recites but what he has to say to it he does not tell us I there shewed at large that God does not want Entreaties to do good though his Wisdom and Justice may require a Sacrifice and a High-Priest to make atonement for sin To prevent that obvious Objection that God commands us to Pray for one another on Earth I observed that this is not by way of Interest and Merit as the Church of Rome pretends the Saints in Heaven Pray for us but by Humble Supplications which I shewed was very reconcilable with the Wisdom and Goodness of God from those excellent ends it serves in this World this he calls a Misrepresentation p. 68. but I pray why do not they Pray to God in the Name and Merits of the Saints are not all their Offices full of such Prayers do they think the Saints in Heaven Pray only as humble Supplicants when the very reason the Council of Trent gives why they should fly to their Aid and Succors is that they Reign with Christ do they not as he adds take the Virgin Mary Angels and Saints for Mediators to incline God to be good to peculiar persons which he calls another Misrepresentation why then do they Pray so frequently and devoutly to them why do they tell of so many miraculous Deliverances wrought by the Virgin Mary in favour of her Clients and of other Saints in favour of their Devotoes English Protestants know these things too well to be imposed on at this time of day by the bawling and confidence of an ignorant Jesuite 2. I observed That it is not less injurious to the Love of our Saviour to fly to the Prayers and Aids of Saints and the Virgin Mary as if Christ either wants interest with God or wants kindness to us and either will not intercede for us at all or will not do it unless he be prevailed with by the Intercession of Saints or the Entreaties or Commands of his Mother And having shewed what assurance we have of the Love and Compassion of our Saviour I added This one would have thought should have given the greatest security to sinners of his readiness to help them But it seems Christ is not merciful and pitiful enough his Virgin Mother has softer and tenderer Passions and such an interest in him or authority over him in the right of a Mother as some of them have not without blasphemy represented it that she can have any thing of him and thus they suppose the other Saints to be much more pitiful than Christ is and to have interest enough to protect their Supplicants or else it is not imaginable why they should need or desire any other Advocates This he calls another Misrepresentation and makes me â—ay that the Church of Rome professes to believe all this but I say no such thing but only this is the natural interpretation of their seeking other Advocates and Mediators besides Christ when he can give a better account of this Practice I will acknowledge I was mistaken in my Argument but am no Misrepresenter for to Argue ill and to Misrepresent are two things as the Representer himself I suppose has learnt by this time SECT III. An Answer to the Thirty Misrepresentations and Calumnies and some Fanatical Principles said to be offered in the Third and Fourth Sections HEre our Jesuite foams and rages and I will make him rage a little more before I have done with him For bad Spirits are apt to rage most the more they feel the power of Exorcism and then there is no way to make them quiet but to cast them out The third Section of the Preservative concerned the Nature of Christian Worship what Christ has reformed in the Worship of God and what Worship he has prescribed 1. As for the first I said that Christ has taken away every thing that was meerly external in Religion not external Acts nor the necessary external Circumstances of Worship but such exernal Rites as either by the Institution of God or Superstition of Men were made Acts of Religion to render us more acceptable to God. This I shewed was agreeable to the nature of Christian Religion which has none of those ends to serve for which these external Rites were instituted by God under the Jewish Law or invented by Men. For 1. There is no Expiation or Satisfaction for Sins under the Gospel but only the Blood of Christ and therefore there is no place now for any Expiatory Rites and Ceremonies 2. The Gospel makes no difference between Legal Cleanness and Uncleanness and therefore distinctions of Meats and External Washings and Purifications are now out of date 3. Nor is there any Symbolical Presence of God under the Gospel which puts an end to the Legal Holiness of Places and Things 4. Nor are Material and Inanimate Things made the Receptacles of Divine Graces and Vertues to convey them to us meerly by Contact and External Applications like some Amulets or Charms to wear in our Pockets or hang about our Necks 5. The Christian Religion admits of no External or Ceremonial Righteousness Now this cuts off every thing which is External in Religion at a blow because it cuts off all hopes and relyances on an External Righteousness 6. Hence it appears that the Christian Religion can admit nothing that is External but only some Faederal Rites such as the two Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper are And such Rites as these are necessary in all instituted Religions which depend upon free and voluntaâ—â—â—â—venants For since Mankind has by sin forfeited their natural rigâ—t to God's favour they can challenge nothing from him now but by Promise and Covenant and since such Covenants require a mutual stipulation on both sides they must be transacted by some visible and sensible Rites whereby God obliges himself to us and we to him This he calls a Fanatical Principle but why I know not And says that this is destroyed by my former Principle of taking away all Rites that are Acts of Religion This is a severe Man who will not allow me to make one Exâ—eption from a General Rule which no man yet was ever denied especially when I give such a peculiar reason for the Exception as is applicable to nothing else that an instituted Religion is and must be founded on a Covenant that a Covenant must be transacted by visible and sensible Rites for there cannot be a visible Covenant nor a visible Church founded on this Covenant without visible and sensible Rites And this I suppose he will think a sufficient Answer to what he says That on this Principle I ought to teach that the mutual stipulation betwixt God and us must be made by his interior Graces and our interior Worship because God must be worshipped as a meer Spirit That God must be worshipped as a meer Spirit and therefore without any external Acts of Worship I never said much less did I assign it as my reason here against a meer external
may be convinced by Reason that he ought to choose a Guide and not to trust his Reason in all things I readily grant it for this is to use our Reason but the inquiry is Whether Reason can convince any man that he ought to follow this Guide in contradiction to his own Sense and Reason whether because Reason will direct a sick man to choose a Physician it will direct him also to submit to this Physician when he certainly knows that he gives him Poison The next Principle which overthrows the use of common Sense and Reason for that is his charge against me is this That we must allow of no Reason against the Authority of plain and express Scripture This he allows to be a true Catholic Principle and therefore I hope the Principle does not overthrow common Sense unless Catholic Principles may do it But he does not like an instance or two I give of it in the first and second Commandments I say such an express Law is that Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve No reason in the World can justifie the worship of any other Being good or bad Spirits besides God because there is an express Law against it and no Reason can take place against a Law. A rare consequence says the Jesuit to infer a Negative from an Affirmative antecedent But I thought Him only shalt thou serve had signified thou shalt serve none but him and that I think excludes all other Beings from any share in our Worship Now to take his own instance were there such a Law that a Subject should love his King only this would exclude Father or Wife or any other Friends or Relations from a share in our love Here he begins to distinguish between that worship they pay to Creatures and to God and alleadges St. Austin's Authority for it but if he have a mind to renew that Dispute about the sense of the Primitive Fathers as to Invocation of Saints he knows his man and had best keep to him or at least do him right before he engages any farther It had been more to the purpose to have examined that explication I gave of the first Commandment and how I proved that it is an express Law against the worship of any other Being but the Supreme God but what is most to the purpose is seldom most to his purpose The next instance I gave of this rule was the second Commandment Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven Image and there the Jesuite stops with an c. for he durst not trust good Catholicks who might read his paper though they will read nothing else with the whole Commandment and this I affirmed and affirm still is so express a Law against Image-Worship that no reason must be admitted for it What says he if you be told that although the Iews had perhaps a command of making no graven Image c. again why not and not to worship it we do not say they were forbid to make any graven Image but they were forbid to make them for worship and therefore his following instances of Bezaleel and Solomon who made no Images or likenesses of things in Heaven or Earth for worship are nothing to the purpose he adds yet this being a positive Law and not confirmed in the Gospel doth not oblige us will this reason be admitted He answers for me No but I answer yes if it be true and he dare stand to it but this is no reason against an express Law but an exception to the Law itself as of no force I do affirm that if the second Commandment be still in force it does so expresly condemn all Image-worship that no reasons can justifie Image-worship against such an express Law but if it be a Law no longer the case I confess is altered and I desire to know whether he will stand to this but he had best advise with some wiser men first who understand the sense of the Church and of the Fathers and of their own Divines a little better about this matter But before they abrogate this Law I would desire them to make it a Commandment by it self and call it the second Commandment as we do for fear of abrogating the first Commandment with it of which they make it a part though the truth is the Church of Rome could spare them both and thank you too His parting blow is a very terrible one I direct Protestants never to admit any Arguments meerly from the usefulness conveniency or pretended necessity of any thing to prove that it is As for instance A supreme Oecumenical Bishop and an Infallible Iudge of Controversies are thought absolutely necessary to the Vnity of the Church and certainty of Faith and confounding of Schisms and Heresies Now if I thought all this were true as I believe not a word of it is I should only conclude that it were great pity that there is not an Vniversal Pastor and Infallible Iudge Instituted by Christ but if you would have me conclude from these Premises Ergo there is an Vniversal Pastor and infallible Iudge I must beg your pardon for that for these Arguments do not prove that there is such a Iudge but that there ought to be one and therefore I must conclude no more from them This he says is not only to misuse humane Reason but to deny Wisdom and Reason in God Alphonsus the Royal Mathematician was ever looked on as guilty of a horrid Blasphemy for having said he thought he could have ordered some things better than God did at the first Creation 'T is one of as deep a dye to think God ought to have done what we belive that â—e hath not done But do I any where say that God ought to have done what I believe he has not done do I any where say that God ought by necessary and infallible means to have prevented Schisms and Heresies Dare our Author himself say this who assigns this as the reason why the Infallibility of the Church is no more than morally evident because otherwise it were impossible that any Heresie should be which at least supposes that God did not intend to make it impossible that there should be Heresies and Schisms and therefore though we should grant it absolutely necessary to prevent all Heresies and Schisms that there should be an Oecumenical Pastor and Infallible Judge is this to grant it necessary that there should be one or to say that there ought to be one unless I had said also that it were absolutely necessary that all Heresies and Schisms should be prevented Is there no difference between saying that such a thing is absolutely necessary to such an end and to say that such an end is abfolutely necessary But however where do I say that God has not done that which I believe he ought to have done is it the same thing to say such a thing is not and such a thing is not proved by such
knee As I observed before that how dear soever the Saints are to God they are but his Creatures and if Soveraign Princes will not receive their greatest Favourites into their Throne much less will God. This is another of his Misrepresentations that I say the Papists by their worshipping Saints Angels and the Virgin Mary put them in the Throne of God but this I do not say but only that God will not take any of his Creatures into his Throne But yet if giving Religious Worship placed the Heathen Deities in God's Throne I would gladly be satisfied why the Worship of Saints and Angels should not be thought to do the same I am sure to worship Saints in the same Temple and at the same Altar and with the same humble Prostrations and in the very same Prayers that we worship God looks very like placing a Favourite on the same Throne with his Prince but yet this is not the dispute whether they do so or not but whether it be not so like it that it is unreasonable to think that Christ who came to root out all Idolatry will allow or command it Another kind of Idolatry the Heathens were fond of was the Worship of Images and Pictures whereby they represented their Gods as visibly present with them For they wanted some material representations of their Gods in which they might as it were see them present and offer up their Petitions to them and court them with some visible and sensible honours To cure this kind of Idolatry under the Law though God forbad the Worship of Images yet he appoints them to erect a Tabernacle or Temple where he would dwell among them and place the Symbols of his Presence the Mercy-seat and the Cherubims covering the Mercy-seat which was a symbolical Representation of God's Throne in Heaven where he is surrounded with Angels as the Holy of Holies itself was the Figure of Heaven Thus under the Law to give them assurance of his presence with them though they could not see him he had a peculiar Place for Worship and peculiar Symbols of his Presence but no Images to represent his Person or to be the Objects of Worship And here I took notice of that Pretence of the Church of Rome for Image-Worship that the Cherubims were worshipped by the Iews and particularly answered the Arguments of the late Bishop of Oxford to prove it and it had been worthy of the Jesuite to have made some reply to this but he was wiser than to meddle with it among other things the Bishop had urged David's Exhortation to the People to Honour the Ark Bow down to or worship his Foot-stool for it or he is holy 99 Psalm to prove that the Iews worshipped the Cherubims this I said was very strange when he himself four Pages before had told us that the Ark was God's Foot-stool and the Cherubims his Throne now suppose David had exhorted the people to Worship the Ark which as he says is God's Foot-stool how does this prove that they must Worship the Cherubims which are God's Throne this he calls a misrepresentation and so it is indeed and a very gross one too but it is his own for he represents this as my Argument against the Worship of the Cherubims that they were commanded indeed to Worship the Ark which was God's Foot-stool but not the Cherubims which were his Throne whereas I never granted that by the Foot-stool of God was meant the Ark but all that I said was that if the Ark as the Bishop affirmed was meant by God's Foot-stool and the Cherubims were his Throne then though there had been such a Command to 〈…〉 God 's Foot-stool this could not prove the worship of the â—â—erubims which in his Divinity were not the Foot-stool but the Throne of God. This he could not be ignorant of because I expresly proved that by the Foot-stool of God could not be meant the Ark for the Ark was in the Holy of Holies which was a figure of Heaven and neither the Heaven nor any thing in it but the Earth is in Scripture called God's Foot-stool as the Psalmist expresly applies it to Zion and the Holy Hill. And this I observed is a sufficient confutation of his Exposition of the words to bow down to or worship his Foot-stool for Mount Zion or the Holy Hill was not the Object of Worship nor Symbol of God's Presence but there God was present and that was reason enough to worship him at his Foot-stool and at his Holy Hill as our English Translation reads it I added Suppose the Jews were to direct their Worship towards the Mercy-seat which was covered by the Cherubims where God had promised to be present how are the Cherubims concerned in this Worship the Worship was paid only to God though directed to God as peculiarly present in that place which is no more than to lift up our eyes and hands to Heaven where the Throne of God is when we pray to him but he adds the very Image for example of Christ crucified is the Object of the Worship of Papists which is certainly true but he should have given my own words The Bishop had said that bowing to or towards any thing was the same thing this I granted if they bowed to or towards any thing as the Object of Worship and therefore had the Iews either bowed to or towards the Cherubims as the Objects of their Worship as the Papists bow to or towards their Images they had been equally guilty of Idolatry and the breach of the Second Commandment but when bowing to signifies bowing to an Object of Worship and bowing towards signifies bowing to this Object of Worship only towards such a place where he is peculiarly present this makes a vast difference And this he calls a Misrepresentation that I say Papists bow to their Images as Objects of Worship but this has been so often proved upon them in the several Answers to the Representer and M. de Meaux and his Vindicator that it would be as foolish in me to prove it again as it is impudent in him to deny it But I observed farther that in the Gospel God has provided a more effectual remedy against Image-Worship in the Incarnation of his Son. Mankind have been always fond of some visible Deity and because God cannot be seen they have gratified their superstition by making some visible Images and Representations of an invisible God Now to take them off from mean corporeal Images and Representations which are both a dishonour to the Divine Nature and debase the Minds of Men God has given us a visible Image of himself has clothed his own Eternal Son with Humane Nature who is the brightness of his Father's Glory and the express Image of his Person Now when God has given us a visible Image of himself his eternal and incarnate Son whom we may worship and adore can we think he will allow us to worship material and sensible Images of Wood and Stone