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
Apostate because by their late rise they had not sufficient strength to repress Earthly Princes Here are two Probable Doctors and the conclusion from thence is that when ever they find themselves to have a Party strong enough they may having the Opinion of such Probable Doctors on their side attempt the Murder of their natural Prince and introduce their Religion though with the Blood of thousands of innocent Persons And this they may do although themselves should think it unlawful because Bellarmine and Aquinas Men of approved Virtue and Learning among them have determined for the lawfulness of it 2. From hence it will follow that a Man may forsake the more safe and infallible Direction of Gods Word and the clear Evidence of Reason and Conscience and take up with the Opinion of some one Man who perhaps speaks unadvisedly and carelesly or it may be out of design and set purpose to deceive and by this means all the severe Duties of Religion shall be evacuated and the Precepts of the Gospel made to comply with the Vices and corrupt Inclinations of Men and all as it pleases our Probable Doctor which certainly is the most unreasonable and unrighteous Usurpation upon the understandings of Mankind that ever was as if the generality of Men were made only to be imposed upon Nay by this means the best and wholsomest Laws in the Christian World shall be rescinded if there be but a Probable Doctor to dispute their Obligation These horrid and impious Consequences will yet appear more plain and evident by those Instances First we are commanded in the holy Scriptures to love the Lord our God with all our heart with all our soul and with all our strength and the truth and sincerity of our love is evidenced by avoiding of Sin and by keeping his Commandments But now if a Man may forsake the plain and easie direction of God in the sacred Writings and rest in the Opinion of a Probable Doctor he need not much trouble his Head about the love of God See the Mystery of Jesuitism Hurtado de Mendoza as he is cited by Father Escobar says A Man is bound but once every year to have an actual affection for God Coninck supposes we are bound to it once in three or four years Henriquez once in five years But Filiutius thinks a Man is not obliged every five years And if we do not think our selves fairly dealt withal yet Father Syrmond will make a full amends and he assures us we need not love God at all For we are not so much commanded says he to love God as not to hate him Secondly we are injoined a speedy and sincere Repentance in the holy Scriptures to turn from our Sins and Impieties unto God while 't is called to day that is to make use of the present time which is only ours But if throwing the Scripture aside we may without danger follow the Guidance of any Probable Doctor then a Man is bound to repent only three times a year at Christmas Easter and Whitsontide for so Scotus says But if you are unwilling to undergo this burdensome and afflictive Duty so often you need perform it but once a year and for this you have the Authority of Scotus and Medina And if you think this too much hear what Reginaldus says The time when a Man is bound to repent is at the Article of imminent Death for the mean while there is no Precept commanding that a Sinner should not persevere in enmity against God there is no Negative Precept forbidding such a Perseverance How directly repugnant those Doctrines are to that Grand Positive end of the Gospel the Replantation of the sacred Image and Nature of God in the Souls of Men every pious Christian who earnestly desires the Recovery of the World from the Bondage and slavery of Sin cannot but see and that those Champions which the Dark Kingdom set out to defend and maintain the Pagan Worship which quickly vanished and disappeared in all places where Christianity shone in its Native lustre and brightness were not half so successful in their Attempts nor such dangerous Enemies of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus as those Popish Agents who by speaking Lyes in Hypocrisie do really Debauch and Paganize the World again and make Men two-fold more the Children of Hell than if they had been perfect Strangers to the very name of a Christian 3. Another Doctrine which undermines the Grand Purpose of God Almighty in regenerating and renewing the World by the Gospel is that of Sacerdotal Absolution upon Confession at the hour of death For thus the Doctors of the Church of Rome teach That though a man live and die without the practice of Christian Virtues and with the habits of many damnable sins unmortified yet if he in the last moment of his life have any sorrow for his sins Vid. Chilligw Ch. 7. and joyn Confession with it he shall certainly be saved Which is a Doctrine that instead of reforming and bettering the World which certainly was intended by the manifestation of the Gospel opens a door to all imaginable licentiousness and wickedness Our blessed Saviour assures us that except a man be born again he shall not enter into Heaven Now certain it is that Divine Generations as well as Natural are not instantaneous but require time for their full maturity and perfection and as sure is it that an Act of Attrition accompanied with Sacerdotal Absolution can never work a change or Renovation of the mind and consequently it must be as horrid a Cheat as ever was put upon the poor deluded Sons of Adam to perswade them that this is enough for their Salvation though otherwise they die without the practice of Christian Virtues and with the habits of many damnable sins unmortified For to speak the plain truth this kind of Absolution looks more like a Charm or Spell used by superstitious people to fright away evil spirits than any thing of sober truth having neither Reason nor Scripture to countenance or abett it And though men may deceive and befool one another yet those unhappy people whose sad Fate it is to be sent out of the world with no better hopes of Salvation than what an Act of Attrition with Priestly Absolution is able to give them will find the Scene of Affairs quite altered there and those grim Officers of the Infernal Kingdom will infallibly challenge and seize their own notwithstanding the fairest dismission by all the arts and devices of a treacherous Ghostly Father Consider all you that have any care for your Eternal Interest and Salvation how grosly you are abused by these Holy Impostors and Factors for the Devils Kingdom Can the Absolution of your Priest work a real change in your Dispositions and Natures or can those few words effect a Mortification of your vicious habits and withal superinduce the contrary Virtues Will this Charm procure a safe passage through the Guards of the invisible Regions
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