signifying Daughters implies the lesser Deities and Olla taal the Supreme God as the words signifie which he proves from Sharestanius that the old Arabs did acknowledge Abraham Ecchellensis speaking of the Religion of the old Arabians saith that those who were of the Sect of Chaled went upon this principle that there was one Creator and Governor of all things most Powerful and most Wise Besides these there were those who worshipped Intelligences or Celestial Spirits and these saith he although they confessed one Creator of the World most holy wise and powerful yet they said we had need of Mediators to him therefore they invoked those Spirits with all rites of Religious worship and these saith he were called the Daughters of God as they are in the Alcoran not much different from these were the worshippers of Images whom he describes as we have done before But he tells us there was a Sect of Dahritae among them whom he calls Philosophers who were meer Atheists and asserted the Eternity of the World and these being excepted he saith that the ancient Arabs did believe the creation of the world and he tells out of them their particular history of it But Ecchellensis was aware of the parallel between the worship practised in the Church of Rome and that among the Arabians supposing they acknowledged one true God and therefore puts the Qustion whether they did worship their Idols for Gods without relation to any Superiour or only took them for second causes and gave them the name of Gods only Analogically It was a question seasonably put but not so wisely answered For as if he had quite forgotten what he had said before he saith without all doubt the most of them looked upon the Gods they worshipped as of Supreme Authority and Majesty and Independent of any other What although they acknowledged but one Supreme God and called all the lesser Deities his Daughters Although all of them a very few excepted believed the creation of all things by one most Wise and Powerful Being But alas he did not think of this Question when he said the other things and he was not bound to remember them now but to say what served best for his present purpose to clear the Roman Church from Idolatry I will not deny then but there might be a Sect of Dahritae who did only in name own any thing of God and Religion that did assert the Eternity of the world and that there were no other Gods but the Sun Moon and Stars both among the Phoenicians and Chaldeans as well as Arabians but I say these were Atheists and not Idolaters those who where charged with Idolatry among them were such as believed a Supreme Deity but gave Divine Honours to Beings created by him The like is suggested by some concerning the Persians as though they attributed omnipotency and divine worship only to the Sun and those who take all things of this nature upon trust meerly from Herodotus or Iustin or other Greek and Latin writers may think they have reason to believe it but if we look into those who have been most conversant in the Persian writings we shall find a different account of them Iac. Golius in his Notes on Alferganus saith that the Persians gave the names of their Gods to their Months and Days according to the ancient Religion of the Persians and Magi whereby they did believe their Gods to preside over them for it was a principle among them as well as other Nations of the East that the things of this lower world are administred by Angels and accordingly they had their particular prayers and devotions according to the several Days and Months and not only so but their very meat drink clothing and perfumes were different and they had their Tables or Rubricks to instruct them And what worship they gave to the Planets was not saith he to themselves but to those Intelligencies which they supposed to rule them nay they supposed particular Spirits to rule over all the material parts of the world the Spirit over fire was called Adar and Aredbahist the Spirit over Herbs and Trees Chordad the Spirit over Bruits was Bahmen the Spirit over the Earth was Asfendurmed and so they had an Angel of Night and another of Death and the Spirit over the Sun was called Mihrgîan from Mihr the Sun whence the word Mithras but above all these they believed there was one Supreme God whom they called Hormuz and Dei and the Persian Writers say that Zoroaster appointed six great Festivals in the year in remembrance of the six days creation And to this is very agreeable what the Persees in Indosthan do to this day deliver of the principles of their Religion for they affirm God to be the maker of all things but that he committed the Government of the world to certain Spirits and they worship the fire as a part of God and call the Sun and Moon Gods great witnesses and the description of them in Varenius fully accords with this that they acknowledged one Supreme God every where present that governs the world but he makes use of seven chief Ministers for the management of it one over men another over bruits another over fire as is before described and under these they place 25 more who are all to give an account to the Supreme God of their administration With this account agrees the relation of Mandelslo concerning them who saith that the Parsis believe that there is but one God preserver of the Universe that he acts alone and immediately in all things and that the seven servants of God for whom they have also a great veneration have only an inferiour administration whereof they are obliged to give account and after the enumerating these with their particular charges he reckons up 26 under them with their several names but they call them all in common Geshoo i. e. Lords and believe he saith that they have an absolute power over the things whereof God hath intrusted them with the administration Whence it comes that they make no difficulty to worship them and to invocate them in their extremities out of a perswasion that God will not deny them any thing they desire on their intercession Schickard relates a particular story of the Persian King Firutz or Perozes which shews the acknowledgement of a Supreme Deity among the Persians in his time which was about the time of the Council of Chalcedon there happened a mighty drought in Persia so that it rained not for seven years and when the Kings granaries were utterly exhausted and there was no hope of further supplies he called his People out into the open Fields and there in a most humble manner he besought the great God Lord of Heaven and Earth to send them rain and gave not over praying till a plentiful shower fell upon them which saith he is another example after the Ninivites of Gods great mercy
God-head which was to be seen by the things that were made so as to leave them without excuse Was this their knowing of God and that incorruptible God whose glory they turned into the Image of a corruptible man c Was all this nothing but Iupiter of Crete and the Arch-Devil under his name But what will not men say rather than confess themselves Idolaters Although these Testimonies of Scriture be never so evident yet I am not sure but T. G. may be the Polus mentioned in Erasmus now whom he mentions for my sake more than once and may espy a red fiery Dragon even the old Serpent there where I can see nothing but the discovery of the True God Therefore supposing that the Testimony of Heathens or the Scriptures may not weigh much with him methinks he might have considered what the Learned men of their own Church have said to this purpose Th. Aquinas confesseth that the most of the Gentiles did acknowledge one Supreme God from whom they said all those others whom they called Gods did receive their being and that they ascribed the name of Divinity to all immortal substances chiefly by reason of their wisdom happiness and Government Which custom of speaking saith he is likewise found in Scripture where either the holy Angels or Men and Iudges are called Gods I have said Ye are Gods and many other places Franciscus Ferrariensis in his Commentaries on that place saith that Aquinas his meaning was that the Scripture only agreed with the Heathens as to the name but that they called their Gods properly so whereas the Scripture speaks of them only by way of participation And did Aquinas mean any otherwise of the Heathens when he saith that all their inferiour Gods derived their very being from the Supreme The same Aquinas in his Book purposely written against the Gentiles gives this account of their Principles of Religion that some of them held one God the first and universal principle of all things but withall all they gave Divine Worship Latriam next to the Supreme God to intellectual substances of a heavenly nature which they call Gods whether they were substances separated from bodies or the Souls of the heavenly Orbs and Stars in the next place to intellectual substances united to aerial bodies which they called Daemons whom they made Gods in respect of men and thought they deserved divine worship from men as being Mediatours between the Gods and them and in the last place to the Souls of good men as being raised to a higher state than that of this present life Others of them suppossing God to be the Soul of the World did believe that divine worship was to be given to the whole world and the several parts of it not for the sake of the Body but the Soul which they said was God as a wise man hath honour given him not for the sake of his Body but of his mind Others again asserted that things below men as Images might have divine worship given to them in as much as they did participate of a Superiour nature either from the influence of heavenly bodies or the presence of some Spirits which Images they called Gods and from thence they were called Idolaters And so he proves that they were who acknowledging one first principle did give divine worship to any other being because it weakens the notion and esteem we ought to have of the Supreme Being to give divine worship to any other besides him as it would lessen the honour of a King for any other Person to have the same kind of respect shewed to him which we express to the King and because this divine worship is due to God on the account of Creation which is proper only to him and because he is properly Lord over us and none else besides him and he is our great and last end which are all of them great and weighty reasons why divine worship should be appropriated to God alone But saith he although this opinion which makes God a separate Being and the first Cause of all intellectual Beings be true yet that which makes God the Soul of the World though it be farther from truth gives a better account of giving divine worship to created Beings For then they give that divine worship to God himself for according to this principle the several parts of the world in respect of God are but as the several members of a mans body in respect of his Soul But the most unreasonable opinion he saith is that of animated Images because those cannot deserve more worship than either the Spirits that animate them or the makers of them which ought not to have divine worship given them besides that by lying Oracles and wicked Counsels these appear to have been Evil Spirits and therefore deserve no worship of us From hence he saith it appears that because divine worship is proper only to God as the first principle and none but an ill disposed rational Being can excite men to the doing such unlawful things as giving the worship proper to God to any other Being that men were drawn to Idolatry by the instigation of evil Spirits which coveted divine honours to themselves and therefore the Scripture saith they worshipped Devils and not God From which remarkable Testimony we may take notice of these things 1. That he confesseth many of the Gentiles whom he charges with Idolatry did believe and worship the Supreme God as Creator and Governour of the world 2. That divine worship is so proper to the true God that whosoever gives it to any created being though in it self of real excellency and considered as deriving that excellency from God is yet guilty of Idolatry 3. That relative Latria being given to a creature is Idolatry for so he makes it to be in those who supposed God to be the Soul of the world And I desire T. G. or any other cunning Sophister among them to shew me why a man may not as lawfully worship any part of the world with a relative Latria supposing God to be the Soul of the world as any Image or Crucifix whatsoever For if union contact or relation be a sufficient ground for relative Latria in one case it will be in the other also and I cannot but wonder so great a judgement as Aquinas had should not either have made him justifie the Heathens on this supposition or condemn the Christians in giving Latria i. e. proper divine worship to the Cross. For there is not any shadow of reason produced by him for the one which would not held have much more for the other For if the honour of the Image is carried to the Prototype is not the honour of the members of the Body to the mind that animates them If the Image deserve the same worship with the person represented by it is not much more any part of the body capable of receiving the honour due to the Person as the
after a publick and solemn repentance But that this Prince was yet a worshipper of the Sun appears by what follows when the Emperor Zenâ— had him at his mercy and made him promise fidelity to him by bowing of himself to him he to avoid the reproach of it among his People carried himself so that he seemed only to them to make his Reverence to the Sun according to the custom of his Country But it will add yet more to the conviction of T. G. and to the discovery of the Nature of Idolatry to shew that those Nations which are at this day charged with Idolatry by the Church of Rome have acknowledged one Supreme God And I shall now shew that those Idolaters who have understood their own Religion have gone upon one of these three principles either 1. that God hath committed the Government of the world under him to some inferiour Deities which was the principle of the Platonists and of the Arabians and Persians Or 2. that God is the Soul of the world and therefore the parts of it deserve divine honour which was the principle of Varro and the Stoicks Or 3. That God is of so great perfection and excellency that he is above our service and therefore what external adoration we pay ought to be to something below him which I shall shew to have been the principle of those who have given the least external adoration to the Supreme God These things I shall make appear by giving a brief account of the Idolatry of those parts of the world which the Emissaries of the Church of Rome have shewed their greatest zeal in endeavouring to convert from their Idolatries There are two Sects in the East-Indies if I may call them so from whom the several Nations which inhabit there have received what principles of Religion they have and those are the Brachmans and the Chineses and the giving account of these two will take in the ways of worship that are generally known among them For the Brachmans I shall take my account chiefly from those who have been conversant among them and had the best reason to understand their Religion Francis Xaverius who went first upon that commendable imployment of converting the Indians saith that the Brachmans told him they knew very well there was but one God and one of the learned Brachmans in his discourse with him not only confessed the same but added that on Sundays which their Teachers kept very exactly they used only this prayer I adore thee O God with thy Grace and Help for ever Tursellinus saith that he confessed this to be one of their great mysteries that there was one God maker of the world who reigns in Heaven and ought to be worshipped by men and so doth Iarricus Bartoli not only relates the same passages but gives this account of their Theology that they call the Supreme God Parabrama which in their language signifies absolutely perfect being the Fountain of all things existing from himself and free from all composition that he committed to Brama the care of all things about Religion to Wistnow another of his Sons the care of mens rights and relieving them in their necessities to a third the power over the elements and over humane bodies These three they represent by an Image with three Heads rising all out of the same trunk these are highly esteemed and prayed to for they suppose Parabrama to be at perfect ease and to have committed the care of all to them But the Brachman Padmanaba gave a more particular account of the management of all things to Abraham Rogers who was well acquainted with him and was fifteen years in those parts Next to Brama they make one Dewendre to be the Superintendent Deity who hath many more under him and besides these they have particular Deities over the several parts of the world as the Persians had They believe both good and evil Spirits and call them by several names the former they call Deütas and the other Ratsjaies and the Father of both sorts to be Brachman the son of Brama In particular cases they have some saith Mr. Lord who conversed among them and to whom Mons. Bernier refers us to one who gave a faithful account of them whom they honour as Saints and make their addresses to as for Marriage they invocate Hurmount for Health Vagenaught for success in Wars Bimohem for Relief Syer c. and I suppose incontinent persons may have someone instead of S. Mary Magdalen to pray to The custom of their daily devotion as the Brachman Padmanaba said was first to meditate of God before they rise then after they have washed themselves they repeat 24 names of God and touch 24 parts of their bodies upon Suâ— rising they say prayers and pour down water in honour of the Sun and then 〈◊〉 down upon their knees and worship him and after perform some ceremonies 〈◊〉 their Idols which they repeat in the evening The particular devotion which theâ— have to their Saints and Images aâ—â— Reliques is fully described by Boullaye-le-Gouz in his late Travels into those parts Mandelslo saith that in the time of the publick devotions they have long Lessâ—â— about the Lives and Miracles of the Saints which the Bramans make use 〈◊〉 to perswade the people to worship them Intercessors with God for them Amoâ—â— their Saints Ram is in very great estimâ—tion being the restorer of their Religiâ—â— and a great Patron of their Braman Kircher supposeth him to be the 〈◊〉 with him whom the Iaponese call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Chinese Ken Kian 〈◊〉 Kircher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Kia saith Marini and those of Tunquin Chiaga or as Marini Thic-Ca in all which parts he is in very great veneration him they look on as the great propagator of their Religion in the Eastern parts and they say he had 80000 disciples but he chose ten out of them all to disperse his opinions From whence it is supposed that the Religion of the Brachmans hath spread it self not only over Indosthan but Camboia Tunquin Cochinchina nay China it self and Iapan too where it is an usual thing for persons to drown burn or famish themselves for the honour of Xaca This Sect was brought into China 65 years after Christ from Indosthan as Trigautius or rather Matthaeus Riccius tells us for Bartoli assures us that Trigautius only published Riccius his papers in his own name which he supposes was brought in by a mistake for the Christian Religion and surely it was a very great mistake but for all that Trigautius hath found a â—trange resemblance between the Roman Religion and theirs For saith he they worship the Trinity after a certain manner with an image having three Heads and one Body they extol coelibate 〈◊〉 a high degree so as to seem to condemn marriage they forsake their Families and go up and down begging i. e. the Order of Friers
Ancestors to whom we give 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the second Honours next to the Gods as Celsus calls those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the due honours that belong to the lower Daemons which he contends ought to be given to them From which we take notice that the Heathens did not confound all degrees of divine worship giving to the lowest object the same which they supposed to be due to the Coelestial Deities or the supreme God So that if the distinction of divine worship will excuse from Idolatry the Heathens were not to blame for it 2. If this pretence doth excuse from Idolatry the Carpocratian Hereticks were unjustly charged by Irenaeus Epiphanius and S. Augustin for they are said To worship the Images of Christ together with the Philosophers Pythagoras Plato and Aristotle Wherein lay the fault of these Hereticks was it only in joyning the Philosophers together with Christ If that had been all it had been easie to have said That they worshipped the Philosophers together with Christ but they take particular notice of it as a thing unusual and blame-worthy that they worshipped the Images of Christ which they pretended to have had from Pilat which had been no wonder if there had been as many Images of Christ then extant as Feuardentius pretends viz. the Image of Christ taken by Nicodemus not I suppose when he came by night to our Saviour that at Edessa besides those which S. Luke drew of Him if there had been so many Images abroad of Him in veneration among Christians why should this be pitched upon as a peculiar thing of these Gnosticks That they had some Images painted others made of other matters which they crowned and set forth or worshipped as the Heathens did among which was an Image of Christ as Irenaeus reports it And supposing they had worshipped the Images of Christ as the Gentiles did worship their Images wherein were they to blame if the honour given to the Image be not the honour of the Image but of that which is represented by it And since Christ deserves our highest worship on this pretence they deserved no blame at all in giving divine worship of the highest degree to the Image of Christ. 3. The Primitive Christians did utterly refuse to worship the Images of Emperors although they were acknowledged to be Gods Creatures therefore I say according to their sense acknowledging the Saints to be Gods Creatures is not a sufficient ground to excuse the worship of the Images of Saints from Idolatry As in Pliny's Epistle to Trajan mentioned before one of the tryals of Christians was whether they would Imagini tuae thure ac vino supplicare use the Religious rites that were then customary of Incense Libation and Supplication before the Emperours Image this Minucius calls ad Imagines supplicare to pray before their Images which Pliny saith No true Christian could ever be brought to but would rather suffer Martyrdom than do it S. Hierome speaking of Nebuchadnezzars Image saith Statuam seu Imaginem cultores Dei adorare non debent the worshippers of God ought not to worship an Image Let saith he the Iudges and Magistrates take notice of this that worship the Emperours Statues that they do that which the three Children pleased God by not doing By which we see it was not only the Statues of Heathen Emperours which the Christians refused to give Religious worship to but of the most pious and Christian which out of the flattery of Princes those who expected or received Honours were willing to continue under Christian Emperours but it was at last absolutely forbidden by a Constitution of Theodosius of which I have spoken already in the Discourse about the Nature of divine worship But upon what reason came this to be accounted unlawful among Christians if it were lawful to worship the Images of Saints supposing them to be Gods Creatures Is it possible they should think the Emperours to be otherwise I do not think that the Souldiers who were trepann'd by Iulian to offer Incense to his Image at the receiving the Donative and after they understood what they did were ready to run mad with indignation at themselves crying out in the Streets We are Christians and ran to the Emperour desiring they might suffer Martyrdom for the Christian faith which they were supposed to deny by that act of theirs as Gregory Nazianzen and Theodoret relate the story did imagine that Iulian was any other than one of Gods Creatures or that they had any belief of his being a God but the Christians looked on the act it self of offering incense as unlawful to be done to the Image of any Creature or to the Image it self because it was a Creature and that of the meanest sort viz. the Work of mens hands 4. It is not enough for any of Gods Creatures to be worshipped under the Notion of Saints if any worship be given to them which is above the rank of Creatures i. e. any of that worship which belongs to God For none can have greater confidence of the Saintship of any Persons whose Images they worshipped those excepted which are revealed in Scripture than many of the Heathens had of the goodness of the Deities which they worshipped And if we observe the method which Origen S. Cyril S. Augustin and other Christian Writers took to prove them to be evil Spirits which they worshipped we shall find the great argument was from the Nature of the worship given to them For say they we find in Scripture that good Angels have refused that worship which they seem so desirous of and therefore there is just reason to suspect that these are not good Angels although they firmly believed them to be so and Hierocles saith God forbid we should worship any other And the Heathens in S. Augustin say peremptorily they did not worship Devils but Angels and the servants of the Great God So say I as to those who are worshipped under the name of Saints or Angels if in or at their Images such things are spoken or done which tend to the encouraging that worship which the Primitive Christians refused as Idolatry there is the same reason still to suspect those are not good but evil Spirits under whose name or representation soever they appear For it is as easie for them to play the same tricks among Christians which they did among Heathens for then they pretended to be Good Spirits and why may they not do the same still If we have a fuller discovery of their design to impose upon the world the folly of men is so much the greater to be abused by them and the Gentiles were in that respect far more excuseable than Christians because God had not discovered the Cheat and artifices of Evil Spirits to them so as he hath done to us by the Christian Religion Whatever pretence of miracles or visions or appearances there be if the design of them be to advance a way of