on Earth by their own Power then Prayer is a worship which is not due to their nature even in a glorified state For no Being can have a right to our Prayers who cannot hear them and though we should grant that God reveals our Prayers to them yet to know by Revelation is not to hear In this case all that can be reasonable for us to do is only secretly to desire that the Saints would Pray for us which God can reveal to them if he pleases as well as our Prayers but it can never be reasonable to Pray to those who cannot hear us And if Prayer cannot be due to a created nature in its most exalted state because no creature can be present in all places to hear our Prayers then if it be a proper worship for Creatures it must be so by a positive Institution of God but then they must shew an express command for it and when they can do that we will dispute the reason of the thing no longer And this is a manifest reason why we should worship no other invisible Being besides God because no other invisible Being is capable of our Worship God alone fills all places and therefore may be worshipped though we do not see him for he is present every where to hear our prayers but we cannot know that any Being of a limited presence is present with us unless we see it and it is unnatural to pray to any Being who is not present to hear us And though the Church of Rome does not directly and positively attribute any divine perfections to Saints yet mankind are so naturally prone to ascribe a kind of Divinity to immortal and invisible Spirits that this is a sufficient reason why God should not allow the worship of any invisible Spirits For after all that can be said to the contrary it is a mighty temptation to men at least to make inferior Deities of those to whom they constantly pay divine honours And though they do not attribute to Saints a natural power to know our Thoughts and to hear our Prayers and to answer them yet if this supernatural gift and power whereby they do it be as constant and act as certainly as nature does it is as great and adorable a perfection as if it were natural for since all created Excellencies are the gift of God what mighty difference is there between a natural and supernatural perfection or gift if that which is supernatural be as certain and lasting and that which they can as constantly use as that which is natural As to take their own instance Were the gift of Prophesie which God bestowed on some in former Ages as constant and certain as natural knowledge that they could use this gift whenever they pleased and as constantly foretel things to come as they could reason and discourse what difference would there be in this case between a natural and supernatural knowledge of future things truly no more but this That a natural knowledge is a perfection which God did originally bestow upon our nature supernatural knowledge is an additional Perfection but yet upon this supposition as inseparably annexed to our natures as natural knowledge and always as ready for use as that which I think would make such a Prophet as truly venerable as if Prophesie were natural to him Thus it is in this present case If the Saints know our prayers by what means soever they do it it must be as constant and lasting a gift as if it were natural that is they must as certainly know when and what we pray for every time we pray as if they were present to hear us For if they do not always know our prayers we can never know when to pray and can never have any security of their Intercession for us many thousand Ave Maries may be every day lost and turn to no account and if they do constantly know this by a supernatural gift it is as glorious a perfection as if this knowledge were natural Mankind do not so critically distinguish between natural and supernatural gifts in whomsoever these perfections are they are divine and such creatures have a supernatural kind of Divinity annexed to their natures they are made Gods though not Gods by nature which is as much as any people believe of their inferior Deities who believe but one Supreme and Sovereign God who is a God by nature And yet the Author of the Character of a Papist represented gives some instances which would perswade us that the Saints have a natural knowledge of our Prayers Thus he tells us That Abraham heard the petitions of Dives who was yet at a greater distance even in Hell and told him likewise his manner of living while as yet on Earth p. 4. Now not to ask how he comes so exactly to know where Hell is and that it is at a greater distance from Heaven than the Earth is If there be any force in this Argument it must prove that the Saints have a natural knowledge of our Prayers though at so great a distance from us as Heaven is That they see and hear us as Abraham did Dives though we cannot see and hear them as Dives did Abraham which might have satisfied him since he thinks fit to reason from Parables that whatsoever distance there is between Heaven and Hell there is a greater communication between them than between Heaven and Earth However our Saviour cannot here speak of any supernatural gift whereby Abraham saw and heard Dives in Hell unless we will say that Dives did by a supernatural gift also see and hear Abraham in Heaven and therefore if this prove any thing it proves that Saints know and hear our Prayers by their own natural powers Thus he adds That the very Devils hear those desperate wretches who call on them and why then should he doubt that Saints want this priviledge in some manner granted to sinful men and wicked spirits But though he call this a Priviledge I suppose he means a natural one unless he thinks that the Devils hear witches by a supernatural revelation as the Saints in Heaven hear the prayers of the Saints on Earth But I always thought that Devils had been a little nearer bad men than the Saints in Heaven are to us on Earth for they are confined to this Lower Region and therefore are often so near as to see and hear bad men though they are invisible themselves And this is one reason why God will not allow us to worship any invisible Spirits because though we should intend only to worship good Spirits and glorified Saints yet bad Spirits who are near and present as having their residence in the Air as the Devil is called the Prince of the Power of the Air do assume this worship to themselves and both corrupt the worship and abuse their Votaries with lying Wonders Thus they did in the times of Paganism and whether they have more reverence for the Christian Saints than they
of a Subject for himself or of one Subject for another where there is reason and equity in the case without any more powerful intercession but acts of grace and favour must be dispensed by the intercession of favourites and yet it is all by way of prayer and Petition to the Prince but though it is all but Petition and request yet those who have any request to make to their Prince place more confidence in the interest and power of one favourite than in the joynt Petitions of many ordinary Subjects Thus it is here Christians on Earth pray for each other as common Supplicants and the benefit they expect from such Prayers and Intercessions is only from the prevalency of Faith and Charity which inspire such prayers and make them efficacious God has commanded us to pray for one another and has promised to hear our united fervent and importunate Prayers for the merits of our common Saviour Jesus Christ But those who pray to Saints in Heaven pray to them as Favourites and Mediators who prevail not meerly by the force and efficacy of Prayer but by their personal Merits and Interests with God and this makes them just such Mediators as Christ is who by their Power and Interest can recommend us and our Prayers to God's acceptance No you 'll say Christ purchased us with his Blood and mediates in the vertue of his Sacrifice which makes his Mediation of a different nature from the Mediation of Saints who mediate only by their interest with God upon account of their personal Merits But this alters not the case for the general notion of a Mediator is one who has Power and Interest with God effectually to recommend us to his favour and whether he mediates with or without a Sacrifice if his Mediation be powerful and efficacious he is a true and proper Mediator and to set up such other Mediators besides Christ must be injurious to his Mediation for then Christ is not our only Mediator and after all the Apologies that can be made for it it argues some distrust either of Christ's Power or good Will to help us when we fly to other Patrons and Advocates 2. And therefore Monsieur de Meaux has another Reserve for in the second place he tells us from the Council of Trent That to invocate Saints according to the sense of this Council is to have recouâ—se to their Prayers for obtaining benefits from God through Jesus Christ so that in reality we do not obtain those benefits which we receive by the Intercession of the Saints otherwise than through Jesus Christ and in his Name seeing these Saints themselves pray in no other manner than through Jesus Christ and are not heard but in his Name After which we cannot imagine that any one should accuse us of forsaking Jesus Christ when we beseech his Members who are also ours his Children who are our Brethren and his Saints who are our first fruits to pray with us and for us to our common Master in the name of our common Mediator As for forsaking Jesus Christ this we do not charge them with tho whoever considers how much more frequent addresses are made in the Church of Rome to the Virgin Mary and some other powerful Saints than to Christ himself will be tempted to think that it looks very like forsaking him but we only say that they rob Christ of the glory of being our only Mediator and Advocate by having recourse to the Prayers and intercessions of so many Saints But how can the Intercession of Saints be injurious to the Mediation of Christ when they themselves intercede in the Name and Mediation of Christ which necessarily reserves to Christ the glory of his Mediation entire since the Saints themselves are not heard but in his Name Now rightly to understand this we must consider the Nature of Christs Mediation which is to offer up all those Prayers to God in Heaven which we make to God in his name on Earth He is our Mediator in Heaven our High-Priest who is passed into the Heavens who is made not after the law of a Carnal Commandment but after the power of an endless life who is made higher than the Heavens who is not entred into the Holy Place made with hands which are the figures of the true but into Heaven it self now to appear in the presence of God for us So that as the High-Priest under the Law entred once a year into the Holy Place which was a type and figure of Heaven to make expiation and intercessions for the People so the Office of Christ as our High-Priest and Mediator is to ascend into Heaven with his own Blood and there to appear in the presence of God for us His mediatory Office is confined to Heaven there he presents our Prayers to God in vertue of his own Blood and this is as peculiar and appropriated to him as it was to the High-Priest under the Law to offer the Blood of the Sacrifice and make Attonement and Intercession in the Holy of Holies So that to present our Prayers to God in Heaven is the peculiar office of Christ who is our great High-Priest and only Mediator in the immediate presence of God in Heaven and to apply our selves to any other Mediators in Heaven to present our Prayers to God in what manner or upon what pretence soever it be is injurious to the Mediation of Christ whose proper Office it is to present our Prayers to God in Heaven And that pretence that the Saints pray for us only in the Name and Mediation of Christ is no Apology in this case for in what name soever they pray they offer up our Prayers to God immediately in Heaven which is the Office of our great High-Priest for there is and must be but be but one Mediator in Heaven And if we consider what is meant by Praying to God in the Name and Mediation of Christ we shall see reason to think that this is very improperly attributed to the Saints in Heaven For when we pray to God in the Name of Christ though we address our Prayers immediately to God yet God does not receive them as coming immediately from us but as presented by the hands of our Mediator which is the true meaning of Praying to God in the Name of Christ that we offer our Prayers to God not directly from our selves for then we should have no need of a Mediator but by his Hands whose Office it is to present them to God to appear in the Presence of God for us which is therefore called coming to God by him Now this is very agreeable to the state and condition of Christians on Earth who are at a great distance from the immediate Throne and Presence of God to offer their Prayers by the hands of a Mediator who appears in the presence of God for them and the reason why we want a Mediator to appear for us is because we are not yet
Supreme God and created Spirits and Glorifyed Souls of dead men and therefore if it be necessary to distinguish between the Worship of God and Creatures we must worship no Invisible Being but only the Supreme God The Protester proposes some ways whereby the different kinds and degrees of Religious Worship may be distinguished as by the intention of the Giver but this is not a Visible Distinction For mens intentions are private to themselves and there is no difference in the Visible Acts of Worship to make such a distinction or by some Visible Representation that is by Images This I grant would make as visible a Distinction between the Worship of God and Christ and the Virgin Mary as the presence of the person distinguishes the Kinds and Degrees of Civil Honour for when we see whose Image they worship we may certainly tell what Being they direct their Worship to but the fault of this is that it is forbid by the Law of God of which more in the next Section or by Determination of other Circumstances but what these are I cannot tell and therefore can say nothing to it The Church of Rome indeed does appropriate the Sacrifice of the Mass to God as his peculiar Worship which must not be given to any other Being and if this be so then indeed we can certainly tell when we see a Priest offering the Sacrifice of the Mass that he offers it to the Supreme God but there are a great many other Acts of Worship which we owe to God besides the Sacrifice of the Mass and in every Act of Worship God ought to be visibly distinguished from Creatures and yet if all the other External Acts of Worship be common to God and Creatures where is the distinction And yet the Sacrifice of the Mass can be offered only by the Priest so that the whole Layety cannot perform any one Act of Worship to God which is peculiar to him and therefore can make no Visible Distinction in their Worship between God and Creatures And yet the very Sacrifice of the Mass is not so appropriated to God in the Church of Rome but that it is offered to God in Honour of the Saints This the Bishop of Condom p. 7. endeavours to excuse by saying This Honour which we render them the Saints in Sacrificing consists in naming them in the Prayers we offer up to God as his Faithful Servants and in rendring him thanks for the Victories they have gained and in humbly beseeching him that he would vouchsafe to favour us by their Intercession Now it is very true according to the Council of Trent the Priest offers the Sacrifice only to God but they do somewhat more than name the Saints in their Prayers for they offer the Sacrifice in Honour to the Saints as well as to God which the Bishop calls to Honour the Memory of the Saints Now if Sacrifice be an Act of Honour and Worship to God it sounds very odly to worship or honour God for the Honour of his Saints which seems to make God only the Medium of Worship to the Saints who are the terminative object of it and that the Saints are concerned in this Sacrifice appears from this That by this Sacrifice they implore the Intercession of the Saints that those whose Memories we celebrate on Earth would vouchsafe to intercede for us in Heaven The Bishop translates implorat by Demand for what reason I cannot tell and makes this Imploring or Beseeching to refer to God not to the Saints whose Patronage Patrocinia and Intercession they pray they would vouchsafe them contrary to the plain Sense of the Council and I think to common Sense too For I do not well understand offering Sacrifice to God that he may procure for us the Intercession of the Saints for if he can be perswaded to favour us so far as to intercede with the Saints to be our Intercessors he may as well grant our Requests without their Intercession and yet the Bishop was very sensible that if we offer up our Prayers to the Saints in the Sacrifice of the Mass it does inevitably entitle them to the Worship of that Sacrifice which they say must be offered only to God He alleadges indeed St. Austin's Authority who understood nothing of this Mystery of the Sacrifice of the Mass and how far he was from thinking of any thing of this Nature is evident to any man who consults the place But the Church of Rome as the Bishop observes p. 8. has been charged by some of the Reformation not only with giving the Worship of God to Creatures when they pray to the Saints but with attributing the Divine Perfections to them such as a certain kind of Immensity and Knowledge of the Secrets of hearts for if they be not present in all places where they are worshipped how can they hear the Prayers which are made to them at such distant places at the same time If they do not know our thoughts how can they understand those mental prayers which are offered to them without words only in our secret Thoughts and Desires for even such Prayers are expresly allowed by the Council voce vel mente Now to this he answers very well that though they believe the Saints do by one means or other know the Prayers which are made to them either by the Ministry and Communication of Angels or by a particular Revelation from God or in his Divine Essence in which all truth is comprised yet never any Catholick yet thought the Saints knew our Necessities by their own power no nor the desires which move us to address our secret Prayers to them And to say a Creature may have a Knowledge of these things by a light communicated to them by God is not to elevate a Creature above his Condition This I grant and therefore do acknowledge that they do not attribute the Divine perfections of Omniscience and Omnipresence to the Saints either in thought or word but yet actions have as natural a signification as words and if we give them such a worship as naturally signifies Omniscience and Omnipresence our worship attributes the incommunicable Perfections of God to them For it is unnatural and absurd to worship a Being who is not present to receive our worship to speak to a Being who does not and cannot hear us and since God has made us reasonable Creatures to understand what we do and why he interprets our Actions as well as words and thoughts according to their natural signification And herein the natural evil of creature-worship consists That every act of religious worship does naturally involve in it a Confession of some excellency and perfection which is above a created nature and thereby whatever the worshipper thinks or intend does attribute the incommunicable Glory of God to creatures If the Saints are not present in all places to hear those Prayers which are made to them and if they cannot hear in Heaven what we say to them
his House So that there is no need to find any Hole as the Protestor speaks to get out at with the Altar for that was never in yet as far as this Controversy is concerned and therefore I am like to make no breach for him to follow at with his Image Nor does any Man kneel to the Sacrament but only receive the Sacrament kneeling and if he cannot distinguish between an Act of Worship to the Sacrament and a devout Posture of receiving it yet the meanest Son of the Church of England can Why does he not as well say that when we kneel at Prayers we worship the Common-Prayer Book which lies before us and out of which we read as that we worship the Bread when we receive and eat it with devout Passions upon our Knees But to return to the Exposition 2. I observe that there is a great difference between a memorative Sign and the Representation of an Image both of them indeed excite in us the remembrance of something but in such different manners as quite alter the nature of them It is necessary to take notice of this because I find Monsieur de Meaux and after him the Representer very much to equivocate in this Matter it is a very innocent thing to worship God or Christ when any natural or instituted Sign brings them to our minds even in the presence of such a Sign As if a Man upon viewing the Heavens and the Earth and the Creatures that are in it should raise his Soul to God and adore the great Creator of the World or upon the accidental sight of a natural Cross should call to mind the Love of his Lord who died for him and bow his Soul to him in the most submissive Adorations because I say this is very innocent the Bishop would perswade his Readers that this is the only use they make of Images to excite in us the remembrance of those they represent and mightily wonders at the little justice of those who treat with the term of Idolatry that religious Sentiment which moves them to uncover their Heads or bow them before the Image of the Cross in remembrance of him who was crucified for the Love of us And that it is sufficient to distinguish them from the Heathen Idolaters That they declare that they will not make use of Images but to raise the mind towards Heaven to the end that they may there honour Jesus Christ or his Saints and in the Saints God himself who is the Author of all Sanctity and Grace Now it is certain an Image will call to our remembrance the Person it represents as the presence of the Person himself will make us remember him but this vastly differs from a meer memorative Sign For the use of Images in the Church of Rome is not primarily for Remembrance but for Worship as the Council of Trent expresly teaches That the Images of Christ and the Virgin the Mother of God and other Saints are especially to be had and kept in Churches and due Honour and Veneration to be given to them because the Honour given to them is referred to the Prototypes which they represent so that by the Images which we kiss and before which we uncover our Heads and prostrate our selves we adore Christ and venerate the Saints whose likeness they bear These are the words of the Council and it would be a very odd Comment upon such a Text to say that Images serve only for Remembrance A meer Sign which only calls Christ to our Minds can deserve no Honour or Worship but a representing Sign which puts us in mind of Christ by representing his Person to us as if he were present whether it raises our hearts to him in Heaven or not yet according to the Council of Trent it must direct our Worship to him as represented in his Image When Men go to Church to worship Christ or the Virgin Mary before their Images it may be presumed they think of them before they see their Images and therefore do not go to be put in remembrance of them by their Images but to worship them before the Images in that Worship which they give to the Images And therefore when the Bishop speaks so often of the Virtue of Images to excite in us the remembrance of the Persons they represent to reconcile him with himself and with the Council of Trent which he pretends to own we must not understand him as if Images were of no use but to be helps to memory and are honoured for no other reason which is no reason at all as the unwary Reader will be apt to mistake him but that these visible Images represent to us the invisible Objects of our Worship and give us such a sense of their Power and Presence as makes us fall down and worship them before those Representations which we honour for their sakes that is tho they serve for remembrance yet not as meer memorative Signs but as memorative or representative Objects of Worship 3. I observe that it is the very same thing whether we say that we worship Christ as represented by the Image or worship the Image as representing Christ for they both signify that Christ is worshipped in and by his Image that the Honour and Worship is given to the Image and referr'd to the Prototype If Christ be worshipped as represented by the Image then the Worship which is intended for Christ is given to the Image in his Name and as his Representative if the Image be worshipped as representing Christ then the Worship which is given to the Image is not for it self but for Christ whom it represents which differ just as much as a Viceroy's being honoured for the King or the King 's being honoured in his Viceroy And therefore I wonder that any Man of Understanding and Judgment as Monsieur de Meaux certainly is should think there is any great matter in saying When we honour the Image of an Apostle or Martyr our Intention is not so much to honour the Image as to honour the Apostle or Martyr in the presence of the Image that is in and by the Image as I have showed that Phâ—â—se signifies when it is referred to a Representatiâ—◠〈◊〉 for it is the very same thing to say we honour the 〈◊〉 as representing the Martyr or we honour the Martyr as represented by the Image Having premised these things let us now compare the Opinion of Monsieur de Meaux with the Opinion of St. Thomas Aquinas about the Worship of Images and tho the first is thought by some Men to say a great deal too little and the other a great deal too much yet it will appear that their Opinions in this matter are the very same They both agree That Christ and his Saints are represented by their Images they both agree that Christ and his Saints are worshipped in their Images as represented by them they both agree that no other Worship is to be paid to or before or
the material figures of Wood or Stone and therefore it will be necessary to shew that the true Notion of Idolatry or Image-worship is not giving Religious worship to the Images themselves but worshipping God by Images and what the difference between these Two is 1. And the first thing I shall observe to this purpose is the difference between the First and Second Commandment which all Protestants own and defend against the Church of Rome which makes the Second Commandment only a Branch and Appendix of the First Now the First Commandment forbids all false objects of worship the worship of all creatures and fictitious Deities and therefore the worship of all Beings besides God whether rational animate or inanimate is a breach of the First Commandment and must be reduced to it and consequently the Second Commandment which forbids the worship of Images cannot forbid them as false Objects for all such are forbid in the first Commandment but as a false and corrupt way of worship and therefore Image worship as it is forbid in the Second Commandment cannot signifie worshipping the Image it self as distinguished from the Prototype for that would make it a false object of worship against the first Commandment but only a false and superstitious way of representing and worshipping God by an Image 2ly And therefore I observe that an Image does not alter the object of worship which yet it must necessarily do if it were Essential to the Notion of Image-worship to worshipt the Image it self which would make the Image a new object of worship Now it is plain that men who do not dispute themselves into endless subtilties and distinctions intend no more in the worship of Images than to worship that God whose Image it is and therefore the object of worship is the same with or without an Image They who worship the True God with an Image and they who worship him without an Image worship the same God though in a different manner and besides what judgment men make of their own actions and what they intend to do the Scripture it self acknowledges this When the Israelites made a golden Calf Aaron proclaims a Feast to the Lord Jehovah which proves that they intended to worship the same God still in the golden Calf which they did before without it Thus the Two Calves which Jeroboam set up were made in imitation of the golden Calf and for Symbolical representations of the God of Israel who was worshipped by them For it is plain that Jeroboam did not intend to change their God but only to prevent their going up to Jerusalem to worship God there and therefore he tells them It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem behold thy Gods O Israel which brought thee up out of the Land of Aegypt that is the Lord Jehovah Now we may observe that God himself though he was grievously offended with the Sin of Jeroboam yet he makes a great difference between the Sin of Jeroboam and the Sin of Ahab who introduced the worship of Baal a false God whereas Jeroboam retained the worship of the true God though he worshipped him in a false and Idolatrous manner If the Calves of Don and Bethel had been false Gods as Baal was the Sin had been equally provoking but the worship of the Calves did not change their God as the worship of Baal did and therefore Elijah distinguishes the Israelites into the worshippers of God and of Baal How long halt ye between Two Opinions if the Lord be God follow him but if Baal then follow him and yet most of those who are said to be worshippers of God did worship God at the Calves of Dan and Bethel which was the established Religion of the Kingdom And thus Jehu tho' he departed not from the Sin of Jeroboam the golden Calves in Dan and Bethel yet he calls his Zeal in destroying Baal out of Israel his Zeal for the Lord Jehovah Now if the worship of an Image do not change the object of our worship neither in the intention of the worshipper nor in the account of Scripture as I have now proved it evidently follows that the Image is not worshipped as an object but as a Medium of worship it receives no worship for it self but only for God whom it represents And that which is so offensive to God in it is not that they set up any Rival and Opposite gods against him but that they worship him in a reproachful and dishonourable manner which makes him abhor and reject the worship and because he will not receive this worship himself he calls it worshipping Idols and graven Images and molten gods that is vicarious and representative gods which though they receive the worship in God's Name yet are an infinite reproach to his Majesty by that vile and contemptible Representation they make him This is the strict Notion of Idolatry not the giving the worship of God to Creatures which is the Breach of the First Commandment in making new Gods but the worship of God by an Image which makes such Images Gods by Representation but not the objects but only the Medium of worship and therefore though we should grant M. de Meaux that he does not worship Images but only Christ and the Saints in or before their Images this does not excuse him from Idolatry which does not signifie worshipping an Image in a strict sence but only worshipping God in an Image which terminates all the worship not on the Image but on God 2ly Let us now consider wherein the Evil of this Idolatry or Image-worship does consist and that I said was in Representation which I shall briefly explain in these particulars 1. That it is an infinite reproach to the Divine Nature and Perfections to be represented by an Image To whom will ye liken God Or what likeness will ye compare to him The workman melteth a graven-Image and the Goldsmith spreadeth it over with Gold and casteth Silver Chains He that is so impoverished that he hath no Oblation chuseth a Tree that will not rot he seeketh unto him a cunning Workman to prepare a graven Image that shall not be moved Have ye not known Have ye not heard Hath it not been told you from the beginning Have ye not understood from the Foundations of the Earth It is he that sitteth upon the Circle of the Earth and the Inhabitants thereof are as Grashoppers that stretcheth cut the Heavens as a Curtain and spreadeth them out as a Tent to dwell in How incongruous and absurd is it to make a Picture or Image of that God who is invisible to represent a pure Mind by Matter dull sensless Matter to give the shape and figure of a Man or some viler Creature to that God who has none To make an Image for the Maker of the World and to bring that Infinite Being to the scantlings and dimensions of a Man who fills Heaven and Earth with his presence If it