Selected quad for the lemma: hand_n
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A42896
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Catholicks no idolaters, or, A full refutation of Doctor Stillingfleet's unjust charge of idolatry against the Church of Rome.
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Godden, Thomas, 1624-1688.
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1672
(1672)
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Wing G918; ESTC R16817
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244,621
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532
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and some other French Bishops of that Age as transported with zeal against a Superstition which he says had then prevailed among some Persons in giving the same Worship to Images as to the Holy Trinity And for himself he professes that he is much pleased with the Decree of the Council of Cambray Anno 1565. That the People be taught that no Worship ought to be given to an Image for the matter or elegancy of the work c. but for the Thing represented by it to which the Worship and Honour is chiefly referr'd and that the Mind or Intention of him that prayeth or worshippeth be carried to the thing signified and not terminated on the sign which can neither hear nor see nor understand Thus much â—o the Doctors Objection from the Council of Francford a Passage take it which way you will so difficult and obscure by reason of the various Opinions of Authors and seeming if not real Contradictions in Historians that for one whose design is to blunder not satisfie his Reader a fitter Topick cannot be found unless it be that which follows of the Calves as he hath perplex'd it with his groundless Conjectures CHAP. IX Of the Doctors Third Proof from the Judgment as he pretends of the Law-giver His speculation concerning the Golden Calves manifesâ—ly repugnant to the H. Scriptures and Fathers Mr. Thorndike's Judgment of the Meaning and Extent of the Second Commandment § 1. THe Third Reason Dr. Stilling fleet brings to prove that God in the second Commandment hath expresly prohibited the giving any Worship to himself by an Image is taken saith he p. 92. from those who were best able to understand the meaning of it and among these none so competent a Judge as the Law-giver himself Here we have a solid Principle indeed to work upon and if the Doctor would give me leave to infer from it I would argue thus But the Law-giver himself commanded the Ark and the Cherubims to be placed in the Temple with respect to his Worship Therefore he did not expresly prohibit in the second Commandment the giving any Worship to himself by an Image For it cannot be â—onceived that himself would introduce 〈◊〉 allow such a practise as should be contrary to its meaning But I must not forestall but attend my Adversary and the substance of what he discourses upon that Principle is this That the Israelites were condemned by God of Idolatry for worshipping the Golden Calf and yet they did not fall into the Heathen Idolatry by so doing but onely worshipped the true God under that Symbol of his presence If you ask him how he knows for certain that the Israelites did not fall back into the Heathen Idolatry when it is certain that in Aegypt they worshipped the Idols of the Aegyptians Ezek. 20. 7 8 He tells you upon his word that they had not the least pretence of infidelity as to the true God and yet the very Text he cites to prove it tells us they pretended their despair of Moses returning as a sufficient reason to move Aaron to make them Gods who should go before them If you ask him how he knows for certain that the Calf was intended to be onely a Symbol of Gods presence He tells you We that is himself and his Master Calvin cannot imagine the people so sottish Nec tam incogitantes erant Judaei saith Calvin to desire Aaron to make them a God in the proper sence as though they could believe the Calf newly made to have been the God which before it was made brought them out of the land 〈◊〉 Egypt And yet they can both of them very easily imagine Catholick Christians to be so sottish as to terminate their Worship upon a Block or a hewn Stone though 〈◊〉 the same time they deny any Divinity to be in them or have not the least preâ—ence of Infidelity as to the True God But be their Imagination as much at the devotion of their Passion as they please could not the People taking it for granted as he says they did that Moses was not to be heard of more fall into a dislike or a distrust of the God whom Moses had taught them to worship and so run with their thoughts into Aegypt and require of Aaron to make them a God to go before them like unto the Gods which they had seen and worshipped there That this was their Intention and not to make a Symbol onely of the presence of the true God the very making of the Calf which was done in imitation of the Golden Bulls of Aegypt the Symbols as the Doctor calls them of their chief God Osiris sufficiently evinces And for this it is they are so frequently reprehended in Holy Scripture Deut. xxxii 15. He that is Israel forsook God which made him and went back from the God of his Salvation and vers 18. Thou hast forsaken the God which made thee and hast forgotten the God thy Creator Psal cv 19. They made a Calf in Horeb and worshipped the Molten Image Thus they changed their Glory into the similitude of an Ox that eateth Grass They forgat God who had saved them who had done so great things in Aegypt wonderous works in the Land of Cham and fearful things in the red Sea And again Acts vii 39 40. Our Fathers saith St. Stephen would not obey but thrust him that is the true God from them and in their hearts turned back again into Aegypt saying unto Aaron Make us Gods to go before us c. And they made a Calf in those days and offered sacrifice to the Idol and rejoyced in the work of their own hands This is what the Scripture testifieth that the Israelites did viz. that they forgat the God which made them that they thrust him from them and in their hearts turned back into Aegypt that the Molten Calf which they had made after the pattern they had seen there was an Idol and that they offered sacrifices to this Idol And must we now deny all this to be true because Calvin and Dr. St. cannot imagine the People to have been so sottish Is this to make Scripture the Rule of Faith or Imagination to be the Rule of Scripture Let the Reader observe here for his Instruction that according to Dr. St.'s behaviour here and elsewhere if he meet with any passage in Scripture that thwarts his Imagination he must understand it in a sense agreeable to what he can imagine that is as best pleases his own fancy And This how â—unningly soever He and his Partizans disguise it is indeed the onely Ground from which they take their measures in the Interpretation of Scripture as Mr. E. W. hath clearly proved in his Book called Protestancy without Principles And although His performance among others be likened by the Doctor to the way that Rats answer Books by gnawing some of the leaves of them yet an Impartiall Reader will compare it rather to the execution done by the Worm in Jonas which
be Intercessours to Him for them Now that such as piously and faithfully pray to them obtain their desires The Donaries when they pay their Vows do witness as evident Testimonies of their recovered health For some hang up the resemblances of Eyes others of Hands others of Feet made of Gold or Silver which their Lord how small and vile soever the gifts be disdains not most gratefully to accept measuring the gift by the ability of the Giver These therefore being exposed to the eyes of all Men and brought by those who have obtained health are most certain signs of the Cure of the Diseases These I say shew the vertues of the Martyrs who lye buried there and the vertue of the Martyrs declares the God whom they worshipped to be the true God 3dly St. Austin is so copious in this subject that he writes a Treatise rather than a Chapter of the Miracles which were done in his time at the Shrines of several Martyrs particularly of St. Stephen which those who desire to be informed of the Truth may read at their leisure I have instanced already in that of the devout Mother who exacted of St. Stephen to restore her Son to life and had her Petition granted God saith St. Austin doing it per Martyrem by his Martyr I shall only add at present what he relates of a poor but pious Man called Florentius who having lost his Cloak and not having wherewith to buy another went to the twenty Martyrs whose memory saith he with us is very famous and pray'd with a loud voice to be cloathed Certain young Men whom St. Austin calls Irrisores i. e. scoffers hearing him pray derided him as no doubt Dr. St. would have done had he been there as if he had begg'd so much money of the Martyrs as would buy him a Cloak But he departing from thence towards the Sea-side found a great Fish upon the shore in whose Belly when open'd there was found a Gold Ring which the Cook a good Christian to whom he had sold the Fish and knew what had passed gave him with these words Behold how the Twenty Martyrs have cloathed Thee Thus St. Austin little thinking then or now if he know nothing of what passes here below what sport this story will make for the Doctor and his Partizans though he good Mâ—n judg'd it worthy to be recounted that God might be glorified in his Saints And upon the same account I shall not omit though it may add matter of new Merriment to the scoffing humour of the Age to set down what I find related by John Patriarch of JERUSALEM to have passed in this kind with Saint John Damascen about the Year 728. He is known to have been a stout Asserter of the Veneration of Holy Images and when the Emperour Leo Isauricus raised a Persecution for that cause he wrote divers learned Epistles to confirm the Faithful in the Tradition of the Church He was then at Damascus where the Prince of the Saracens kept his Court and highly in the favour of that Prince for his Wisdom and Learning And the Emperor Leo not knowing otherwise how to execute his Fury against him causes a Letter to be forged as from Damascen to Him and to be transcribed by One who could exactly imitate his hand the Contents whereof were to invite him to pass that way with his Army with promise to deliver the City into his hands This Letter the Emperor as out of friendship to an Ally and detestation of the Treachery sent to the Prince of the Saracens who no sooner saw and read it but in a brutish Passion commanded the right hand of Damascen which he supposed had writ it to be cut off Dictum Factum A word and a blow His hand was struck off and hung up in the Market-place till Evening when upon Petition that he might have leave to bury it it was commanded to be delivered to him He takes the hand and instead of laying it in the Ground joins it to his Arm and prostrating himself before an Image of our B. Lady which he kept in his Oratory humbly besought her Intercession for the restoring of his hand that he might employ it in setting forth her Son's praises and Hers This done sleep seiz'd on him and he beheld the Image of the B. Virgin looking upon him with a pleasant aspect and telling Him that his Hand was restored which when he awaked he found to be true and a small Circle or mark only remaining in the place where it had been cut off to testify the truth of the Miracle This is recorded by John Patriarch of Jerusalem in the Life of St. John Damascen and to this I might add many more of the like kind But these may suffice to satisfy an Impartial mind that whether the Saints themselves hear us or no yet those who implore their Intercession are most certainly heard and as St. Austin saith helped by them And it can never be unlawful much less Idolatrous to use that means for the obtaining our just desires which God himself hath attested by so many Miracles to be acceptable to him All that the Doctor brings to uphold his slippery consequence is that it would be a sensless thing to desire some excellent Person in the Indies when we are at our solemn devotion to pray for us And so no doubt he would have derided those three Tribunes who being unjustly condemn'd by the Emperor Constantine commended themselves to the Prayers of St. Nicholas at that time far from the Court for double Innocents But God who is every where present and to whom the Wisdom of the World is Foolishness both could and did reward the simplicity of their Devotion by causing the Holy Man to appear to the Emperour in his sleep and divert him from executing the Sentence In fine if the Doctor will needs have it to be a sensless thing to call upon the Saints in Heaven for the Assistance of their Prayers he must either condemn the Lights both of the Greek and Latin Church as Mr. Thorndike calls them to have been sensless Men and they may thank God they escape so or he must grant this practise of theirs to be a convincing Argument that they believed the Saints did hear them § 4. The last thing he quarrels at is the setting up the Images of Saints in some higher place of the Church and burning Incense before them And what he says to show this to be very Evil is that which proves it to be very Good viz. That the Persons for whose sake this is done are as we suppose them truly such as for their assured sanctity would deserve to have it done to themselves though perhaps Humility or other Moral Considerations might weigh both with them and the Church not to permit it to be done Yet we know that Elias sate upon the top of a Hill and call'd Fire from Heaven upon those two Captains who came to seize him but