infinite reasons First from the Object of their worship generally directed to a multitude of Gods and patching up a plenitude of power out of the shreds of innumerable Demi-gods or pieces of Gods whereof one should have power and vertue in one thing and another in another but this is to deny God in effect who if he be not absolute is not at all and indeed all the arguments before used to prove there can be but one God do prove that to be a false and foolish Religion which alloweth and worshippeth more than one Neither can it suffice to excuse them to say that the wiser of the Heathens acknowledged but one God because it availeth nothing at all but to add to their condemnation for any persons to have a right sense and meaning reserved to themselves and to proceed directly contrary to such found judgment in their practice and worship it self And therefore the most absurd and abominable manner of worshipping their pretended Deities is sufficient conviction of the Religion it self For whereas modesty sobriety temperance chastity truth justice and the like moral vertues were such as the Light of Nature did commend to all men and all consented to be excellent and laudable All these were contemned by the admirers of these Gods yea the very Religion it self tempted and incited many to offend against all these and that which is most intolerable from the examples of the pretended gods so chusing to be worshipped from whence must needs follow what St. Paul affirmeth of the Gentiles Religion and gods The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to Devils and not to God They were impure and wicked 1 Cor. 10. 20. spirits delighting in absurd and vitious practises And therefore upon this subject no more need be spoken at present The Neat pretender to true worship may be the Mahometan who worshipping the True God so far as may be discerned yet faileth egregiously in the manner of exhibiting the same the very grounds and end also being false and unreasonable For first that the Author and Coiner of that worship was an impostor and made pretences of Sanctity in the midst of impurities and infirmities he was subject unto is apparent out of Histories of those times and places where he by the assistance of a Fugitive Nestorian Monk laid the plot and whole design of his Religion and that among a people altogether rude ignorant barbarous easie to be deceived and cheated into a credulity of pretended Revelations Again the many absurdities and contradictions of their Law most sacred as misnaming of persons mistiming of Facts mistaking of Histories in the gross impossible prophane blasphemous opinions concerning the nature the will the Actions of God contrary to common philosophy and reason Ridiculous and foolish imaginations of Angels utterly false opinions of the nature of things and such like being duly and soberly weighed and examined do convince the whole Fabrick of that superstition of Idleness and foolish fictions And not to multiply more arguments here The way of propagating this Erroneous Fashion of serving God discovereth the Errour of the thing it self For it is a general and most rational Principle deserving admission and belief of all That Religion being the most excellent act of humane Creatures ought to have the most high and noble Faculty of the soul for its proper seat and fountain from whence it should proceed such as is the intellectual faculty of Man But this superstition is carried on by the ministery of the Senses chiefly And moreover It ought to have for its end the most sublime and divine of all But the Mahometan constituteth the low pleasures of the Senses as the sufficient and proper end of all their service making the beatitude of Heaven to consist in perpetual Licentiousness and fresh delights of senses And therefore no need of insisting on this subject here What is here spoken being for method sake rather then necessity or a formal confutation of those Errours CHAP. V. Of the Jewish Religion The Pretence of the Antiquity of it mulled Their several Erroneous grounds of the Jewish Religion discovered DUT the Religion of the Jew requireth more diligent examination as well because of a notable presumption from ancient Tradition and a certain preoccupation of divine truths and auctority of divine Constitution as because the consideration thereof is an introduction to Christian Religion and the disproof of that a proof of the Christian And if according to Christians own concessions and the eminentest Apostle St. Paul they were once the people and true Church of God To Rom. 3. 2. cap. 9. 4. them were committed the Oracles of God To them pertained the Adoption and the glorie and the Covenant and the giving of the Law and the service of God and the Promises Why not alwayes a Church If once Gods people Why not alwayes so If once confessed to be pure and Faithfull When did they cease to be so When first entred corruptions into their Church Under what High Priest And who brought such errours first in This is the sum of what they can say either for themselves or against the Christians of whose Religion which undoubtedly they do and will call Heresie they can give the time and place when and where it sprang up and the person who first founded and advanced the same And if any Church or Society of men in the world can lay claim to the Promises of perpetuity and infallibility surely the Jewish will pretend much more from the Prerogatives peculiar to them as do witness every where the Law and the Prophets To all this a sufficient answer shall be comprehended in the prosecution of the contrary Grounds which here follows which I reduce to these two whereof One concerns their Errour about their Law and the Other about their Messias The first general Errour concerning their Law is first that they suppose that the word of God given to Moses for their proper use was equally to oblige all Nations saving where certain priviledges were pretended to Jews by birth which they suppose no people were worthy or capable of except the stock of Abraham But that all nations could not be included in that Covenant which was made with Abraham nor were all obliged to the Rites and Ceremonies thereof appears from the ordinary impossibility of being observed by all People For how could people of the remotest parts of the earth appear thrice a year at Jerusalem as was commanded the Israelites by God who dwelt in the Land of Canaan How Levit. 12. 6. could all Nations at any time bring their Sacrifices to the door of the House of the Lord to be there received and offered by the Priests Another Errour concerning their Law received by Moses is that they say It was it whereby men should be justified Which is false and that First because the most ancient holy and renowned Patriarchs of the Jewish Line were not so Justified They were not justified by the
agreement and ornament of the Whole So that as in Musick some light passing Notes of discord do add grace and sweetness to the Parts the petty particular disagreement of Creatures illustrate and commend the excellency of the Order of Creatures in the World And as it Athanas ib. p. 42. is yet further impossible but if two several Musicians should compose a Lesson or Song consisting of several Voices not consulting with one another but from their several phansies and humours these put together must needs make horrible jarring and discord so were there more then One God who should have an hand in framing this Universe it could not possibly have been avoided but the infinite and destructive inconveniencies in the parts thereof would betray the absurdness of such different Agents Again if there were more Gods then one there may as well be believed Si sint duo quare non plures Terrul cont Marcionem l. 1. c. 5. to be more then a hundred then a thousand then ten thousand and so on For who shall limit or determine them And so the World would be like a Common-wealth which should have more Soveraigns then Subjects Neither can it be imagined with any reason that such a multitude of gods should hold a Common Counsel and lay their heads together as Poets have devised for the wiser management of their Kingdom of this world because all such deliberations and consultations do imply a particular defect Quid intersint Numeri quum duo paria non differant uno Una enim res est quae cadem in duobui Id. ibid. of power and knowledge which are made up in some manner by the concurrence of many supplying such single defects But this supposition quite overthrows the Divine Nature And farther either these supposed Gods must be equal or inferiour to one another in their Attributes If the latter then must such inferiour ones be turned out of the List as insufficient and incapable of such an Equidem unum esse Deum sine initio sine prole naturae sew Patrem magnum atque magnificum quis tam demens tam mente captus neget esse certissimum high dignity If equal to what purpose are many invented when two or more differ not from One Sixthly Infiniteness and Unity are convertible in the inquiry after the nature of God For if God be Infinite he must necessarily be but One if he be One he must necessarily be Infinite Nothing less then Infinite answering the onely less then Infinite necessities of Creatures in the World which all stand in need as well of support and governance as of a First Cause to produce them 7. Lastly The same consent of Nations and People as hath been intimated Hujus nos virtutes per mundum esse diffusas multis vocabulis vocamus c. Maximus Mad. August Epist 43. agreeing in but one GOD as well as in this That there is a God sufficiently evinceth this For not to speak of the more stupid who are no competent Judges in such cases who notwithstanding readily assent to this noble truth once propounded but the more Learned and Wise who upon disquisition and search duly and thorowly made have ever unanimously received this for a most certain truth CHAP. IV. Of the diversity of Religions in the World A Brief censure of the Gentile and Mabomitan Religion HItherto have we treated of Natural Religion as it were that which all men by the light and force of principles put into Man by the hand of God who made him so that scarce doth the Infant turn more naturally to the breast of the Mother than doth Man arrived to the years of reason and common understanding seek to God by way of recognition and dependance on him But this one end to which all tend so unanimously admitteth of many roads leading thereunto which particularly to enumerate were both superfluous and tedious and therefore may well be reduced to these four Heathenish Jewish Mahometan and Christian which are so many Religions according to which One God is worshipped The Heathen or Gentile as the Scripture calls him worship a God and surely desiring as all men naturally do not to err or be deceived especially in such matters as are of greatest importance as the choice of a Deity is do likewise rudely intend to adore none but the true God For as St. Paul well noteth and teaches us in his Epistle to the Romans Rom. 8. 20. the Creature was made subject unto vanity not willingly but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope By which creature he doth certainly mean the Gentile who according to the phrase of Holy Writ speaking according to the received sense and opinion of the highly opinion'd Jews was reputed no more of then a simple creature and nature in opposition to which St. Paul often makes mention of another and New creature as He that is in Christ Jesus is a New creature and elsewhere And by Vanity 2 Corin. 5. 17. Gal. 5. 10. Jonah 2. 8. is commonly understood False Gods and Idols as in Jonah They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercies meaning False Gods as the Prophet Jeremie likewise affirmeth of the Heathens Gods They are but Jerem. 10. 15. vanity the works of mens hands Now the Creature or Gentiles were unwillingly made subject to these Vanities and false worships in respect of that general Principle inserted in Man whereby he chooses truth before error and consequently the true God before the false however through some particular Blindness of their understanding and darknes their Ephes 4. 18. hearts be alienated from the Life of God or from the living God which is the same Which Darkness of the heart may well be imputed to that Original defect or sin traduced from Adam to all his Posterity Yet notwithstanding even after that general waste made in the Soul of Man God as St. Paul well tells them left not himself without a witness in that he Acts. 14. 17. did good and gave us Rain from Heaven and fruitful seasons filling our hearts with food and gladness So that the Invisible things of him as saith the Rom. 1. 20. same St. Paul from the beginning of the VVorld are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and godhead so that they are without excuse And the reason hereof goeth before Viz. V. 19. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath shewed it unto them The invisible things of God are said to be seen clearly because they are sufficiently exposed to be seen and therefore if they do not see them it must be the affectation of some sensual error which so darkens their mind that they cannot or will not And being thus first corrupted no marvel if their Religion be like unto it not only false but unreasonable and abominable as may appear from these few amongst
made of being raised again and of a Resurrection which as is said must relate to the Body fallen And in the same Book He that offered Chap. 12. 43. for the dead is commended in that he was mindful of the Resurrection But none convince us more of a Catholick opinion amongst the Jews received doubtless as a Tradition from their Fathers and supposed to their more express prescriptions in Gods worship then that of Martha to Christ I know that he shall rise again in the Resurrection at the last day And now-a-dayes John 11. 24. the Jews are so well settled in the Doctrine of the Resurrection that they envie the faith of it to any but themselves saying as Buxtorf hath it Buxt Synag cap. 3. There are four things which the Isralites have from God in especial manner above other Nations The Land of Canaaenan The Law Prophesie and The Resurrection of the Dead But in my judgment St. Paul puts it out of all question that the Jews believed of old a Resurrection and that of the Body of which we now speak For thus in the Acts of the Apostles he Acts 24. 15. speaks And have hope towards God which they themselves also allow that there shall be a Resurrection of the dead both of the just and unjust And this Doctrine seemed so essential to St. Paul that without it all Christian Faith were lost as appears out of that most sublime and eloquent Chapter concerning it to the Corinthians where first he layes down his 1 Cor. 15. ground of Christian Faith Christs Death and Resurrection as that upon which all other Articles are founded and without which all preaching and v. 2. all Faith would be in vain And from hence he infers at least a possibility that our bodies being of flesh and bloud of the same nature shall also rise again And that Christs Resurrection was but as the first fruits to the harvest 20. or vintage which in order must necessarily follow And having asserted and confirmed the truth he answers the objections which may seem to disprove it which method we here choose briefly to imitate and follow 35 c. Tertul. Adver Marc. l. 5. c. 9. And first we argue from the term Resurrection which must needs imply somewhat fallen or dossolved as is said as Tertullian against Marcion doth affirm Secondly From the Example of Christ the exemplary cause of our Resurrection For according to St. Pauls disputation at large there is the v. 12 13. same reason for the Resurrection of us as of Christ But Christs body was raised up in that individual substance that was laid in the Grave and therefore must ours likewise And this is it which is affirmed and promised by the Apostle to the Thessalonians For if we believe that Jesus dyed 1 Thess 4. 14. and rose again even us also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him And no doubt can be made but Christ had flesh and bloud after his Resurrection the signs and marks show'd to that purpose convincing not only incredulous Thomas but all of like difficulty of Faith Luke 24. 19. John 20. 27. Thirdly It appeareth from the comparison made by St. Paul to the Corinthians As in Adam all dye even so in Christ shall all be made alive But 1 Cor. 15. 22 23. every one in his own order c. But in Adam all men died corporally therefore in Christ shall all be raised corporally or in their own bodies as Tertullian Tertull. ubi supra Fourthly If immortality be promised to this body then must this body arise and not another But to this mortal body is promised immortality therefore it must rise because there is no imaginable way to have that verified but by a Resurrection And St. Paul saith This corruptible must put on ib. v. 53. incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality And what can we suppose the Apostle aimed at in those words but his own flesh and others And how shall they that are in the Graves hear Christs voice as he saith in St. John unless they be raised by him John 5. 28. Sixthly An argument may be drawn from the truth and justice of God copiously prosecuted by the ancient Fathers and their Followers grounding themselves upon the word of God which saith We must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ that every man may receive the things done in his 2 Cor. 5. 10. body according to that he hath done whether it be good or evil But without Iniquuâ— enim Deus si non per id punitur quis aut juvatur per quod operatus est Id. Tert. cap. 12. the Resurrection of the body this distribution of Justice cannot be made And so what will become of those new and bold Philosophers and their Dogmes unchristian who liberally grant and this is more than we have reason to expect from them that there shall be a special time of Restitution of all things and so the soul shall enter again into a body but not that individual substance which before was united to it but yet one making the same individual Person which was before And how so Why the Form according to Aristotle is all and all as to the constituting the same thing and therefore it alone can denominate a man the same though the matter be various But how then can it be said with any truth that every man shall give an account for what he hath done in such a body when according to this sacrilegious phansie it is not the same but another body Lastly Such as was the Resurrection of men miraculously wrought in the Old and New Testament is to be the Resurrection in substance the last day But the child raised by Elisah and that other by Elisha And the 1 Kings 17. 23 2 Kings 4. 34. cap. 13. 21. Matth. 27. 52. man rising to life who was cast upon the bones of Elisha and all those raised by Christ in his life time and at his death When the dead bodies of the Saints arose out of their graves arose all in their bodies in which they dyed Therefore surely such is our Resurrection to be Now because there remain some sore objections to be cleared before Faith can have its perfect work on Christian minds I shall not expatiate contrary to my general purpose to answer all but only that which is all and that out of St. Chrysostomes words thus rendered But there are some Christ in 1 Thess Sern 7. Eth. saith he that disbelieve this thing because they are ignorant of God For pray tell me which is the easier of the two to bring a thing out of nothing or to restore again things that have been dissolved But what say they They say such a man hath suffered shipwrack and is drown'd and so fallen many fishes have devour'd him and every one hath eat some part of those fishes Afterward of those very
that outward acts of worship are of this nature I only blush at the perverseness and folly of these men and so leave them Yet out of pitty towards some who like the Israelites after Absolome are carried away from the truth in the innocency of their souls I shall endeavour to stay them by advising them to consider what Perkins wri eth well in these words Indeed all the worship of God is Spiritual even Perkins Cases of Conscience L. 2. C. 5. that which we call outward yet not of it self but by vertue of the inward from which it proceedeth But were it not so yet the worship of the Body it self is a real and in some degree an acceptable service unto God even distinctly considered from that of the Mind as the same Author also confesses upon this solid ground God is the Creatour not only of the soul of man but also of the body and we bless God not only with the heart but also with the tongue Therefore the whole man must pray in publick And who is it that grants what the Psalmist sayes All thy works praise thee O Lord and denies not the body Psal 145. 10 to be the workmanship of God but must grant that the body is obliged to the worship of God as really as the soul Doth not St. Paul say Glorifie 1. Cor. 6. 20. God in your body and in your spirit which are Gods The Body and the Soul are both said to be Gods and therefore are both to be rendred unto God according to their ability and capacity And it is no less ridiculous for men to deny bodily service to God as unprofitable and unacceptable unto him because God calls so earnestly for the spiritual and inward service of the mind than it would be to deny God the inward worship of the Soul joined to the Body because it is said Worship him all ye Saints and let the Angels of God worship him Whatsoever the idle and unprofitable servant saith in the Gospel of God that he was an hard man reaping where he had not sown and gathering where he strawed not yet it is nothing so For God Mat. 25. 24. doth not require more than he hath given and therefore having given less to the Body than to the Soul do we think he will accept of no less from the Body than he doth from the soul The Parable now touched proves the quite contrary God there well rewarding less encrease and return though not in the Arithmetical proportion yet Geometrical Put the Case that the body hath received but as five talents and the soul ten nay that it hath received but one yet the condemnation for not improving that one according to the cause and ground given sufficiently evidence that the improvement according to that ground would be an occasion of praise and reward And this Thirdly appears from the peaceableness of man in bodily Acts. For if the mind being well disposed to God the Bodily outward acts are sometimes sinful as in the simulation of worshipping an Idol with outward acts when inwardly a man detests and abhorrs the same as certainly they are then surely though the mind be not so well devoted to God as it ought provided it be not bent to the contrary the outward acts may be acceptable in some degree to God And therefore Origen hath these words It is one thing to worship and another to adore A man may sometimes Adore Origen Hom. 8. in Excd. unwillingly as they that flatter Kings when they perceive they are addicted to that sort of Idolatry do seem to adore or fall down to Idols Whereas in their hearts they are well assured that an Idol is nothing But to worship is with entire affection and addiction to be subservient if then a Man may offend God with his body why may he not please him Is it because God will according to his due have all or none This makes as much against the simplicity and singularity of the Souls worship as the bodies and no more Fourthly the Scripture giving us precepts of outward worship and presidents of Gods rewarding bodily ceremonies of worship doth abundantly commend the same unto us St. Paul saith to the Corinthians Providing for 2 Cor. 8. 21. honest things not only in the sight of the Lord but also in the sight of men Christ saith Let your works so shine before men that they may glorifie your Father Mat. 5. 1 Thes 5. 22. Rom. 12. 17. which is in heaven And again St. Paul to the Thessalonians saith Abstain from all appearance of Evil. And to the Romans Provide things honest in the sight of all men All which words may be interpreted of moral works but not so as to exclude the outward bodily Acts of Reverence and worship of God which are apt to affect or disaffect men And the reason here of is because of all the worship and glory we exhibit to Almighty God nothing more accreweth really unto him than external esteem For it is as true of the Glory of God as Man with the change of persons It is the Aug. Civit. Dei L. 5. Gul. â—â—aris de Fide C. 3. Judgement of Men thinking well of men and so of God saith Austin or as Gulielmus Parisiensis Glory is nothing else but an excellent high and far spread fame By which it appeareth that all Glory is a thing rather Relative than absolute and depending on the opinion of men 'T is confessed there is an absolute Glory and essential of God with himself but we give not that to him but only publish and celebrate the same and this we do chiefly by outward acts or bodily And do we not read in Joshuah how Achan is said to give glory unto God in open confession of his sins And doth not the Scripture plainly affirm that Ahah was accepted of God Jos 7. 19. so far as to the mitigating of the sentence pronounced against him by God Because he Humbled himself before God And what was his humiliation but 1 King 21. 27. 29. the outward ceremonious acts of Repentance as Renting his clothes putting sackcloth upon his Flesh fasting lying in sackcloth going softly Which will be of greater force if it be true what some modern interpreters say of these things That they were all hypocritically done Fifthly External worship and reverence are not only so many indications and Effects of the more noble and divine worship of the Soul and fruits which are as acceptable as the tree that bears them but which is much more they are very often causes of the devotion of the mind and great inflamers of the affections as well of him that so demeans himself in humility and reverence as of the beholder Of this latter St. Paul speaks in his epistle to the Corinthians where he treats of the external decency and order to be observed in the worship and House of God upon which he that cometh in falling down on
his face which is one of those outward Acts we here mean I will worship God and report that God is in you of a truth 1 Cor. 14. 25. 2 Cor. 9. 12. And in his Second Epistle he saith Your zeal hath provoked very many Which zeal was manifested in external works And who may not observe not only an Influence of the inward affections moving the outward parts but a Refluence as one may say of such outward acts upon the inward faculties to the exciting them And that speaking cholericly doth not only proceed from a principle of Angriness but augments the passion inward and so in love and zeal in matters as well divine as prophane acting humility and devotion outwardly doth wonderfully excite those graces in the inward man I shall add but one more argument to beget a better opinion of external and bodily services in Gods worship than vulgarly prevails And that is The general practice of the ancientest and best Christians I say best Christians and purest and perfectest worship of God in open defiance of them of late times who insolently magnifie themselves and modern inventions to the contempt of their much superiours in piety and years They had many outward rites and ceremonies adorning the worship of God which I prefer infinitely before the sowre and severe nakedness of Gods service amongst them 'T is not to be denied that in process of time Ceremonies multiplied to the prejudice of Religion but I think scarce at any so much as the affected prophaneness hath on the other side damnified it And they that argue from the great opinion some have of Ceremonies to the total abolition of them put an argument into the mouths of others to renounce communion with them that hate them and detest them to that superstitious excess as to have none at all and by the same rule to love them because they detest them who have been so scandalous in their opposition to them Now this external Worship we here plead for is an Adoration of God An humiliation of the Body by external Acts and gestures upon the consideration and reverent esteem of the Divine Presence and the small and low esteem we have of our selves which is so necessary and natural that it is to be admired how the contrary carriage could ever be received as pleasing to God or man were it not that the Tempter to irreligion knoweth no shame nor they who are abused by him and his Instruments no mean in flying Extreams What is more frequent in Scripture than examples of such as thus humbled themselves before God Falling down in Scripture which necessarily is bodily Adoration hath been alwayes such an inseparable concomitant of Divine inward worship such an excellent part of it that by a current Synecdoche it is put for the worship of God entirely and absolutely For what else may we understand by that Prophetical speech of Christ All Kings shall fall down before him all nations shall worship And so in the Prophet Esay Shall I fall down to the stock of a tree That is Psal 77. 11. Esay 44. 19. And so in the Prophet Esay Shall I fall down to the stock of a tree That is worship it in this bodily manner And so in the next Chapter and the 46. Chapter They fall down yea they worship by which words the Prophet Es 45. 14. Es 46. 6. condemns the Idolatrous practise then in use And as hath been said if there were nothing good in such outward adoration which might be pleasing to God it could not displease him to have it given unto Idols or false Gods as every where in Scripture it doth What a piece of matter had it been for the three Children of God to have fallen down before Nebuchadnezar's Dan. 3. â— Image in Daniel if there were no account to be made of such outward Acts not so much surely as of disobedience to the Kings command Nay what hurt would there be to fall down to the Devil as Christ was tempted to do by that Evil and ambitious Spirit if it did not at all belong to Mat. 4. 9. God Or what good do they what glory do we understand given by the 24 Elders to God in the Revelation when they fall down before the throne Rev. 4. 10. of God if so be there is nothing in it Surely therefore it is a part of our duty and service thus to adore the Divine Majesty thus to humble our bodies in his presence And it is seen commonly in Bowing or inclining any part of the body and sometimes of the whole by casting it upon the earth as unworthy to stand before God and to beget the deeper sense of our own vileness and to move God to pitty our prostrated body and dejected mind Sometimes it may suffice to Luk. 18. 33. incline the head as it were blushing to lift it up with any confidence towards God and heaven Sometimes incurvation of the Body sometimes bending of the knee and sometimes constant and devout kneeling according as occasion and opportunity shall be offered and the spring of inward devotion move the outward parts of the body For all this while we urge not so necessarily any much less all these outward acts so as to require them simply to divine worship as if a Man could not be accepted without them Yet so far again we do that where just autority competent opportunity and means expect any of these from us wilfully and contemptuously to neglect them doth make me really believe that God will not hear or accept the pretended real devotion of the inward man as being corrupted with disobedience and irreverence and exclusive of part of his Right And an other rule for directing this manner of worship is this that we are not singly and of our own head in publick to put in use or act any such ceremonious devotion to the offence of the more general custom and warranted practise of the Churches of which we are Members For all Acts of Reverence are to be estimated not by private opinions but by publick and general approbation For seeing scarce any ceremony is natural but all by institution and reputation of men judged proper or indecent this Decency the Custom of places and Sentence of Superiours must determine lest the Church falls into that unhappy state of which Austin complains and be subjected to more burdensome and contrary Rites than the Jewish Church suffered while it is thought lawful under the Gospel which was not tolerated under the Law for every single man either to devise a form of worshipping God out of his own head or to bring those Rites into that Church in which he lives by his own will which he had observed to be in use in others whereof perhaps he hath read or which in his Travels he hath seen which the farther they have been and more strange always pass for the most commendable a thing which St. Austin in that Epistle condemns and
mend their hearts and bring them to conform to sound forms of words than to please them in their carnal appetites after novelties no new occasions requiring But this is not all We except much more against the matter and manner of their prayers in that they have quite lost and depraved the nature of prayer For that they give such loose rains unto their tongues generally that instead of Confession Petition and Thanksgiving of which prayer ought principally to consist they fly out into preaching and jumble and confound those duties so together that many times in preaching they mourn and pray and this is with the wondering multitude accounted the best Sermon They likewise in their prayers fall on preaching and this is the powerful praying But they are to consider that to convert men is not the office of prayer but of preaching I shall add but one of their Objections more the rest being easily solved out of the premises They say If a prescribed Form or Liturgy had been good or profitable for the Church Christ without question would have delivered one for his Church To which on the contrary I return If extemporary conceived prayer had been so necessary as is pretended surely Christ would some where or other have ordained that we should use extemporary prayers and conceive that Sacrifice just as we offer it But the misery of these Arguers is that whereas the Scripture commends and commands nothing so much as prayer not one the least precept have they been able to find through the whole Scripture requiring prayer extemporary And then is not this an humane invention Is it not will-Will-worship But that Christ hath prescribed a form and matter of prayer too we hold it proved out of the two Evangelists I know well they hold the contrary What more equal and just way to find out the truth than to hear both ancient and modern Interpreters upon that doubt to their dayes Do they find any that say the Lords Prayer is so a Rule or Form that it is not to be the very matter of our prayer too in terms If not Is not this another humane invention hammer'd out of the Crowns of perverse and unskilful men What would they say if this very Lords Prayer as we call it was by Christ himself drawn from some received forms amongst the Jews before Christs time This is affirmed by divers very learned men in Judaical Antiquities They were set against it enough and more than enough before this surely would turn their stomachs worse Yet shall we take leave here to recite that sober and most probable Judgment of the Magdeburgenses concerning the use of the Lords Prayer Without Magdeburgens Centur. 1. lib. 2. cap. 4. doubt the Apostles propounded the form of prayer delivered by Christ to the Churches and required all to pray after that manner although they themselves used other forms of prayers Much may be said in the defense and confirmation of the received forms of communicating in publick But what more than what answers the vain cavils against it which is done Or the general concurrence of Heathen Jewish and Christian practise all which where it can be shewed they had any common service show that it was constantly determined and of one form and never changed but by advice of Authority Which to prove because the Affirmative is insinite we here put in a challenge to give any one instance to the contrary viz. of any one Church Jewish or Christian where the publick Service was arbitrary and left to the private Priest or Minister to form or model as he pleased He that shall advise with Gennadius Massiliensis shall find that one solemn point in his Gennad Massil Eccles Dog cap. 30. dayes for the administration of the publick Worship was this to keep to the solemnities of Sacerdotal Prayers which from the Apostles were deliver'd to the whole world and were celebrated in all the Catholick Church uniformly that there might be an agreement between the Law or Rule of believing and praying And where there is a liberty to pray what men list in publick manner there will soon spring up a liberty to preach what men list and upon that for the common sort to believe what they list unless that Law of Arms which themselves have exclaimed against in Religion keep them in awe For if we should speak truly and properly they who have no publick known received form of Worship amongst them can have no Christian Communion one with another and therefore they desire they know not what and we should do we know not what if we should joyn with them I prove it thus All Communion properly so called is in prayer and administration of Sacraments therefore signally called the Communion and not at all or least of all in Faith or Sermons because a man may believe as much as any Church or Preacher requires of him and yet be a cursed Schismatick and Alien from the Church But he that communicates in Prayers and the Sacraments hath full conjunction with that Body with which he so communicates Now farther to the intent that men may agree in one they certainly must first know that one thing For what is Communion but a common union in One thing which is a bond so to unite them But where this is uncertain moveable and new as the day and hour in which it is produced how is it possible men should know it or agree to it And if not How can they be said to enjoy communion in it Communion is much mistaken if it be look't on as a thing transient or consisting only in the act and passing away with it and ending and coming again at the returning of the like act but it is a thing habitual and permanent So that if we should suppose a man hath heard and approved for no man but he that means to be guilty of worse than Popish implicit Faith can approve a thing meerly future as extemporary prayers are such prayers and thereupon freely assented to them How can this last longer than the very instant of having passed such a sentence for before he heard them he could by no means yield rational assent and after he hath heard them it can last little longer than the sound doth in his head for at the next meeting he is as far behind and to seek as before and suspends communion But in forms once heard judged and compared with the Rule of Faith and Worship a man holds constant real though not actual Communion exercised with that Body of which he is a member And upon common humane probability may with general devotion joyn with and in such service of God though he be out of hearing especially which is most easie being acquainted with the method of the Liturgy and the purport of the several Actions Postures and Gestures relating to the several parts thereof And can these men in consciscience require that we should joyn with them who are so ill set together
is nothing but Examples and they not peculiar to that day From whence I would conclude no more than this That the true ground of dedicating a day to the Service of God is to be fetch'd from the light of Nature in which all Nations religious consent but the ground of keeping the Seventh Day as Chrys Homil. 12. pag. 542. Antioch the Seventh was meerly Mosaical and Judaical as Chrysostome also hath well gathered from the reason annexed unto it For in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth and rested the Seventh day whereas saith he God hath given us no reason why we should not commit Murder or Adultery c. because the command is so agreeable to nature Again the ground of keeping that Seventh Day which we do is to be taken wholly from Christian Principles Thirdly the form or manner of observing that Day is to be taken from the Prescriptions of the Apostles so far as they stand recorded in the New Testament and from Apostolical practises shining successively in the following Ages of the Churches Yet not so as if it were not lawful for this Age of the Church to keep it more strictly and sacredly than did the very first Age of the Church and some following it and the rather because it is certain that the Primitive Christians did keep two days Festival in one week to the honour of God the ancient Seventh Day of the Jews and the newly instituted day of the Christians as might here be made apparent Centur. 1. l. 2. cap. 6. But I shall here only add the judgment of the Magdeburgenses concerning the first Century of years where they write thus Mention is made of the Lords Day Apocaâ— 1. 7. but at what time Christians separated themselves from the Jews and began to rest on the Lords Day is no where mentioned in Records but that some rested on the Lords Day and some on the Saturday in this Age the contentions in the following Age do witness Thus they And for the Translation they speak of to be made of the Service of God from the Saturday to the Sunday they speak altogether without the Book of God or of the ancient Historians of the Church For that had had little of Christianity in it and could serve to no end so much as to spite and reproach the Jews as Calvin hath noted For it had made indeed both against the Jews and Christians too Them to have the precise command of God to them so directly violated These to retain the same thing which could not consist with Christianity imposed upon them with the Circumstance of time only varied For they who speak of Translation of a thing cannot mean here the natural day it self translated or more properly adjourned to the First nor can they mean the worship of that day transmitted to this For that was Judaical and Antichristian And if neither of these can be allowed what mean they to talk of changing or translating of one day to another And why do they not speak the truth roundly and dare to say That Christians instituted the First Day of the week in commemoration of the Benefits they received by Christ without any consideration at all of any command in the Old Testament and that it was a cessation of the Jewish Sabbath and an introduction of a Christian quite of another nature And that so it is appeareth from the concessions made by the greatest defenders of a Sabbatical Lords Day which I shall here contract as necessary to satisfie the Scruples and Doubts bred by careless handlers of this subject Things temporary in the Sabbath are these saith Mr. Perkins First the Jew might not go forth on the Sabbath day or take any journey or do any Perkins Cases of Conscien lib. 2. cap. 16. other business of his own Exod. 16. 29. 2. He might not kindle a fire on the Sabbath day Exod. 25. 3. 3. Nor carry a burden Jerem. 13. 21. These things are temporary altogether and do not concern the times of the New Testament c. Secondly It was temporary and ceremonial as it was a special sign between God and his People of the blessings that were propounded and promised in the Covenant Exod. 31. 13. Thirdly The set Day namely the Seventh was temporary Deut. 5. 14. Numb 28. 9 10. Fourthly That it was to be observed in remembrance of their deliverance out of Egypt Deut. 5. 15. Thus he of things not moral in the Fifth Commandment Now hear we what he accounts Moral They are these three First a Day of Rest This we also account Moral but not so much by the Fourth Commandment as by a Superiour Law as we have said and so of the Second That it be sanctified and of the Third That a Seventh Day should be sanctified to an holy rest is meerly craved and believed before it be proved from any text of Scripture Yea in his following Discourse he granteth that St. Paul wrought with Aquila and Priscilla on the Sundays and observed the Jews Sabbath out of Acts 18. 3 4. but he adds That it was out of Charity and necessity of the Salvation of them with whom he so conversed and answereth secondly That though he did not keep the Sabbath he meaneth the Lords Day for he constantly calls the Lords Day The Sabbath and too many have imitated his phrase publickly he might privately He might indeed but such privacie of which we have no knowledge can be no Rule or Law to us It is said by Perkins in another place and by his blind Followers That Perkins his Digest or Harmony p. 766. Vol. 2. the Sabbath of the Old world is the Seventh Day from the Creation which was consecrated for Divine Service in Paradise before the Fall And from hence they have drawn an argument for the Morality and that worthily could it be proved what they presume But others that have sifted the matter more Curcelleus diatrib de Sabbato c. 6. narrowly and accurately deliver the contrary for a certain truth viz. That the first Sabbath observed by the Jews in the Desart was not reckoned from the beginning of the creation but from the day in which Manna was first rain'd down as may be seen out of Exod. 16. v. 4 5 13. which two are supposed to meet together but upon no good foundation But this is certain that we find a breach of the Sabbath and severe punishment executed upon the breakers of it before the promulgation of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinah But to this the best argument I find for the Antiquity of it it is well answered That the same reason is for the Antiquity of the Tabernacle too which most certainly was not made till a long time after the first mention we have of it For Exod. 33. 7. Moses is said to take the Tabernacle and pitch it without the Camp whenas the history following relateth the particular materials and form and solemn erection of it to be
outward shew of self denyal and preaching Christ in sincerity Christ is no less deserved Religion no less endangered and men no less preach themselves as they say than they who with much ambition of honor profit and applause debauch the noble and Majestick Simplicity of the Gospel and preaching of Christ with the vain and impertinent mixture of human learning and eloquence the difference is only in this that the one hath his end the making of the Common people the other the making of the Court and they perhaps somewhat worse than these from whence they suck no small advantage Much and high talk there hath been of late about Preaching of Christ And scarce any body hath been thought worthy to be accounted such a Preacher who hath not first layd aside modesty manners civility prudence and gravity and flown out into certain exotique tones actions and barbarous demeanures unworthy of a man which Christ nor his Apostles nor Apostolical persons after them never taught nor practised themselves never required of them but have been taken up to serve their own turns rather than Gods and hath been a direct preaching themselves as any they could ever instance in on the contrary side There are two things surely wherein generally consisteth the preaching of Christ Sober and sincere manner of composing a mans self to that Great work and the matter he is to treat of according to which latter Mr. Perkins well noteth four things to be requisite Fist Generally Perkins on Gal. c. l. v. 15. 16. to teach the doctrine of the Incarnation of Christ and of his three Offices his Kingly Office his Prophetical Office and his Priesthood with the execution thereof This in good earnest is so much Preaching of Christ that scarce any thing else is meant in Holy Scriptures where it speakes so much of Preaching of Christ they ayming chiefly thereby at the manifestation of Christ as the true Messias promised of Old and then come into the world What is said above this is or may be true but somewhat besides the Letter of the Scripture Secondly to teach that Faith is an Instrument ordained of God to apprehend and apply Christ with his benefits Which is very true in the signification of Faith common in Scriptures viz. as it is taken for that Complex Evangelical Grace comprehending all particular Christian vertues and Graces springing from that Head but not so as Faith signifies now adayes a single Grace contradistinct to others Thirdly To certifie and reveal to every hearer that it is the will of God to save him by Christ in particular so he will receive Christ 1 John 1. 11. It were to be wished this Author had kept closer to this opinion here expressed Fourthly to certifie and to reveal to every particular hearer that he is to apply Christ with his benefits to himself in particular and that effectually by his Faith Grant we now that this is to preach Christ yet that this must be done in such unnatural and uncouth manner both of Speech and Gestures as are no less than ridiculous we must not grant this is for them who affect and use it to preach themselves Again this preaching of Christ or hearing of Christ thus preached is not Worshipping of God as it hath been mistaken grossely to have been The reading of the word of God was ever looked upon as a necessary part of the service of God amongst Jews of Old and Christians to this day Believers thereby declaring their Faith towards God no small act of serving God But the Sermons of men since the Apostles never till this superstitious age were advanced to that esteem or dignity For no man can without derogation from the Scriptures call them though sound and Scriptural the word of God but with limitations Well saith a learned and grave Preacher However the whole Sermon is Dr. Donne Serm. 33. on Whitsunday the ordinance of God the whole Sermon is not the word of God meaning that it is the Precept of God that Christian people should be taught by those that have the spiritual care and tuition of their Souls but that what is taught is not worthy of the glorious title of the word of God no though it be very agreeable unto it It may much more properly be said to be the will of God than the word of God But what falls short in the nature they hope to make up in the measure of their Worship And therefore frequentation of Sermons and painful preaching as they call it must and doth carry it from all other Pretensions to the true Service of God and those they traduce with the reproach of a lazy Ministry must without farther dispute yield to be reformed by them and to their modes too And truly Industry and painfulness are such undeniable vertues in all Moral and Civil matters that no man can object against no man but must commend And in spiritual matters often arise to the nature of divine Graces which are rewardable with proportionable glory when the Great Lord of us all shall take an account of every servants improving his Talent and to the fruitful say Well done thou good and faithful Servant Thou hast been faithful in a little be thou ruler over much But what is all this and more which may be added to the nature of the work it self which God requires at our hands as our bounden service as a man may do a good thing negligently so he may do an ill thing diligently and industriously We are now enquiring whether Preaching be worshipping God or God is served principally by it If it be then no doubt but diligence therein is the more commendable But if it be not as we have shewed it is not then our diligence were better placed elsewhere namely on that wherein consisteth more formally the worship of God which is prayer But what if after all this cry of Laboriousness on their side rather than on their Adversaries part their Ministry is the lazy Ministry rather than ours as in truth it is I compare not here Persons which would be infinite but Religions and the manner of Ministration and worship constituted by the Church of England and that of any Sect whatever Let them tell which Religion requires most vigilance attendance and pains That which prescribes every Parish-Priest to officiate three dayes in a week and propounds dayly Ministration in the Publique place of worship or that which sets men free all the week unless on the Lords day That which prescribes so strictly visiting the sick upon all occasion or that which is maintain'd chiefly by their Minister visiting the Well and gutling from house to house amongst their favourers and benefactors of their Faction That which observes or commands the observation of constant Fasts or that which derides them and accuses them contrary to all Examples of former Churches of Superstition That Religion which requires a punctual observation of that Liturgy which they profess to be grievous
handling of the two former we took in their Contraries Heresie and Schism so now doth it appear in like manner expedient for the conclusion of the latter to treat briefly of Superstition the Enemy to the true Service of God There are two extreams saith Clemens Alexandrinus of Ignorance Atheism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. Strom. lib. 7. and Superstition The former is a total Renunciation of a Deity The latter a vehement and excessive addition to a Deity without judgment or sobriety Fearing Doemons or Spirits instead of God and deifying every thing or mistaking the worship of the true God And to make a fuller discovery we shall not much trouble our selves with the various acceptations or uses of the word Superstition Whether it is derived from Supra statutum or Supra stare it matters but little provided we can arrive to the due knowledge of the thing intended by that word which men have endeavoured of late to render very uncertain and mutable as their several opinions and fears and interests of Religion lead them But undoubtedly Superstition is a Religious Passion of the mind as Atheism is a Passion of the Inferiour Senses and a Stupidity of the Mind as Clemens Alexandrinus now cited truly tearms it Now what Passion can it be so properly called as Fear in excess and Fear not directed to Man but God not cowardise but confusion It may be answerable to the description given us by the Wiseman in these words Wickedness condemned Wisd 17. 11 12. by her own witness is very timorous and being pressed with Conscience alwayes forecasteth grievous things For fear is nothing else but the betraying of the succours which reason offereth And we know the most generally received word with the Greeks expressing Superstition is compounded of a word signifying Fear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Latine word which we retain in our Language Superstition comes very much short in significancie to the Greek For that implyeth in it both the Act of him that is superstitious and the Object about which such Superstition is used And that is a Fear of somewhat of the nature or esteem of God Daemons Whis is not much amiss For though Evil Spirits or Good Spirits being the object of our Worship inevitably turn it into Superstition yet may there be Superstition in the manner of Worship as well as in the Object when a man worships the true Object God in an undue manner But the Latin word Superstition seems to import no more than an errour in the choice of our Object which it maketh to be somewhat superviving even beyond our Senses or common Reason Such as were the Spirits of men dead and yet believed to be alive in their souls and honoured either for their great vertues or the servent affection the superstitions person bare to him in his life time And thus Tully and Varro took the meaning of the word not amiss however Lactantius rejected this account I suppose because it was too narrow to contain the whole Evil of Superstition which truly relates to the irregular manner of serving God as well as to the thing we worship For certainly there is a Pharisaical Superstition and an Athenian and the one we find reprehended by our Saviour Christ in St. Mark where he accuses them for admiring and preferring their own Traditions before Gods express and more necessary Laws and Laying Mark 7. 9 10 11. aside the Commandment of God and holding the Tradition of men supposing surely that by such commutation they should satisfie to the full if not exceed the main intent of Gods Commandment which was a very vain and presumptuous supposition The like to which if any stomacher of Ecclesiastical Prescriptions and Constitutions could in the least degree of probability prove to be either done or intended by Ecclesiastical Ceremonies and Orders they had all the reason in the world to stand it out as they do to the utmost and contend resolutely for the Faith and pure Worship so endangered but this being impossible to be made good as will by and by appear it will there also appear that Superstition as properly pertaineth to them as any other The Athenian Superstition or Gentile ignorant of the true God is that which giveth Religious Worship to an Object uncapable thereof which was that St. Paul condemns them for in the Acts of the Apostles saying Ye men of Athens I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious viz. for their infinite and endless Acts 17. 22. sollicitude in multiplying objects of Divine Worship when in truth there was but one And this is the most ancient sense of Superstition amongst the Gentiles as Clemens Alexandrinus noteth speaking thus The Atheist is he who acknowledges no God But he is superstitious who 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. 7. Strom. feareth Daemons Spirits or False Gods and Deifies as it were all things So sensible and fearful is he of a Divine Power that he thinks he cannot extend his Devotion wide enough unless he takes in all he can imagine to himself or others vainly suggest unto him And least after all he should incurr the displeasure of any one adds honour likewise To the unknown God Neither knowing that any such there is or what he is but to make all sure worships at a venture without rule of Reason or Revelation for fear of the worse From this consideration the Schoolmen do make all Idolatry a main part of Superstition and all combination and confederacie or consultation of Spirits whether Angelical or Humane both Idolatrous and Superstitious it being death by the Law of Moses to deal in such Merchandise and judged very irrational and irreligious by the Prophet so to apply ones self And when they shall say unto you Seck unto them that Isaiah 8. 20. have familiar Spirits and unto Wizards that peep and that mutter should not a people seek unto their God For the living to the dead To the Law and to the Testimony signifying that the revealed will of God called the Law and Testimony is altogether sufficient and necessarily requires our squaring our Worship thereby at least as to the Object of it And therefore St. Paul to the Colossians well adviseth Let no man beguile you of Coloss 2. 18. your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels intruding into those things which he hath not seen vainly puft up by his fleshly mind c. declaring unto us the dangerous Superstition of engaging in such Worship for which there is no ground to be seen in his Word but only in the vain and fleshly mind of man which is curious in searching into that which is not made known to him of God and to please himself in such bold inventions This certainly is Superstition But this is not only Superstition but that also which invents an essential form of Worship to the prejudice of that truly divine and ordained and may truly be distinguished into two
most sincerely to worship only that true God though possibly they should err in the object yet the crime of Idolatry cannot cleave unto them and especially when we hear them so solemnly and zealously protest against worshipping any Creature what ever we can possibly instance in as God The vanity of this protestation we may have occasion to discover by and by Now we call in question the foundation of all and that is their distinction of Formal and Material Idolatry upon this fourfold account First that if it were reasonable it were notwithstanding altogether superfluous For what more can be honestly implied hereby than was of old in that distinction of Ignorantia facti and Juris Ignorance of the thing done and Ignorance of the Law against which this fact is committed Ignorance that such a Law there is which prohibits divine or supream worship to be given to the Creature no man can plead but Ignorance of actual Idolatry in such kind of worship as by error and false supposition is committed a man may possibly alledge and that colourably Now what can they make Formal Idolatry but such a Divine Worship as is given to that which is not God knowingly and willingly And what else do they mean by Material Idolatry but Divine Worship falsely applied to that which by nature is not capable of it as not God though it be really believed to be God And what is this else but Ignorance of the fact And if so what makes this new Invented distinction here of Formal and Material Idolatry Secondly this distinction is very rudely and ignorantly made against the Rules of Logick I know there is nothing more ordinary than to distinguish a thing and consider it Materially and Formally but there never was received any such division as good which made Matter and Form of the same thing distinct Kinds or made Parts several Species A man may be considered according to his Matter or according to his Form but who ever went about to divide human nature or humanity into a Formal Man and a Material Man Or to take an instance nearer to our purpose of Adultery A man may consider it in its Formality and Materiality but no advised man can divide Adultery into Formal and Material For the general Rule makes against all such attempts which tells us that nothing can be or subsist without its form so that either there is no Adultery or Idolatry at all or it must be as well Formal as Material unless we would be so vain and ridiculous to call them Formal as we sometimes do a Formal Man when he is phantastical and affected or we should use the term Formal for that which doth appear in all its outward formalities as we before distinguished Schisme into Formal and Real or Material or Vertual and Formal And in this sense the contrary sense is much more true For in exhibiting outward worship in Divine manner unto that which is not God all the formalities of Idolatry do appear what ever the intention which doth not appear may be It will here doubtless be said that in that common case put by Casuists of a Man who companies with a woman in a conjugal way stedfastly and unfainedly believing that she is his own lawful wife doth commit material adultery but not formal and so in Idolatry as the case may be put But I make no doubt to affirm that such an Act of Adultery so far as it is Adultery and such Idolatry so far as it is Idolatry are both Formal as well as Material and the only difference between them and those they call Formal consists only in Ignorance or knowledge of the Fact done For either such Acts are sins or not sins If not sins then neither Formal nor Material Adultery or Idolatry if they be sins to what can they be reduced but to Adultery and Idolatry And that when they have the most favourable circumstances they are sinful Parisiensis thus clearly determines If a Si quis mulierem cagnoscat non suam pro uxore vel adoret Luciferum c. Gulielm Parisiensis de Leg. c. 21. man knows a woman not his own for his own wife or worships Lucifer instead of Christ he sins because God would have turn'd away his heart from such a great Evil if his sins hindered not which he had before committed Thus he So that the issue of this question comes truly to that which some Romanists acknowledge that all Idolatry derives it self originally from the understanding though it be an Act of the will principally and that it is because a man knows not actually what he does when he commits Idolatry For surely unless to grant something to quarrellers which prejudices little our Cause we except some prodigious persons and desperate no man worships what he is perswaded is not God with supream worship and so consequently no man commits wilful Idolatry And therefore the only equal way of estimating the Criminalness of Idolatry is from the measure of knowledge in man and the means of discerning an Increated from a Created Object of Worship It is therefore to very little purpose that the Arch-bishop of spalato and after him Forbes Bishop of Edinburge and after them other very learned men of these present days alledge in excuse of Papists from Idolatry in the Mass when they accept of their detestation of worshiping Bread or any thing Created but only God For 't is no demonstration or proof at all that they do not do it because they say they do not do it For here are two contrary suppositions made by contrary Parties The one holds that the natural bodies of the Eucharistical Elements are not present nor have any being the other holds that they are there as really as ever Again both agree that they worship that which is there what ever it be therefore deny they it a thousand times they have nothing to save themselves from the actual adoration of those Creatures but a supposition that they are not there but our opinion affirming positively that there they are no man of us can hold opinion that they worship not the Creature and Maimonides More Neboc Part. 1. c. 71. so are not Idolatrous For as Maimonides quotes Themistius the Philosopher speaking well Natura rerum nonsequitur opiniones hominum sed opiniones hominum debent sequi naturam rerum The Nature of things do not follow the perswasions of men but the perswasions or opinions of men ought to follow Nature That is not only Idolatry which men are perswaded is Idolatry but that which in it self is so though men be perswaded of the contrary yea though they mean nothing less then to commit Idolatry as will appear from Tannerus in this his explication of Idolatry Adamus Tanâ—erus Theologiae Scâ—olast Tom. 3. Disput 5. Qâ—aest 7. Dub. 1. num 2. He is judged saith he to give Divine Worship to the Creature who directly and expresly or indirectly and implicitely intendeth to beget
such opinion of it as in truth agrees only to God He directly intends who really supposes falsly any Creature to be God and intends to worship it as God or certainly he who otherwise out of perverted affection desires to worship that which he well knows to be a Creature as God He intends indirectly who no ways intending directly to honour a Creature as God yet outwardly notwithstanding this doth bestow divine honor on the Creature as God So that in the judgment of sober men he may be thought to account the Creature for God as if any man through fear of death should sacrifice to Idols Therefore if actually a man worships that which is not God his intention to worship only the true God can relieve him no farther than his opinion and intention to accompany with his own wife excuses him from Casual Adultery in lying with another woman and that is but little unless circumstances be such as may render the ignorance of the Fact invincible as they say or unavoidable And the intention and opinion if they be against ordinary presumptions to the contrary do not excuse Now to apply it to the last Case of Christ corporally present in the Sacrament This is agreed upon by us that what Christ saith to be so is infallibly true seem it never so contrary to our outward senses But seeing the words of Christ according to the like expressions in Holy Writ where things that bear Analogy with one another are said positively to be one another as where St. Paul saith Believers are Christs bone and Christs flesh which is not true in the natural sense but Metaphorical for otherwise unbelievers might be said so to be which St. Paul never intended do not necessarily infer that sense and all the ends imaginable are attainable no less by the spiritual sense and metaphorical acceptation of the words than by the more gross and natural And lastly to suppose what is said above concerning this subject testimony of senses bear witness to the contrary as much after Consecration as before the upshot of the business will be this Whether there remains any such infallible inducements to produce an opinion of such a thing there being whether such gounds unresistible there be for to found such an intention that may excuse from errour And therefore I absolutely deny Spalatoe's opinion saying I answer I acknowledge no Idolatrous De Republ. Eccl. Lib. 7. cap II. num 2. crime in the adoration of the Eucharist so long as the intention is directed aright For they who teach that Bread to be no longer bread but the body of Christ c. For if they knew that the Body of Christ did not lye hid under the Species and his blood under those of Wine they would not so worship This I say satisfies not because they have no sufficient grounds that so it is or so Christs words are to be understood Secondly and as to this point principally because Idolatry is primarily a defect and errour in the understanding as their own men confess and only secondarily and by consequence in the will or purpose which altogether overthrows the moderate sense of Forbes likewise to Forbes ubi supra p. 439. say no more For as for that other evasion and purgation whereby they would fetch off Papists from Idâ—latrous worship in the Eucharist because there can be no doubt made but Christ may be adored as Austins known words are in the Eucharist with all outward and bodily as well as mental worship is much less to the purpose For This quite changes the question which is wholly about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the ancients call them the objects appearing whether they be Christ and to be worshipped as Christ For Christ in the Sacrament we may worship without exceptions of any divine or corporal manner Christ's body and blood are really present in the Eucharist we grant and in a more eminent manner then in other places or divine ordinances but when we hear him say The faithful receive the body and blood of Christ in Forbes ibid. themselves corporally but yet after a spiritual miraculous and imperceptible manner we grant the manner to be wonderful and imperceptible but we cannot grant it to be Corporally and Spiritually in the same respect without a contradiction For What is corporally to receive a thing but modo corporali after a corporal manner and therefore to correct as it were that Expression with that which follows viz. Modo tamen spirituali yet after a spiritual manner is quite to destroy what he seem'd to say before For Nothing can be received Corporally after a spiritual manner And it is much more intelligible than that of the Romanists which saith That the Body of Christ may be received spiritually and bodily For the body according to them is taken into the mouth and so bodily received by the wicked and unbelievers and it is by the faithful besides received by Faith spiritually which may stand together But to suppose any spiritual way to explicatory of the corporal way of receiving Christ is to suppose contradictions But this belongs to another place Let us now touch the third exception I make against the distinction of Material and Formal Idolatry taken from the Novelty of it and singularity as never heard of before late dayes when extremities put mens wits to study for new forms of Speech to dress up the new body of Divinity framed to themselves Why did not the Heathen come off so For surely they might Why did not this enter into the head of the ancienter School-men who I dare say make no mention of it How comes it about that the aneient Fathers and Councils knew no other Idolatry than that which even moderner Papists approve of when the soberer mode is on them viz. The worshipping as God that which is not God without any notice taken of Material and Formal worship contenting themselves with the general distinction of Ignorance of the Law and Ignorance of the Fact or wilful Ignorance and unwilling Or vincible and invincible Surely this implies somewhat singular in this case which they either are ashamed to express or can not which latter is my case For I confess I see no reason why we may not distinguish two sorts of Heresie as well two sorts of Schism two sorts of Adulterie two sorts of Drunkenness and Murder Material and Formal as of Idolatry And yet we hear little or no mention of this distinction but only as it is applyed to Idolatry which besides what is abovesaid renders it more suspected and the coyners and users of it Fourthly and lastly The dangerousness of this distinction and apparent damage it doth to Christian Religion declares it to be wicked and intollerable while it both opens a way to all carelessness in worshipping we know not how nor what contrary to our Faith and then when we may receive competent information of our error and should repent it lulls us asleep
parts both of which retain with them inseparably the necessary ingredient of Fear excessive and needless And the one is a Fear of omitting something judged necessary to be done though in truth it be not The other is a Fear as vain and groundless of committing something necessarily to be avoided as either unlawful in it self or interdicted of God when there is no such matter though he be loudly told there is Both these are really Superstitions the first Positive and the latter Negative being both influenced from Conscience which terrifies the one to do and deters the other from doing without cause not without suspicion or presumption For Conscience taken in the Religious sense cannot be affected but at the apprehension of Apparent Good or Evil at the least And if this be but only an Apparence and not a Reality then is the conscience mistaken and falls into superstitious acts and places Religion in those things which are not capable of such high acts Thus for instance If a man should ascribe as much to the worship of the Body given to God as he doth to the Soul or Heart he were undoubtedly superstitious in excess And on the other side if a man having heard much of the excellencie of Spiritual Worship above outward or Visible should think so contemptibly of this and all acts thereof as unlawful and sinful or superstitious without doubt he were notoriously guilty of Superstition Why Because according to his own principles and phrase he places Religion where God hath not and makes a conscience of that which God no where willeth him to do but rather contrariwise adviseth him to comply with though not by a particular express Law by general and implicite First requiring as really though not so primarily bodily acts and outward reverence as inward and spiritual Secondly by endowing his Substitutes Governours Ecclesiastical with such power as we have before proved to belong to the Church by Gods concession And this agrees very well with the most received definition of Superstition amongst Christians till of very late years when men having a mind to secure their own stake and to blast and traduce the opinions of such as think otherwise than they do fansied and framed to themselves definitions of that and other things as might best agree with their own perswasions and impugn their Adversaries By which unlearned and unjust proceedings they grosly define Superstition by Popery it may be or somewhat else they dislike answerably and Popery by Superstition or a little more regularly not more truly by Will-worship or Humane Inventions for which there appear at least to them no grounds in the Word of God But this they are mistaken much in as well in respect of the Rule by which they would try and condemn Superstition as of the Cause Humane Prudence which they will have no otherwise termed than Humane Inventions when it sutes not with their pleasure which is too commonly called called Conscience For the Scripture hath no where tyed up Christian Authority so strictly as not to permit it to interpose in any thing concerning the Worship of God without special and manifest warrant from thence But the contrary is most certain that it hath granted so much Liberty to Christian Churches as to fashion themselves and modellize their Worship without fear of incurring the violation of it or the offence of God so far as manifest restraints and inhibitions do not appear to the contrary And this Calvin himself once well noted if his own Interests would have suffered him to have been constant to what he delivered against the Anabaptists Improbare quod numquan imprâ—baâ—it Deus niâ—â—ae est homini c. Calvinus contr Anabapt p. 27. 8o. viz. To oppose what God never opposed I must tell you is more rashness and arrogance than is fit for man But let us constantly hold to this that the Authority of God is usurped when that is condemned which he hath permitted They therefore who set their Consciences against those things be they Rites Ceremonies or Traditions by good Ecclesiastical Authority enjoyned which God hath no where forbidden do certainly fall into flat Superstition and that as themselves describe it though not intend it For they without Gods word frame to themselves Fears and Scruples They as the Prophet saith Fear where no fear is creating Good and Evil out of their own heads and at their own pleasures yea contrary very often to the express general Licence and Warrant of Gods Word And whereas Humane Inventions are much cryed out against and made very formidable to such superstitious fearful Heads they are to be earnestly desired to be willing to understand what we can scarce think them so weak as not to be able to understand How that in no place either of Moses or the Prophets or the New Testament Inventions of Men are used in an evil sense but as they imply somewhat rather contrary to then besides the Divine Precepts Sometimes they are used for gross defection from Gods prescribed Worship and for Idolatrous Superstition and sometimes for opinions and practises inconsistent with Gods Law as the Traditions of the Jews condemned by Christ in the Gospel And what is all this to those usances against which after more then an hundred years eager search of the Scripture to this evil intent nothing hath been found or alledged contrary to them But general exceptions tinctur'd speciously with Scripture phrases to no real effect There is no more pernicious Humane Invention than this their fundamental Maxim Nothing must be commanded by Man which is not commanded by God and It is against Christian Liberty to obey Lawful Superiours but where they show Scripture particularly for what they command whereas the truth is these ought according to all reason and good conscience to produce sufficient testimonies of Scripture exempting them from submission under the guilt of disobedience and superstition too both plainly condemned by God in his Word before they oppose themselves to Authority And to this do well agree the Definition given by Thomas of Superstition Thom. 22. Q. 92. 1. Superstition is a Vice opposite to Religion in the excess or extream Not that a man can give more of Divine Worship than is due to God but that he gives Divine Worship either to that he ought not or in a manner he ought not To the first part belong all Direct Idolatry and all Indirect such as are Divinations and innumerable vain Observations of superstitious Heads who from every light unusual occurrence in the Earth of Beasts in the Air of Birds and Fowls in the Water or Fire or Heavens do collect and conclude unlikely things to the great disquiet and fear of their mind their distrust or neglect of Gods Providence and the forsaking of the common rule of Reason and the word of God which ought to regulate mens hopes and fears above all things in the world To the other appertain both that we call Positive Superstition