their souls act with the greatest ease and pleasure and constancy and delight he designed by the promulgation of the Gospel 2. In the first place the utter Extirpation and rooting Idolatry out of the World For this is a sin so heynous and so derogatory to the Perfections of the Divine Nature that however it may be subtilized and refined by the crafty Patrons of it yet it doth most certainly thwart and cross that glorious purpose of God in making men like to himself And the reason of it is because it sinks mens minds too much into Body and Matter and so instead of purging their Souls from the gross affections and allurements of the Flesh it depresses and debases their thoughts to the lowest degree of Sensuality Now that when the Evangelical Dispensation should take place upon Earth all Idolatry was to be extirpated and destroyed the Prophets of old have clearly testified Isai 2.17 18 20. The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day and the Idols he shall utterly abolish In that day a man shall cast his Idols of Silver and his Idols of Gold which they made each one for himself to worship to the Moles and to the Bats That this Prophecy respects the times of the Messiah is acknowledged by the Jews themselves and may receive a further confirmation from the second and third Verses And it shall come to pass in the last days that the Mountain of the Lords House shall be established in the top of the Mountains and shall be exalted above the Hills and all Nations shall flow unto it For out of Zion shall go forth the Law and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem i. e. That in the days of the Gospel which is frequently denoted in Scripture by the last times the worship of the true God shall take place and be established among all Nations and that this Evangelical Dispensation which should be carried and propagated over all the world should begin from Jerusalem where the Apostles of our Lord Jesus received their full and compleat Inauguration into this Office of preaching the Gospel by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon them and then in that day all the false Gods and Images of the Heathens shall be utterly thrown asitle and men shall honour and worship the true God only and that in Spirit and in Truth And again Zephan 2.11 The Lord will be terrible unto them for he will famish all the Gods of the Earth and men shall worship him every one from his place even all the Isles of the Heathen i.e. God will abolish and destroy all the Idols and false Deities of the Heathen and all Nations shall be reduced to the worship of the true God the Creator of Heaven and Earth every one in his own Land so that men shall not need to go up to Jerusalem or be obliged to worship God here or there but as Christ speaks the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth And more plainly yet in Zech. 13.2 And it shall come to pass in that day saith the Lord of Hists that I will cut off the names of the Idols out of the Land and they shall no more be remembred and also I will cause the Prophets and the unclean Spirit to pass out of the Land And that this unclean Spirit which sollicited mankind to spiritual whoredome and fornication was chased out of all those parts of the world where the Gospel was preached by the Apostles and their immediate Successors is evident not only from Ecclesiastical story but from the complaints of the Heathen that since the Religion of Jesus prevailed their Oracles were silent and their Sacrifices were offer'd in vain to their phantastick Deities And that this was a main design of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus he himself assures us in his discourse with the Woman of Samaria Joh. 4.21 22 23 24. where when the Woman told our Saviour that the Samaritans worshipped in Mount Ephraim at Shiloh but that the Jews taught that God was to be worshipped only at Jerusalem v. 20. He replies Woman believe me the hour comes when ye shall neither in this Mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father Ye worship ye know not what we know what we worship for Salvation is of the Jews But the hour comes and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth for the Father seeks such to worship him God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in Truth The most genuine Interpretation of which-seems to be given by that pious and learned Person Mr. Mede viz. that the Samaritans who worshipped in the Temple of Mount Gerizim though they worshipped the true God yet it was under the visible representation of a Dove and circumcised their Children in the name thereof therefore says Christ ye worship ye know not what i.e. ye worship the God of Israel indeed but 't is under a Corporeal Representation which is an argument you do not know him but God must be worshipped in Spirit and in Truth that is conceiving him as a Spirit and not under any visible shape Therefore Idolatry is a belying God and Idols are termed lyes Amos 2.4 Their lyes caused them to err And Jer. 16.19 Surely our Fathers have inherited lyes the Chaldee have worshipped a lye Our blessed Lord and Saviour coming into the world to correct what was amiss and to reform the manners of mankind and to introduce a more spiritual Religion than the Jewish was it is not to be thought but he would in the first place design the Eradication of Idolatry which so much debases the soul of man and dishonours the Supreme Deity by representing him in a gross and material way and likewise by giving his Incommunicable Excellencies and Perfections to a Creature Sure it is the Primitive Christians retained so clear and vigorous a sense of the heynousness of this sin and the perfect inconsistency of it with the spirituality of their Religion that they chose rather to endure all manner of torments and die a thousand deaths than in the least manner pollute their souls with so gross an immorality Pertinent hereunto is that observation which is made that in the first part of the Jewish Talmud which was made about 200 years after Christ there is no accusation or complaint brought against the Christians for this Idolatry of Image-worship but in the second part which was finished about the year 500. when the Church of Christ began to Paganize there and in all the Commentaries of the Rabbins published in the Tenth or Eleventh Age the Jews call the Christian Churches the Houses of Idolatry It being plain then that Christ Jesus came to eradicate Idolatry which both spoiled the nature of the soul by sinking it into matter and fearfully dishonoured the true and ever-living God I come now to shew wherein the Pagan Idolatry chiefly consisted which was in these two things
Intercessions to the Virgin Mary with Divine Prayers And moreover that in S. Austin's days Invocation of Saints was not used in the common Service of the Western Church but that it was brought in about the time of Pope Gregory the First Nor can this Paganish Idolatry be palliated and excused by that poor Subterfuge of distinguishing religious worship into Latria and Dulia the first of which is proper only to God the other to Creatures that is to Saints and Angels First because the true Object of religious worship is but one for God is one and therefore whatever Creature is worshipped with religious worship though inferiour to that which is given to the Supreme God is ipso facto by this made a God so far as it is possible for a Creature to be made a God 2. The words Latria and Dulia are promiscuously used in Scripture to denote the worship due to God alone as 1 Thes 1.9 Ye turned to God from Idols 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to serve the living and true God VVhich had been a Derogation if the Apostle had used a word that had signified any thing less than Divine worship I shall conclude this Particular with a Passage which I find cited out of Athanasius his fourth Oration against the Arrians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Why therefore do not these Arrians holding this reckon themselves amongst the Pagans or Gentiles since they do in like manner worship the Creature besides the Creator For though the Pagans worship one uncreated and many created Gods but these Arrians only one uncreated and one created to wit the Son or VVord of God yet will not this make any real difference betwixt them because the Arrians one created is one of those many Pagan Gods and those many Gods of the Pagans or Gentiles have the same nature with this one they being alike Creatures Wherefore these wretched Arrians are Apostates from the truth of Christianity they betraying Christ more than the Jews did and wallowing or tumbling in the filth of Pagan Idolatry worshipping Creatures and different kinds of Gods In which Passage of this Father these things are observable 1. That the Arrians are charged with Pagan Idolatry in the same words which St. Paul used against the Heathens That they did worship the Creature besides or in the room of the Creator for the Arrians constantly declared that they gave less worship to Christ the Son or Word of God he being by them accounted but a Creature than they did to the Father the Creator 2. That the Pagan Polytheism and Idolatry consisted in worshiping one only uncreated and independent and many created Gods 3. That the worship of the true God is not enough to excuse from Idolatry if any Creature be worshipped with religious worship together with him for then the Pagans cannot be charged with the guilt of Idolatry 4. That the Fathers of the Nicene Council if we may credit Athanasius affirmed that to give religious worship to any created Being whatsoever though inferiour to that worship which is given to the Supreme God is absolutely Idolatry and therefore the distinction of religious worship into Latria and Dulia as it was perfectly unknown to them so was it invented of late meerly to palliate and hide the odious Turpitude of Pagan Idolatry Because it is certain that the Arrians gave much an inferiour worship to Christ the Son or Word of God whom they contended to be a meer Creature made in time mutable and defectible than they did to that eternal God who was the Creator of him Now if the Arrians who zealously contended for the Unity of the God-head were nevertheless by those Fathers condemned as guilty of Pagan Idolatry for bestowing but an inferiour kind of religious worship upon Christ the Son or Word of God himself as he was supposed by them to be a Creature then certainly cannot Papists be excused from that guilt who bestow religious worship upon these other Creatures Angels and Souls of Men though inferiour to what they give to the Supreme Omnipotent God the Creator of all Because the Son or Word of God however conceived by these Arrians to be a Creature yet was looked upon by them as the first the most glorious and excellent of all Creatures and that by which as an Instrument all other Creatures as Angels and Souls were made And therefore if it were Idolatry in them to give an inferiour kind of religious worship to this Son and Word of God himself according to their Hypothesis then can it not possibly be accounted less to bestow the same upon those other Creatures made by him as Angels and Men deceased I confess there are many Pious and Learned Men both of our own and other Nations who cannot be induced to believe that the Romanists are Paganically Idolatrous in this Particular The Grounds and Reasons of this their Dissent seem to be these three especially which are laid down by Curcellaeus 1. In the Romish Church saith he the one Supreme God the Maker In Epist ad Adrian Tatium and Governour of Heaven and Earth is acknowledged and adored and the Saints are worshipped with an inferiour degree of honour as the Friends of God and such as are in great favour with him But the Pagans were ignorant of the true God and substituted the Sun and Moon the Souls of dead Men and Daemons in his place and worshipped them as Gods 2. There is no doubt but the Saints and Martyrs whom the Roman Catholicks worship are worthy of some veneration of the Mind for their excellent Virtues and constancy in Persecutions But to worship the Stars that have neither sense nor reason is ridiculous And no honour can be due to the Memory of Impious and Flagitious Kings such as Jupiter was And as for Daemons they ought to be detested by all good Men as haters of God and Virtue 3. The Romanists indeed attribute to their Saints a knowledge in some sense and measure Divine by which they hear our Prayers and take notice of our wants and necessities although the Scripture deny all such knowledge to the Dead as Eccles 9.5 6. Job 14.21 But this doth somewhat lessen their Errour that they profess that the Saints have not this knowledge of themselves but from the Gift of God But now the Heathens err inexcusably while they ascribe to their false Gods an independent Knowledge and Power which is only competible to the Supreme God Thus far Curcellaeus To which I reply To the first That it is a vulgar Errour to suppose the Pagans ignorant of the true God or that they did not worship the Supreme God the Maker of Heaven and Earth as not only appears from the Texts of Scripture cited already but is clearly and evidently demonstrated by a Person of singular Learning Dr. Cudworth's true Intellectual System of the Vniverse l. 1. c. 4. p. 462. who from Plutarch Heraiscus Asclepiades and others affirm these two to be Fundamental Points
reason but because they could not bow the knee to Baal and joyn with an Idolatrous Church against the express Command of the Living God The barbarous Murders of the Albigenses and Waldenses remain a lasting Monument of unparallell'd Popish Cruelty of whom Reinerius an Inquisitor of the Church of Rome thus writes Contr. Haret c. 4. Among all the Sects which have formerly been none is more pernicious to the Church than that of the Leonists and that for these three Reasons 1. Because it is of longer continuance than any other for same say it hath lasted ever since Pope Sylvester others say ever since the Apostles 2. Because no Sect is more general than this for there is scarce any Country in which it is not found 3. That whereas other Sects deter and affright men with the horridness of their blasphemies against God this Sect of the Leonists makes a great shew of godliness because they live righteously before men and believe all things rightly touching God and concerning all other Articles of the Creed only they speak evil of the Roman Church and Clergy in which thing the Laity is very forward to credit and believe them Which Testimony being of one of their own Party is a clear Evidence against this Bloody Church that the only Crime of these Persons was their so freely declaring against the Idolatry and Corruptions of the Romish Church and therefore that the inhumane Butcheries of them was a gross and heynous Murder in the sight of God The Parisian Massaore comes next to be considered of which Thuanus says Nullum similis saevitae exemplum in tota Antiquitate reperiri i. e. the most Ancient Records cannot furnish us with an Example of the like cruelty Hist l. 52 53. it was cloaked over with shews of the greatest Amity in the World namely of a Marriage between the Houses of Valois and Bourbon to which all the chief of the Protestants were most lovingly invited There after the jollity of Mirth and Caresses of Entertainment in the dead time of the Night the whole City was in Arms about them they fell upon all the Protestants Houses and Lodgings they butcher'd them without distinction Men Women and Children till the Channels ran down with blood into the River thirty thousand persons were there murdered says Thuanus and as many more about that time in divers places of France says Natales Comes This Cruelty was celebrated by the Romanists in France Hist l. 25. Circiter Sexaginta millia hominum variis in locis per illud tempus trucidata fuisse dicta sunt in Gallia as one of the most glorious Actions the World hath been acquainted with great rejoycings at Court for it and Publick Thanks given unto God But the greatest joy was at Rome an account of which take from Thuanus a Roman Catholick and a most Authemick Historian He tells us the Pope had an account of the Massacre from his Legate at Paris that he read his Letter in the Consistoby of Cardinals that there it was decreed that they should go directly to S. Mark 's L. 53. and there solemnly give Thanks to Almighty God for so great a Blessing conferred upon the Roman See and the Christian World That soon after a Jubilee should be publish through the whole Christian World and these Causes were exprest for it To give thanks to God for destroying in France the Enemies of the Truth and of the Church In the Evening the Guns were fired at S. Angeto and Bonefires were made and nothing was omitted of all those things that use to be performed in the greatest Victories of the Church Some days after there was a Procession to S. Lewis with the greatest resort of Nobility and People First went the Bishops and Cardinals then the Switzers then the Ambassadors of Kings and Princes then under a Canopy went his Holiness himsell with the Emperour's Ambassador bearing up his Train for him c. Over the Church-door was an Inscription set up in which the Cardinal of Lorrain in the name of the King of France congratulated his Holiness and the College of Cardinals c. for the plainly stupendious effects and altogether incredible events of their Counsels given him and of their Assistances sent him and of their twelve years Wishes and Prayers And the better to perpetuate the memory of this Massacre the Pope caused it to be painted about his great Hall in the Lateran and there recorded in Marble To these bloody Catalogues a considerable Accession has been made since by the Papists in Ireland who in times of as great peace and liberty as ever that Nation enjoyed and in the name of that blessed and gracious King The Lord Orory's Answer to Welsh p. 29. saith within few Months about two hundred thousand under whom they enjoyed these like inhumane Butchers cut the throats of above a hundred thousand of his Protestant Subjects of all Sexes and Ages an action of so horrid an aspect as will make the names of all that had to do in it look black and detestable to mankind throughout all Generations That Sea of Blood which hath there been cruelly and barbarously shed is enough to drown any man in Eternal both infamy and misery whom God shall find the malicious Author or Instigator of its Effusion Icon Basil c. 12. And how far his Holiness was concerned in it appears by his Nuncio whom he sent to promote and bless the Cause I have now finished what I intended to say in this short Discourse with no other design than that of doing Honour to God and vindicating the abused Glory of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus by shewing how far the Romish Church is degenerated from his Gospel who is indeed the Prince and Head of the Catholick Church whom I humbly beseech to open the Eyes of all deluded Persons that they may come to the knowledge of the Truth and be saved Amen FINIS Book 's Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-Head in S. Paul's Church-Yard H. Mori Opera Theologica Fol. His Reply to a late Answer to his Antidote against Idolatry with an Appendix in Octavo His Remarks in answer to the Lord Hales of Gravitation and Non-gravitation of Fluids in Oct. Mr. Falkner's Libertas Ecolesiastica in Oct. His Christian Loyalty in Oct. Mr. Sherlock's Discourse of the Knowledge of Jesus Christ and our Union and Communion with him c. To which is annexed a Defence and Continuation with a particular respect to the Doctrine of the Church of England and the Charge of Socinianism and Relagianism in Oct. Mr. Hotchkis's Discourse concerning the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness to us and our Sins to him c. in two Parts in Oct. Mr. Allen's Answer to Mr. Fergusson about Justification in Oct. His Mystery of Iniquity unfolded c. in Oct. His Christians Justification stated in Oct. His Friendly Advice to the Non-Conformists beginning with the Anabaptists in Oct. Mr. Hallywel's Account of Familism against the Quakers in Oct. His Discourse of the Excellency of Christianity in Oct. His Sacred Method of saving Humane Souls by Jesus Christ in Oct. Dr. Goodall's Vindication of the College of Physitians against a Pamphlet called The Corner-stone in Oct. Dr. Grew's Anatomy of Trunks with 19 Figures in Oct.