Serpent in the Wilderness even so must the son of man be lifted up 'T is the Son of Man here plainly made the Antitype and not the old Serpent as a learned man would have it destroyed indeed on the Cross but not said by the Scripture to be lifted up upon it And though the Saraph was not Christ yet it was the Symbol by which he appeared and by its stretched-out wings it may seem to the Fancy at least very aptly to express Christs Crucifixion with arms extended If it be here said that to make this Serpent a Saraph and a part of Christs Shechinah is to overthrow that which was suggested before of the concealment of the Seraphim in the Ark and of the Cherubim behind the Veil from the eyes of the people prone to Idolatry this being exposed to their daily sight I answer in two Particulars First It was agreeable to the Wisdom of God to give some Type of Christ as crucified that being one great part of that substance of the Gospel of which the Law was a shadow though he pleased not to do it too plainly in the shape of an humane body on a Cross. And no other Type I think occurreth under Judaism but this of the brazen Saraph Secondly Here was not such occasion of Idolatry as might have been taken from the Ark for that was an Oracle and a Divine Light shone forth and a Divine Voice was heard and signs of Adoration to God were there commanded But this was no Oracle It doth not appear that at this symbol any extraordinary cloud or glory shone that hence any Coelestial thunder was heard Only men were helped in thinking on God by the symbol of an Angel which executeth Gods will on Earth whilst a secret virtue from the unseen God made them whole He that turned himself towards it saith the Book of Wisdom was not saved by any thing that he saw but by Thee that art the Saviour of all And if the people had been then prone to Idolize that Symbol it had not remained undefaced till the days of Hezekiah This then is my conjecture and I offer it no otherwise about the Urim and likewise about the Brazen Serpent For Thummim I imagin it to be a thing of a very differing nature So do they who take it to be deriv'd from the Jewel in the Brest-plate of the High-Priest of Egypt called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is true such a Brest-plate there was in Egypt and it is mentioned by Diodorus Siculus and AElian And Diodorus supposeth it to have consisted of many Gems but AElian calleth it an Image made of a Saphire It is also confessed that the Seventy Interpreters do render Thummim by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But here two things are to be observed First This Egyptian Pectoral deserving the name of truth it being put on as an ornament for the Bench in the execution of justice and maintenance of truth as we learn from Diodorus and AElian and not in order to the delivery of Oracles may as well have been taken from the Brest-plate of the High-Priest of the Jews There is no mention of it in Herodotus and before the Graecian times And Diodorus when he speaketh of it he referreth to those days when Heliopolis Thebés and Memphis were the three head-Cities in Egypt out of each of which ten Judges were chosen and for On or Heliopolis it had a publick Temple built in it for the Jews with the consent of Ptolomy Philadelphus by Onias the High-Priest who was then by the power of Antiochus deprived of his Authority and Office in Judaea And concerning the Egyptian Pectoral its name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is plainly modern It may in the second place be observed that upon supposition that this Pectoral was originally Egyptian it doth not follow that the Seventy meant the same thing by their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Egyptians did by theirs It may be rather guessed that those Interpreters translating divers words and phrases which grated on Egyptian matters in such prudential manner that Ptolomy might not be offended as is manifest that they did in several places of their Version they made use of this name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as of a name which would at once recommend them to his favour and well express the sense of Scripture or the meaning of Thummim Now if Urim be Images in the lesser Ark of the Pectoral answering in some sort to the Cherubim on the greater Ark what possibly can Thummim be but a copy of the Moral Law put into the Pectoral a copy written in some Roll or engraven in some stone according to the pattern of the Tables brought down from the Mount for what else was there in the other Ark nothing sure though some Rabbins and after them the learned Hugo Grotius believed otherwise Josephus thought nothing else to be there and he had ground for his opinion from the holy Scriptures For it is said in the first of the Kings That there was nothing in the Ark save the two Tables of stone which Moses put there at Horeb. And this is repeated in the second of Chronicles And to say as some adventure to do that the Manna and the Rod of Aaron were there in the time of Moses and taken out in process of time lest the Manna should putrifie and the Rod be worm-eaten as if they could any-where have been so long preserved without miracle soundeth very like to a Rabbinical whimsey For the places of Scripture alledged by Grotius in favour of his opinion they answer themselves For in Exodus it is not said that Moses commanded Aaron to take a pot of Manna and to put it into the Ark but that he required him to lay it up before the Lord or before the Ark where the Lord by his Shechinah then dwelt Also in Numbers it is not said that God commanded Moses to put the Rod of Aaron into the Ark but that he required him to bring it before the Testimony that is the Ark of the Covenant Wherefore that of the Author to the Hebrews In the Holiest of all was the Ark of the Covenant wherein was the Golden pot that had Manna and Aarons Rod that budded and the Tables of the Covenant must be interpreted as if in signified both in and by So saith Capellus upon the place it is usual for them who live by Rome to say they live in it So in Cariathjarim in the Book of Judges signifieth nigh it They pitched saith the Text in Kiriath-jearim in Judah wherefore they called that place Mahaneh-Dan unto this day behold it is behind Kiriath-jearim Neither doth Gorionides say as Grotius maketh him that the Manna and Rod were in the Ark for he speaketh of the Holiest and saith they were there not determining in what part of it they were placed Thummim was not an Image as the Urim were neither
be called an unwarranted impertinent idle labour It is as Saint Paul speaketh an intruding into the things which we have not seen And certainly when we pray not only to those that do not hear us but to such as have no existence but in fiction it is emphatical impertinence What else are the seven sleepers considered as such And yet in the institutions of a spiritual life published with Elogy by Sfondratus afterwards a Pope by the name of Gregory the fourteenth and composed by a nameless Virgin those seven are selected together with a few othere as Saints to be venerated with especial devotion What else are S. Sulpitius and S. Severus considered as distinct persons and yet in an ancient and fair Romish Manual I find this to be part of a Litany Holy Sulpitius pray for me Holy Severus pray for me Also Holy Faith pray for me Holy Hope pray for me Holy Charity pray for me The learned Bishop Montague doth call the Romish Invocation of Saints a Point of Foolery It being he saith at least uncertain whether they are and in what manner they can be acquainted with our wants seeing their condition is not to attend us and they are removed far above our reach and call He entertained the like opinion of praying to such Angels as are not Guardians But of them that are such he supposeth them to be ever in procinctu nigh at hand to men and in attendance on them all their days Hence he seeth no impiety in this Address Sancte Angele custos ora pro me Holy Guardian-Angel pray for me He had put the matter more out of doubt if he had supposed the Angel appearing and certainly known to be an holy spirit of that quality But for the Invocation of other Angels he thinketh it as foolish and ridiculous as his praying to a friend at Constantinople to help him whilst he himself is at London Others have gone further in their censure and they have called the Invocation of Saints more than an impertinent that is a sinful though not an Idolatrous practice And indeed so plain a misuse of a mans reason cannot but be offensive to the Creator who gave it not to man that he should trifle with it But this is not their manner of arguing They tell us such Invocation is not of Faith and that whatsoever is not of faith is sin But what Art of thinking teacheth them to draw consequences on this fashion Whatsoever is done by man against the present perswasion of his Conscience which admits it with great reluctancy as irreligious is in him sinful Therefore the Invocation of Saints or Angels by Papists who desire them to pray for them when they do not hear though they in their Conscience believe they do is a wicked practice because it ariseth not from faith or perswasion Had they said every thing in such weak and unconcluding Logick they had wounded their own cause more than that of their Adversaries If now there were nothing in this Romish Invocation besides their desire of Angels and Saints to pray for them to God Almighty I should forbear to call it Idolatry and give it the softer names of misperswasion impertinence irrational or fruitless beating the air For they amongst them who are the more prudent suppose the Saints to hear them by other means than by Divine Omnipresence and infiniteness of Understanding and they call upon them for such an Office as a good man on earth would do for them much more a Saint or Angel in Heaven For what Christian will deny the Petition of his Neighbour when he desireth him only to pray to God for him unless perhaps he neglecteth Prayer himself and appeareth to have sinned a sin unto death of which they are scarce guilty who beg the Prayers of others such piety being seldom discerned either in presumptuous Christians or in Apostates But in the Romish Invocation there is much more than a praying to Saints and Angels to pray for us It is not indeed intentionally the worship of any of them under the notion of a supreme God how high a note soever doth sound in their Forms for that their own Church renounceth as Idolatry And the Church-men teach the people That it is lawful to worship Angels and Saints with Dulia or inferior honour proportioned to their Excellency but not as God or with Gods honour They give not to them Gods incommunicable honour if they understand the Rule of their Faith but to me they seem to give them honour beyond the proportion of their Excellency even that which God hath to himself reserved This is plain by the natural construction of their Forms which they have not otherwise interpreted but confirmed this meaning of them by their Doctrines and by their daily practice This is that which I here mean and think I shall evince That though they make not any Saint or Angel the supreme Governour of the World yet they constitute the Spirits of either kind Deputies or Lieutenants under God and suppose him not only as occasion serveth to use their Ministry but to make them Guardians Patrons and Patronesses and to allow them for such upon the choice of Worshippers on Earth They instruct the people in their Manuals not only how to address themselves to their Guardian-Angels but also to chuse and worship their Guardian Saints They teach them c in their daily Exercises to remember such Saints that for every office of life they may take to them particular Assistants that so they may pray with this Saint and sleep with that That one Saint may be present at their Canonical Hours when they read that another may be by when they hear a sacred Lecture when they work when they dine when they sup They teach them to select one or more out of the number of the Saints as their Patron to love them to imitate them through their hands to offer daily all their works to God to commend themselves to their protection morning and evening and at other times especially in difficulties and tentations to use them as witnesses and directors of their Actions They give to this Spirit this precinct and that to another They give to some Authority over this disease to others over that They substitute some over one part of nature and others over another part of it though I think they do not quite tye them from intermedling in one anothers Diocesses or Precincts And St. Paul the Patron of Mariners may be called upon in a Fever and St. Luke the Patron of Physicians may have his aid implored in a Tempest This is an opinion maintained by them without imputation of Heresie This they conceive to be consistent with the Worship of one supreme God to this they conform their daily practice This Lieutenancy of Saints if they do not really hold their Church is a very Roma Subterranea and there is nothing of its meaning to be discerned above
though it may be and it is certain they have not in all Ages known according to what is in the Prophesie of St. John what Jesus Christ will do next yet that still by the spirit of Prophesie as it were the Saints have been guided to seek for those things at the hands of God and Christ which he was about to accomplish Also that the Saints in Heaven before the day of Judgment have a share and an hand in Christs government of the world and that they have a knowledg by the Angels that are continually Messengers from Heaven to Earth of the great things that are done here And he that writeth the Epistle to the Reader maketh this Application of Mr. Goodwins Doctrine Now saith he what may we think the Saints in Heaven who within these ten years last past lost their lives in the Cause of Christ he meaneth the Army-Saints from the year forty-four to that of fifty-four who dy'd in maintenance of the Bad Old Cause are EMPLOYED ABOUT at this time they understanding by the Angels what great changes are come to pass on our Earth Those of whose Saintship we have better assurance though in a state of rest and light are esteemed by the Fathers but a kind of Free Prisoners not being acquitted by the publick Sentence of the General Judgment And their opinion who give them a Lieutenancy under God in the Government of the World before that day does recall to my mind the Argument used by that truly great man Sir Walter Raleigh in his own unhappy Case He pleaded that the grant of a Commission from the King did argue him to be absolved and that he who had power given him over others was no longer under a sentence against his own life Abraham and Isaac do not now rule us and it may be they are ignorantt of us which whilst I affirm I do not wholly ground my Assertion on the Text in Isaiah That soundeth otherwise whether we take it in its positive or hypothetical sense It s positive sense may be this Doubtless thou art our Father notwithstanding we live not under the care of Abraham or Isaac but are by many generations removed from them who therefore knew us not or own'd us not we being not men of their times we are their seed however though at a great distance and to such also was thy promise made And for the Hypothetical sense it may be this Be it supposed that Abraham knows nothing of us yet certain we are that thou art the God of Israel whose knowledg and care of thy people never faileth I admit here that the Saints pray for the Church in general that Angels are concerned in particular Ministrations but that Angels and even Saints have shares of the Government of the World though in subordination to God so as to be Commission-Officers under the King of Heaven and not only Attendants on his Throne and as it were Yeomen and Messengers of his Court the general condition of the Angels I cannot admit without peril of Idolatry This in my conceit is the great resemblance betwixt the Romanists and the Gentiles Both of them suppose the World to be ruled under God by several Orders of Daemons and Heroes though I have confessed already that they are not so exactly alike but that Rome-Christian may be distinguished from Rome-Pagan For the Gentiles so much hath been shewn already and it may appear further from the place of the Greek Historian cited in the Margent And for the Romanists that too hath already been manifested in part and shall be further declâ—…red and Rivallius in his History of the Civil Law or Commentary on the Twelve Tables does very honestly confess it He having commented on that Law which ordereth the worship of the Heathen gods both Daemons and Heroes letteth fall words not unfit to be here gathered up by us Christians saith he meaning those of the Roman Communion retain a Religion like to this for they worship God immortal and for those that excel in Virtue and shine with Miracles first with great pomp and inquisition they register them among the Deities or Saints and then they worship them and after that they erect Temples to them as we see in the case of S. John S. Peter S. Catherine S. Nicholas S. Magdalen and other Deities In this point then let us join issue and offer on our side the manifestation of these particulars First On what occasions this worship of Ruling-spirits came into the Church Secondly How it derogateth from the honour of God as Governour of the World Thirdly How it derogateth from the honour of Jesus as the Mediator and King ordained by God First For the occasions of this Worship I conceive them to be especially these two The Celebration of the Memory of the Martyrs at their Tombs and the compliance of the Christians with the Northern Nations when they invaded Italy and other places in hope of appeasing them and effecting their conversion First I reckon as an occasion of this Worship the celebration of the memory of the Martyrs at their Tombs and Monuments and Reliques and in the Churches sacred to God in thankfulness for their Examples The thankful and honourable commemoration of the Martyrs was very ancient and innocent at the beginning For as the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna concerning the Martyrdom of St. Polycarp testifies They esteemed the bones of the Martyrs more precious than Jewels They kept their Birth-days that is the days of their Martyrdom on which they began most eminently to live they pursu'd them with a worthy affection as Disciples and Imitators of Christ but they worshipped none but Christ believing him to be the Son of God But laudable Customs degenerate through time And this in the fourth Century began to be stretched beyond the reason of its first institution as appeareth by the Apostrophe's of St. Basil St. Gregory Nazianzen and others of that Age. Afterwards the vanity of men ran this Usage into a dangerous extreme and those who had been commemorated as excellent and glorified Spirits and whose Prayers were wished were directly invoked and worshipped as the subordinate Governours of Gods Church This Veneration of the Martyrs which superstition thus strained was occasioned by the Miracles which God wrought where his Martyrs were honoured Times of Persecution at home and of Invasion from abroad required such aids for the Encouragement of Catholick Christians and the Conversion of Infidels and misbelievers Thus in the days of St. Austin in whose Age the Getae or Goths sacked Rome and many of the barbarous people imputed the present misfortunes of Italy to the Christian Religion God pleased to work Miracles at the Bodies of the Martyrs Protasius and Gervasius in the City of Milan Thus as is reported by Procopius and Egnatius he miraculously saved those Christians at Rome and Pagans also both in the time of Alaricus and Theudoricus who
her as Queen of Heaven the Author of the Monument of Galeacius Caracciolus dedicateth it in the quality of a Marble-Chappel in thankful acknowledgment of the many favours she conferred on that Marquis and of the many evils from which she secured him At Rome in the Church Mariae S. Angeli the Inscription seemeth to install the Virgin into that Presidency over it which before was held by some god of the Gentiles A like change is insinuated in the Inscription found in the AEdes Martis turned into the Temple of St. Martina Now what seemeth all this but refined Heathenism When men trust in St. Hubert as the Patron of Hunters do not they the like to those who trusted in Diana the Goddess of that Game and the Patroness of Forests upon which account she was of old the celebrated Deity of this Island which then was a kind of continued Wood When they apply themselves in a strom to the Virgin Mary do not they the like to those who in perils by water called on Venus When they put confidence in St. Margaret or the Virgin Mary as the Patronesses of Women in Travail and Children in Infancy do they not follow their pattern who relied on Diana Statina or Cunina in such cases When they pay their Vows to the Virgin for the safety of their Children do they not like Bassa or Sulpitia in the Inscriptions of Gruter who paid theirs in the same case to Lucina or Juno and to Castor and Pollux And is there so vast a difference betwixt the devotion of a Heathen Conquerour who offened his Sword to Mars and of Henry of Valois who obtaining a great Victory over the Rebels in Flanders consecrated to the Virgin the Horse on which he charged and the Arms with which he so successfully fought On both sides here is confidence in a Coelestial creature as a substitute of the supreme God and thanks most solemnly paid to it Only for the Objects the one sort of them is Christian the other Pagan but both kinds were reputed Divine and worthy by their Adorers both were judged Coelestial Magistrates and Senators as the Saints are called by Horstius and the Catechism of Trent And by the Intercession of such Senators is often meant in the Church of Rome their prevalence with God in executing the office of their Patronage Hence they sometimes pray to God That the glorious Intercession of the ever-blessed and glorious Virgin Mary may protect them and bring them to life everlasting The particular Instances of the Romish Patrons and Patronesses are too many to be here Historically spoken of I find enough of them together in the learned Homily against the peril of Idolatry and with them I will at present content my self What I pray you saith that Homily be such Saints with us to whom we attribute the defence of certain Countries spoiling God of his due honour herein but Dii Tutelares of the Gentile Idolaters such as were Belus to the Babylonians and Asfyrians Osiris and Isis to the Egyptians Vulcan to the Lemnians and to such other What be such Saints to whom the safe-guard of such Cities are appointed but Dii Praesides with the Gentiles Idolaters such as were at Delphos Apollo at Athens Minerva at Carthage Juno at Rome Quirinus c. What be such Saints to whom contrary to the use of the Primitive Church Temples and Churches be builded and Altars erected but Dii Patroni of the Gentiles Idolaters such as were in the Capitol Jupiter in Paphus-Temple Venus in Ephesus-Temple Diana and such like When you hear of our Lady of Walsingham our Lady of Ipswich our Lady of Wilsdon and such other what is it but an imitation of the Gentiles Idolaters Diana Agrotera Diana Coriphea Diana Ephesia c. Venus Cypria Venus Paphia Venus Gnidia Terentius Varro sheweth that there were three hundred Jupiters in his time There were no fewer Veneres and Dianae We had no fewer Christophers Ladies and Mary Magdalens and other Saints They have not only spoiled the true Living God of his due Honour in Temples Cities Countries and Lands by such devices and inventions as the Gentiles Idolaters have done before them but the Sea and Waters have as well especial Saints with them as they have had gods with the Gentiles Neptune Triton Nereus Castor and Pollux Venus and such other in whose places be come St. Christopher Clement and divers others and specially our Lady to whom Shipmen sing Ave Maris stella Neither hath the fire scaped the Idolatrous Inventions for instead of Vulcan and Vesta the Gentiles gods of the Fire our men have placed St. Agatha and make Letters on her day for to quench fire with Every Artificer and Profession hath his special Saint as a peculiar God As for example Schollars have St. Nicholas and St. Gregory Painters St. Luke neither lack Soldiers their Mars nor Lovers their Venus amongst Christians All Diseases have their special Saints as gods the curers of them The Pox St. Roche the Falling-evil St. Cornelis the Toothach St. Appolin c. Neither do beasts and cattel lack their gods with us for St. Loy is the Horseleach St. Anthony the Swineherd c. Where is Gods Providence and due Honour in the mean season Who saith The Heavens be mine and the Earth is mine the whole World and all that in it is I do give victory and I put to flight Of me be all counsels and help c. Except I keep the city in vain doth he watch that keepeth it Thou Lord shalt save both men and beasts But we have left him neither Heaven nor Earth nor Water nor Country nor City Peace nor War to rule and governn either men nor beasts nor their diseases to cure We join to him another helper as if he were a Noun Adjective using these sayings Such as learn God and S. Nicholas be my speed Such as neese God help and S. John To the Harse God and S. Loy save thee The Papists have read such Discourses as these and they endeavour to abate the force of them by the following evasion The reasonableness of making addresses to one particular Saint rather than another in some particular occasions will appear from the consideration upon which it is usually done And that is not a division of Offices among the Saints every one of whom may equally intercede without entrenching upon the propriety of another and their intercession may be implored by us in all kinds of necessities whatsoever But it is grounded upon a reflexion which the Suppliant makes either upon some signal Grace which shined in that Saint above others as Patience Humility Chastity c. for which reason the Church saith of every one of them Non est inventus similis Illi there was no other found like to him or upon the particular manner of his suffering Martyrdom or some particular Miracle or such like
Virgin asserted and also a proof of the Imposture of such Appearances from the Story it self which representeth not a blessed Saint ascribing all Glory to the great God but a vain perfon delighted with the unjust flatteries of her self This then is the way in which I conceive the Church of Rome giveth away a degree of the Honour of God the Father to wit by her disposal of the Government of the World though in subordination to his Supremacy unto Angels and Saints without any sufficient declaration from him that he hath been willing so to prefer them and by her worshipping of them in that quality which her own imagination hath enstated them in I am next to consider how the Church of Rome doth by such estimation and worship entrench on the Divine Honour with respect to Christ as Mediator God hath not owned any Substitute besides his Son who hath all power given to him being as God-man most capable of it And though the Church of Rome doth acknowledg Christ to be the Author of Salvation and the Supreme Patron and Mediator yet still it doth entrench upon his Honour in its worship of Saints three several ways First More particularly in that Worship which is given to the Virgin In the second place More generally in the worship given to so many Saints and Angels Thirdly In the frequency of the worship given both to the Virgin and to the other Heavenly spirits First The Honour of Christ is particularly abated in the customary worship of the blessed Virgin Abated I say not quite removed For the Prayers to her are still per Dominum through Christ her Son though it seemeth sometimes to be intimated as in the Monstra Te esse Matrem Shew thy Mother-hood in the Hymn Ave Maris stella that she can command his Answers And when God is invoked by her Merits her Merits are supposed to be derived from his But an abatement there is of Christs Honour by that supereminent Advancement which is given to her by the practice of that Church without any declaration contrary to it For that Church doth set her as Solomon did his Mother in the Throne with himself though on that hand which signifies that he is still the Supreme Now it is manifest that Honour is diminished both where it is equally shared and where a second keepeth not distance but doth obtain a point next to the first For from degrees of Power and Distance arise degrees of Honour and a Prince that sitteth alone in the Chair of State is thereby in possession of higher Honour than he who hath a Second sitting next him though on the less honourable hand And accordingly it was esteemed a defect in Policy both through the occasion given by it of being supplanted and through the diminution it made of Supreme Honour of which each degree is a degree of Power when any Princes in the Roman Empire such as AElius Adrianus and Antoninus the Philosopher admitted Seconds to sit with them in the Throne of Government though themselves reserved still the first Place and remained as it were the Heads of the Empire Now it is the practice of the Church of Rome to celebrate the Virgin as a kind of Co-Ruler with her Son to salute her as we heard but now from the Office of her Seven Allegresses as a Queen on the right hand of Christ in his Throne The Scripture hath in it this Prophecy of the Messiah There shall come forth a Rod out of the stem of Jess and a branch or flower shall grow or rise out of his roots Hierom Xaverius hath wrested this place even from the sense of the Vulgar Translation and he thus readeth it in his Persic Gofpel A true branch shall rise out of the root of Jesse and out of that branch a flower shall be born Misapplying the first to the Virgin and the second to Christ whilst both are spoken of him To this misinterpretation he might be led by the Hymn in the Breviary which saluteth her by the Title of the Holy Root And it is evident by the Psalter of Bonaventure which is known to turn Lord into Lady throughout the Psalms not omitting to Travest that place of The Lord said unto my Lord into Our Lady said unto my Lord Sit thou on my right hand and by Salazar who in his Commentary on the Proverbs interpreteth Wisdom of the Virgin that the Marians would scrue up the sense of the Old Testament into the assertion of a kind of coequality of the Virgin with Christ. Hence Baronius himself calleth her the Ark in one place and in another the Tabernacle The things relating to Christ under the New Testament are equally perverted by this inordinate devotion to that Virgin who cannot give those a welcome reception who with such affront to her Son make their Court to her As the Scripture mentioneth the Nativity of Christ celebrated by a Quire of Angels so doth the Roman Church observe the Nativity of the Virgin from a story of melody heard from Heaven by a devout man in a Desart on her birth-day Hierom Xaverius hath set down this Story for Gospel among the Indians and Innocent the fourth upon that report caus'd the dav to be Sacred As Christs triumphant Ascension is spoken of in the Scripture and observed in our Church so in the Legends of Rome there is frequent mention of her Assumption and it is in that Church celebrated with pomp Before that Office she is pictur'd in the Missal lately Printed at Paris ascending with a glory about her head in equal shew of triumph with Christ. As Christ is said in the Te Deum to have opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers so is the Virgin called by them the Gate and the Hall-gate of Heaven As he is called Gods beloved Son so is she called Gods beloved Daughter As Christ is said to be exalted above all things in Heaven and Earth so is the Virgin called the Queen of Heaven and sometimes the Queen of the Heavens in reference to the Angels and sometimes the Queen of Heaven and Earth Nay the Jesuit Rapine hath enstated her in that Empire without any mention of the King her Son as above her As Christ is acknowledged by Christians to be the Head of the Church and the only Mediator and Advocate so the Virgin is stil'd in the Synod of Mexico the Universal Patroness and Advocatress As the day has been divided into several portions in which devout people have prayed to God and Christ so seven Canonical Hours have been appointed for the worship of the Virgin As God and Christ have the Sunday sacred to them so in the Roman Church the Virgin hath Saturday On that day therefore saith Augustine Wichmans more Requests of miserable mortals are sealed by her the Chancelaress of the greatest King in the Court of Heaven than on all the
by the instance of the Brazen Serpent set up by one of Gods Vicegerents and upon its abuse destroyed by another and by that of the Cup of Joseph This Cup by which he Divined was probably an instrument used in some Sacrifice some drink-offering and in the use of which God vouchsafed him a Spirit of Prophesie with relation to the affairs of Egypt Now if the Egyptians afterward made use of this Cup or any other in form of it without any precept or promise from God Almighty and trusted in it as in the cause of Divination they then were Idolaters in this last kind of that impiety And this one would think was the Egyptian practice who readeth Lucian in his Book of Sacrifices and observeth him there deriding the Egyptians because they made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a drinking Pot a God And such a Cup may that be thought which is described in the hand of Isis in her Mystical Table rather than a Measure as Pignorius contendeth as likewise that mentioned by Arnobius in the right hand of Bacchus who often makes a Figure in the forementioned Table But this as it referreth to Joseph is but conjecture scarce so much as opinion I therefore dismiss it Yet I must not dismiss the Argument it self till I have further distinguished both concerning the Objects or Idols of that Honour which is given from God and the ways by which it is translated from the proper to the false Deity These Idols are either Personal Internal or External Objects By Personal Objects I mean the Idolaters themselves who become their own Statues and worship their very selves by the estimation they have of their Persons as Christs or of their Souls as real portions of the Essence of God the fancy of some followers of Plotinus of old who said Their Souls at death returned to the seminal Reason and of some Quakers at this time who say as Edward Burroughs the morning before he departed this Life That his Soul and Spirit was centred in its own being with God Internal Objects are the false Idea's which are set up in the fancy instead of God and his Divine perfections For he who fancieth God under the Idea of Indefinite Amplitude or Extension of matter or of Light or Flame or under the notion of an irresistible Tyrant and applies himself to him as such without the use of any visible external Statue or Picture is as certainly an Idolater as he who worshippeth a Graven Image for he giveth Divine Honour to an Idea which is not Divine Only here the Scene being internal in the Fancy the scandal of the sin is thereby abated External Objects are such which have a subsistence distinct from the Phantasms which are by motion impressed on the Brain And the Catalogue of these is a kind of Inventory of nature I will here give only a summary account of them for the particulars are endless Idolaters have worshipped Universal Nature the Soul of the World Angels the Souls of men departed either by themselves or in union with some Star or other Body They have likewise worshipped the Heavens and in them both particular Luminaries and Constellations the Atmosphere and in it the Meteors and Fowls of the Air the Earth and in it Man together with the accidents of which he is the subject such as Fortitude and Justice Peace and War And further on earth they have deified Beasts Birds Insects Plants Groves Hills artificial and artless Pillars and Statues Pictures and Hieroglyphics mean as that of the Scaribee it self resembling the Sun so many ways as Porphyrie fancieth together with divers fossils and terrestrial Fire They have furthermore adored the Water particularly that fruitful one of the Nile and in it the Fishes and Serpents and Insects as likewise the creatures which are doubtful Inhabitants of either Element such as the Crocodile in Egypt Kircher hath found the Temples of many of these Idols even in that polite Nation of China For he hath a Scheme containing the Temple of the Queen of Heaven the Temple of Heaven the Altar of Heaven the Temple of Demons and Spirits the Temple of the Planet Mars the Altar of the God of Rain the Altar of the King of Birds the Altar of the Earth the Temple of the President of Woods the Temple of Mountains and Rivers the Temple of the Spirit of Medicine the Temple of Gratitude and of Peace the Temple of the President of Mice and of the Dragon of the Sea Menander from Epicharmus summeth up the Idols of the World under these fewer heads of the Wind the Water the Sun the Earth the Fire But he is therefore deficient in his computation neither was it his purpose to make it accurate Thus the Image of God who made all things has as in a broken mirror been beheld without due attention in the several parts of the frame of the World and by the foolish Idolater distinctly adored And this adoration being used towards external Objects and not confined to mans secret thoughts hath with the more success and scandalous dishonour to God been propagated in the World And this remindeth me of the distinction which I designed also to make betwixt the ways by which Gods Honour is derived on creatures For it is either done by the inward estimation of the mind directing its intention in an Act or course of internal Worship or by the external signs of Religious Reverence It is done by both these together or by either of them apart There is no publick worship without manifest signs of it the heart in it self not being discern'd by mans eye but discovering it self by external tokens The Ifraelites saith St. Cyril worshipped the Calf and they did it by crying out these are thy gods f In them the mind and the outward signs of it went together But others by the meer outward shews of Adoration how unconcern'd soever they may have kept their minds have committed Idolatry Such as the Thurificati in the Primitive Church who believing the Gospel offered Incense before an Heathen Idol that being made a sign of their departure from Christianity and their approbation of Gentilism They thereby did an act of open dishonour to the true God and they used external means apt to incline others either to worship Idols instead of Him or to confirm them if they were already Idolaters in their detestable profaneness Such Idolaters it may be were some Englishmen who went to Sea with Mr. Davis in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth in order to the discovery of a North-West passage to Cataia China and East-India On the 29th of July in the year 1585 they discovered Land in 64 degrees and 15 minutes of Latitude bearing North-East from them They found this Land an heap of Islands on one of which they went on shoar There some few of the Natives made towards them and amongst that little herd of barbarous people one pointed first upwards wirh his
Idolatry First then I enquire how far the Gentiles owned one supreme God This enquiry is not capable of any nice and accurate resolution For there is no one Systeme of the Gentile Theology as there is of Judaism Mahometanism and the Christian Religion Divers persons in divers places had divers apprehensions concerning a Deity and divers Rites of worship And those distinct Rites by the commerce of Nations were often so mixed together that they made a new kind of Religion It is not unlikely that the dregs of the people among the Gentiles whom God had given up to brutishness of mind did rise little higher than Objects of sense They worshipped many of them together each as supreme in its kind or no otherwise unequal than the Sun and the Moon or the other coelestial bodies by the adoration of which the ancient Idolaters as Job intimateth denied or excluded the God that is above Porphyry himself one of the most plausible Apologists for the Religion of the Gentiles doth own in some the most gross and blockish Idolizing of mean Objects He telleth us that it is not a matter at which we should be amaz'd if most ignorant men esteemed wood and stones Divine Statues seeing they who are unlearned look upon Monuments which have inscriptions on them as ordinary Stones and esteem valuable Tables as pieces of common wood and regard Books no otherwise than as so many bundles of Paper Sensible objects arrested the stupid and unactive minds of the vulgar who like those indevout Idolaters of Japan reason'd no further concerning the original or Government of the World For few Heads are exercised by Philosophy and we meet not with one Peasant of a Thousand among our selves who asks how the Sun enlightens this Globe though he believes the body of it no bigger than his Bushel Such Heads are inclined to turn the Truth of God into a Lie to exchange the Sovereign Deity for that which is esteemed a God but is not and to multiply the kinds of it according to the variety of considerable effects and appearances whose Causes are only known to the Secretaries of Nature It is more probable still that many Gentiles reached no higher in their devotion than to Demons Saint Paul taxeth them with offering to Devils and not to God The same Apostle inform'd the Lycaonians that the design of his Preaching was the converting of men from vanities that is from their many Idols which were not what they were judged to be which being no Deities were in that respect nothing and vanity unto one God the true and living God from whom therefore these many Idols had withdrawn many of the Heathen The Inferiour objects had thrust the Superiour out of possession as in the Case of that woman under the Papacy who is said to have forsaken God for the Virgin and the Virgin in Heaven for that Lady as she called her which she saw before her eyes in the Church Divers Idols I say might crowd the Sovereign God out of their minds Jehovah might be banished whilst their imaginations were filled with many hundreds of Jupiters with no fewer than Thirty thousand in the account of Hesiod if he swelleth not the reckoning with Names and Sir-names instead of distinct Gods Some of the Gentiles who knew God that is had means by the things that are seen of ascending to the knowledg of the invisible Creator did notwithstanding not truly know him nor reach him by that wisdom or vain sort of Philosophy which did not edifie them though it puffed them up PART 2. Of their worship of Universal Nature c. as God THis is the common oppinion concerning many of the Gentiles but there is not sufficient reason to believe the same thing concerning them all For it is evident from the History of ancient and modern Idolatry and from the Writings of some of the Gentiles that the acknowledgment of one supreme Deity was not wholly banished from all parts of the Pagan World But herein likewise some of them greatly erred For first There were those amongst them who acknowledged Universal Nature as that one supreme Deity This Deity the Egyptians vailed sometimes under the names of Minerva and Isis before whose Temple Sai as Plutarch witnesseth this Inscription was to be read I am all that which was and is and will be hereafter And in her Image were placed the emblems of all the kinds of things with which Nature is furnished Such a Deity the Arcadians worshipped under the proper Title of Pan who as Pornutus contendeth is the same with the Universe The same Pornutus proceedeth in shewing that his lower part was shaggy and after the fashion of a Goat and that by it was meant the asperity of the Earth Bardesanes Syrus describeth at large the Statue of the Universe by which the Brachmans worshipped Nature It was an Image of Ten or Twelve Cubits in heighth It had its hands extended in the form of a Cross. It had a face Masculine on the one side and Feminine on the other It had the Sun on one of its breasts and on the other the Moon And on the Arms were to be seen a very great number of Angels together with the Heavens Mountains Seas Rivers the Ocean Plants and Animals and such other parts in Nature as make up the Universe Yet I cannot say that this was the Statue of their supreme Deity For they tell us concerning it that this was the Image which God set before his Son when he made the World as a pattern by which he should form his Work But I may say it more truly of some worshippers of Isis that they supposed her supreme and did adore her not with others as the inferiour Earth but in the quality as I just now noted of universal Nature So Pignorius hath taught us and before him Servius and Macrobius Hence was it that the Infcription on an Antient Marble at Capua owneth Isis as all things A like opinion may be with ground entertained concerning Vesta and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fire or Sun in the midst of her Temple as Plutarch in Numa hath suggested Wherefore no Image was consecrated to her besides that of her Temple which by its roundness denoted the World and by its sempiternal fire the Sun in it That fire was renewed each year on the first of March in allusion sure to the vigour of that Planet which then beginneth in especial manner to comfort those parts of the Earth Others again amongst the Gentiles ador'd the Sun as the one Sovereign Deity Such were they in Julius Firmicus who expressed their devotion in this form O Sol Thou best and greatest of things Thou mind of the Universe Thou Guide and Prince of all A like Egyptian form translated out of that language by Euphantus is remembred by Porphyrie and thus it beginneth O Sun thou Lord of all and ye the rest of the Gods
There Euphantus as may be probably imagined found Baal or some such word in the original Egyptian and gave us instead of it the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Such honour of the Sun we find on the Antient Egyptian Obelisk interpreted by Hermapion and restored to its antient beauty by Sixtus Quintus On it the Sun is set forth as God as the Sovereign disposer of the World which it seems he committed to the Government of King Ramestes Others there were who mistook for the one supreme God the Soul of the World and it may be thought the Sun the Head in that great animated Body or the place of that Souls principal residence On this fashion Osiris in Macrobius describeth his Godhead The Heavenly world is my head my belly the Sea my feet the Earth In Heaven are my Ears and for my all-seeing Eye it is the glorious Lamp of the Sun Pornutus likewise reciting the Dogmata of the Heathen Theology discourseth to this effect As we men are governed by a Soul so the world hath its Soul also by which it is kept in frame And this soul of the World is called Jupiter Aristotle himself doth somewhere stile God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a mighty Animal So apt are the highest Aspirers in Philosophy to fall sometimes into wild and desperate errors Amongst the Romans who excelled Varro in knowledg And yet S. Austin saith of him that he believed no higher God than the Soul of the World but that by disgusting Images as debasers of Religion he approached nigh to the true God Others both in Egypt and Persia worshipped for the true God a part only of his Idea whilst they removed from it the justice and mercy of sending preventing or taking away any temporal evils in which they thought the supreme Deity not concerned whilst they believed certain Demons to be the chastizers of those who had not purged themselves sufficiently from matter PART 3. How far the Gentiles owned one true God BUT it is not fair to fight always on the blind-side of Nature I come therefore in the next place to acknowledg that some Gentiles used a Diviner Reason than others and owned one supreme God the King of the World and a Being distinct from the Sun or the Universe or the Soul of it This appeareth from the Confession of many Christians and from the words of the Gentiles themselves First Divers of the Fathers though they shew the generality of their gods to have been but creatures yet they confess they had amongst them some apprehension of one supreme eternal Deity S. Chrysostom in a second Discourse in his sixth Tome concerning the Trinity doth charge upon the Arians and Macedonians the crime of renewing Gentilism whilst they professed one great God and another Deity which was less and created For it is Gentilism said that Father which teacheth men to worship a creature and to set up one Great or greatest God and others of inferiour order In this Discourse St. Chrysostom acknowledgeth that the Gentiles adored the one Sovereign God for him the Arians believed in and were in that point good Theists though no Orthodox Christians notwithstanding he accuseth them of Subordinate Polytheism S. Cyril of Alexandria speaks the same thing and in more plain and direct words It is manifest said he that they who Phylosophized after the Greecian manner believed and professed one God the builder of all things and by nature superiour to all other Deities And to come to the second way of proof above mentioned S. Cyril is very copious in the authorities which he produceth out of the Heathen Writers in order to the strengthening of his Assertion that they believed in one infinite God He introduceth Orpheus speaking as Divinely as David himself God is one he is of himself of him are all things born and he ruleth over them all He again after he had cited many Philosophers bringeth in the Poet Sophocles as one that professed the true God and the words which he there calleth to mind are worth the Transcribing Of a truth There is one God who made the Heavens and the spatious Earth and the goodly swelling of the Sea and the force of the Wind. But many of us mortals erring in our hearts have erected Images of gods made of Wood or Stone or Gold or Ivory as supports of our grief And to these we have offered sacrifices and vain Panegyricks conceiting in that manner that we exercised Piety He forbeareth not after this to cite Orpheus again and the Verses have their weight and contain this sense in them I adjure thee O Heaven Thou wise work of the great God! I adjure thee thou voice of the Father which he first uttered when he founded the whole World by his Counsels The Father calls to mind likewise many sayings of Porphyry and of the Author falsly called Trismegist But they were too well acquainted with Christianity to have Authority in this Argument of the one God of the Gentiles Such a Gentile one who dreamt not of any Gospel was Anaxagoras who as Plutarch testifies did set a pure and sincere mind over all things instead of fate and fortune In Laertius we may hear him speaking in his own words and they admit of this interpretation All things were together or in a Chaos Then came the Mind and disposed them into order But on this declaration of Anaxagoras I will not depend because his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or mind might be such as the Platonick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Soul of the World I like better the words of Architas the Pythagorean who speaks of God in the singular and says he is supreme and governs the World But nothing is more close to the purpose than that which hath so often been said by Plato It is his opinion recited in Timaeus Locrus That God is the Principal Author and Parent of all things And this he adds after an enumeration of the several Beings of which the Universe consisteth He affirmeth in his Politicus “ That God made the great Animal of the World and that he directeth all the motions of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that there are not two Gods governing the World with differing Counsels In his Sophista he determineth that God was the maker of things which were not that is as such before he framed them In his Timaeus he calleth God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Maker and Father of every being Adding that it is difficult to find out this Father of the Universe and that when he is found out it is not fit to declare him to the vulgar He was it seems a Jehovah not ordinarily to be named They who have read his works with care know what distinction he maketh betwixt God and the gods And how he extolleth the Divine goodness and maketh it the very Essence of the supreme God It is indeed to be
form and a prayer of which the following words are a part Shew me that which is hidden in thy bosom Oh thou who art indu'd with majesty and honour I see nothing of moment to be further said by me in this Argument and therefore I here conclude it And happy were it for the world if the superstition of Mahomet might have as speedy an end The like may be said of that kind of Idolatry which hath infected many who profess the true or Christian Religion And that false worship is my next Subject CHAP. VIII Of the Idolatry with which some are charged who profess and â—…all themselves Christians And first of the Idolatry of the Gnosticks and Manichees PART 1. Of the Idolatry of the Gnosticks WHen Christ was incarnate he soon weakned the visible Empire of the Devil removing his Idols and putting his Oracles to silence One of his great designs in coming in the flesh was to perswade the World to leave Idols and the Atheism of many gods as Maximus speaketh He manifested the one true God in Trinity declaring that there were three in Heaven and that they Three were One. He revealed much of the nature of the Daemons which had been worshipped in the World and decried them as wicked and malicious spirits God in him gave to the World the greatest help against the worship of Daemons and Idols as shall afterwards be shewed at large if God permit His Apostles and followers spake and wrote with zeal against Idols and God be thanked not without admirable success Amongst them was St. John the Beloved Disciple And he having shewn the Son in one of his Epistles to be the true Image of the Father and very God of very God does thence proceed to exclude all other Symbols in this dehortation Little children keep your selves from Idols And with that as with advice of moment and fit to be reserved for a word to take leave with he closeth his Epistle Idols also were with zeal declaimed against after him by divers Christians of whom some were converted Jews who had lived under an express Law against Images and others were converted Gentiles who bent themselves quite another way from their former Rites And these expressed their detestation of Idols in such severe manner that they looked upon Statuaries and Painters as men of unlawful Callings Others there were Christians by profession who though they worshipped not unless by fear or stealth as Epiphanius noteth the same Statues and Deities with the Gentiles yet did they set up afresh an Idolatrous worship which was in truth but disguised Heathenism Such were the Scholars of Simon Magus Menander Saturninus Basilides Carpocrates or according to Epiphanius Carpocras Valentinus Cerdon Marcion Secundus Ptolomaeus Marcus Colorbasus Heracleon Lucian Apelles and very many others who from their arrogant boasting of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sublime and extraordinary sort of knowledg obtained the name of Gnosticks These I will consider as worshippers firft of Daemons and secondly of Images The worship of Daemons they learned from the Cabala of Thales Pythagoras and Plato It was the Dogma of Menander and after him of Saturninus that this outward World was made by Angels that is that it was framed and composed by those Encosmical gods formerly mentioned and spoken of by Sallust the Platonist Alcinous a Disciple of the same School in his Introduction to the Philosophy of Plato professeth the same Doctrines He teacheth it as a Dogma of his Master That God did not properly make but rather adorn and excite the Soul of the World awakening it as it were out of its profound inactivity that thenceforth as an awakened man who stretcheth out his arms it extended it self far and near and joined and conserved the whole of Nature And to this eternal Soul of the World a principle which in some sort comprehended in it the inferior Angels the Gnosticks perhaps alluded in their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or fulness of the Godhead to which St. Paul opposeth the true principle by which God made all things his eternal co-essential Son Beyond the Daemons Alcinous doth not extend the care of God but setteth them as his Sons over other things And he ascribeth the formation of Animals and even of man himself to Junior Daemons Basilides was an Alexandrian where the Pythagorean Cabala had gotten deep footing and it appeareth by the Errors of Origen that the very preaching of St. Mark had not worn out the prints of it Some of them are easily discerned in the writings of that Father and especially in his Book which hath the Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basilides enjoin'd silence to them to whom his Mysteries were revealed both in imitation of the silence in the School of Pythagoras and as a means to avoid the trouble which might arise by the more open publication of them Carpocrates and Valentinus both of them were professed Pythagorean Platonists Valentinus placeth his Bythus or Profundity and Siges or Silence as the first conjugation of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Fullness And by this he might mean the Soul of the World awakened out of that deep inactivity which just now we heard of in the Jargon of Alcinous Marcion expresly maintained the two Principles of Pythagoras and he taught that they were distinct and without beginning and infinite These Hereticks worshipped a Deity under the mystical name of Abraxas or Abrasax according to the inscription on some Basilidian Gems This name some think they took up with respect to the imposition of that of Abraham By it they understood a supreme Power and seven subordinate Angels the Presidents of the seven Heavens together with their three hundred and sixtyfive Virtues answering to the number of the days of the year and by Basilides in Epiphanius set over so many members of the body of man By the name as one word they understood their one Deity and under it the Eighth Sphere which the Platonists called the highest Power by which all things were circumscribed By the seven Letters of that one word they understood the seven Angels and under them the seven Orbs. And therefore Gassendus if the Printer hath not injured him committeth a mistake in writing it ABRSAX as sometimes he doth He spoileth their Mystery by the diminution of one Letter Such injury the Engravers have done them in their Gems unless they designed by false Letters to render them still more mysterious By the Numeral Powers of their seven Letters in Greek they amounting to the sum of 365 days they understood the abovesaid Virtues Members and Days of the Year St. Austin in his Catalogue of Heresies seems in this matter to commit a mistake for he representeth Basilides as one that held 365 Heavens and affirmed them to be the makers of this World Whereas Basilides and Saturninus ascribed such power to the several Virtues of the seven Angels St.
Hierom judged that this Abraxas was the Sun or the Mithra of the Persians because its Annual course doth make up the abovesaid number of days But a good Reason ought to weigh down his Authority and there is a reason sufficient to perswade us that they meant some other supreme God For in the seven Spheres they included the Sun as one of the Planets and therefore did not intend him as the Deity that was above Saturn himself but their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Logos or Artist of all or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 himself For he in Epiphanius possesseth the place of the highest Orb. And in many of the Basilidian Gems particularly in that in the custody of Baronius that name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is inscribed though the Omega be misrepresented in the form of a W. They who consider this Systeme of their Deities will be apt to think them those Coelicolae which the Emperours condemned their Religion being a sort of Astrological Magick Now this their worship of the Heavens or Angels came as I said from the Schools of Thales and Plato together with some tinctures from the Heathen Poets and particularly from Hesiod in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But the Systeme of it was much further enlarged and varied also with Mystical signs and interpretations And they ran a kind of Enthusiastick descant upon a more natural or Geometrical ground He that fixeth his attention on the Platonick Scheme of the World observing the several proportions which Plato fancied in the adjusting of its parts when it was first framed He that reads in Timaeus Locrus of the hundred and fourteen thousand six hundred ninety and five divisions of the Soul of the World and in Alcinous of the Octoedral Icosaedral Duodecaedral figures in the composing of the Universe He that readeth further in Irenaeus of the Principle called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Divine fulness and of the Quaternations Octonations Decads Dodecads and numberless Conjugations of the AEons of the Gnosticks who began their Fancies very early though the Scheme of them was successively varied as likewise the very wording of it the Simonians changing their Masters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into St. John's Logos after his Gospel became publick such a one will guess without the gift of Prophesie what Doctrines did set their imaginations on work He will not wonder that the Disciples of Simon Magus worshipped in private the Image of Pythagoras They will not think it strange that the Valentinians in Irenaeus called their first Tetrad the Pythagorick Tetractys Celsus mistaketh these Gnosticks for true Christians and compareth their Mystical scale of things with that of the Mithriacs or Persian Divines Origen supposeth those whom he pointeth at to be the Sect of the Ophians a kind of spawn of the Gnosticks And he mentioneth a Diagram of theirs which had fallen into his hands and in which they described the Soul of the World penetrating all things under the name of Leviathan If that Diagram had been preserved it might have been compared with other Pythagorick and Magick Systemes and a Torch might have been lighted from it for further discoveries of that nature than can now be made For the Ophites they were manifest Idolaters worshipping a living Serpent for Christ And the Gnosticks were no better whilst they worshipped their Angels as Rulers of the World Hence Marcus the Gnostick is reproached expresly in Irenaeus after the mention of the AEons as a maker of Idols Neither is St. Hierom of another mind for on the third Chapter of Amos thus he discourseth Every Heretick feigneth what pleaseth himself and then he worshippeth his own fiction Thus did Marcion with his idle Deity Valentinus with his thirty AEons Basilides with his god Abraxas As these were the sink of Hereticks so were they the principal of Idolaters giving to the Devil himself by way of honour the title of Cosmocrator or Ruler of this World As if he had been such by the Commission of that Demiourgus whose creature they say he was and not by the consent of wicked men Idolaters then they were in the first place with respect to the Daemons whom they worshipped And in the second place I am inclined to think them such with respect to the Images of their Deitie and his Daemons Some such things were the Gems of the Basilidians preserved till these late times Joseph Scaliger had one of them in his possession and the excellent Peireskius very many Amulets they were and Symbols too of their Deities whose names of Abraxas Michael Gabriel Ouriel Raphael Ananael Prosoraiel Yabsoe names of their god and their seven Angels the Presidents of their seven Heavens were inscribed on them together with the Figures of Men Beasts Fowls Plants Stars the Schemes of which may be seen in Pignorius Abraxas is represented with humane body with buckler and whiâ—… or sword in hand as Ensigns of Power and with Serpents as feet Of a like abuse of Magical Gems the Jews and Mahometans themselves have been guilty And what are such Gems but Idols when there is an expectation from them of supernatural virtue which God hath not communicated to them Irenaeus reporteth of the Gnosticks that they had Pictures and Images and particularly one of Jesus made by Pilate also that they crown'd them and set them with the Images of Pythagoras Plato and Aristotle and other Gentile Philosophers observing or worshipping them after the manner of the Heathens The like is said by Epiphanius in his Twenty-seventh Heresie and by Theodoret in his first Book of Heretical Fables where he informeth us that Simon 's Statue was like to that of Jupiter's and Helen's like to that of Minerva's and that they were worshipped with Sacrifice and Incense The same is written by St. Austin who further mentions the Idolatry of Marcellina one of that Sect who worshipped together with the Images before remembred the Statue of Homer I will end this Discourse of the Idolatry of the Gnosticks with the following words of the very learned Mr. Thorndike For the Idolatry of the Gnosticks which I am confident is mentioned in divers Texts of the new Testament it may well be counted the Idolatry of the Pagans though pretending to be Christians Because they did not stick to exercise the same Idolatry when occasion was offered though they had their own Idolatries besides whether peculiar to their several Religions or as Magicians PART 2. Of the Idolatry of the Manichees WIth the Gnosticks I will join the Manichees both agreeing in obscene Superstitions and in the worship of the principal evil Daemon and both being branches from the same Magical Trunk of Pythagorean Philosophy Cubricus or Manes took the occasion of his Heresie from his Marriage with the Widow of Terbinthus who died in exercising his Magical Tricks Terbinthus who also
ground This opinion and practice had been the more tolerable if they had restrained it unto Angels of whose presence knowledg ministration the Scripture hath spoken but they extend it to Saints and for the holy Virgin their devotion is greater towards her than towards the highest Angel she being called the Queen of those Heavenly Powers The Authoress of the Spiritual Institutions prays not only to the Angels to the Angel-Guardian of her Person and to the Angel-Guardian of her Religion that is of her Order but likewise to St. Bernardine St. Placidus and other Saints as to her selected Patrons And Horstius a man of rank devotion towards Spirits and often to be remembred by me treateth first of the Worship of Saints and of them as Patrons and then of the Worship of Angels and Angel-Guardians Concerning Angels he sheweth that holy men such as he so esteemeth did both pray to their Guardian-spirit and to such Angels as were Presidents of Kingdoms Provinces Cities Towns with solioitous zeal and he nameth St. Xavier St. Aloysius and St. Francis and calleth to mind the singular devotion of the last towards St. Michael the Archangel Then for the Saints he celebrates them as such Who being formerly servants and stewards are now set over all the Goods of their Lord in the land of the living He saith that it belongeth to their praise and glory that their Aid be invoked and that they protect us in necessity And he teacheth his Reader thus to worship the Virgin Holy Mary Mother of God and Virgin I though unworthy to serve thee yet trusting in the clemency of thy Motherly heart chuse thee this day before my guardian-Guardian-Angel and the whole Court of Heaven for my Mother and peculiar Lady Patroness and Advocatrix And I firmly resolve henceforth to serve thee and thy Son with fidelity and perpetually to adhere to you I beseech thee by that love by which thy Son when he was giving up the Ghost upon the Cross commended himself to his Father and thee to his true Disciple and him again to thee to take me into thy care and protection and be thou with me in all the straits and dangers of my whole life but especially help me in the hour of my death Amen I have said that it is more tolerable to pray thus to Angels than it is to Saints but I can find little ground in Reason or Scripture thus to worship the Angels themselves Reason teacheth that God who made the World is the Governour of it The Scripture teacheth that there are distinct Orders of Angels but it disalloweth of such Lieutenancy under God as men have ascribed to them It mentioneth Thrones and Powers and Dominions and Principalities yet rather in allusion to the Gnosticks as was above conjectured than by way of assertion of such Orders Those Hereticks Irenaeus provoketh to tell what is the nature of Invisible Beings what is the number and order of Angels what are the Mysteries of Thrones and the diversities of Dominions Principalities Powers Virtues and he assureth us they were at a loss So ignorant was the Christian World in his time of the Nine Orders of the feigned Dionysius the Areopagite That there are distinct Orders of Spirits that there are Angels and Archangels I firmly believe But it does not thence follow that the Government of the World is shared amongst them though they have a Ministerial part in the affairs of it Archangels seem no other than the seven Spirits typified by the seven Lamps in the Temple Their Office was as elect and eminent Spirits to minister before the Throne of God and on solemn occasions to be sent in Embassie to the World Such a one was Gabriel who stood in the Presence of God and was sent to the Blessed Virgin Nothing of this inferreth their distinct Provinces committed to them but it sheweth only the dignity of their station and their occasional Ministry Neither doth it follow from the seven Angels mentioned as Presidents of the seven Churches of Asia that they as some have taught were under the Charge and Patronage of seven Spirits For St. John is required to write to these Angels and to reprove their faults as the abatement of Love in the Angel of Ephesus and his Church And he makes distinct mention of the seven Spirits and the seven Stars which latter he had shewed to be the Angels of those Churches and who were therefore no other than the Bishops of them called by a name which is given the High Priest in the Prophet Malachy and by the Jews in Diodorus Christian Religion owneth but one proper Substitute under God one Paraclete or Patron for so that title signifies one proper Mediator the glorified Jesus the Spirits under him are but Angels or Messengers though sent abroad on different Embassies Wherefore I know not how to approve of the expression of a late very grave and learned Author who speaketh of the Invisible Regiment of the World by the subordinate Government of good and evil Angels It is true that the good are a Community and so in some sort are the bad but their divers Orders concern their own society most and they are not to be construed as the Orders and Powers in the frame of Gods Government of the whole World It is also to be confessed that Elisha's servant to reflect a little on his instance saw fiery Chariots and Horsmen in the Mount and that this was a representation of Gods Angels in the scene of a Camp But no other Argument ought to be fetched thence besides that which concludeth that there is a greater power in God and his Coelestial Ministers than in the Armies of the World He that will torture this Vision and make it confess commission-Officers amongst them ought also to make them ride on Horses and Chariots For evil Angels their dominion is oftner mentioned than that of the good But certainly though they are called in Scripture Principalities and Powers no man that carefully attendeth to his words will call them also subordinate Governours of the World For they are professed Rebels against God who doth not own or treat them as his subjects but he being provoked by the perverseness of wicked men permitteth those rebellious Daemons to exercise great power amongst the children of disobedience who are in indirect Covenant with them It is worse still to say that God ruleth the World by Saints than to affirm so much of him in reference to his holy Angels yet this the Romanists openly maintain and some also who have not only disputed but even raved against the Church of Rome For so it is said by Thomas Goodwin in his Sermon of the fifth Monarchy That the Saints on earth have by their Prayers an influence in the managing the affairs of the World and into the accomplishment of all the great things that Christ doth for his Church That
them has in all cases such power by commission that little motive is left for immediate application unto God and much trust and gratitude due to him is paid to these Delegates Fifthly The Angel whose protection Jacob implored for the safeguard of Ephraim and Manasses as having had himself experience of his aid was a Diviner Spirit than either Michael or Gabriel even the Logos of God This is the opinion of Novatianus declared once and again in his Book of the Trinity This is the opinion of many of the Fathers whose Testimonies shall be produced in my Fourteenth Chapter At present it may suffice to bring forth that plain one of St. Cyril of Alexandria in his Thesaurus An Angel is said to have striven with the Patriarch Jacob and this Divine Writ testifies but the holy man retaining him said I will not let thee go unless thou bless me Now this Angel was God which the words of the Patriarch shew whilst he saith I have seen God face to face Him appearing to him as an Angel he desireth to bless the Children And a while after he thus discourseth When Esau his Brother designed against him he did not invoke an Angel but God saying Take me O Lord out of the hands of my brother Esau for I stand in fear of him Sixthly The story of Raphael protecting Tobias is not found in Canonical Scripture But if it be notwithstanding a true report this being a peculiar favour of God in an extraordinary case it doth not encourage men in all emergencies to pray for the like without a promise from God He sendeth not all to be our guides who may sympathize with our estate The Angels who never sustain'd infirmity do not so neither doth the ministration of an Angel argue that of a Saint Nor doth it follow that God doth use such ministrations so frequently and visibly under the Gospel as under the Law in which dispensation his Shechinah in which the Angels attended was shewn often on Earth Seventhly If St. Roch once assisted the infected it is not proved thence that God sends him where-ever he sends that heavy judgment And how appeareth it that he ever helped at a distance in that dreadful sickness which requires a Domine Miserere Why because say they the infected prayed to him and were healed But the event is not always the effect and God in pursuance of his own greater and mysterious ends doth often answer the matter of the requests of the superstitious and the wicked And often there are other ordinary second Causes which men fancy by the event to have been more extraordinary and divine They who among the Heathens prayed to Lavina for her assistance in a cleanly cheat might impute the effect unto their Goddess though she never understood them and their own cunning brain and slight of hand brought the couzenage to pass with such undiscovered Art S. Austin will furnish us with a better instance a matter of fact In his Eleventh Chapter de Curâ pro mortuis he telleth of one Eulogius a Master of Rhetorick in Carthage who was perplexed with a knotty place in the Rhetoricks of Cicero which he was next day to interpret to his Schollars And in that night saith the Father I interpreted unto him in his dream that which he understood not Nay not I but my Image I being wholly ignorant of this affair and being so far beyond the Sea doing or dreaming some other thing and being wholly careless of his cares The mans brain was heated and amongst other Images that of S. Austin came in his mind he being then the fam'd Schollar in Africa and his dreams as often it happens were luckier than his waking thoughts and he imputed to St. Austin that which followed his Apparition in the brain though that was not the cause of it Eighthly if St. Michael was once sent to succour the Jews it is not to be thence concluded that Saints do the like or that he himself hath always the same Office in reference to the quality or the object of it or that Angels appear alike under the dispensation of the Logos substituted without union to manhood and that of him incarnate and installed King of the World nor do all the Learned think that by Michael is always meant an Angel In sum the Romanists are not so much charged with Idolatry for praying to such Saints as most sympathize in their conjecture with their present conditions as for trusting in them as such whom God hath impower'd to succour all Christians in equal circumstances and like places and for returning the thanks to them which are oftenest due to the immediate Providence of the Omnipresent God If they do not apply themselves to them as such why do they use such Forms in their Prayers Why do they give them the name of Patron and Guardian-Saints Why do they as well call on the Virgin as on the highest Angel for Guardianship Why do the Popes in their many Bulls declare them to be Patrons of such places and helpers in such particular cases Why are the people directed in the choice of them and advis'd to an especial affiance in them Why is there mention in their Authors of their appearance in person to their Supplicants with present aid and further assistance This is done by Bernardin de Bustis and recited in a Manual Printed at Paris with approbation in a Discourse of the seven Joys of the Virgin to wit in their account her Annunciation by the Angel her Visitation by Elizabeth the glorious Birth of Christ the Adoration of the Magi the Retrieve of her Son in the Temple the appearance of Christ after his Resurrection and her happy departure and Assumption into Heaven With these Joys saith Bernardin St. Thomas of Canierbury a devout servant of the Virgins did every day salute our Lady To him as he proceeds she one day appeared when he was at his Prayers and she assured him that his saluting her with her seven Joys on earth which sometimes were said to be but five was very agreeable to her but that the saluting of her with her seven Joys in Heaven to wit her Exaltation above the Angels her illuminating Paradise as the Sun does the World the reverence paid her by Angels Archangels Thrones and Dominions her being the Conveyer of all the Graces which Christ bestoweth her sitting at the right hand of her Son her being the hope of sinners in such sort that all who praise and reverence her are by the Father recompenced with eternal Glory the augmentation of her graces and favours in Paradice until the Day of Judgment was acceptable to her in a higher degree And she promised to him and to others also who should daily repeat these Salutations adjoining to each an Ave Maria that she would be present with them at the hour of death and that for her sake they should be saved In which instance we have the Patronage of the
the Germans and absolved his Subjects from their Oath of Allegiance and who endeavour'd to set up a Papal Monarchy to the disquiet of all Nations Neither is it for the Honour of the Gospel of Peace to Saint either Pope Victor or Pope Stephen who first took upon them to be Bishops or rather Censurers out of the Diocess that belonged to them Nor did the ancient Church own them as Saints or Martyrs as doth the modern one of Rome Interest of State hath oftentimes exalted them to the Honour of Saints who had never obtained that high Title by their meer piety of life It hapned tolerably in respect of the person when Thomas Aquinas was registred among the Saints for he was a man of great Scholastick Learning and of a mighty zeal in the Roman way But for the true reason of his being Canonized it was secular enough For Pope John the Two and twentieth to depress the Franciscans who did for the most part adhere to the Emperour Lewis of Bavaria Excommunicated by him did canonize that Doctor and his Doctrine directly opposite to that of the Followers of St. Francis in the Article of the Virgins Immaculate Conception Money also maketh such gods being first made one it self And who knows whether it hath not sometimes Canonized evil men For they whom it thus bribeth are not usually beyond the outward colour and pretence respecters of Saintship Canonization they say secureth Christians from worshipping the damned instead of the blessed I wish saith the Archbishop of Spalato that it brings not to pass that very thing which they think it preventeth In this as he goes on are the faithful safe if they reduce their worship to the sole worship of God And here it is worthy our observation that Gregory the ninth complained on his death-bed of that vicious easiness of his whereby he listned to the dreams and visions of such who pretended to great sanctity and occasioned great schisms and disturbances in the Church He meaneth this in all likelihood of Catherine of Siena by whom he was deluded and thereby drawn into a desperate schism yet she is St. Catherine and her Clients are many It is a strange infallibility with which the Pope is invested if he can judg without error of the manners of such whom he has seldom in his eye and who want not their flatterers whatsoever is their party It is therefore much safer to own the ancient Saints such as St. Chrysostome and St. Ambrose whom the whole Church Canonized by its consent than such Modern ones as St. Catherine and St. Thomas of Canterbury whom the Authority of the Pope hath put into the Calendar Of some then the Saintship is doubtful and of some the very existence For are not the three Kings of Colen as such a very fiction yet are they worshipped in the Roman Church as Guardian-Saints And Horstius prayeth them to obtain for him the frankincense of devout Prayer the myrrh of Mortification and the gold of Charity Is not think you St. Almachius a substantial Patron yet such a one there is in some Roman Calendars the title of Sanctum Almanacum being first by mistake written too low against the first day of January yet a Saint he must be And Baronius is loth to part with him and in his Martyrology he will have him to be the same with St. Telemachus But secondly They will prove their Saints to be both Saints and Patrons by the miracles they work upon Invocation Thus the Popes in the Bullarium recite the many miracles wrought by their Saints and then they decree them a place in the Calendar Thus the Catechism of Trent proves the honour of Patrocinie to be due to the Saints by the wonders seen at their Sepulchres and Relicks Thus Baronius telleth of the Saintship and Miracles of the abovesaid Gregory the seventh and of a virtue in his Garments equal to that in the handkerchers of the Primitive Christians mentioned in the Acts. Thus Mr. White boasteth of the restitution of a leg cut off and buried four years to a young man who prayed to our Lady of Pilar affirming the story to be sufficient to convert the whole world To this second Allegation many things may be returned First When God wrought Miracles at the Tombs of the Martyrs he wrought them not as answers to them who invoked Martyrs for in those times they were honoured as Saints and as Soldiers dying in Christs cause and not invoked as Patrons but he thereby encouraged Christians in times of Persecution and honoured their Religion in the sight of the Heathen Secondly There is no reason to expect such Miracles in the setled Ages of Christian Religion though there might be at the first planting of it And Thirdly We have had a long time a fixed rule from whence we may learn the practical truth and duties of our Religion the Word of God Neither hath God left so great a part of his Worship as Prayer to be derived from the dreams of the Melancholy or the delusions of Satan or the Tales of men who write Legends for the advantage of their cause or other tricks of politick persons He hath required us in Scripture to call upon him through Jesus Christ and he hath confirmed this and his whole Gospel by the real Miracles of his Apostles after those of his Son and the Gospel being thus fixed we are not to expect any new discoveries of Evangelical duty by the voice or miracle of an Angel from Heaven who if he should be in such manner sent to us with any new Doctrinal or Moral Revelation ought to be looked on by us as one that trieth our Faith and not as one from whom a new rule of faith or manners is to be received Fourthly Many Romish Miracles are events not effects A Popish woman is extremely sick in body she causeth an Image of the Virgin as is the fashion now among some Romanists in England to be hanged within her curtains at the feet of her bed She invoketh the Virgin and useth Physick she recovers by Art by strength of nature by any other way of Gods Providence and the Virgin is entituled to the Cure because the event followed their Invocation of her Fifthly Many of the Miracles are too light to be ascribed to the Saints of Heaven The credulous Lipsius confirms the Invocation of our Lady of Halla by stories some of them very strange and some very ludicrous He tells of a Boy raised by her from the dead after three days Of a Taylor whom she helped to his needle and thread after they had been swallowed down by him Of a Soldier who by Miracle lost his nose having threatned to cut off that of her Image So Cantapratanus and Antoninus tell at large how the Virgin mended the hairy shirt of Saint Thomas of Canterbury Sixthly Many of them are mere cheats performed by cunning men under
the notion of pious frauds A Priest skilled as much in Physick as Divinity knows the sick Romanist to whom he is Confessor to need a vomit He exhorteth him to invoke the holy Virgin he biddeth him view well her Image which he hath put into an Antimonial cup he adviseth him to drink of that liquor into which her Image and her blessing hath infused virtue and to repeat his devotions to the Virgin his Patroness The sick ignorant man obeys believes him dischargeth his stomack and is presently eased He crys out a Miracle a Miracle he is constant to his Aves all his days There are some who know this to be an History though I have told it in the form of a supposition Seventhly Many Wonders and Apparitions are the delusions of the Devil and dangerous snares in which he entangleth the commonalty of that Church By this means he often reconciles himself to their favour and they take him in this disguise for a real Angel of Light What other construction can a wise man make of the story in Mathew Paris concerning the Specter said to appear to the Earl of Cornwall The same hour saith the Reporter that William Rufus fell by the hand of Sir Walter Tyrrell the Earl of Cornwall being alone in the Forrest met with a great hairy black Goat carrying the King black and naked and wounded through the midst of his breast He adjuring the Goat by the holy Trinity to tell what this meant the Goat made him this reply I carry to his doom your King or rather your Tyrant William Rufus For I am an evil spirit and an avenger of that malice of his with which he raged against the Church of Christ and I procured his murther They who believe these Legends and take such Apparitions as measures of their Faith will think the Devil good-natur'd towards Christianity and an executor of vengeance on the enemies of it though in truth he himself is its greatest and most inveterate foe and wounds it deepest when he strikes at it in the disguise of a friend The stories concerning the appearance of the Virgin to her Clients are very numerous and of them too many represent her in unbecoming postures And such appearâ—…nces should rather move the dread and abhorrence than encourage the Invocation of the Romanists being either the Images of an unclean brain or the Specters of impure Devils Lastly Let not the Papists prove their worship of Saints as the Heathen did their worship of Daemons And here I end my Discourse concerning the Worship of Saints in the Roman Church as Patrons and Patronesses as Presidents and Lieutenants in the Government of the World with the sense of the judicious and moderate Archbishop of Spalato This in my judgment is the great objection against the Invocation of Angels the Holy Virgin or other Saints whose souls are with God in Heaven that it is in the nighest degree of peril to become Religious Worship for it is out of doubt that the ruder people do religiously invoke the Saints and that many are internally more affected with religious passion towards the Virgin or some Saint than towards Christ himself For they invoke not a Saint as one that prayeth for them but as the principal Helper Neither say they Pray for me but help me Come to my Aid Save me Nor do they express it in words or understand it in their minds that these things be done for them by the Saints praying for them but that the Saints themselves do immediately perform these things And in invocating of them many wholly devote themselves all their soul and and spirit to the Virgin Mary and the Saints and subject themselves wholly to them in Spirituals which is a kind of formed Idolatry Now though by this Discourse I may have given offence unto the Marians or rather said that which will be made an offence by their misconstruction I am not jealous that I have at all offended those blessed spirits if they have knowledg of that which I write For they are not covetous of undue honour but cast those Crowns with high indignation under their feet which are set on their heads to the dishonour of God by the Idolatrous flatteries of foolish men CHAP. XI Of the Idolatry Charged on the Papists in their Worship of Images And first of the Worship of an Image of God IT still remaineth that I speak of the Worship of Images in the Roman Church and of that degree of Idolatry with which it seemeth to be stained And for Images I will briefly consider those of the Trinity of God of Christ of the Saints and under that of Christs the statue of the Cross. For the Image of the Trinity we must not charge either the making or the worshipping of it upon the very constitution of the Church of Rome though men of that Communion have often done both and the Missals Breviaries and Manuals Printed with license in these times abound with such Pictures Formerly that Church was very severe against such practices And Pope John the 22d arraigned certain people in Bohemia and Austria who had painted God the Father as an old man and the Son as a young man and the Holy Ghost as a Dove as violaters of Religion And he pronounced them Anthropomorphites and condemned some of them to the Fire It seems the modern Popes are not so strict neither did the late Printers of the Missal at Paris or of the Manual of Horstius at Colen dread their Fire they having adorned the Copies of those Books with such dangerous Sculptures And it should seem by what Mr. Baxter hath said That some among our selves have had a zeal for such Pictures for he tells of a Tumult raised where he had dwelt upon a false rumour that the Church-wardens were about to obey the Parliaments Order in taking down the Images of the Trinity about the Church But most probable it is that the zeal of the multitude was ready to defend such Images or paintings in windows rather as the ornaments of the place in general than distinctly as Pictures of the mysterious Trin-unity Concerning the Image of God I find not now as in former times in the publick Books of the Church of Rome any forms of Benediction by which it should be consecrated though there be forms enough of the consecration of Crosses and of the Images of Christ and his Saints Neither doth the Council of Trent ordain either the making or the veneration of the Image of God though it supposeth that it is sometimes painted in sacred story for the use of their people For it giveth order that the people be instructed so far as not to take such a Picture for Divinity figured Nay the Catechism by Decree of that Council speaketh thus in the explication of their first Commandment Moses when he would turn the people from Idolatry said to them You saw no similitude on the day in which the Lord
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
too that God walked in Paradise Hear the answer I make to this Objection God indeed and the Father of all things is neither shut up in a place nor found in it For no place is there in which God can in such manner dwell In the mean time his Word by which he made all things being the Power and Wisdom of the Father himself personating the Father who is Lord of all came into Paradise in his Person and spake unto Adam who in the Scripture is said to have heard the voice of God Now Gods voice what is it else but the very Logos or Word of God which is likewise his Son After Adam was driven out of Paradise the Logos appointed a kind of Shechinah in the appearance of Angels to guard the way of the Tree of Life These I conceive were a Cherub and a Saraph and that the latter an Angel in the opinion of Maimonides himself was meant by the flaming-sword turning every way the versatile tayl of a Saraph or flame-like winged Serpent not being unaptly so called And this conceit when I come to explain my self about Urim and the brazen Serpent will seem less extravagant than now it may do in this naked Proposal And yet as 't is thus proposed 't is not so idle as that of Pseudo Anselm who will have this guard to be a Wall of Fire incompassing Paradise In process of time when Cain and Abel offered to God their Eucharistical Sacrifices the Son of God again appeared as Gods Shechinah and testified it may be his gracious acceptance of the Sacrifice of Abel by some ray of flame streaming from that glorious visible Presence and re-acting to it whilst he shewed himself not pleased with the offering of Cain by forbearing as I conjecture to shine on his sheaves or to cause them to ascend so much as in smoke towards Heaven And with this conjecture agreeth the Translarion of Theodotion in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Lord had respect to the oblations of Abel and set them on fire That seemeth to be the most ancient way of answering by Fire some obscure characters of which we may discern in that lamp of fire which passed betwixt the pieces of Abrahams Sacrifice And much plainer footsteps of it are to be seen in the contest of Elijah with the Prophets of Baal whom that true Prophet of the God of Israel vanquished by that sign triumphing also thereby over that false Deity which they so vainly and with Battologie invoked I doubt not but God vouchsafed to men many other appearances of his glorious Shechinah besides those granted to Adam and Abel before he expressed his high resentment of the immorality of the world in the Flood of Noah But we have no large Registers of the Transactions of those times PART 4. Of the Shechinah of God from Noah to Moses THis eminent declaration of God as a God of judgment by sending such a deluge not having its due effect on Cham God with great justice withdrew as I conceive this glorious Shechinah from him and his Line which continued his wickedness as well as his name From them he withdrew it especially though to the rest it appeareth not to have been a common favour Cham and his race being thus left to the vanity of their own brutish minds that race in the first place worshipped the Sun as the Tabernacle of the Deity that being the object which next to Gods Shechinah did paint in the brain an Image of the most venerable luster and perhaps likest to that glorious flame of Gods Shechinah which had formerly appeared for so glorious was that Planet in the eyes of the very Manichees in after-times that they esteemed it the seat of Christ after his Ascension and Installment in Heaven I have guessed already that this kind of Idolatry was exercised and with design promoted at the building of the Tower of Babel Now towards the prevention of that impious design the Shechinah of God appeared on the place For so Novatianus argueth from those words in the Eleventh of Genesis Let us go down It could not said he be God the Father for his Essence is not circumscribed nor yet an Angel for it is said in Deuteronomy That the most high divided the Nations It was therefore he that came down of whom St. Paul saith He who descended is he who ascended above all Heavens So that the Arabick Version the Angels came down must be interpreted of that part of the Shechinah which is made up by their attendance on the Son of God Whilst God was thus angry with the race of Cham it pleased him to vouchsafe though not in the quality of a daily favour the appearance of his Shechinah to that separate or holy seed from whence his Son not yet incarnate was to take the substance of his flesh A great Instance of it we have in the appearance which he vouchsafed to Abraham who often saw the Shechinah of God and in that manner communed with him so great was the ignorance of the Jews and causless their malice when they raged against the Son of God because he professed himself to have existed before that ancient Patriarch Such fall under the heavy sentence of the Council called at Sirmium a City of the lower Pannonia where the Eastern Bishops concluded on a Creed against Photinus who Haeretically maintained That Christ appeared not before he was born of the Virgin Of that Creed this is one of the Decretory clauses Whosoever saith that the unbegotten Father only was seen to Abraham and not the Son let him be accursed The second Chapter of the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius is wholly spent in the proof of the Pre-existence of Christ. And in that place as also in his Book of Evangelical Demonstration he insisteth amongst many other Examples on that of Abraham to whom Almighty God did once by his Son shew himself a while in the common similitude of a man at the Oak of Mamre the Shechinah in its especial luster being for a short season intercepted That Place from this occasion was for many ages esteemed sacred so high a respect there is in man for the visible presence of a Divine Power But such things being apt to degenerate into abuse the same place by degrees became sacred in the sense of the Heathens that is polluted with many idolatrous superstitions At length the Piety of Constantine the Great did there erect a Church for the worship of Christ who had appeared in that place in a like form they say to that which he afterwards assumed with personal union Another appearance was vouchsaf'd to Abraham when the Judgment of Fire was imminent over Sodom Moses witnesseth That he who revealed this overthrow to the Patriarch was truly God whilst he introduceth Abraham using towards him the Divine style of the Judg of all the earth and that this Lord and Judg was
Wilderness the Pillar of Fire and Cloud nor himself whom they judg'd a cause of the Shechinah of God with them and remaining forty days and forty nights in this forsaken estate as they were apt to think it importun'd Aaron for some symbol of Gods Presence with which he might conduct them as Moses had done in former times Aaron wearied with their Cries made them a Golden Image after the manner of some part of Gods Shechinah which he had seen with Nadab and Abihu and the Seventy Elders in a certain ascent of the Mount He saw thenthe God of Israel that is as the Seventy expound the Hebrew sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the place or the Throne or as the Targum of Onkelos renders it the Glory or Shechinah of God not as Oleaster affirmeth the Pavement only which is mentioned afterward And in the Shechinah there was an appearance of Angels the Author to the Hebrews where he opposeth the Gospel to the Law in divers particulars mentioning an innumerable company of Angels in opposition to a smaller company on Mount Sinah The attending-Angels were usually Cherubim and the Cherubim appear'd with heads like those of Oxen and because the head only was of that likeness therefore if I conjecture aright Lactantius and St. Jerome call'd this Golden Image the Golden head of a Calf This I conceive to have been the figure of a Cherub though it pleaseth not the Painter who describeth it by the Face of a young round-visag'd man Thus much I collect from the Prophet Ezekiel That Prophet in the vision of the wheels saith of them That every one had four Faces The first Face was the Face of a Cherub and the second Face was the Face of a man and the third the Face of a Lyon and the fourth the Face of an Eagle If then the Face of a Cherub was the Face of a man then each wheel had not four differing Faces but one had two Faces of human Figure the second being said to be the Face of a man as the first was said to be the Face of a Cherub But if these two had been alike the Prophet would then have alter'd his style and said The first two Faces were the Faces of a man But it is evident by comparing this place in Ezekiel with the tenth verse of the first Chapter that the Face of a Cherub is the Face of an Ox. For there he mentions the three latter Faces as he doth here calling them the Faces of a Man a Lyon an Eagle but for the other Face called here the Face of a Cherub he calleth it there the Face of an Ox. And the comparing of these places induced the Learned Critick Ludovicus de dieu to be of this opinion that Cherub signifi'd an Ox and was derived from the Chaldee word Cherub He or It hath plowed Now by the worshipping of this Figure of the Face of a Cherub or Ox the sottish people chang'd their Glory b the glorious Image or Shechinah of God call'd as was even now said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the Seventy in the 12th of Numbers into the similitude of a man though useful creature whose likeness could at best be but the symbol of an Angel which was no more to the Shechinah of God nor so much by a great deal as one spoke of a wheel is to an Eastern Emperor in a triumphant Chariot They turn'd their Glory saith Jeremiah into a thing which did not profit them in Idolum into an Idol as is the version of the Vulgar Latine a helpless statue They turned the Truth of God as it is in St. Paul into a Lye The true Shechinah of God into an Idol which is vanity nothing of that which it pretendeth to be having no Divinity attending on it Aaron made it as Gods symbol which in truth it was not and the people worship'd it beyond his intention and after the Egyptian manner and in their hearts wishing they were again in that Land of Ceremonious Idolatry This folly kindled the wrath of God and Moses yet it did not quite remove his favour for Moses was a second time call'd up into the Mount and thence he brought the renewed Tables and the Statutes of Israel and the pattern of the Tabernacle and at his descent Rays of glorious Light did stream from his face as if he had been a second Shechinah reflecting the borrow'd beams of the first The Tabernacle which God had now discover'd and which Moses was ready to frame was but a model of the Temple built many years after by the Magnificent Solomon And in it God gave the people instead of the more aenigmatical and idle Hieroglyphicks of the World in Egypt a more excellent Scheme of it in this great and typical Fabrick representing in the three spaces of it the three Heavens which the Jews so often speak of the Elementary and Starry and Supercoelestial Regions St. Chrysostom speaking of this workmanship of God calleth it the Image of the whole World both sensible and intellectual And he attempteth the justification of his Notion by the 9th to the Hebrews and particularly by the 24th verse in which the holy places made with hands are call'd the figures of the true or heavenly places In this manner then God pleas'd to help the imaginations of the Jews by a visible scheme of his throne and footstool It were endless here to take particular notice of all things relating to the Tabernacle or Temple but if I take not the Ark into my especial consideration I shall be guilty of greater negligence than any foolish Astronomer who in his description of the Heavens should leave out the Sun This Ark of the Covenant consider'd in all the appendages of it God vouchsafed to the Jews in place of all the Statues or Creatures or appearances of Daemons which their fancy was apt to adore and in which Daemons did already or might afterwards counterfeit some shews of the glorious Shechinah of God Men saith Maimonides built Temples to the Stars and placed in them some Image dedicated to this or the other Idol in the Heavens and gave it unanimous worship Hence God commanded that a Temple should be built to himself and that the Ark should be put into it and that in the Ark should be deposited the Two Tables of stone in which it was written I am the Lord thy God and thou shalt have no other Gods besides me The whole of it was in singular manner typical of God-man who came to destroy the works of the Devil This virtue of Christ appearing on the Ark was manifested in the miraculous conquest of it over Dagon a Sea-god worshipped in Palestine in the City of Ashdod He fell before the Ark and laid on the ground a handless and headless Idol without more shew of Majesty Power or Wisdom than the Trunk of a Tree This Ark was not in it self properly an Image but
a Chest over-laid with Gold as a Conservatory of the precious 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Two Tables Yet thereby God by way of Hieroglyphick though not of Image or Picture of representation did offer himself to the eye as a supreme Governour ruling the Commonwealth of Israel by a written Law This Moncaeus would have to be taken from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Chest or Coffin of Apis mentioned by Plutarch But that was a thing of later date and not known to the ancient Egyptians It belonged to the Greek Serapis who is said thence to take his name The whole of the Ark seems to some the Triumphant Chariot of God moved by Angels set forth by the form of Beasts who drew the Chariots of the Eastern Kings whose Pomp the Poets exalted into Heaven in the Chariots of their gods This of the true God is represented as moving by Angels in the Clouds not as any fixed Throne in it self the Power and Providence of God whose Chariot hath Wheels with Eyes making all the World its circle though often it took its way to the Tabernacle and Temple Why Cherubims were added the cause hath been often intimated already to wit by reason that the Logos appearing as Gods Shechinah was attended with Angels and especially with Cherubim Though Maimonides reckoneth the Cherubim to be of the lowest order excepting those which he calls Ischim such in his conceit as spake to inspired men and were by them seen in Prophetical Visions For the entire Figure of the Cherubim I am not desirous to inquire with nice and accurate diligence whether it were such as the Angels usually appeared in or whether it were a mere Emblem of their Properties The Scripture shews that they move swiftly as flame and wind and all understand that wings are the instruments of a quick motion The Scripture also representeth them as dazled at the Glory of God and therefore needeth no further Comment on the Faces of the Cherubim as covered with their wings But curiously to interpret each particular spoken of them and of the Ark in which they were placed is the ready way to create such significations by our fancy as the wisdom of God did never intend Of this kind sure is that conceit of S. Greg. Nyssen who will have the Rings of the Ark to signifie the Angels sent as Rings or pledges of favour to the Heirs of Salvation It is enough if we look upon the Ark as an holy vessel representing Gods Majesty with his Coelestial Retinue and the Rule of his Law and as a Type of Christ without forcing every staff and ring and pin into unnatural Allegory And for some such reason Mr. Calvin did on purpose forbear to pry too critically into the Ark. Betwixt the Cherubims and upon the Cover of the Ark appeared as in a Chariot of Majesty the Divine Logos in admirable lustre yet tempered with Clouds So he appeared to the people when Moses was taken up into the Mount So Ezekiel in his Vision saw him in a cloud with brightness about it and this he calls the Glory upon the Cherubims And doubtless that Vision was in part a Vision of the Temple though not wholly after the pattern of the Tabernacle but as furnished by the voluntary devotion of Solomon who added Oxen and Lions to the Brazen-Laver These some think to have been steps to his future Idolatry as if he began to allude to the Lions under the Chariot of the Sun mentioned by Horus Apollo But these Images being of servile use there was the less danger in them Touching the appearance of the Logos in a cloud of brightness we may further observe that the Glory of God was said to have appeared in or at the Tabernacle That in the Psalms the Ark is called Gods Glory or his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word of the Seventy his beautiful luster that the same David speaks of having seen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word of the Seventy for Gods Shechinah the Glory or radiant Presence of God in the Sanctuary And lastly that the Cherubims on the Ark are in the ninth Chapter to the Hebrews called Cherubims of Glory Now it further appeareth that it was the Logos whose Glory shone on the Ark by the many places of Scripture which speak no otherwise of the Ark than as of the Type of God Incarnate Christ before his Incarnation sitting on the Propitiatory as his Throne with the Ark and Law at his feet for that holy Vessel is in Scripture called his foot-stool seemeth to shew himself before-hand in the Offices of King and Prophet and Priest As King whilst he sits on his Golden Throne and exhibiteth the Law as Prophet whilst he answereth when consulted from between the Cherubims with relation to which Oracle the Hebrews called the Sanctuary the house of Counsel and as a Priest establishing his seat as a Propitiatory or Mercy-seat When I come in due place to speak of the Word made flesh it will be proper to insist on those citations of Scripture which point him out to us as the true Ark of God In the mean time I will content my self with that one of the Apostle who speaking of the Mysteries of the Divine Wisdom and Love in the Incarnation of Christ alludeth manifestly to the Ark and to the Faces of the Cherubim turned towards the Shechinah Which things saith he the Angels called as before was noted the Cherubims of glory or of the glorious Presence of God with flexure of curiosity look into This Ark of the Mosaick Covenant is in the Psalms called the Face that is the Shechinah of God Nay the Scripture elsewhere giveth to it taken entirely and together with the Presence of the Logos the very name of God God having condescended to his so eminent Shechinah it was thenceforth certainly the more unlawful for the People to frame without Divine permission any Statues of a true or a false God And thereby the second Command newly given was much enforced for how could they be confident in setting up any new Shechinah when one was provided them by God himself A Shechinah which did not lessen Gods Majesty as Images would have done in the opinion of Clemens of Alexandria and in the judgment of truth it self For this was not any Representation of the Godhead but only a very glorious visible sign of Gods invisible presence and ready assistance The Ark then being neither God nor his Image was never to be worshipped though it had no doubt a very high respect payed towards it and was separated from the uses of common vessels It was a sacred Chest yet not to be adored like that of the Mammonist for a God It is true what Volkelius observeth rightly against Bellarmine who alledgeth the instance of the Ark in favour of Images there is great difference betwixt such an Image or Embleme as was
wings the mysteries of the Ark how strongly from thence I will not say that there is a more deep sense of the Text of Moses PART 6. Of the cure of Idolatry by the Image of God in Christ God-man AMongst the Mosaic Symbols the Ark certaâ—…nly was none of the meanest This Holy vessel without peradventure had most singular reference to Christ as God-man who at least from his Baptism hath been in that quality of God-incarnate exhibited to the World as the Divine Shechinah At Bethlehem the Son of God was Born the Town where the settled place for the Ark of God was discovered to David So much we learn from the words of Solomon in the sixth verse of the Hundred and second Psalm He there repeateth a saying of David his Father concerning the Ark Lo we heard of it at Ephrata Castalio plainly confesseth that he understood not what that expression meant For my part whilst I am in pursuit of the present Argument I cannot think the Text to be tortur'd by St. Hilary who will have it to confess Christ as the true Ark of God discovered typically at Bethlehem to David and afterwards manifested in the flesh to the World in the same City of David It is heard of in Ephrata Ephrata saith he is the same with Bethlehem where our Lord was born of the Virgin Mary There therefore the rest of God is heard of where first of all the only begotten God inhabited a body of humane flesh This is the Ark which rested in the Tribe of Judah for out of that Tribe our Lord sprang To this Ark as soon as he came into the World the very Princes or Wisemen of the Gentiles bowed down in the Cave at Bethlehem the star or miraculous meteor as an appendage of the Shechinah standing above it This Ark tabernacled among men and they saw his Glory when Baptized when transfigured This Ark giveth through Jordan or the Baptismal Laver a passage into the mystical Canaan On this Ark or Holy vessel of Christs body when he was Baptized by John in Jordan the glory of the Shechinah appeared a mighty lustre as Grotius hinteth hovering after the fashion of a Dove upon these waters of the second Creation On him the Holy Ghost dwelt or rested as God was said to do in the Tabernacle In him as the Law of God in the Ark and the Will of God known from the Oracle of the Shechinah were deposited all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg He is the great Oracle of God whom by a voice from Heaven out of a bright Cloud or Gods excellent Glory we are commanded to hear In him was the sum of the Law and the Prophets and he was the light of Israel of the Gentiles of the whole world To this Logos Clemens Alexandrinus ascribeth the mysteries of the Jews and Gentiles as to the great Teacher of them before his Incarnation So that he as a Divine subsistence and substitute of the Father giving the Law of Reason to Adam the Jewish Law to that people by Moses and to all the world the Christian Law or Will of God no Title could be more proper for him than that of the Divine Word And this Logos was not only the Wisdom but the Power of God and meriteth the name of the Ark of Gods strength In him dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily The Deity sojourn'd in an Ark of flesh or within the vail of it And in this sense I think some of the Ancients are to be interpreted who called Christ so often 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a God-carrying-man as our Language may truly though harshly render the Greek word though Nestorius abus'd the signification of it so far as to make it intimate a duality of persons in Christ. This Ark was the face or visible presence of God and he that had seen him as Messiah had in that sense seen the Father This body was not the very Godhead as Muggleton blasphemeth but the Godhead did in it shew forth it self to men in signs of mighty Power Holiness and Wisdom This Evangelical Ark was the Image of the invisible God not indeed the very picture or statue but as St. Hilary stileth him the Personator of his Essence It is true he saith of some of the Jews That they had never seen the shape of the Father his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Appearance And this he saith truly in two respects though him they saw when he thus spake to them For first there were none of them who saw him baptized or transfigured for in the same place he denies that they ever heard the voice of God And then these were unbelieving Jews and therefore saw him as meer man as one of the worst of men in their conceit an Impostor and Magician and not as the Messiah the Son the Incarnate Shechinah of God To such therefore as under those misapprehensions of him he saith elsewhere Why call you me good there is none good save one that is God However Christ in truth though not to the eyes of Infidels was the Image of the invisible Father and one whose design was to put all the Idols and Images of the Superstitious world under his feet Of this the Prophets foretold and this the world hath seen fulfilled Oracles by degrees ceasing and now scarce any footsteps remaining of that Triumvirate of gods for their gods had been men and those some of them no Heroes in virtue Jupiter the god of the Heavens Neptune of the Sea Pluto of the Earth It is said by the Arabick Author of the Prodigies of Egypt that when Noah named one God Idols fell prostrate It is more true of him who began the new world of the Gospel that when he appeared as the Image of the one true God Idolatry vanished before him And the Fathers will have it that when in his Childhood he went into Egypt and was brought to Memphis the Egyptian Idols fell at his feet And St. Hierom whose manner is as much to cite in his Commentaries the opinions which he had collected as to set down his own does tell of some who applied to Christ and the Virgin those words of Isaiah Behold the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud and shall come into Egypt and the Idols of Egypt shall be moved at his Presence From this Image of God in his Son Incarnate this Ark of flesh Divinity often shone on earth before his Instalment at Gods right hand The mighty power of God in his Life Miracles Preaching and sometimes in his Attendants the Angels and in his very bodily appearance Thus at his Transfiguration his raiment shone as the light he being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the brightness of the Glory or Shechinah of God And afterwards such Heavenly Majesty shewed it self in him that those who came to apprehend him as a Malefactor fell