numbered Amongst them beyond the Seas I will name only Danaeus and Hottinger Daneus in his Appendix to the Catalogue of Heresies written by St. Austin recounteth the Hereticks who had offended as he thought in particular manner against the several precepts of the Decalogue And under the second Commandment he placeth the Simonians the Armenians the Papists and some others as notorious violaters of it Hottinger distributeth the false worship of the Papists into six kinds of Idolatry under the Greek names of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Bread-worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Marian-worship to wit that of the Blessed Virgin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Saint-worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Angel-worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Relick-worship and lastly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the worship of Images PART 2. Of the mitigation of the charge of Idolatry against the Papists THE learned Hugo Grotius especially in his Annotations on the consultation of Cassander in his Animadversions on the Animadversions of Rivet and in his Votum pro Pace The learned Mr. Thorndike in his Epilogue and in his Just Weights and Measures Curcellaeus in his Epistle to Adrian Patius These three together with some others have pronounced a milder sentence in this cause though they approved not of such Invocation of Saints and worship of Images as is practised in the Church of Rome But it is not my design to decide the controversie by the greater number of modern Authorities but rather to look into the merits of the cause And this I purpose to do so far only as Angels or rather Saints and Images are the Objects of this Disquisition Of Relicks and the Sacramental bread I forbear to say more than that little which follows For the first that which will be said concerning the worship of Images will help us sufficiently in judging of the worship of Relicks If they be made Objects of Religious adoration if they be honoured as pledges of Divine protection if they be trusted in as Shrines of Divine virtue at adventure and in all ages they become as the Manna which was laid up for any other than the Sabbath-day useless to the preservers offensive to God and unsavory to men of sagacious Noses Concerning that substance which after Sacramental consecration appeareth as Bread that excellent Church in whose safe communion I have always lived doth still call it Bread For the Priest after having consecrated the Elements and received the Communion himself in both kinds is required by the Rubrick of that Office to administer to others and when he delivereth the Bread to any one to use this Form The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy Body and Soul to Everlasting life Now a Discourse concerning the worship of that Substance which appeareth as Bread will in effect be a Discourse about the Corporal presence of Christ under the shews of that creature and run the Disputant into another Question which hath been industriously sifted by Thousands Neither are the printed Volumes touching this subject few or small There is a great heap of them written by the learned Messieurs Arnaud and Claud and Monsieur Aubertin hath obliged the World with a very large and laborious work about Transubstantiation in which may be seen the sense of the Ancients Forbearing then any further Discourse about the Worship of Relicks or the Sacramental bread I proceed to the Worship of Saints Angels and Images inquiring how far the Church of Rome doth by her Veneration render them Idols At the entrance of this Inquiry the trueness of her Faith in one God and three Persons is to be acknowledged and observed The Creed which is formed by order of the Council of Trent beginneth with the Articles of that of Nice though it endeth not without Additions And Dr. Rivet in his Reflections on those excellent Notes with which the acute Grotius adorned the consultation of Cassander doth in this point own the Orthodoxy of the Roman Faith In the Article of the Divine Trin-unity there is nothing saith he controverted betwixt Papists and Protestants And thus much is true if spoken of the generality of them for they herein adhere to Catholick Doctrine Thus do the Protestants of the Church of England but all do not so either here or beyond the Seas who commonly pass under the name of Protestants Curcellaeus for instance sake is called a Protestant yet may seem no other than a Tritheite as may appear by the first of those four Disputations which he wrote against his sharp Adversary Maresius The Romanists then professing the true Catholick Faith in the Article of the blessed Trinity and owning the second Synod of Nice which though it favoured Images so very highly yet it ascribed Latria to God only they seem injurious to them who do not only charge them with Idolatry but also aggravate that Idolatry as equal to the false Worship of the most barbarous Gentiles They seem unjust I say in so doing unless this be their meaning that the least degree of that crime under the light of Christianity be equal to the greatest under the disadvantages of Heathenism It is certain that the Romanists who worship the true God do not worship Universal Nature or the Sun or the Soul of the World in place of the Supreme Deity as did millions of Pagans Also for the Angels which they worship they justifie only the adoration of those Spirits who persisted in their first estate of unspotted Holiness and they renounce in Baptism the Devil and his Angels after the manner of the Catholick Church And when an Heathen is by them baptized the Priest after having signed him first on the Forehead and then on the Breast with the sign of the Cross does exhort him in this Form Abhor Idols Reject their Images But the Gentiles sacrificed to Devils and to such who by the light of nature might be known to be evil Daemons because they accepted of such Sacrifices as were unagreeable to the justice and charity and piety of mankind Sacrifices vile and bloody such whose smoke might be discerned by a common nostril to smell of the stench of the bottomless pit Yet some of the Heathens expresly denied the practice of such worship and made to the Christians this following profession We worship not evil Daemons Those Spirits which you call Angels those we also worship the Powers of the Great God and the Ministeries of the Great God For Hero's they worship those only whom they believe to have professed Christian Religion and to have been visible Members of the Catholick Church For into that whatsoever particular communion it was which afterwards they visibly owned they were at first Baptized Whereas the Gentiles worshipped many who had been worshippers of false gods Such worshippers were Castor Pollux Quirinus among the Romans These first worshipped false Deities and were afterwards worshipped themselves with the like undue honour
Imprimatur Guil. Jane R. P. D. Hen. Episc. Lond. a Sacris Dom. Nov. 10. 1677. OF IDOLATRY A DISCOURSE In which is endeavoured A Declaration of Its Distinction from Superstition Its Notion Cause Commencement and Progress Its Practice Charged on Gentiles Jews Mahometans Gnosticks Manichees Arians Socinians Romanists As also of the Means which God hath vouchsafed towards the Cure of it by the SHECHINAH of His SON By THO. TENISON B. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty and late Fellow of Corpus-Christi Colledg in Cambridge LONDON Printed for Francis Tyton at the Three-Daggers in Fleetstreet over against St. Dunstans Church 1678. To the Right Honourable ROBERT Earl of MANCHESTER One of the Gentlemen of his Majesty's Bedchamber Lord Lieutenant of the County of Huntington c. My LORD IT is now a year and almost another since I wrote a Letter for private Use about the Worship of Images A Practice most scandalous to the Christian Religion and as some use it so extremely ridiculous that the very statue had it any apprehension would modestly bow it self and prevent the Adorer From that small beginning has arisen a Book sufficiently big but of the less solidity by reason of the hasty growth of it More art together with more hours of leisure would have made it a lesser Volume For in writing of Books as in carving of Statues the cutting away of each superfluity is a work of skill and time But if this Volume were equally great and good it would be the more suitable Present for your Lordship to whom the Dedication of it is due whether the Author be considered or that which be hath written For the Author he hath had long dependance on your Honourable Family such as may almost be dated from that happy time in which these Islands were disenchanted and received their true and undoubted Soveraign in place of that Spectre of Authority which then walked at Whitehall He is possessed of one Living by the Bounty of the then Lord Chamberlain your Father whose most generous kindness and condescension must for ever be remembred by him And seeing the Noble offer makes the favour and not the acceptance he owes to your Lordship his acknowledgments for another Many other Obligations from your Honourable Person and Family and therein from your most excellent Lady whose eminent and exemplary Virtues surpass the very heighth of her Birth and Quality as in Gratitude I must not forget so in good manners I ought not here to repeat them at large for it would be a rude abuse of your Lordships patience to turn this Epistle into a second Book For the Book it self some part of it was meditated the whole revised at your Castle of Kimbolton a place where your Lordship does yearly offer new matter to the admiration of Travellers who speak with such praise of the Fair Villa's of England It was enlarged and now at last published not without the desire of some of your Lordships very Learned Relations who by their own accurate Pens have made amends to the world for any trouble they may occasion by mine It hath already some hope of your favourable acceptance and therefore it lays it self with the greater assurance at the feet of your Honour Where it offendeth either in Matter or Form for in an heap of so many particulars some which are not very current may pass through my hand undiscerned I beg not Patronage but excuse In the matter I would hope that the main of it is passable because I have used as its touchstone the Doctrine and Worship of that Church in whose Communion by Gods good Providence I have always lived the Church of England a Church of unparallel'd sobriety and invincible Truth The Country was one of the last of those which the Arms of the ancient Romans subdu'd and the Church is such that it can never be conquered by the Arguments of the Modern It is true I have said many things which the Church hath not said for I was unwilling to disgust any curious Reader by serving up nothing but what had formerly been often set before him But against the Church I am not conscious that I have written a syllable And for some Speculations which might have been subject to misconstruction I have committed them to that which they call the best keeper of Secrets the Fire If any offensive phrase or notion have escaped me as soon as I am shewed it I shall be readier to blot it out than I was ever to write it Touching my manner of writing I crave leave to observe a few things about the stile and the temper of this Discourse Concerning stile had it been my Talent it had not been possible in such an Historical and Philological Argument to have made any considerable use of it A Discourse into which the words of other men of differing Professions Ages Countries Languages and stiles are so frequently woven must needs be uneven and parti-coloured Concerning the Temper observed in this writing I have endeavour'd to abstain from all unnecessary heat and severe Language For I cannot perswade my self that the Witchcraft of Error can be removed or so much as weakned by the meer scratches of the Pen. It hath also been my care not to misrepresent the opinions of those from whom I differ Yet I am sensible that this very Impartiality with which I move in the middle path will draw upon me the censorious lashes of many Zealots who place themselves on either hand Those whom Jesuitick Bygotry possesseth will say I have maliciously blackned their Church Others whose over-rigid humour must needs pass for the only Protestancy whose Religion sheweth it self in nothing but in a fierce and indiscreet zeal against Popery will think my Pen hath flattered They will cry out that it hath imitated his pencil who drew the loose Gabrielle in the figure of chaste Diana But I have I hope avoided both those Extremes Most certain I am I have studied to do so And if just moderation must be blamed I am willing to be a sufferer in so good so honourable a cause There are another sort of Enemies of whose Censures I am also in some expectation though in no fear at all I mean the lower sort of Criticks into whose Province of Philology I have sometimes stepped This sort of men seemeth to me like those wretched Barbarians on the Coast of Guinea whose Idol is a certain Bundle of Feathers Religious men of the warmest temper are not more earnest about matters of Faith than these are in questions of wit and debates about words and tittles For though the interest of the thing they contend about be insignificant yet they think that power and mastery in any thing is worthy their zeal If I have but mispelled the name of some Heathen-god I expect severe usage from such Grammarians But though they shall prove angry I will not retaliate It is not worth the while to keep up a controversy begun about a
trifle and to bandy light matters backward and forward by eternal dispute But I trespass upon your Honour by the liberty of this Discourse and by introducing these Pedantick people who make so absurd a figure in Courts This only I have to add If there be any thing useful in this writing I know your Lordship will accept it for its own sake And for that which is useless or defective I hope it may obtain pardon through the submission of the Author who is From Dr. Lawson's house in Mincing-Lane in London March 16 1677. My Lord Your Lordship 's most Obliged and Obedient Servant THO. TENISON The CONTENTS of the CHAPTERS CHap. I. Of the Notion of Superstition pag. 1. Chap. II. Of the Notion of Idolatry p. 12. Chap. III. Of the causes and occasions of Idolatry in the World p. 24. Chap. IV. Of the commencement and progress of Idolatry p. 38. Chap. V. Of the Idolatry charged on the Gentiles Part 1. How far the Gentiles were ignorant of a supreme God p. 49. Part 2. Of the Worship of Universal nature c. by the Gentiles as God p. 52. Part 3. How far they owned one true God p. 55. Part 4. What applications they made to one God p. 62. Part. 5. Whether they worshipping one God could be guilty of the sin of Idolatry p. 65. Part 6. Of their Idolatry in worshipping the Statues of God p. 68. Part 7. Of their Idolatry in worshipping Daemons p. 75. Part 8. Of their Idolatry in worshipping the Images of Daemons p. 88. Part 9. Of their worshipping Daemons more than God p. 95. Chap. VI. Of the Idolatry of the Jews Part 1. Of the provisions made by God against the Idolatry of the Jews p. 97. Part 2. Of the Idolatry of the Jews p. 101. Part 3. Of the worship of the Golden Calf p. 108. Part 4. Of the worship of the Idol Apis p. 112. Part 5. Of the Originals of Apis and Serapis p. 118. Part 6. Of the Egyptian-Apis whether he were Moses p. 125. Part 7. Why Moses might be Idolized among the Egyptians p. 131. Part 8. Why Moses might be honoured by the Symbol of an Ox p. 136. Part 9. Why Moses might be called Apis p. 138. Part 10. When the Worship of Apis commenced p. 139. Part 11. Of the Idols Apis and Mnevis p. 140. Part 12. Whence the Original of Apis might be obscured p. 141. Chap. VII Of the Idolatry of the Mahometans p. 143. Chap. VIII Of the Idolatry with which some are charged who profess themselves Christians Part 1. Of the Idolatry of the Gnosticks p. 148. Part 2. Of the Idolatry of the Manichees p. 155. Chap. IX Of the Idolatry with which the Arians and Socinians are charged Part 1. Of the Idolatry of the Arians and Socinians jointly p. 157. Part 2. Of the Idolatry of the Arians p. 163. Part 3. Of the Idolatry of the Socinians p. 169. Chap. 10. Of the Idolatry charged on the Papists Part 1. Of the Charge which is drawn up against them p. 176. Part 2. Of the mitigation of the Charge of Idolatry against the Papists p. 184. Part 3. Of the Idolatry charged on the Romanists in the Invocation of Saints p. 189. Chap. XI Of the Idolatry charged on the Romanists in the Worship of Images and particularly of the Worship of an Image of God p. 264. Chap. XII Of the Idolatry charged on the Romanists in worshipping Images Part 1. Of the Worship of the Image of Christ p. 276. Part 2. Of the Worship of the Images of Saints p. 296. Chap. XIII Of the Idolatry charged on the Church of England p. 303. Chap. XIV Of the means which God hath vouchsafed the World towards the curing Idolatry and particularly of his favour in exhibiting to that purpose the Shechinah of his Son Part 1. Of the cure of Idolatry p. 311. Part 2. Of the cure of Idolatry by the Shechinah of of God p. 315. Part 3. Of the Shechinah of God from Adam to Noah p. 320. Part 4. Of the Shechinah of God from Noah to Moses p. 323. Part 5. Of the Shechinah of God from Moses to the Captivity and therein largely of the Ark and Cherubims and Urim and Thummim p. 330. Part 6. Of the Shechinah of God from the Captivity to the Messiah p. 368. Part 7. Of the cure of Idolatry by the Image of God in Christ God-man p. 371. Part 8. Of the Usefulness of this Argument of Gods Shechinah p. 379. Part 9. Of the Usefulness of this Argument of Gods Shechinah with relation to the Worship of Angels and Images p. 382. Chap. XV. A Review and Conclusion p. 391. ERRATA PAg. 7. lin 14. for of a remorse read of remorse p. 12. l. 13. f. Fritbert r. Freiberg p. 26. l. 17. f. Deitas r. Deütas p. 34. l. 2. f. notions r. motions p. 40. l 20. f. Families of Cain and Lamech r. Family of Cain p. 41. l. 32. p. 47. l. 33. f. Loyn r. Line p. 42. l. 18 19. f. Commical r. Conical p. 43. l. 6. f. Vatallus r. Vatablus p. 48. l. 18. f. ascendeth a Pyramis r. ascendeth in a Pyramis p. 196. l. 25. f. opposite r. apposite p. 230. Marg. for Virgine r. Virgini p. 249. Marg. f. quid r. quod p. 324. l. 20. f. re-acting r. reaching p. 338. l. 18. f. man r. mean p. 355. l. 26. blot out and. p. 385. l. 6 7. f. Heaven r. Heathen In p. 385 387 389. there is left out in the Title on the top with Relation to the Worship c. p. 400. l. 2. f. He r. We. p. 410. l. 23. f. second r. third p. 413. l. 21. f. chres r. sepulchres Other Mispellings and little mistakes are left to the candor of the Reader who is desired as he peruseth the Book to cast his eye sometimes upon the Review at the end of it a few amendments and additions being there subjoined CHAP. I. Of the notions of Superstition and Idolatry as they are usually confounded and as they ought of right to be distinguish'd I Know not how I can better begin this discourse concerning Religious Worship than by imitating the Prologue of Origen or rather of Maximus to his dispute against the Heresie of Marcion In the entrance of that Dialogue he maketh a right opinion concerning God to be the Basis and Foundation of Universal Goodness Men are imperfect and oftentimes the more they are known the less they are honoured insomuch that distance and reservedness is made use of especially among the Eastern Princes as the necessary instrument of Veneration But God is a Being absolutely perfect and the better he is understood he is worshipped with the more rational Religion and with the profounder Reverence God is that One Supreme Infinite Spirit who by Almighty Power Wisdom and Goodness made and governeth the World And if men entertained such a notion of him instead of those rude and false draughts which are pictur'd in their vain Imaginations they would pay
and rendered him as guilty in Gods sight as if he had broken a written Law Nay they judged of their Saintship rather by the obedience they paid to their own Inventions than by their observation of Gods Commands Thus by the device of their Corban they made a false estimate of Charity believing themselves Righteous whilst they violated the indispensable Law of Love to their Parents Some Usages there are not commanded by God yet acceptable to him if our high estimation of them and our indiscreet zeal in their use or imposition does not become the dead Fly in the Spikenard I cannot discern such Superstition as others think they have done in uncovering the Head when a light is brought in and praying for the light of Heaven I know not what Irreligion there is in using the like Ceremony when our Neighbour sneezeth and in wishing his health or blessing God for his deliverance from the offensive vapour I mean this of those persons by whom it doth not appear but that the inward intention doth accompany the outward sign A prudent Christian is not offended at him who on a solemn occasion maketh the sign of the Cross on himself as an external sign of his Christian Religion Neither doth he censure those who well understanding their own tempers do use fasting before the Eucharist as an help to devotion or those who use abstinence on a Saturday with discretion by way of preparation as is alledged by some for the Holy-day which succeeds it And he is not well-grounded in the Faith and Charity of a Christian man who brandeth all those with Superstition that comply with the Church of England in her Rites which are neither in their number many nor indecent or immoral in their nature neither are they required as Usages in themselves necessary to Salvation They are enjoyned and used for the sake of order and comeliness without which a Church is as it were undressed and exposed in ungrateful and unbecoming circumstances to the devout who with Reason conceive some difgust as well at the nakedness as at the paint of their Mother There are then certain Free-will-offerings both of Churches and single persons which God Almighty who as Learned men think accepted voluntary Sacrifices of Thanksgiving in the infancy of the World and who most certainly accepted of voluntary dedications of Feasts under the very Law of Moses will not despise under Christianity when they are presented with piety humility and prudence But if any shall perform or enjoyn such Rites under the notion of indispensable duties if they shall value them as the weightier matters of Religion and impose them as such with fierceness and intemperate zeal or if by negative scrupulositie they shall place Religion in the meer abhorrence of them they so far cease to be truly devout and become ridiculously and uncharitably superstitious God hath not required such things at their hands in such manner or such a mighty dread of them neither is he pleased with such Will-worship Softer words are not to be used towards them who so highly exalt their imagination as to make it the measure of Gods Will and inforce those observances or omissions as heavenly Laws which the great Governour of the Church hath left to the discretion of his Christian Subjects Their Usurpation is insufferable who make more duties and sins than God commandeth or forbiddeth And nothing but blind and slavish Superstition subjecteth the neck to their uneasie yoke Let this little suffice here concerning that corruption in the Laws Rites and Motives of Worship it being only spoken in the way to my direct Theme of Idolatry by which the object of Worship is depraved CHAP. II. Of the Notion of Idolatry IDolatry is either Metaphorical or Proper By Metaphorical Idolatry I mean that inordinate love of Riches Honours and bodily Pleasures whereby the passions and appetites of men are made superior to the Will of God Man by so doing making as it were a God of himself and his sensual temper The Covetous man worshippeth Mammon he valueth his Gold 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the language of Philo as a Divine Image As if the Image of God were cast in eminent manner in that thick Clay spoken of by the Prophet with which the Issachars of the world do lade themselves Such Idolatrous estimation of Money gave to a Mine in Friebert which contained in it exceeding rich Ore that high and mighty name of Himmelfurst or the Prince of Heaven The Ambitious man rather than he will want high place or popular fame he will in unjust Wars and unreasonable Duels offer himself a sacrifice to Honour an Idol on whose Altars more blood hath been profusely shed than on those of Moloch or Bellona To the Glutton as Tertullian in his Book of Fasting saith of him after his sharp manner His Belly is his God his Paunch is his Altar his Cook is his Priest his Sawces are his Graces and his Belching is Prophesie The unchast man owns nothing so Divine as his Harlot and borroweth the phrases of his Courtship from the Goddesses and the Shrines the Temples and the Altars of the Theologers of the Gentiles that is their Poets Now this excessive value of the things of the World is a very high and impious presumption But because it setteth not up Mammon or the Appetite as a god or an object of Religious worship therefore I call it Metaphorical and not Proper Idolatry in which latter subject only I am at present engag'd This kind of Idolatry which I call Proper is by many supposed a matter of nice and difficult speculation They think the notion of it too abstruse for common heads yea too hard for some Scholastick ones which are not very accurate in dividing a Cummin-seed And yet the Holy Writers do every-where reprove the people for this sin supposing its nature to be commonly understood and sure it is no other than that which is briefly describ'd by St. Cyprian and Hilary Then saith St. Cyprian is Idolatry committed when the Divine Honour is given to another So Hilary the Roman Deacon sometimes mistaken for St. Ambrose doth in this place the nature of Idolatry That it usurpeth the Honour of God and challengeth it in right of the creature Not unlike to these descriptions is that which we find in the Book of the Reformation of Ecclesiastical Laws begun by Henry the Eighth Idolatry saith that Book is a Worship in which not the Creator but the creature or some figment of man is adored To this worship of the Creature the Scripture doth frequently give the name of uncleanness This it hath done partly in compliance with the Jewish Idiom which calleth any thing that is detestable dirty or unclean the persons of that people being desecrated by corporal pollutions It hath also done it by reason of those very unchast Actions and Rites by which many of the Idols of the Gentiles were served though in the worship
principally the Sun though great men likewise when deified after their deaths obtained that Name as a Title of highest renown And from the many names of Canonized Heroes given to the Sun hath risen a great part of that uncertainty and confusion with which the Reader is perplexed in the Labyrinths of Heathen Mythologers This however is generally confessed that the Sun was the first Idol instead of which why Jarchi hath put men or herbs into the first place is hard to understand till he come and be his own Elias Maimonides begins with the Stars and he hath ground not only from natural Reason but from the Authority also of Job and Moses Job thus expresseth the Idolatry of those ancient times in which he lived If I beheld the sun when it shined or the Moon walking in brightness And my heart hath been secretly enticed or my mouth hath kissed my hand If with devotion of Soul or profession of outward Ceremony I have worshipped those heavenly bodies which by their heighth motion and lustre ravish the senses This also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge for I should have denied the God that is above Moses giveth caution to the people of Israel who were coming out of that Idolatrous Land of Egypt and were journeying towards Idolatrous Canaan who were coming from temptation and going likewise towards it That when they lifted up their eyes to the Heavens they should arm their minds against that inchantment to which they were subject by the sensible glory of the Sun Moon and Stars Rabbi Levi Ben Gerson glossing upon this place in Moses Observeth that the Sun is first named because his vertues are most manifest The most ancient inhabitants of the World saith Diodorus Siculus meaning them that lived soon after the Flood and particularly the Egyptians contemplating the World above them and being astonished with high admiration at the nature of the Universe believed that there were eternal Gods and that the two principal of them were the Sun and the Moon Of which they called the first Osiris and the second Isis. And of late years when the Mariners Compass directed men to a new World in America peopled no doubt from several distant parts of the old many different Idols were found in peculiar places but for the Sun it was a Deity both in Mexico and Peru. Babylon was the Mother of this kind of Idolatry not Egypt as the Author de Dea Syria and some in Diodorus Siculus who make Sol the first King of it have erroneously conjectured For Egypt was not a Nation when the Sun began to be worshipped in Chaldea where Ur it may be in aftertimes with respect to the worship of that hot Luminary was a kind of lesser Babylon Babylon infected Egypt Assyria Phaenicia and they spread the contagion throughout the World To the worship of the Sun Moon and Stars and other appearances in Heaven or the Air such as Comets and Meteors for the worship of the former was apt to draw on that of the latter succeeded the false Religion towards Heroes confounded as I guess with original Demons or Angels And this came to pass in the days of Serug according to Eusebius Epiphanius and Syncellus The Sun was no sooner called Bel Baal or El that is Lord or Governour but the souls of men of renown were also flattered with like Appellations and became properly the Idols of the people Nimrod and Osiris were Baals and the King of Phaenicia was Bel and they had Religious veneration payed to them If other Demons were worshipped as no doubt they were being permitted to appear to them it is a question whether the Gentiles did not by them misunderstand the deified Souls of some of their Ancestors distinctly or confusedly remembred rather than natural Genii or Angels For such Beings owed much of their manifestation as such to the Tradition conveyed in the Loyn of Abraham and Moses The worship of Demons was followed by that of Pillars or Artless Monuments of remembrance Such a Monument was that Pillar anointed by Jacob. It was no Idol in the quality in which he made it but a Record of the Divine presence But it is commonly thought that others did take from it a pattern of their follies Statues or Images were of a like antient date as is plain from the History of the Teraphim though Artists were then rare The infancy of this new World being also the infancy both of Mechanical and Liberal Arts. Idolaters likewise chose for their Deities living Statues such as the Bull in Egypt for the heavenly Taurus according to Lucian or rather for the Deity of the Sun or of an Hero according to truth Pausanias in his Survey of Greece findeth Stones sharpened at the top to have been the earliest Symbols of their Gods They were it may be Cones relating to the Sun the parent of fire which as was before noted ascendeth a Pyramis and was thought to be an element of Triangular figure by the ancient Philosophers of Greece Scaliger in that learned Appendix of his to his Book of the Emendation of the accounts of time doth mention Rude Stones as the original Statues in Phenicia What the first Symbols amongst the Romans were is not distinctly understood One would guess by Numa's Temple they were Symbols of the Universe But for particular Images we have it upon the good authority of a most learned Roman That an Hundred and Seventy years were passed ere they came in amongst them Under Christianity the vanity and veneration of Images succeeded the Symbol of the Cross. At this day the Barbarians on the Coasts of Africa reverence Stones like our greater Land-marks as Fetiches or Divine Statues believing them to be as ancient as the World it self It appeareth by this short account of the Original of Idols that they may plead antiquity But still their age is nothing if we compare it to his who is God everlasting CHAP. V. Of those who are charged with Idolatry and of the conformity or inconformity of their worship to the Nature of Idolatry Of Gentiles Jews Mahometans Christians Amongst them who have professed Christianity of the Gnosticks Manichees Arrians Socinians Roman-Catholicks the real Catholicks of the Communion of the Church of England And first of the Idolatry charged on the Gentiles PART 1. How far the Gentiles were Ignorant of one Supreme God I Have insisted hitherto on the Nature Occasions and Commencement of Idolatry The next consideration shall extend to the persons charged with it and in the first place to them who have first and most generally transgressed that is to say the Gentiles Concerning their worship it is here proper for me to attempt the resolution of three Questions First Whether the Gentiles acknowledged one Supreme God Secondly Whether they made Religious Application to him Thirdly Whether upon the concession of such acknowledgment and Application they may be and really are chargeable with
sense of St. Cyprian's words in his conclusion of the Book de Bono Patientiae Jesus Is he who was silent in his sufferings but will not be so afterwards when he executeth vengeance This is our God not the God of all but the God of the Faithful and of them who believe Him most dear Brethren let us expect as our Judg and Avenger God the Father commanded this his Son to be adored And Saint Paul the Apostle mindful of his command saith That God hath exalted him and given him a name above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things Coelestial Terrestrial and Infernal And in the Revelation the Angel forbiddeth John who was willing to worship him and saith See thou do it not for I am thy fellow-servant and of thy Brethren Adore the Lord Jesus CHAP. X. Of the Idolatry with which the Roman-Catholicks are charged and how far they are justly or unjustly accused PART 1. Of the Charge which is drawn up against them BY Roman-Catholicks I mean those who pretending to own the Doctrine of the Universal Church and to submit to the Discipline of it as it is derived from the supposed Fountain and Head of it the Bishop of Rome do confess the Faith of the Council of Trent These also are guilty of worshipping Idols if the multitude of Accusers createth guilt to omit as yet the Arguments which move so many to that accusation Mr. Thorndike supposeth them accused when he affirmeth That they who separate from them as Idolaters are thereby Schismaticks before God As also when he saith They who charge the Papists to be Idolaters let them not lead the people by the Nose to believe that they can prove their Supposition when they cannot Accused then they are and their Accusers are neither few nor of inconsiderable quality I mean not here the Mahometans and Jews so much as the Christians who are of this judgment The Mahometans are the professed enemies of visible Idols and in some places where they have unhappily succeeded in their Invasions of Christendom they have been as fierce and zealous Iconoclasts as any to whom that name has been given And of such zeal the Jews would give external signs if they had equal power Of both the learned Grotius saith That they are much diverted from Christianity by the Images which they see cast in the way before them The Christians of the Greek Church use painted Tables But many of them if many there be of the same faith with their late Patriarch of Alexandria S. Cyril do think of the Images of Roman-Catholicks as of so many Idols That Patriarch being askt what the Grecians thought of Images returned this Answer not as his private opinion but as the Faith of the Oriental Church the members of which he personateth in that Confession We do not reprobate the noble Art of Painting So far are we from that extreme that we allow to such as please the Pictures of Jesus and his Saints But for the adoration and worship of them we detest it as contrary to the Scripture and lest instead of God we should ignorantly worship Colour Artifice Creatures He indeed useth the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I rend'red Adoration but he joineth it with the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I translate Worship and which St. Paul useth in setting forth the Idolatrous adoration of Angels by the Gnosticks And it is certain by his scope that he meaneth the Worship of Rome Modern and he elsewhere calleth it superstitious and that which smelleth rank of Idolatry Touching those Christians who are known by the Title of the Reformed they judg it one great part of their Reformation that they have purged their Churches of Romish Idols The Confession of Helvetia rejecteth as Idolatrous not only the Idols of the Heathens but the Images also of those who have taken upon them the Christian name The general Confession of Scotland to which the Royal Family and many others of condition subscribed calleth Transubstantiation a blasphemous opinion meaning thereby that blasphemy which saith a Creature is God and supposing that the Object under the shews of bread is bread though set apart to a Religious use The Confession called the Consent of Poland having declamed against many of the Usages of Rome and imputed much of the Turks success in Christendom to Gods displeasure at them proceedeth to an Address to Christ by a Prayer in which he is beseeehed to blot out Idols Errors and Abominations The Confession of Strasburg rejecteth that Worship of Images which is practised in the Roman Church as contrary to the Scripture and to the sense of the ancient Church citing to this purpose the Epistle of Epiphanius and its Translation by St. Hierom as also the Authorities of Lactantius and Athanasius The Augustan Confession condemneth the Invocation of Saints as a custom which transferreth to men the honour which is due to God only and which ascribeth Omnipotence to the dead by attributing to them the knowledg of the Heart The Confession of Saxony saith of the Invocation of Saints both that it leadeth from God and that it ascribeth Omnipotence to the Creature And it seteth upon the Worship both of Saints and Images the reproachful brand of an Heathenish corruption The Confession of Wirtemburgh though being mindful of the difficulties of its own absurd Consubstantiation it condemneth not the Worship of Christ under the shews of Bread in the Church of Rome as an Idolatrous practice though it granteth that it is possible with God to change the Elements into the Body and Blood of Christ yet it doth not express such favour towards their Worship of Saints It condemneth the Invocation of them according to the Roman Litanies as a practice which ascribeth to them such ubiquity and such knowledg of the Heart as belongeth to God only The Confession of Bohemia allowing some publick Festivals in memory of the Virgin and other Saints does yet suppose that Worship of them which is used in the Church of Rome to be an honour and adoration due to God The Confession of Basil speaking of such precepts and permissions under the Papacy as it esteemeth unlawful doth number the Invocation of Saints and Veneration of Images amongst those things which by virtue of the second Commandment are prohibited by God In the French Synods of the Reformed there is frequent mention of Romish Idolatry For the Church of England she designed in her Articles briefness and avoidance of disputes and having professed the Faith of one God and one Lord Jesus Christ she doth not insist particularly on the Invocation of Saints or the Worship of Images Yet in her twenty-second Article concerning Purgatory she saith of that and of the Romish Doctrine touching Pardons Worship and Adoration as well of Images as of Relicks and also of Invocation of Saints
That it is a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture but rather repugnant to the Word of God Now what can we judg of that Worship which hath for its object something else besides God and is contrary to the Scripture We cannot but think it not a mere impertinence but a wicked act an act which by contradicting his Authority diminisheth his honour and being an act of Worship nothing less than one degree of Idolatry Again in its twenty-eighth Article it teacheth concerning the consecrated Elements That they were not by Christs institution or ordinance reserved carried about lifted up and worshipped By which words it noteth the Adoration of the Host in the Church of Rome not as an innocent circumstance added by the discretion of that Church but as an unlawful worship though it doth not expresly brand it with the name of Idolatry In the Rubrick after the Communion the Adoration of the consecrated Elements is upon this reason forbidden Because the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances And it is there added That they so remaining the Adoration of them would be Idolatry to be abhorred by all faithful Christians This Rubrick doth in effect charge the Church of Rome with gross Idolatry for it supposeth the Object which they materially worship to be in its natural substance still a creature and a creature disjoined from Personal union with Christ and not according to the words of their St. Thomas inserted into their Missal a Deity latent under the accidents of Bread and Wine And it concludeth that the worship of such a substance is such Idolatry as Christian Religion abhorreth It doth not indeed affirm in terms that the worship of such a substance by a Romanist who verily thinks it to be not bread but a Divine body is Idolatry but it saith that whence such a conclusion may be inferred It saith that the bread is still bread in its substance and if it be really such whilst it is worshipped the mistake of the worshipper cannot alter the nature of the thing though according to the degrees of unavoidableness in the causes of his ignorance it may extenuate the crime Upon supposition that still 't is very bread in its substance Costerus and it may be Bellarmine himself would have condemned the Latria of it as the Idolatrous worship of a Creature even in Paul the simple of whom stories say that he was extreamly devout but withal that he knew not which were first the Apostles or the Prophets And here it ought to be well noted that there is a wide distance betwixt this saying That Idolatry is a damnable sin and this assertion That Idolatry in any degree of it and in a person under any kind of circumstances actually damneth I would here also commend it to the observation of the Reader that the Church of England speaketh this of the worship of the corporal substance of the Elements present in the Eucharist after consecration and not of the real and essential presence of Christ. And for this reason it left out the terms of Real and Essential used in the Book of King Edward the sixth as subject to misconstruction Real it is if it be present in its real effects and they are the essence of it so far as a Communicant doth receive it for he receiveth it not so much in the nature of a thing as in the nature of a priviledg But I comprehend not the whole of this Mystery and therefore I leave it to the explication of others who have better skill in untying of knots In the Commination used by the Church of England 'till God be pleased to restore the Discipline of Penance a curse is denounced against all those who make any carved or molten Image to worship it And it is the curse which is in the first place denounced on Ash-Wednesday It is true that it is taken out of the Book of Deuteronomy and it is the sense of a verse in that Book used at large in the former Common-Prayer-Book in these words Cursed is the man that maketh any carved or molten Image an abomination to the Lord the work of the hands of the craftsman and putteth it in a secret place to worship it That is though it be done without scandal to men and in such private manner as to avoid the punishment which the Law inflicteth on known and publick offenders But the Church of England repeating this Law in its Commination doth thereby own it to be still of validity and to oblige Christian men The Homilies which are an Appendage to our Church do expresly arraign the Roman-Catholicks as Idolaters in the learned Discourses of the peril of Idolatry Also English Princes and Bishops have declared themselves to be of the same perswasion King Edward the sixth in his Injunctions reckoneth Pictures and Paintings in the Churches of England as adorned by the Romanists amongst the Monuments of Idolatry Of the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth this is the Thirty-fifth That no persons keep in their houses any abused Images Tables Pictures Paintings or other Monuments of feigned Miracles Pilgrimages Idolatry and Superstition Of the Articles of Inquiry in the first year of her Reign this is one and pertinent to our present Discourse Whether you know any that keep in their Houses any undefaced Images Tables Pictures Paintings or other Monuments of feigned and false Miracles Pilgrimages Idolatry and Superstition and do adore them especially such as have been set up in Churches Chappels and Oratories This likewise is one of the Articles of Visitation set forth by Cranmer Arch-bishop of Canterbury in the second year of Edward the sixth Whether Parsons c. have not removed and taken away and utterly extincted and destroyed in their Churches Chappels and Houses all Images all Shrines Pictures Paintings and all other Monuments of Idolatry and Superstition Bishop Jewel's opinion is so well known that his words may be spared And that Confession of Faith which he penned and which maketh a part of his Apology for the Church of England and in which he calleth the Invocation of Saints in the Church of Rome a practice vile and plainly Heathenish is put into the collection of the Confessions of the Reformed under the Title of the English Confession But the Churches Confession it cannot be called with respect to her Authority which did not frame it whatsoever it be in its substance and in its conformity to her Articles For others of the Church of England a very Learned person the Hannibal and Terrour of Modern Rome hath named enough T. G. hath indeed excepted against many of the Jury but whether he hath not illegally challenged so many of them remaineth a Question or rather it is with the Judicious out of dispute The sentences of private men spoken on this occasion both here and beyond the Seas either broadly or indirectly are scarce to be
remarkable passage in his life and actions which may serve to excite the hope of the Suppliant to obtain redress by means of his intercession in a case which he conceives to bear a sutableness and conformity to something acted or suffered by him Now the efficacy of Prayer being grounded on hope and it being natural to us to hope for redress where others have found it or where it may more reasonably be expected by reason of some particular qualification we apprehend in the person to whom we address it is manifest that as the abovesaid reflexion serves to erect our hope so also it conduceth to the end of Prayer that is the obtaining of what we pray for Hence it is that although all the Divine Attributes are really one and the same indivisible Perfection in God yet for pardon we flye to his Mercy for knowledg to his Wisdom for protection to his Power c. And S. Paul assigns the remission of our sins to the Passion of Christ but our Justification by which we rise to newness of life to his Resurrection He was delivered to death for our sins and rose again for our justification The reason whereof he gives in the Epistle to the Hebrews c. 2. v. 18 where he saith That it behoved Christ to be made like his brethren in all things that he might be a merciful and faithful High-priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people For saith he in that he suffered himself being tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted That is by what he suffered himself he is made prompt and ready to succour those who are in affliction and temptation For it was true even of his most Sacred Humanity what the Poet out of the very nature of humanity made another say Hand Ignara mali miseris succurrere disco that by his own sufferings he had learnt how to compassionate the sufferings of others And this was laid down by S. Paul as a powerful argument to perswade the Hebrews to put their hope in him for their reconciliation with God because he was so particularly qualified and fitted for that work by what he had suffered Why then may not a like consideration of the fitness or qualification of one Saint above others as so conceived by us either for his eminent perfection in such a particular virtue or some other remarkable passage in his life be taken as a motive to invite us to address for the obtaining what we stand in need of to his intercession before others The Scripture we know to persuade us to patience in adversity bids us reflect upon the sufferings of Job and why may not his eminence in that virtue as it serves for an example of our imitation be also taken as a particular motive of our having recourse to his intercession And when Jacob blessed the two sons of Joseph Ephraim and Manasses among so many Angels whose assistance he might have implored he begs for that Angel in particular to be their Guardian who had delivered him out of all his troubles The Angel said he who delivered me from all evils bless these children And why but because he thought that he who had been so careful to deliver him would be as careful to deliver them And upon this account were I in danger of being shipwrackt I should sooner flye to the Intercession of S. Paul who had saved by his prayers all his fellow-passengers in the ship from being drowned than to another who had never been in the like danger Behold here then the crime of Catholicks in calling particularly upon the Angel Raphael when they travel because he protected young Tobias in his journey upon S. Roch against the Plague because his charity was signal in assisting those who were infected with it upon S. Nicholas against Tempests because he saved some by his prayers who in a storm at Sea invoked him while yet alive upon S. Apollonia for the Tooth-ach because all her teeth were struck out for her free confession of Christ and upon S. Michael and S. George against Enemies because the latter was by profession a Soldier and a most valiant Martyr and the former is recorded in Scripture to be the Protector of the people of God This excuse hath much more of ingenuity in it than that of Alexander Hales Because said he we miserable men or some of us at least are more affected sometimes towards some certain Saint than towards our Lord himself therefore God having compassion on our misery is pleased that we should pray unto his Saints As if God would indulge us in so unworthy and irreligious a passion The former excuse I say is much more plausible yet it is invalid and may be shewn to be so by these following Considerations First It is acknowledged that Christs sympathy is one motive of our trust when we pray to him but it is the Divinity which he possesseth and not the infirmity which he suffered which inviteth us at this distance to call upon him Secondly If there were as much ground to think that the Saints know our particular states as there is to believe their charity for the Church in general it might not be improper to apply our selves to such whose former circumstances do best befit our present ones Thirdly Though the sympathy of the Saint be a direction to him or her how doth this direct Mariners to the Virgin Mary in a Tempest She was never that they are assured of in peril by Sea neither know they that she ever crossed a greater Water than that of Jordan or Nilus If they take their ground from the derivation of the Name Mary as signifying saith Xaverius Ruler of the Sea on what an uncertain foundation do they build Nothing is more apt to deceive us than fanciful Etymology And for this word Xaverius confesseth it may signifie High or the bitterness of the Sea also And L. de Dieu hath shewed that it may as well denote a drop of the Sea If they answer with this Author That not only the sympathy of the Saint but some miracle wrought after supplication exciteth our hope and encourageth to pray That subterfuge shall be anon consider'd In the mean time I only put this short question What was it that excited the first man that pray'd to such a Saint Not a miracle in answer of prayer for the first prayer is sure before its answer Fourthly Though many Saints have a like sympathy and may by license of the Roman Church be allowed to be prayed to apart or together though they do not shut these Coelestial Patrons out of one anothers Provinces but suffer St. James to be prayed to in England and St. George in Spain yet this doth not hinder the impiety of praying to any of them as subordinate rulers under God They are still Patrons though some of them be a kind of joint-Patentees and one or other of
spake to you in Horeb from the midst of the fire which that most wise Lawgiver therefore said lest being seduced by error or mistake they should make an Image of the Divinity and so give the honour due to God unto a creature Yet that such Images are made and honoured in the Roman Church is very notorious And it is not long since here in England some Protestants saw a silver Image of God the Father carried in Procession in the Passion-week and venerated with shews of high devotion The Learned who are cautious forbear the open defence of such Images yet they call them Judaizers who esteem the worship of God by them to be Idolatry And in their discourses they seem to favour this Practice so far as the tenderness of that subject will suffer it to be touched by saying there is no. express Text against it together with other very kind expressions which discover their inclination Also the frequency and allowance of such Pictures which under their strict Discipline is scarce to be imputed to the liberty of Painters and Engravers she weth many Ecclesiasticks to be well-willers to them though not as true representations the heresie of the gross Anthropomorphites being as such renounced by them I instance only in that frontispiece which is put before every of the three parts of the Roman Pontifical Printed at Lyons There on the Top in a very wooden cut is pictured an old man with a Globe in his hand and a glory streaming from all parts of him On his head there is a Triple Crown or Miter and over it this Motto Holy-Trinity one God have mercy upon us At the bottom the Pope is plac'd in a like Garb with Miter and Key and a glory about his head I do not say that the worship of such Images is Idolatry by virtue of the first or with us the second command considered as a Mosaical precept The Tables of stone themselves have long ago been broken in funder in that sense even by the very finger of God For we are not under the Law of Moses but under the Covenant of the Gospel But if there be any natural reason in that Law it is eternal and unalterable like the great Author of it By virtue of that precept it was as many think unlawful for any Jew to make any protuberant statue either of God or Demon or Man or Animal and much more to exhibit signs of reverence before them For the very making of Images would have induced that ritual people to the worship of them they wanting little besides an outward object to receive the signs of their inward inclination And if they had exhibited such signs before an Image the Gentiles would have expounded them as a compliance with their worship Of these things God was jealous and therefore gave command that the Monster of Idolatry should not exâ—…t so much 〈◊〉 in any seed or Embrio of it And whenâ—…ever men are in such circumstances that an Image is a snare to themselves and to others an apparent scandal or a confirmation of them in their evil way this command doth oblige them by parity of Reason And in the days of Tertullian The Christians seem to have been nigh such circumstances being â—…ngled amongst the Heathen and so prone to their works that as he in an holy indignation professeth there were more lights hung out at the doors of the Christians then at those of the Heathen themselves Lights not for the direction of the passengers but for the honour of Idols He therefore sutably to the exigence of that time urged the second command with a kind of Mosaick strictness and declamed against all Statuaries and Painteâ—… as Artists of the Common-wealth of darkness But a Reason there is in that command which doth always oblige and the force of it reacheth to mankind Two things I suppose are perpetually forbidden by it The first is the making of any Image of any false God and the honouring of it in that quality when it is made I say in that quality for it is not unlawful to carve or paint the Images of false gods by way of story or in order to the exposing of them in the particulars in which they are ridiculous or to value them if they be ancient and done by good hands as rarities of price and he hath little of judgment or charity who condemns every Antiquary as an Idolater The Genevians have usually here in their Houses the Pictures of Calvin and Luther and such others together with those of the Pope and the Devil spending vainly their breath against the Light which they had set up And we suffer in England the Pictures of false gods in the Ovid of Mr. Sandys as well as they do in Italy the Images of Cartari The second thing is the attempting the representation of the true God and the worshipping of it as his Image I say the attempting of it to avoid the Cavil of the Author of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for he mocketh at this ground of the command namely because Gods infinite essence cannot be represented as a reason which idly establisheth a Law from the impossibility of the breaking of it And he profanely compares it to the reason of the Monsieur who forbad his Bowyer to make him shafts of a Pigs Tail because no shafts could be made of it And yet it is a reason insisted on by the very Catechism of the Council of Trent above-cited But who knows not that such an Image was forbidden not properly to be made or perfected but to be attempted to be made because the workman would fail in his attempt not only to his own shame but the dishonour of the true God The Idols of the Heathen might be represented For being nothing but creatures of God or Phantasms the creatures of their brains they were capable of some resemblance They appeared to the eye and in a Picture in the fancy and consequently might be imitated by mans Art But the essence of God is like nothing that is finite neither like Man nor like the Heavens which latter Diodorus most falsly and irrationally maketh to be the God of Moses adding that therefore he forbad all Images of him in humane figure whilst he forbad the likeness of any thing in the Heavens Earth or Waters Nor can Gods essence so appear by it self as to shew its very self We have a notion of God but no proper Idea of him for that importeth in the force of the word an object with its Imagery perceived in the brain Hence the Synod of Nice it self did not favour any Images of the Divinity But ere I proceed further in this Argument I think it necessary to premise a distinction of Images and to consider how much or how little of the Idol is in each of them Of Images then I consider four sorts taking the liberty to call them Images of Analogy of Memory of Representation of Presence By Images of
cannot be expressed by a pencil of light it self though one very lately reviving the error of the Manichees hath made the Sun his Throne and the right hand of God The Crucifix was made of old and admitted into private houses and at last into Churches But it was first used as a Picture for the help of memory not as a statue in formal place on a Pedestal at which it might be worshipped Hear in this matter St. Gregory the great a man of some insight into the practice of the Church This is part of his Letter to Secundinus We have sent to you Images and we do not amiss if by visible things we represent things not seen I am perswaded that you desire not the image of Christ with intent to worship it as a God but that by remembrance of the Son of God you may be more warmed in his love whose image you think you look upon And for our selves we are not prostrate before it as before a God but we worship him whom we call to mind by his Image not as born or crucified but as sitting on his Throne And whilst the Picture like a writing brings to our memory the Son of God it either rejoyceth our mind with the Resurrection of Christ or asswageth it by his Passion The same St. Gregory when Serenus Bishop of Marseille had in an holy zeal broken those Images which he saw adored does wish he had not broken them but that preventing the worship of them he had still retained them as Historical Monuments helpful to the memories of the vulgar I am not against any thing which may be serviceable as an help to devotion Men stand enough in need But there are better helps by far than these And in the Church which is the house of oral and living instruction they serve not much further than for ornament unless the Lay-people come and view them attentively before the beginning of publick service After that the Objects which cause the eye to gaze prevent too much the attention of the ear And yet to say with men who run into extremes that Devotional Pictures are no helps to excite memory and passion is to forget that they are called mute Poems to speak against common sense and to impute less to a Crucifix than to the Tomb of our friend or to a thread on our finger They may be useful as Monitors in a Christian Commonwealth where their worship is plainly and frequently forbidden and by all understood to be so prohibited And it was high superstition in those who in our late unhappy Revolutions defaced such Pictures and brake down such Crosses as Authority had suffered to remain entire whilst it forbad the worship of them and was in that particular so well obeyed that none of them it may be ever knew one man of the Communion of the Church of England to have been prostrate before a Cross and in that posture to have spoken to it In the Church of Rome there is greater pretence for that violence which vulgar Reformers presume to be holy For the Council of Trent retaineth Images in Churches as Objects of Veneration and the practice both of Priests and people does strangely dilate the words of that Council The Article of the Creed of Trent is this I most firmly profess that the Images of Christ and of the Mother of God always a Virgin as also those of other Saints are to be had and retained especially in Churches and that due honour and veneration is to be given to them Due honour and veneration are in themselves modest words and where we admit the Pictures and Images of Christ we refuse not the honour which is due to them We do not chuse to put them in vile places we do not use them in vile offices we esteem them as ornaments we value them as the Images of persons more honourable than our Prince or our Friend We use them as Remembrancers of the great mystery of mans Redemption which we cannot too frequently be reminded of We condemn the indiscreet zeal of our late pretended Reformers who judged him worthy sequestration who had kept a Picture of Christ in his Parlour and confessed it was to put him in mind of his Saviour We honour such Pictures in a negative sense by being unwilling to have them contemned We think them not fit to be placed in the Pavements of Churches where as St. Bernard in his Apology to Guilielmus Abbas complaineth they are trodden under foot Where people spit into the mouth of the Image of an Angel and tear the face of the Image of a Saint with their clouted shoon We observe and commend the discretion of many Romish Synods since that of Trent which have made Laws against lascivious improper fabulous absurd Images We inveigh not against the first Council of Milan for requiring the Ordinary to summon Statuaries Engravers and Painters and to require them to use their art to the dignity of the Prototype We condemn those Zealots among the Albigenses if such there were who are said in scorn to have framed deformed Images and to have dishonoured the Virgin in a monstrous statue with one eye The zeal of the Church of England has been much more temperate and discreet and so God be thanked it continues at this day It is not rude to any thing set apart for Gods service it would not have a consecrated Chalice quaffed in as a common Bowl it abhorreth the memory of Julian Prefect of the East and Uncle to the Apostate who shewed his irreverence towards the Eucharist by spurning and sitting upon the Communion-Plate of the great Church of Antioch But the Council of Trent seemeth to mean something more than all this by its due honour and veneration It doth not indeed mean absolute Latria or direct Divine honour to be exhibited to the Image it self It hath otherwise explained it self and it condemneth such worship of them It would not have the people believe that there is any Divinity in them or virtue for which they should be worshipped or that any thing is to be asked of them or that trust is to be put in Images after the manner of the Gentiles A like caution is given by the Synod of Cambray Let the people be taught saith a Decree of that Synod that there is no worship due to the Image either for the matter or the beauty or the price and value of its work or for any other thing which may be in the Artifice or substance of the Image but to the thing signified to which this worship and honour is especially referred In like manner they are to be admonished that the mind of the person that prayeth or worshippeth is to be carried to the thing signified and not to the sign which neither hears nor sees nor perceives And some of the Church of Rome do pursue this caution in their Manuals of instruction which they give to
either declaring her resentment of the present Wars or foretelling the cessation of them by her means The Eyes of Venantius Fortunatus were cured of their pain after having been anointed as they say from the Lamp of Saint Martin and Baronius hence proveth as from a certain medium the worship of Images But how if God doth this by Nature or sometimes by miraculous Power for the trial of our Faith Or what if such things should be done by Gods just permission by the Devil himself to men that have renounced their Reason Why then the Devil has their trust and praise instead of God an Idolatry not to be mentioned without religious fear and indignation And doth not the Devil sometimes work such wonders How then come the Books of the Heathens to be fill'd with stories of Miracles wrought in or at their Images as well as those of the Romanists If it be told by the Romanist Lipsius That an Image of the Virgin bled it is also storied by the Heathen Porphyrie That when a certain King endeavour'd to pull an hair from a Statue of the Brachmans the blood gushed out against him Moreover that the Statue did sweat so exceedingly in the heat of the weather that they were forc'd to refresh it with perpetual fanning Lastly If the worshippers of the Images of Saints do honour them only as Shechinahs where the Saints hear better than in other places and as their Chambers of meer Request that they would pray for them they commit a mistake and they think them present when they are not but they give not away Gods Honour which is not infringed by this meer thought that his Saints are in certain places seeing that belongeth to their finite condition But if wise men look for them in any certain place they look for them rather in some space of the clear air than in an Image or a Cave where there may be suspition of Imposture Now though men by this last way of venerating Images do not idolize them as Supreme Gods or as ruling-Daemons yet they offend in the other extreme and disparage them as Saints whilst they make them to chuse such mean and unbecoming Apartments This was the belief of Arnobius with part of whose Confession I will end this Chapter I very grievously reproach'd those whom in my state of Heathenism I thought to be Divine whilst I believ'd them to be Wood Stone Bone or to dwell in the matter of such things CHAP. XIII Of the Idolatry charged without any tolerable colour on the Church of England IT was the wisdom of our Legal Reformers to purge the Church of all manifest Corruptions and particularly of those which had crept in about the Invocation of Saints and the Worship of Images But there arose men of a worse temper and such who usurped Power And these thought that nothing of the old Building was again to be used They were not for sweeping and repairing of Gods House but for razing the very Foundation and sowing the Place with Salt Among our selves saith the Learned Mr. Thorndike meaning not the Sons of the Church but the giddy people of England it seems yet to be a dispute Whether any Ceremonies at all are to be used in the publick Service of God The pretences of this time having extended the imagination of Idolatry so far as to make the Ceremonies and Utensils of Gods Service Idols and the Ceremonies which they are used with Idolatries Nay it was the way of the Fanatical people in the late Civil Wars to give the name of Idol to any thing to which their fancy was not reconcil'd Some call'd the most excellent Father of our Countrey thâ—… Idol of the people With some the Liturgy the Surplice a Church a Steeple was an Idol Neither did there want those who bestow'd that title upon that necessary Doctrine of the Gospel which requireth conditions and qualifications of Holiness in order to acceptance with God through Christ I should run a strange and endless course if I should pursue all their Extravagancies but a few of the most colourable amongst them I will a little consider Those I mean are the three following The first is the bowing towards the Altar The second is the kneeling at the holy Communion The third is the Reverence at the name of Jesus The first of these the bowing towards the Altar is no Command of the Church nor the common practice of it in Parochial Assemblies nor so much as the Counsâ—…l of any of its Canons besides the seventh of those which they call the Canons of Bishop Laud And in that Canon the true spirit of Christian meekness and charity is thus expressed The reviving of this ancient and laudable custom we heartily commend to the serious consideration of all good people not with any intention to exhibit any Religious worship to the Communion-Table but only for the advancement of Gods Majesty and to give him alone that honour and glory that is due unto him and not otherwise And in the practice or omission of this Rule we desire that the Rule of Charity prescribed by the Apostle be observed which is That they which use this Rite despise not them who use it not and that they who use it not condemn not those who use it And little reason there is that those who use it not should condemn those who use it as Idolaters when they publickly declare that they bow not as others to it but towards it to God alone who there exhibits that high favour of renewing by visible tokens and pledges our Covenant with him Our sign of Reverence must be some way exhibited and what Idolatry is there in the exhibition of it this way when 't is but the way not the object of our Religious veneration It is against the common sense of the sign of Incurvation to interpret it as the worship of every thing in a Church before which the sign is made It must be the circumstance of the object and the form of address and the application made to it which determineth its worship Few therefore there are so injudiciously uncharitable as to accuse the Minister of adoring the Church-bible or Common-prayer-book though he often bows and kneels and prays before them Few I say there are that do so for I think his madness singular who in the late Revolutions in England maintained in a publick Pamphlet well worthy sure an Imprimatur that Words in a Book were Images and consequently that to pray before a Book or to use a Book in Prayer is Idolatry or Image-worship It is true concerning the second Ceremony the kneeling at the holy Communion that it is enjoined by our Church but enjoined it is in the quality of a decent circumstance and not as an essential part of the Lords-Supper But we are by no Rubrick or Canon enjoined to kneel to the Sacramental bread which is declared still to be bread though not
the bread of common Tables and not the natural body of Christ Also before the Administration of it which is done in a form of Prayer which requireth our Reverence the people are generally on their knees in devotion to God If any begin then to kneel their kneeling is by the Church declared to be at the Sacrament not to the Elements of it as they of Rome do towards which she alloweth not so much as a Prosopopeia in her Prayers and which are neither the Statues nor the Pictures of Christs Person though they be apt memorials of his Passion and are more safely received in their ordinary form than with such Figures as the Roman Church impresseth upon them of which great variety is to be seen in the Electa of Novarinus Further The Church of England to avoid all pretence of cavil and exception hath besides her Article against the Corporal Presence given to the world an express declaration of her design in the injunction of Kneeling She declareth that this is done in reverence and humility to Christ and not to the shews or substance of the Elements or to the natural body of Christ under the shews of Bread They who are acquainted with the writings of Monsieur Daille have no more reason to think him a Romanist than they have to take Bellarmine for a zealot amongst the Reformed Now this is the acknowledgment of that grave and learned person in his Apology for the Reformed Churches Whilst the Church of England declareth as it doth against the adoration of the external Elements their kneeling at the Communion cannot be taken for the worshipping of the Bread nor be thought any thing else but the worship of Christ himself reigning in the Heavens In this external Adoration of Christ the Church of England followeth the ancient Church which though it often adored by bowing and not kneeling yet sometimes it used that gesture and was never wanting in some sign of Reverence Such Adoration is mentioned by St. Chrysostom and particularly the gesture of kneeling or prostration in some places though Monsieur Larrogne hath not pleased when he had just occasion so to do to take notice of it That eminent Father in his third Homily on the Epistle to the Ephesians thus upbraideth the irreverent and indevout Communicant The Royal Table is prepared the King himself is present and standest thou gaping about Thy Garments are unclean and art not thou at all concerned at it But they are pure that is the Royal Table and the King of that Marriage-Feast wherefore fall down and communicate For the third Ceremony the bowing at the name of Jesus it is also enjoined not as duty in its nature necessary to salvation but as a decent sign of our inward esteem of that inestimable benefit which that name brings to our mind Of that just esteem and not meerly of the outward Ceremony I hope that zealous Gentleman spake who is reported to have wished that every knee might rot which would not bow at the Name of Jesus By bowing at this Name we advance not the Son above the Father but adore the whole Trinity whilst by the cue or sign of this name we are reminded of the greatest mercy that ever God vouchsafed the Name of Jesus displaying the wisdom and mercy of God beyond those of El Jah Adonai or Jehovah And for us to bow when-ever we hear that Name solemnly pronounced is no more to commit Idolatry than is our crying out at the reading of the Gospels Glory be to thee O Lord or O the depth of the riches of Gods mercy in Christ. For these words and that gesture are but external signs of the same inward acknowledgment and adoration And they who think we worship the very name when we bow at it are as grosly mistaken as the ignorant people in Athenaeus for some there mentioned when they heard others cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God save you or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God grant you life at the sneezing of any conceited that they adored either the very sternutation or the brain of man which then discharged it self of the fumes which oppressed it The Church of England doth not enjoin men to bow to the Name of Jesus as to an Object but only at it as at a signal by which they are admonished of the time of paying Reverence to God Neither is there any such form used in our Church as in the Church of Rome which to the Priests travelling into England prescribeth this out of the Missal of Sarum O God who hast made the most glorious name of our Lord Jesus Christ thy only begotten Son amiable to the faithful with the highest affection of suavity and terrible and dreadful to evil spirits mercifully grant that all they who devoutly worship this name on earth may perceive in this present life the sweetness of holy consolation and obtain in the life to come the joy of exultation and endless Jubilee by the same Lord. It is my opinion that the Judicious of that Church mean by that Name our Saviour himself as Redeemer of the World but the Church expresseth it self in such manner that to the people the Name of Jesus soundeth like some distinct adorable object For it speaketh of worshipping that Name it hath the Mass of the Name of Jesus the Litany of the Name of Jesus and such-like Forms which are apt to entangle common Hearers St. Ludgard would have such honour done not only to Christs Name but to that of the Virgin and he adviseth that when these words in the Tc Deum are repeated When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man thou didst not abhor the Virgins womb that then we bow down to the very ground And it is said d of St. Gerard Bishop of Canadium that is of Chonad in Hungary that by his zeal for the honour of the holy Virgin he brought it at length so to pass in that Country that when they heard the Name of our Lady pronounced they straightway fell on their knees and bowed their heads towards the earth And indeed nothing stoopeth lower than Superstition But in the Church of England the bowing is neither that of Superstition nor Idolatry but of Religious Reverence at the hint of a word which setteth forth to us all the dimensions or rather the infinity of the Divine Wisdom and Love Lee not then the ignorance or malice of men who make Court to nothing but their own Diana accuse that excellent Church of Idolatry which hath so carefully purged her self of Idols though not of all manner of Rites That had been to have swept away the convenient Ornaments of Gods house together with the durt of it the name which the Jews give to an Idol Of some in England who have rent themselves from the safe Communion of that Church there may be juster reason for such complaint What can judicious men think of the true
original Quaker but as of one who by believing that God is not distinct from the Saints and by worshipping that which he calls his Light or Christ within him rejecteth the Person of our Redeemer and committeth Idolatry with his own imagination must not they make a like judgment of such as Anna Trapnell who believed for a while that God dwelt essentially in his Saints must not they also judg of Lodowick Muggleton as of a mad-man or of an Impostor selling his Blessings at a very profitable rate or of an Idolater worshipping nothing for the one true God but a confined person of flesh and bones For he owneth no other Godhead than that which was conceived in the womb of the Virgin and circumscribed by it for a season and as he blasphemously continues to speak such as lost it self for a while both in honour and knowledg not knowing till he was glorified that himself was God the Father but that Elias was his God and his Father For that also is one of his Blasphemies That God not finding it safe to trust the Angels upon his descent from Heaven he committed his place to the safer trust of Moses and Elias A blasphemy worse if possible than that in Irenaeus of the extravagant Gnosticks who supposed the place of the Logos to have been on earth supplied by the Angel Gabriel But I forbear any further repetition of his abominable Fancies which will cause as great pain in the ears of pious Christians as the Justice of the Magistrates has lately done in his own I shut up this Chapter with the Prayer of that Learned French-man Isaac Casaubon Thou O Lord Jesu preserve this church of England and give a sound mind to those Nonconformists who deride the Rites and Ceremonies of it CHAP. XIV Of the means which God hath vouchsafed the World towards the cure of Idolatry and more particularly of his favour in exhibiting to that purpose the Shechinah of his Son PART 1. Of the Cure of Idolatry THE Notion of Idolatry being stated and also illustrated by the practice of it amongst Gentiles Jews Mahometans and Professors of Christianity I proceed to shew the means which God in pity of our weakness hath given us towards the Cure of this Evil. Against all manner of false Gods and ruling-Daemons he gave to all the world a Principle of Reason which teacheth that there is one Supreme Being absolute in Perfection and by consequence that he being every-where by Almighty Power Wisdom and Goodness is every-where to be adored and trusted in as the only God The same Principle of Reason teacheth them that God can neither be represented by an Image nor confined to it neither knoweth it much more of the inferiour Powers of the invisible World save that they are and consequently it hath no ground for addresses to them For the Jews they had an express command for the worship of one God without Image and many declarations of God as governing the world by his immediate Providence Also Christian Religion sheweth plainly that the gods of the Heathens were Doemons or evil spirits and that there is but one God and one Mediator to be by Christians adored It establisheth a Church or Corporation of Christians who agree in the worship of one God in Trinity In Baptism or the Sacrament of admittance into that Society it prescribeth a solemn Renuntiation of the Devil and his works of which a part were the Pomps or Processions in honour of Idols In the Sacrament which is a memorial of the Passion of Christ the Head and Founder of this Society it offereth to us the Cup of the Lord in opposition to the cup of Devils On the First-day of the Week set a-part for publick worship it maketh a Remembrance of the Creation of the world by the Son by whom the Father made all things and not by any Doemons as also of the Resurection of Christ from the dead by which he conquered the powers of darkness In the Form of Prayer which our Lord taught the Church it prayeth for deliverance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from that evil one from Satan the destroyer as Rabbi Judah was wont to petition and in the Doxology it ascribeth not with the Heathen world which then lay in maligno illo under the Power of the God of this world in general Idolatry the Kingdom Power and Glory to the Devil but to that one true God who was the Father of Jesus Christ. But upon most of these Subjects I have already inlarged It remaineth therefore that I speak of the means which God hath specially vouchsafed in the case of Images a Subject not commonly discoursed of and hinted only in the former Papers This Disquisition I will begin with the notion of the Invisibility of God proceeding thence to the condescension he vouchsafes towards the very eye and fancy of man in the Shechinah of his Son There is in the very Creation a great part of invisible matter and motion Many things besides God Almighty are not immediately subject to mans sense though his Reason can reach them after a Philosophical consideration of their palpable effects God indeed could have made that matter which is now invisible to have been seen by man in all the minute and curious Textures of it For what should hinder that omnipotence which formed the light and created the soul from framing the Fibers of the Nerves in such delicate manner in this life what possibly he may do in the coelestial body as to give to man a kind of natural Microscope But for his own Divine substance which hath neither limits nor parts nor Physical motion which is the division of Parts nor figure which is inconsistent with immensity nor colour which is an effect of figure and motion upon the brain it is certain that in this body we cannot see it and there is great reason to doubt whether we can do so in any other which though it be coelestial is still but body For this sight then we are not to hope unless we mean it of the fuller knowledg of Gods will and interpret the antecedent by the consequent in that place of Scripture which saith No man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father he hath reveal'd him St. John in that place denieth expresly actual sight as also he doth again in his first Epistle Tertullian in his refutation of Praxeas discourseth of the invisibility of God and the visibility of the Son of God illustrating his sense by the appearance of the Sun which is not seen in its very body but by its rays And he further noteth of St. Paul that he had to this purpose denied both the actual and potential sight of God No man said that Apostle hath seen God nor can see him No man whilest alive can see God as he is as he dwells in Heaven the Palace and
Joshua flat to the ground when the Prince of the Host of God appeared to him The like proof is produced by the Catechism of Trent from the blessing which Jacob obtained of the Angel with whom he strugled If Christ were considered as the Angel of the great Council appearing in cases of moment under the Old Testament and receiving the veneration most due to him the Worshippers of Angels would either change their weapons or quite lay them down Then touching the Worship of Images this notion is very serviceable in that controverted point as likewise in the point of making either Religious Sâ—…atues or Pictures If any thing of the Divinity be to be portraied we learn from hence what it may be not the Godhead but the Shechinah That is visible and the expressing of it with the best lights and shadows of Art may therefore be not unlawful though I know not whether I ought to plead for the expediency of it in common use There was it seems in a Frontispiece of our Common-Prayer Books some such Embleme The word Jehovah and a three corner'd radiant light and clouds and Angels He that took notice of this in Print and might have observed the like before some of the great Church-Bibles and somewhat worse the picture of a Dove with rays of glory before the Biblia Polyglotta did not well to call it a representing of God and to charge that upon the Church which was the fancy of the Engraver and Printer I have already noted a much worse Frontispiece in each of the three parts of the Pontifical where God is pictured as man And in those days in which the Bishop of Rome ruled in England there were Emblemes apt to suggest a very dangerous fancy to common brains Pictures of the Trinity in three conjoined heads of human Figure And so ordinary they were that they served as Signs to the Shops of Stationers as now do the Heads of a King or a Bishop And he that printed the Pupilla Oculi of de Burgo was pleased to stamp his Sign in that manner on the Title-page of the Book Nay in the late Missal reprinted at Paris there is none of the best faces of an Old man pictured amongst Clouds and Angels over the Crucifix before the Canon of the Mass. And though I know not how to commend these things yet I will not blame them as acts of their whole Church It does not any-where appear to me that the Jews of old pictured the Ark or the Temple though now they make models of the whole How near they come to the Original I cannot tell but it is certain that in picturing the Sanctuary above we create a Phantasm which needs much to be helped by our Reason and Faith it being in it self not equal in glory to those of the Sun and the Rainbow It is true that Pictures are but signs and that words are so too but it is not expedient to describe all things by the pencil which come from the voice Words are Signs without Imagery in them and they are transient Ye heard a voice only but ye saw no similitude saith God Almighty to the people to whom he forbade Images Words are properly the symbols of the conceptions of the mind and not of the external object They are notes of memory and helps of discourse They are in themselves a kind of spiritual and immaterial marks And though sometimes especially in Poetick characters they bring to the fancy some present representation yet they thereby fix a notion rather than a proper constant phantasm unless where fancy is indulged and they do not so grosly impress upon the brain the Image they convey as a material Picture which having also some tangible substance to sustain it is apt to be transform'd into an object of worship distinct from the Prototype in dull and sensitive minds Besides when by words we convey to the mind a representation of Heaven or the Shechinah of God we rest not there but following the pattern of the Holy writers we offer to the mind what the Painter cannot to the eye this further document that we have not by far reached the original and that it is indeed beyond all expressions but those of admiration When any such Pictures hang before us we should in this manner exalt the phantasm into mental astonishment and not dwell on the mean portraict but refine and exalt it by the assistance of the words of Scripture which call the Shechinah the excellent Glory the Throne before which the Cherubims fall down with vailed face the light inaccessible in which God dwells The Throne of the Lamb who is brighter than the Sun words by which the Pen assisteth us beyond any Pencil of Angelo or Titian yet neither are their devotional pieces where they mix not as Angelo doth in his portraict of the Judgment Heaven and Christian Images Charon and Christ to be despis'd either as ornaments or hints of memory In the Catechism of the Council of Trent the Parish-Priest is required to take care that Images be made Ad utriusque Testamenti cognoscendam Historiam for procuring the knowledg of the History of the Bible And well it had been if it had stayed there but it proceeds in requiring the Priest to teach the people that Images of Saints are placed in Churches ut Colantur that they may be worship'd either the Images or the Saints by them Better sure it were to remove Images quite out of the Church than to leave them as such stumbling-blocks for the commonalty who are Children in understanding When they see them only at a distance with their eye they may sometimes instruct them and afford them hints of very good meditations but when they are directed to bow down before them and to them also though with distinctions which the vulgar understand not they then are if Laymens Books Books of Magick rather than of Christian Piety God you see hath provided a better remedy for mankind His Son hath taken our nature into unity of person and he offers himself to us as an object shining with glory and power in the Heavens though not there in his Godhead confined and therefore to use any Image of him otherwise then to be a hint to us of his more glorious one at Gods right hand is to direct our devotion to the light of rotten Wood or Gold or Pearl when we have the Sun in the Firmament If we worship Christs Image as apart from him we do in effect divide Christ. If we worship it together with him we in effect multiply Christ joyning a second lifeless body to his glorious one and by that means adoring it as if it were in personal union with him They are safe who say with S. Jerome “ We venerate only one Image to wit Jesus Christ the Image of the Invisible and Omnipotent God When the Father brought this brightness of his glory and the express Image of his
Dervi or Turkish Monks shewed him the Sepulchres of the Relations of Chederle and would have gladly perswaded him that many benefits were daily conferred from Heaven on those who at those chres petitioned them for assistance Francis Barton a learned English man and no stranger in Turkey discoursing of the manners of that people giveth this as an instance of their Veneration of Saints The Admiral saith he of the Imperial Fleet during fourteen days before he set sail was obliged to go once a day to the Sepulchre of Isuppus an eminent and fortunate Warrier and there to pray for success Septem-Castrenses was detained many years among the Mahometans And he in the fifteenth Chapter of his Book de Turcarum Moribus is large in mentioning their Guardian-Heroes in whom they put subordinate trust One it seems is called Sedichast which they interteth Holy Conquerour or Victorious among the Saints And of him he saith it is the common opinion that no man was ever sent away unanswered who in any necessity prayed to him for succour especially in any emergency of War He is as he proceeds as famous among the Turks as St. Anthony among some Christians Another is called Harschi Pettesch which they interpret The help of Travel He is he saith much invoked and reverenced by strangers and pilgrims and as they report not in vain A third is called Ascick passa as much as to say Patron of love and he is invoked in Matrimonial cases A fourth is called Gotvel mirtschin and is a kind of Patron of Cattel To him saith Septemcastrensis my Mistress prayed and vowed to make him a yearly present of Butter for the Custody of her Kine which also she performed And as he goes on she would have perswaded me to have invoked him that the Sheep I kept might by him have been protected from the Wolves that infested us If all this be true and the Mahometans invoke so many other Heroes methinks they should not forget for ever to call on Mahomet himself the Prince of their Saints and their chief Intercessor with God For the honour they do to the Relick of his Sandal preserved at Mecha For their worshipping of the place where they supposed Abraham to have dwelt For their embracing and kissing the stone Brachthan on which they say Abraham accompanied with Hagar Lastly for their moving round about a statue of stone erected in the midst of the Temple at Mecha with stooping shoulders one hand lifted up and another on one of the ears till a Vertigo lays them on the floor a thing it seems told Zigabemus by a Turk turned Christian I forbear to enlarge â—…pon them and leave the whole to the Perusers of such Authors as Tavernier Benjamin Zigabenus Busbequius Barton A. I must needs be satisfied with the authorities you have brought There remain divers Animadversions yet behind but I will neither tire you or my self any further I see 't is easier to raise Cavils than to write any thing that is not liable to them I beg your pardon for the rude Interruption I have given you and think my self obliged in common civility to bid you Adieu B. You have not offended unless you have done so by your Complement And because I perceive you are falling into a vein of Ceremoniousness which is so idle a thing in private conversation and amongst old Friends I will be contented for this time to part with you So Fare you well FINIS An ALPHABETICAL INDEX A AArons seeing the God of Israel what page 337 Abel's and Cain 's Sacrifices how accepted or rejected 324 Abraham ignorant of us Exp. 216 Before Abraham was I am Exp. 324 380. Abraxas of the Gnosticks who 151 Absolution Romish after death 7 AEgypt whence the confusion of its Rites 122 123 AEons 166 African Idol of stone 48 Agnus Dei's Original 154 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whether Thummim 360 361 364 St. Almachius Sm. Almanacum 259 Alla of Mahomet what 145 Amulets Mahometan 147 Gnosticks 154 Angel Christ Emphatically such 328 331 To whom Jacob pray'd who 242 Angels thought by some Hellenists Governours under God 105 Ministring not Governing Spirits 212 213 c. Of the Seven Churches 213 Of Graecia and Persia 83 Of their Worship under the Old Testament 382 Orders of them 165 166 212 Archangels what 212 213 M. Antoninus's unknown God who 62 Ancient of days the Son 270 369 Ancilia what 72 Animation Platonick of the World what 394 Apis its golden Image 117 Its marks 118 Anthropomorphites 379 388 Aquinas why canonized 258 Ark of the Covenant when it failed 368 what 340 341 343 What in it 362 363 How instead of all Statues 339 340 Not it self worshipped 344 345 346 How meant of Christ 342 343 370 to 379 Arius how a Platonist 77 396 Arians their Doxology 168 169 Arabians worshippers of Daemons and Statues 143 144 Assembly of Divines of the word Create 203 Astarte in Judg. 2. what 103 Astrology Judicial whence 70 Athanasius his Translation mended 160 Ave Maria used as a Prayer before Sermon 201 202 St. Augustine appears to one in a dream 243 B BAbel Its Tower an high Altar sacred to the Sun 42 43 44 The name the builders designed what 44 45 Gods coming down to it what 323 324 Bacis Bacchus 131 139 Bacchus Egypt Whether Moses 126 to 131 St. Barbara assistant at Confession 196 Baronius his high devotion towards the H. Virgin 224 to 228 The occasion of it 229 Basilidian Gems what 154 Beatifick Vision what 378 379 Beelzebub who 124 Benians their Buffiuna Brama Mais what 82 S. Bernardine's odd saying 257 Dr. Bilson's charge of Idolatry on Papists 283 Bleeding Statues 300 301 Blind and Lame in 2 Sam. 5. what 89 90 Body of Christ Prayers to it 387 Worship of it 305 Bones of Elephants mistaken for those of Giants 94 First Born of every Creature how Christ so called 165 Of Bowing towards the Altar 304 c. To the Elements 390 At the name of Jesus 307 308 Branch in Isa. 11. 1. misinterpreted of the Virgin 247 248 C CAllicratidas his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 68 Of the Golden Calf 108 c. 337 Why some Fathers called it the Head of a Calf 337 Cambray its Synods declaration about prayer to Saints 196 197 Cambyses his killing Apis 112 Canonization modern its abuse 258 259 Is. Casaubon 's Prayer for the Church of England 310 Cath. of Siena of her Saintship 258 Golden Cat 117 Celsus 's error concerning Gods Image 74 Cerberus how Pluto 's Embleme 119 141 Chencres who 116 142 A Chest a presence Jewish Ark 381 Cherubim what 337 338 341 342 343 349 350 Of their Faces like Oxen's 337 338 China its Idol-temples 20 Christ Gods Image 373 376 386 387 388 389 Clouds Why the Jews said to worship them 107 108 Command first its meaning 411 Second what Pesel in it 97 What it forbids 267 268 343 Third a new expos of it 97 98 99 410
Confessions of Scotl. Pol. Engl. c. about Romish Idolatry 178 c. Conical form of some Idols what it meant 42 48 Crocodile Hieroglyph of God 25 Crucifix of what use 278 to 280 Not the present Image of Christ 277 278 386 Cup by which Joseph divin'd what 17 18 Confusio a Philos. of China what he held 96 D DAEmons twelve Egyptian 76 Twelve Grecian ones 80 Of the Gentiles evil spirits 85 86 Of Mexico very bloody 87 Terrestrial 86 125 Daille 's defence of kneeling at the Sacrament in the Church of England 206 Dan and Bethel no Shechinahs of God there 367 Davis 's Voyage to the Northwest 21 Degrees of Glory 381 Distraction by Image-worship in the act of it 293 294 Dives and Pauper a Dialogue about the worship of Images 291 292 293 Dove whether the Holy Ghost ever assumed that shape 270 372 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of God what 325 335 338 342 366 367 374 Demiourgus of Gnosticks 165 Of Plato not very God 40 c. E EAst of worshipping towards it 377 378 Ephrata we heard of the Ark there what it means 371 Enoch 's Prophesie valu'd by Tertullian 38 Enos falsly accused of Idolatry by Maimon 41 Epaphus mistaken by Herodotus 121 External Worship 22 F THe Father invisible only how true and in the Arian sense how false 317 318 Faith what not of Faith sin whether against Invocation of Saints 200 Flesh Intellectual in Counc Const. what 376 Fire Gods answer by it 324 Of a formless one 317 Forms of Prayer in the Church of Rome how scandalous in their common sense 189 to 191 Whether expounded in a better sense 192 to 202 Frauds pious 31 32 261 388 Flaming-sword in Gen. what 324 355. G St. Geneviefve Patroness of Paris 233 Geneva Images remain there 297 St. George 's day 233. Turkish St. George 413 Gnosticks worshippers of Daemons 149 Of Images 154 Their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 150 152 166 167 T. Goodwin of the Government of the Saints departed 215 T. G. Papist of the same 237 to 240 Answered 241 to 244 God whence that name 27 Gothick superstition 219 220 Government subord of the world by Saints departed a dangerous opinion 222 223 301 Agreements in it of the Gentiles and Romanists confessed by de Roa 232 by Rivallius 216 217 Greece its fabulous Antiquities 412 Creek Church what Images in it 177 Gregory 7th of his Saintship 257 H. Grotius answered about the delivery of the Law by the Logos 333 c. About the worship of the Ark 346 347 About Cherubim 349 350 About the things in the Ark 362 363 He mistranslates Hierocles 402 Guardian-Saints Romish 211 212 Giants the congregation of them in the Proverbs what it means 34 H Al. HAles his idle defence of Saint-worship 240 Harpocrates why supposed the embleme of Moses 131 Herodotus 's Text mended 118 St. Hierom's mistake about Abraxas as the Sun 151 Herald of Norweigh his barbarous Sacr. 22 Hochal in Gen. 4. 26. what 40 D. Holden of the Knowledg of Saints 205 Horns of Moses what 136 339 Of the Logos what 316 Horstius 's Paradise of the Soul 201 c. 211 c. Hosea 's taking to him an Adulteress what 67 I JAmblicus mended 394 Jaovas Priests of the Sun so called 44 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jove Jehovah 59 152 395 396 404. Jahveh a righter pronunciation than Jehovah 395 Jehovah God not known by that name in Exod. 6. 3. what it means 404 405 Ibis of Egypt 32 Idea of God what 1. how turned to an Idol 23 Idolatry its notion 13 14 Two kinds of it 12 Why called uncleanness 13 14 Three degrees of it 14 15 It s general cause 25 26 It s blockishness 50 51 Not before the Flood 39 40 Idols fall before Christ 340 373 374 renounced in Rom. Rit of Baptism 187 Images their glorious or horrid forms to what end 92 93 Why in SS said to be the ultimate objects of the worship of the Gentiles 90 to 95 Of the true God what 64 65 72 73 to 75 Of the Divinity 268 383 Of the Trinity 265 266 383 Pope John 22. against them 264 Of Christ joined by some into personal union with him 283 284 386 Of the Shechinah 383 384 385 386 387 Of our Lady at Halla 93 300. at Guadalupa how found 31 32 Of Analogy 269. of Memory 272 Of Representation 272 273. Of Presence 273 Abus'd as Shechinahs of God 295 to 301 Their use 280 c. On Coins how far scrupled by the Turks 107 Visible more dangerous than signs of words 384 Hist. of two speaking ones 90 91 Immensity of God against Vorstius 381 Invisibility of God 313 314 St. Joseph a Patron in America 234 Isaiah saw his glory what it means 368 Isis her rod what 17 135. her Image 113. Isis all 52 53. Isis and Ceres who 137 Julian when Apostate owned the God of Abraham 66 His mistake about Apis 124 His Apol. for the worship of Images 89 Jupiter how the one true God how an ill Daemon 60 61 62 81 Whence the name deriv'd 395 K KIrcher mistakes Maimon 355 Kissing an ancient Ceremony in Religious worship 22 Kneeling at the Sacrament 305 306 307 L LActantius a mistake of his 331 St. Lambert Patron of Brussels 233 A Lamb forbidden as Christs Image 276 Law of Moses given by the Logos 331 c. Mystical 370 A Lie in Rom. 1. 23. an Idol 338 Light used by God in his Shechinah 315 316 Lipsius 's excess of devotion towards the Virgin 229 230 231 Logos why the Son so called The Substitute of the Father 319 328 329 330 332 c. He is thought to have appeared to Adam 320 c. to Abel 322. to Abraham 324 c. to Agar 328. to Jacob 325. to Moses 330 c. to Isaiah 368. to Daniel 369. to Joshuah 366. to David and Solomon 366 367. to S. Stephen 376 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by whom taken instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 153 Logos sometimes signifies the world in Philo 320 401 The Lord that rained on Sodom from the Lord who 325 M MAhomet his one God 145 Mahometan Saints trusted in as Patrons 146 412 413 414 Of the worship at his Tomb 146 414 Manicheism degenerate Pythagorism 155 156 Mary the signification of that name 241 Mass the fraud of the late Translator of it into English 5 6 Masses of Saints how to be understood 188 Matter the first Hyle eternal according to Plato 79 402 403 404 It s generation what 394 402 403 It s stubbornness against Psyche 402 403 The principle of evil 393 Mr. Mede 's notion of the form of the Serpent doubted 355 Michael the Original of his Feast 221 Miracles Romish some false some ludicrous 259 260 261 Upon Invocation of Saints 259 to 262 At Images 300 301 Why to be suspected 260 Miracle of a Leg restored 259. Of a Shoo 300 Moschus or Mochus the Atomist not Moses 407 Moses his fabulous statue 104