may reproduce the same body without all the accidents of it and consequently without the Hypostatical Vnion 2. By the same way of Concomitancy they may hold the Persons of the Father and Holy Ghost to be under the species and to be there worshipped For where the Body of Christ is there the soul is where Soul and Body is there the Divinity is where the Divinity is there the Person of the Son is and where the Person of the Son is there the
any wayes repugnant to the sense of the Church R. P. But T. G. saith the Terms of Communion with the Church are not the Opinions of her School-Divines but the Decrees of her Councils P. D. And what then Did Dr. St. meddle with the School-Divines any otherwise than as they explained the sense of Councils or the practice of the Church And what helps more proper to understand these than the Doctrine of your most learned Divines T. G. will have one Mr. Thorndike to speak the sense of the Church of England against the current Doctrine of the rest as Dr. St. hath proved yet he will not allow so many Divines of greatest Note and Authority to explain the sense of the Church of Rome Is this equal dealing R. P. T. G. saith That for his life he cannot understand any more the Idolatry of worshipping an Image than the Treason of bowing to a Chair of State or the Adultery of a Wives kissing her Husbands Picture and that the same subtilties may be used against these as against the other and therefore notwithstanding the disputes of School-Divines honest nature informed with Christian Principles will be security enough against the practice of Idolatry in honouring the Image of Christ for his sake P. D. What is the matter with T. G. that for his life he can understand these things no better after all the pains which hath been taken about him Hath not the difference of these cases been laid open before him Do not your own Writers confess that in some cases an Image may become an Idol by having Divine Worship given to it Is this then the same case with a Wives kissing her Husbands Picture Doth not this excuse the Gnosticks worship of the Image of Christ as well as yours If there may be Idolatry in the worship of an Image we are then to consider whether your worship be not Idolatry Especially since both parties charge each other with Idolatry those who will have it to be Latria and those who will not And I do not see what honest nature can do in this case however assisted unless it can make the worship of Images to be neither one nor the other I see T. G. would fain make it to be no more than bare honour of an Image for the sake of Christ but this doth not come up to the Decrees of Councils the general sense of Divines and the constant practice of your Church If ever worship was given to Images you give it by using all Acts of Adoration towards them R. P. But suppose the King had made an Order that due honour and respect should be given to the Chair of State ought not that to be observed notwithstanding the disputes which might arise about the nature of the Act P. D. To answer this we must suppose a Command from God that we must worship an Image of Christ as we do his Person but here it is just contrary The Reason of the second Command being owned by the Christian Church to hold against the worship of Images now as well as under the Law But those in the Church of Rome who do charge each other with Idolatry without supposing any such command do proceed upon the nature of the Worship which must either be Divine Worship which one party saith is Idolatry being the same which is given to God or an inferiour Religious Worship which the other party saith must be Idolatry being an expression of our submission to an inanimate thing And for my life I cannot see what answer T. G. makes to this R. P. T. G. saith the Rules of the Church are to be observed in this case as the Rules of the Court about the Chair of State P. D. What! are the Rules of the Church to be observed absolutely whether against the Law of God or not Which is as much as to say at Court that the Orders of the Green-cloth are to be observed against his Majesties pleasure But not to insist on that I say in this case the Rules of the Church help nothing for they who do follow the Rules of the Church must do one or the other of these and whichsoever they do they are charged with Idolatry And therefore Dr. St. had great reason to say Where there is no necessity of doing the thing the best way to avoid Idolatry is to give no worship to Images at all R. P. What will become of the Rules of the Church saith T. G. if men may be permitted to break them for such Capriches as these are P. D. Are you in earnest Doth T. G. call these Capriches Idolatry is accounted both by Fathers and Schoolmen a crime of the highest nature and when I am told I must commit it one way or other by your Divines if I give worship to Images is this only a Capriche R. P. Will not the same reason hold against bowing to the Altar bowing being an act of worship appropriated to God P. D. Will the same reason hold against bowing out of Reverence to Almighty God which I have told you again and again is all our Church allows in that which you call bowing to the Altar I see you are very hard put to it to bring in this single Instance upon every turn against the plain sense and declaration of our Church If this be all T. G. upon so long consideration hath to say in this matter it is not hard to judge who hath much the better Cause R. P. I pray hold from triumphing a while for there is a fresh charge behind wherein you will repent that ever you undertook to defend Dr. St. it is concerning the unjust parallel he hath made between the Heathen and Romish Idolatry P. D. I see no cause to repent hitherto And I hope I shall find as little when I come to that THE Fourth Conference About the Parallel between the Heathen and Romish Idolatry R. P. HAVE you considered what T. G. saith concerning the parallel between the Heathen and Romish Idolatry and doth not your heart fail you as to the defence of Dr. St. which you promised to undertake P. D. No truly The more I have considered it the less I fear it R. P. What think you of the notion of Idolatry he chargeth on T. G. viz. that it is the giving the Soveraign Worship of God to a Creature and among the Heathens to the Devil as if the Idolatry of the Heathens consisted only in worshipping the Devil whereas it appears from the words Dr. St. cites out of him that he charged the Heathens with Idolatry in worshipping their Images for Gods and the Creatures for Gods although withal they worshipped evil Spirits and T. G. contends that their Supream God was an Arch-Devil P. D. Is this such a difficulty to be set in the Front I suppose it is only to try whether I will stumble at the threshold If the Supreme God whom the Heathens worshipped was an Arch-devil as T. G.
the most noted Philosophers he hath this remarkable expression Exposui opiniones omnium fere Philosophorum quibus illustrior gloria est Deum unum multis licet designasse nominibus I have set down the opinions of almost all the famous Philosophers who all set forth one God though under many names And lest any should fall into T. G.'s extravagant imagination that this was not a consent in the same Being but as to a meer Vnity of Power though lodged in the Devil himself he adds these words Vt quivis arbitretur aut nunc Christianos philosophos esse aut philosophos fuisse jam tunc Christianos Let T. G. construe this to his sense if he can for his heart Would any man in the World who believed the Heathens supreme God to be the Devil have said either that the Christians now were Philosophers or the Philosophers then were Christians i. e. that those who asserted that God and those who said the Devil were supreme Governour of the world were of the same opinion Which is so foolish so ridiculous an assertion that I wonder to find T. G. resolve to maintain it And I now desire you or any man to judge whether the half dozen Fathers T. G. hath produced before Origen can amount to a Covie of One. I have exercised great patience in examining these testimonies and not after T. G.'s way turned off all the rest because one was defective and if you have any more that speak to the point I am content to give you all the satisfaction you can desire provided they prove more than that in general the Gentiles sacrificed to Devils which was never denied R. P. T. G. produces the Testimonies of Eusebius Athanasius S. Cyprian S. Chrysostom S. Hierom and others P. D. To what purpose R. P. To prove that they were wicked spirits who delighted in their worship and Sacrifices P. D. Who ever denyed this Will T. G. quote the Fathers from one end to the other to prove that all men are sinners Name me those who seem to speak to the poinâ— and I will answer them R. P. You cannot deny that Arnobius Lactantius and S. Augustin do speak to the point about Jove being worshipped as the supreme God will you hear them P. D. Yes what have you to say more about them R. P. Arnobius saith that Jupiter O. M. to whom the Capitol was Dedicated was not the true omnipotent God and Lactantius makes Jupiter the King of those Celestial Gods which the evil spirits feigned P. D. Are not these the two persons whom Dr. St. goes about to excuse for applying the Poetical Fables to Jupiter O. M. R. P. That is a fine way of defending the Fathers to take the parts of the Heathens against them as Dr. St. doth P. D. He never doth it as to the main of the cause as to any of them which were to take the part of Idolatry against Christianity which in my opinion others are far more lyable to the guilt of than he nor doth he charge any of them with wholly mistaking the state of the Question but he instanceth in two Rhetoricians who must be excused in many other things as it were easie to shew and he saith of them that they could not forbear giving a cast of their former imployment in this matter And when Dr. St. saith we ought not to charge the Heathens with more than they were guilty of doth T. G. think we ought but I am of another opinion though we should grant their supreme God to be a Devil for we ought to give the Devil his due R. P. But what say you to S. Augustin whom Dr. St. represents as the most baffled by the Heathens in this point Is not this kind of procedure more suitable to the design of Julian than of the Reformation P. D. Cannot a man write against your Idolatry but he must be another Julian i. e. a man cannot write like a Christian but he must be an Apostate Are you the only Christians in the world and your peculiar doctrines the only Christianity If it be it is a Christianity which the Christian Church never knew in its best Ages a Christianity never taught by Christ nor his Apostles but for S. Augustin I do not find that Dr. St. thinks him in the least baffled in this matter but being a learned and ingenuous man he saith that he quitted the argument from the Poetical Fables concerning Jupiter and reduced the controversie to its true point about the Idolatry committed in the worship of inferiour Deities But what an itch of calumniating had seized T. G. when he could not hold from paralleling Dr. St. with Julian meerly for giving an account of the state of the Controversie about Idolatry as it was managed by S. Augustin R. P. This leads us into another weighty subject viz. on what account the Fathers charged the Heathens with Idolatry P. D. I grant it is so and tends very much to the right understanding the nature of it And what account doth T. G. give of it R. P. I assure you T. G. shews himself to be a man very well versed in the Fathers and seems to have them at his Fingers ends nay he hath such great plenty of them that they serve him not only for freight but for ballast too filling his Margent as well as his Book with them and had he not studied brevity he might have outdone the Dr. himself in being Voluminous P. D. No doubt of it if he had a mind to produce all that the Fathers say on the subject of Heathen Idolatry but let us pare off all impertinencies which tend only to amuse and confound a Reader and keep close to our subject Tell me on what account T. G. saith the Fathers did charge the Heathens with Idolatry R. P. I suppose it may be reduced to these following 1. In worshipping their Images for Gods 2. In worshipping a multitude of false Gods 3. In worshipping the Creatures and not the Creator And as to every one of these he shews how false Dr. St.'s parallel is of the Heathen Idolatry and the worship practised and allowed in our Church P. D. I pray begin with the first of these and let us hear what account T. G. gives of the Heathen Idolatry in the Worship of Images R. P. The Images he saith were erected to the memory of dead men whom the people out of flattery or affection had placed in Heaven but evil Spirits as it were incorporated themselves in those Images and by working strange things about those who worshipt them they gained the reputation of Gods and consequently the Images were held to be Gods and worshipped as such P. D. I am far from being satisfied with this account of the Heathen Idolatry in the Worship of Images For when a man pretends to give an account of a thing there are three things he ought to regard First that it be full Secondly that it be