glory vastly differing from and surmounting any Image all Images of things visible or invisible in in this Creation So 't is fitly expressed saith he in Heb. 7. 29. He was made higher than the Heavens He was heightned to a splendour enlarged to a capacity and a compass above the brightest beyond the widest Heavens From this Heavenly Throne Christ will come at the day of Judgment in a Shechinah of Clouds and flaming-fire the mention of which fire sometimes in the Scripture and in the Commentaries of the ancient Fathers without express addition of that great day has as I conjecture accidentally led part of the Christian World into its mistakes about Purgatory in relation to which place I must yet confess my self to be one of the Nullibists This Shechinah in milder but most inexpressible luster I suppose to be that which the Schools call the Beatifick Vision and which the Scripture intendeth in the promise of seeing God face to face PART 7. Of the Usefulness of this Argument of Gods Shechinah THis Argument of Gods Shechinah may be many ways useful if Intelligent persons draw such inferences from it as it offereth to their judgment I will hint at some of them for to insist on any unless it be those which concern the worship of Angels or Images is beyond my scope And first of all by due attention to the premisses an Anthropomorphite may blush at his rude conceit about the humane figure of the Divine substance whose spiritual and immense amplitude is incapable of any natural figure or colour though God by his Logos using the ministry of inferiour creatures hath condescended to a visible Shechinah Hence secondly those people who run into the other extream the Spiritualists and abstractive Familists may be induced to own the distinct substance of God and the visible person of Christ and not to subtilize the Deity and its Persons and all its appearances into a meer notion or into some quality act or habit of mans spirit or to bow down to God no otherwise then as he is the pretended light or love in their own breasts Thirdly If this consideration had entered with sobriety into the minds of those German Anabaptists who with zeal contended that the very essence or substance of the Father was seen in the Son and the very substance of the Spirit in the Dove their disputations would have been brought to a speedy issue or rather they would never have been begun They would have known how to have distinguished betwixt the invisible God and the visible face or Shechinah not as the very shape but as the emblem and significative Presence of the Divinity Fourthly For want of some such notion as this many other men of fanatick heads such as were most of the Hereticks who introduced novelty and tumult into the Church about the Persons of the Trinity and nature of Christ have plunged themselves into unintelligible conceits Of this number were the Basilidians who call'd the body of the Dove the Deacon and the Valentinians who stil'd it the spirit of cogitation which descended on the flesh of the Logos thereby darkning the understanding with phrases If they had apprehended the Logos in his Praeexistence or Incarnation as the Shechinah of God and would have expressed that notion without phantastical or amusing terms they might have instructed others and seen the truth also better themselves when they had clothed it in fit and becoming words Fifthly This notion may not be unuseful for the unfolding the Scriptures which speak of the Praeexistence of Christ before he was God-man and explain them naturally and not with such force and torture as they are exposed to in the Soâ—…inian Comments He that saith Abraham saw the Shechinah of the Praeexisting Logos and thence inferreth that Christ was before that Patriarck speaketh plain sense But he that says Christ was not till more than 2000 years after Abrahams death yet that he was before him because he was before Abraham was Abraham or before all Nations were blessed in his seed the Gentiles not being yet called such a one speaks like a Sophist not an honest Interpreter and forgets that Christs answer before Abraham was I am follows upon this Interrogatory of the Jews Thou art not yet fifty years old and hast thou seen Abraham Sixthly This notion may further shew the error of those Semi-Socinians such as Vorstius and his Disciples who confound the Immensity of the God-head and the visible Glory of the Shechinah which God hath pleased as it were to circumscribe They will allow this King of the world no further room for his Immense substance than that which his especial Presence irradiates in his particular Palace Which conceit though in part it be accommodable to the Shechinah yet is it a presumptuous limitation of the great God when it is applied to his substance which Heaven and Earth together cannot contain Furthermore it is from hence in part that we see and pity the blindness of some of the modern Jews who notwithstanding they are the professed enemies of Divine Statues and Images and have reason enough to believe that the Ark of God hath dwelt among us in a body of flesh and now shineth in the Heavens do yet hope some say for an especial presence of God by furnishing with a Chest and Roll of their Law the places of their Religious Assemblies Again by considering with St. Chrysostome the Temple of Solomon as a Type not only of the sensible but also of the invisible world and by considering further the Shechinah and Ark of God more especially in the Holiest of all than in the Sanctuary and more exterior Courts and spaces we may illustrate that very useful and most probable notion of the degrees of Glory and of the several Mansions prepared for several Estates in the Kingdom of Glory where notwithstanding every part will be so far though inequally filled with luster that all may be said with open face to behold the Glory of God and not those only next the Coelestial Ark or Throne in the most holy place But these things as I said are beyond my scope though appertinencies to my Argument and therefore I will no further pursue them but proceed to those uses of the notion which lye more directly in the way of my design The first of them concerneth the worship of Angels the second of Images PART 8. Of the Usefulness of this Argument of Gods Shechinah with relation to the Worship of Angels and Images FIrst The Worshippers of Angels plead for their practice from those places in the Old Testament which seem to speak of high Veneration used towards them T. G. argueth from the Prayer which indeed is rather the wish of Jacob where he saith The Angel who delivered me from all evils bless these Children The Manual called the Abridgment of Christian Doctrine would prove the Worship of Dulia to belong to Angels from the falling of
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
loud and plain a voice that he who is dull of hearing cannot mistake them unless he by obstinacy make himself deafer still and will not distinctly hear them In them we find this Prayer made by the pious King Hezekiah when he was distressed by Sennacherib O Lord of Hosts God of Israel that dwellest between the Cherubims Thou art the God even thou alone of all the Kingdoms of the Earth Thou hast made Heaven and Earth Incline thine ear O Lord and hear open thine eyes O Lord and see and hear all the words of Sennacherib who hath sent to reproach the living God Of a truth Lord the Kings of Assyria have laid wast all the Nations and their Countries and have cast their Gods into the fire for they were no gods but the work of mens hands wood and stone therefore they have destroyed them Now therefore O Lord our God save us from his hand that all the Kingdoms of the Earth may know that thou art the Lord even thou only Other places there are to the same purpose and amongst them these Let them the Nations or Gentiles give glory unto the Lord and declare his praise in the Islands The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man He shall prevail against his enemies I have declared and I have saved and I have shewed when there was no strange god among you therefore ye are my witnesses saith the Lord that I am God Yea before the day I was he I will work and who shall let it Thus saith the Lord the Redeemer I am the Lord your holy one the Creatoâ—… of Israel your King He that raiseth you out of mean estate and ruleth over you Thus saith the Lord who maketh a way in the Sea and a path in the mighty waters Who would not fear thee O King of Nations The stock is a doctrine of vanities but the Lord is the true God he is the living God and an everlasting King Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain so the Lord shall make bright clouds and give them showers of rain to every one grass in the field For the Idols have spoken vanity The eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the whole Earth The King of Chaldea shall gather the captivity as the sand and shall scoff at Kings Then shall his mind change and he shall pass over and offend imputing this his power unto his god Art thou not he from everlasting O Lord my God mine Holy One we shall not die O Lord thou hast ordained them the Powers of Chaldea for judgment and O mighty God! Thou hast established them for correction Who hath f directed the Spirit of the Lord or being his counsellor hath taught him with whom took he counsel and who instructed him and taught him in the path of judgment Behold the Nations are as a drop of a bucket See here the Spirit of God asserting the Divinity of the one God of Israel against Idols by displaying his Wisdom and Power in the Natural and Political Government of the World But lest the evidence of these places should be weakened by any as Scriptures of the Old Testament relating to times before our Lord was actually made by the Eternal Father the King of the World I will add a few more which may tend to the preventing of such an Evasion Isaiah prophesying of the Baptist and of the blessed times of the Gospel introduceth that voice thus crying out to Jerusalem and Judah Behold your God Behold the Lord God will come with strong hand and his arm shall rule for him He shall feed his flock like a shepherd In the same Isaiah for I scarce seek further than that Evangelical Prophet the God of Israel repeateth this profession Before me there was no God framed neither shall there be after me Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel and his Redeemer the Lord of Hosts I am the first and I am the last and besides me there is no God And yet of the Logos the Socinians will profess as did Nathaniel Thou art the Son of God thou art the King of Israel and as doth the Book of the Revelation that he is Alpha and Omega the first and the last The God of Israel had said also in the foregoing Chapter I even I am the Lord and besides me there is no Saviour Is there a God besides me yea there is no God I know not any Yet of the Logos Socinians and Arians make confession in the words of St. John saying That he was in the beginning with God the Father The design of all these places ought not in reason to be baffled by saying with confidence these two things First That the Power which Christ had was given him by God and in order to his Glory Secondly That it is not unlawful but our duty to worship a Creature by Gods command though without his permission it be Idolatry If Christ had not been more than a creature God would not have enjoined us so high a Worship of Him neither would it have been consistent with his incommunicable Omnipotence and Wisdom to have given him all power in Heaven and in Earth This as Athanasius speaketh were to turn his Humane Nature into a second Almighty The Logos was so before all Worlds and ceased not to be so by assuming the Humane Nature into Unity of Subsistence To say then that Christ is a Creature yet made such a God who can hear all Prayers supply all wants give all Graces needful to his Body the Church know all the secrets of all Thoughts not directed to him govern and judg with Wisdom all the World and to Worship him under this Divine Notion what is it else than the paying an homage to a presumed Creature which is due only to the one very God for what apprehensions greater than these do we entertain concerning the true God when we call upon him confide in him or revere him He then that meeteth such an Inscription in Racovia as he may find often in Misna in this manner D. O. S. and at length Deo Omnipotenti Sacrum and meant of Christ to whom in the Verses set underneath the application is particularly made How must he expound it He must either interpret it of Christ Transubstantiated as 't were by their fancy into the Father or worshipped like Neptune in the D. M. at Rome in the quality of the true God whilst he is confessed to be but a Creature For they will own but one God in nature and person and yet will give to Christ not acknowledged as a coeternal Subsistence that which belongeth in eminent manner to his Idea His Idea sure it is for that Being appeareth to our mind as the best and greatest which with such mighty Goodness Power and Wisdom governs the insensible sensible rational and Christian World I end this Chapter with the
was invok'd And he accordingly taketh notice of the Praises of Heart and Voice which every preserved Citizen did offer to that Goddess In his eleventh chapter he telleth how a man possessed with the Devil was by this Tutelar Deity as he there calls her delivered from so wicked and dangerous an Inhabitant And after having told his story he falleth to his Prayers in this manner O powerful O merciful Goddess defend us also from this subtil Serpent And thou who didst once bruise his head in thy Conception assist us so effectually that his tail may neither scourge us nor throw us on the ground Then after having ended his Legend consisting of divers Miracles wrought at her shrine he falls again to his Prayers in his thirty-sixth or last Chapter and this is the form of his Address O Goddess thou art the Queen of Heaven of the Sea of the Earth above whom there is nothing but God Thou Moon next to him the Sun whom I implore and invocate Protect and take care of us both in publick and private Thou hast seen us these forty years tossed in a publick storm O Mary calm this tumultuous Sea He concludeth with a Poetical Consecration of a silver-Pen to her who had as he believ'd been the author and finisher of his studies Now then such kind of Worshippers do in part revive one degree of the Idolatry of the Gentiles who divided Places Persons Things Actions subject to the Supreme God amongst Sempiternal or Canoniz'd Spirits The chief Architect of the Egyptian Pharos put upon his Workmanship this Inscription Sostratus of Gnidos the Son of Dexiphanes to the Gods Protectors for the safeguard of Sailers What now is the difference betwixt this Inscription and one made by a Papist in honour of S. Nicholas upon the little Church nigh the Wurbel in the Danube None sure unless it be this that the first is in veneration of a Christian Saint the other of good Genii For we are told by those whose credit is as unquestionable as their Learning and who have been upon the place that the Church is dedicated to S. Nicholas That he is the supposed Patron of that dangerous Whirlpool in that River that he is believ'd to take peculiar care of such as pass that way and that a little Boat comes to you as soon as you are out of danger and receives what acknowledgment you please or what perhaps you may have promised to give when you were in some fear It may be God alone calmeth those waves at least without a Saint and S. Nicholas receiveth much of the acknowledgment the whole possibly from the common men of the Vessel whom danger teacheth to pray whilst superstitious ignorance misleadeth them from praying aright Martinus de Roa though a learned Jesuit and a Spaniard does openly declare the nature of this Romish practice he does not seek to give a false colour to it but he shews it as a Practice which plainly agreeâ—…th with the worship of the Gentiles He speaketh out saying that it is a Rite amongst them to call upon the tutelar Deity of the Nation as upon St. James in Spain at the beginning of their Battels And this custom he parrallels with that of the Macedonians in Justin who in their battels called sometimes upon Alexander and sometimes upon Philip as upon Gods invoking their aid for the success of their Armes And then he subjoyneth the practice of the Germans who as Tacitus reporteth joyned not in fight with their enemies 'till they had solemnly prayed to Hercules This kind of worship the Pope continueth to encourage by setting up new Saints as Tutelar Spirits in his Canonizations of them Thus for inscance sake Pope Clement the Tenth confirmed the decree of Pope Clement the ninth in which St. Rosa is created Patroness of the City Lima the chief Town and the Archiepiscopal seat in Peru and principal Protectress of the same Kingdom of Peru and of all the Provinces and Kingdoms of the Terra firma of all the Peruvian America and of the Philippine Islands And this it seems was done to this end that an addition might be made to the veneration of that Saint and that through her intercession the People of those parts might the more strongly hope for Patronage or Protection So S. Thomas de Villanova is canonized by Alexander the seventh who whilst he registreth him in the Calendar of his gods useth this Exhortation Wherefore let us go with boldness to the throne of the Divine mercy praying with heart and voice that S. Thomas may preside over Christian people by his Merit and Example that he may assist them with his Prayers and Patronage and that in the time of wrath he may become their Reconciliation Such Deities the Papacy setteth up and nothing is more common than for the people of that Church to fall down and worship them in that quality Neither can Travellers shun such Statues and Inscriptions as give them advertisement of this worship of Tutelar Saints Such an Inscription is that at Brussels betwixt the Quire and the Sacristy of the Cathedral The Monument is dedicated by Maximilian Duke of Bavaria and Archbishop and Elector of Colen to the immaculate Virgin and to S. Lambert as to the Tutelar Deities of that Church and Countrey S. Michael also is the special Protector of that City and upon the top of its Townhouse stands his Statue in brass Who can go into Lentini and not have notice of the three French Brethren and Martyrs Alsio Philadelfo and Cirino venerated there as its Patrons and Guardians Who travelleth to Utopolis or S. Veit and seeth not the four Chappels on the four Hills of S. Veit S. Ulrick S. Laurence S. Helena or heareth not of St. Veit or St. Faith as of one that cureth the Dancing-sickness known by the name of Chorea sancti viti Who entreth Paris and heareth not St. Geneviefve celebrated as the Protectress of it And is not she called the Guardian of France and the North-star of her Imperial City Who understandeth the ancient estate of England and is ignorant of the Veneration which it hath had for its presumed Patron St. George So great it was that when certain Holy-days were abrogated in the Reign of Henry the Eighth the Feast of St. George was excepted as well as those of the Apostles and our Lady Who crosseth the Ocean and visiteth the Mexican America and observeth not that St. Joseph is made the Patron of new Spain The Synod of Mexico confirmed at Rome hath declared him to be such and given particular order for the celebration of his Holy-day I am not able to recount to how many places persons and things the Protection of the holy Virgin is said to extend The fancy of the eloquent Jesuit Rapine hath made her to preside over Clouds and Tempests over Tillage and Pasturage over Flocks and Herds To
it may be concluded that all Governours in this world Ecclesiastical and Civil all Princes and Magistrates all Patriarchs Archbishops Bishops Superintendents and Presidents are so many Idols and Ordinances dishonourable to God and his Son But judicious men will consider that the Governments on earth are not the patterns of the invisible world Here God ruleth in this manner not for his own sake but for ours we being mortal men and needing the aids of men like our selves whilst we sojourn in this body and for him to administer immediately to our outward infirmities in this world were for him to be always grosly incarnate This conceit of the invisible world as modelled like the visible hath brought forth that excuse of a voluntary humility in the Romish Suppliants who as if the Court of Heaven were like that on Earth dare not presume to come immediately to the King but apply themselves to him by the mediation of some of his Officers A King is but a man and cannot hear all complaints in person and redress all grievances Could he do it with the Power and Wisdom and Grace and easie operation of a Deity all might then have immediate access to him or to him by the Prince his Son supposed to be of a like nature and quality And who on earth when he is invited by the Monarch himself to apply himself to him immediately or to him by his Son addresseth himself to neither but to some meaner Favourite of whose interest for the dispatch of his Affair he hath no assurance given him Thirdly should we lay aside this consideration of that Presidentship and Patronage to which the Romanists entitle so many Saints yet the very frequency used in addresses to them though by mere request of their Praiers for us would not a little tend to the diminution of the honour of God and Christ. It is notorious to those who pass the Seas in the same Bottoms with Romish Mariners that those Seamen in a storm apply not themselves immediately to God but repeat the Hymn to the holy Virgin of Hail Star of the Sea To this purpose is that which Lipsius telleth of Thirteen men in peril by a Tempest in their passage to Antwerp Amongst them the Master conceiving no hope of saving the Vessel or the lives of the Passangers exhorted them to submit themselves wholly to God and so to pass to a better state after the loss of this But it seems one amongst them suggested Vows and Invocations to the Lady of Halla and his counsel is embraced Straightway says he a light shone on the Vessel and the Tempest ceased and the Vessel arrived at the Haven with loss of goods but not of the Passengers who repaired to Halla and profesled themselves to owe their life to the Virgin and paid with faithfulness the Vows they had made It had been more pious surely to have thanked God and the Virgin or rather God alone who it may be by other means or by himself was their deliverer But superstitious men judg of Causes by the concomitancie of the effects and not by the virtue which produceth them And this is not only the fruit of superstition in the rude and ignorant but in the politest of the Ecclesiastics The very Jesuites for so did Father Garnet at his execution afford God the less of their Application by being so busied at their last hour with their aforesaid Mary Mother of Grace Mother of Mercy defend us from the enemy and protect us in the hour of death which Versicles say the composers of the confession of Saxony we heard a Monk a Professor of Divinity inculcate very often to a dying man without any mention of Christ Jesus And it hath been commonly observed as a great blot in the Romish devotions That they use many Ave Maria's to one Pater Noster Which Collects by the way being repeated by them with such careless haste the jabbering of any thing in an indistinct heedless way is by us called patering Labbe a learned Jesuite though in his sickness he was not forgetful of Christ his Saviour yet he mentions the frequency of his addresses to the Virgin during the rage of his Feaver This a stander by not knowing his principles would have judged to have been the effect of his distemper Thus then this new Marian devotion much diminisheth and sometimes quite justleth out the ancient and unquestionable worship of Jesus as they say S. Ambrose is almost forgotten already at Milan through the newer veneration of S. Charles Borromee Two things now may be perhaps jointly pretended towards the disabling the foregoing Discourse and I will return a brief answer to them First It is taken for confessed That those to whom the Romanists pray as unto Patrons and Patronesses are real Saints in Heaven Secondly The Romanists pretend to prove that God hath declared himself to have conferred such honourable office place and power upon these Patrons by the miracles they have wrought for the behoof of their Clients For the first suggestion It is confessed that they worship none but such as have been thought professors of Christianity and such who are reputed to be exalted above either Hell or Purgatory Notwithstanding this I dare not avouch the eminent Saintship and glorified estate of all that are canonized They who read without partiality the History of S. Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury will be inclined to think him put into the Kalender by as much mistake as many other things are put into our vulgar Almanacks I see that even some of the Roman Communion do impute his saintship rather to the fervour of his zeal than to the ground of his Cause What can a man that reverenceth God think of the Saintship of St. Bernardin of Siena when he considereth of his Doctrine apt to give pain to the modesty of the Virgin almost in Heaven it self This Saint after a logn comparison betwixt God and Blessed Mary thus thus blasphemously concludeth If then we give to each their due in that which God hath done for man and which the Virgin hath done for God himself you see for your comfort that Mary hath done more for God than God for man whence God for the Virgins sake is much obliged to us Methinks by these words he is just such another Saint as the Author of the Conformities who writes the parallel of Christ and St. Francis and giveth to St. Francis the preheminence What can a peaceable Christian think of the Saintship of Pope Hildebrand or St. Gregory the seventh Was it not he who imbroiled the World who taught that Kings and Dukes had their original from those who not knowing God did by pride rapines perfidiousness murthers and by almost all manner of wickednesses through the instigation of the Devil the Prince of this world affect to domineer over their equals or other men with blind ambition and intolerable presumption who deposed Henry the fourth King of
Analogy I mean such Objects as bear some Metaphorical proportion to some excellencies of God though they be not the proper Images Statues or Pictures of them Such an Image was that of Jupiters remembred by Vignola in his Discourse of the five Orders in Building He mentioneth there a Capital in which were the Images of four Eagles instead of Stalks and instead of Fruits and Flowers four Jupiters faces with Thunderbolts under them A Representation this may be judged of the power piercing eye quick execution of will in their own Jove in the four Quarters of the World Such an Analogical Image of the true God do some Papists esteem the Statue or Picture of an aged man whose years and experience are apt to signifie the Eternity and Wisdom of God and that of a Dove to signifie his purity and simplicity in a manner suitable to our conception In both these Instances I think they are mistaken Daniel as shall be shewed in the last Chapter did not mean the Godhead or the Father by the Ancient of Days Neither ought his transient Vision which had something humane mixt with it be made a standing-pattern in Religion Such Visions being impressed on the fancy could not be there represented without some earthly Imagery which the enlightned reason of the Prophet could separate from the Diviner part which is the thing principally intended Now to bring the whole scene with its glory and its imperfection before the eyes of the people in Gods standing-worship is to confound in their Imaginations things sacred and secular and to adulterate their Devotion Then for the Image of a Dove the Text in the Gospels proveth no more than that the Spirit imitated the gentle hovering of that Bird And the learned think it did so in the appearance of a bright cloud hovering with gentle motion over the waters and the Person of our Lord baptized in them It is plain by the words of St. Austine that he thought it Idolatrous to contemplate God in our mind according to the extent of those expressions which we use in speaking of him And the like certainly he judged of contemplating God according to Dreams and Visions which are partly humane and partly divine Thus then that great Light of Africa discourseth We believe that Christ sitteth at the right hand of the Father Yet thence are we not to think that the Father is circumscribed with humane form so as to occur to our mind contemplating of him as one that has a right and a left hand or as one sitting with bended knees left we fall into that sacriledg for which the Apostle condemneth those who turned the glory of the Incorruptible God into the similitude of corruptible man Such a Statue is not without impiety erected to God in a Christian Temple much more in the heart where the Temple of God is truly situate if it be purged from earthly concupiscence and error St. Austin then as Spalatensis reflecteth on these words would have advised that the Visions of Daniel and other of that nature produced by Bellarmine should be contemplated with the mind and not be pictured especially in Churches that they should be resolved into their true signification and not impressed upon the brain lest through the Picture of an Old man or Dove the defects of Age wings and bill possess the imagination There is danger in using any Images of Animals as Statues or Pictures of God for they will be made not Images only of Analogy but of representation by the ignorant whilst shape and life are personally set forth But there is not so great danger in the Images of things without life especially if they be flat Pictures not Protuberant Statues nor Pictures which the Artist hath expressed with roundness The worse and the more flat the work is the less danger there is of its abuse Titian hath painted the Virgin and the Child Jesus so very roundly that as Sir Henry Wotton a very good judg both of the pictures and dispositions of men saith of it a man knows not whether to call it a piece of Sculpture of Picture In some kinds of Pictures if there be found analogy and that analogy be discreetly expressed as by the name Jehovah or according to the Jewish modesty Adonai incircled with clouds and rays of glorious Light I know no sin in the making of it or contemplating in it in a Metaphorical way some of the Perfections of the infinite God in such manner expressed A devout man would not put a Paper with such an impression to vile uses He would think it fitter for his Closet than for his Chamber of Grimaces though he would not think it the representation of God or give it Divine honour by inward estimation or outward signs By Images of memory I mean such Objects as contain in them no analogy to the Divine Perfections nor any pretended representation of them but yet are apt to put us in mind of God being erected as Pillars or Monuments in places where he has done some great and excellent work Such was the Pillar of Jacob and in the making of such there is no unlawfulness nor in exhibiting before them such signs of honour as are proper to be shewed before a monument of Divine Wisdom Power or Goodness unless in times and places where other such Statues are erected to false gods and the erection and honour of them is by common construction the mark of their Worshippers Such Images of memory are often exhibited by God himself Such was the pillar of Salt into which the body of Lots Wife was converted a pillar of Remembrance of Gods justice and of admonition to them who look back towards the pollutions which they have escaped Such was the adust earth which Solinus speaks of in those places where the inhabitants of Sodom were destroyed by Sulphureous flames from Heaven though it was no pillar yet was it a monument of Divine power and severity towards their unnatural lusts And he that carves engraves or paints these holy Histories may be an useful Artist By Images of Representation I mean Statues or Pictures made by art with intent to exhibit the likeness of the person The making and worshipping such Images of him God himself condemneth appealing to the world whether there be any thing in nature to which he can be resembled Such a Representation is undue though made according to the best pattern in the visible world and much more if it be made in viler and as the Heathen were wont to do in the Images of Priapus and Attis in immoral figures And the Worshipper who gives to it veneration as to an Image of God does highly dishonour him by changing his essential glory into such similitudes And it is not so ignominious for Caesar to be painted in the similitude of an Ass or of the worst Monster in the Sculptures of Licetus as for God to be represented in the pretended likeness of his Deity by
at his feet as before a God This Jesus was the Ark of the new Covenant and of the Testimony of God the witness of God faithful and true as he is stiled in the Revelation of Saint John Jesus was in effect the whole house of Gods especial presence the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the name which Philo gives the Tabernacle or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or it may be if it were rightly printed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Josephus calleth the Zodiack or the Sun moving in it the portable the walking Temple who like the rolling Sun which dispenseth his influence far and near went about doing good having no resting-place for his Head till he was fixed on Mount Sion above This is the Ark of God exalted first on the Cross and then to Heaven Whence God commandeth his blessing sending him by his Spirit and Gospel to bless and to turn all of us from our iniquity This Ark is the true Mercy-seat the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Propitiatory as he is called in the Epistle to the Romans and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. John calleth him that is the Propitiation for our sins St. Hierom Commenting on those words in the Version of Ezekiel in the 43d Chapter and 14th verse from the lesser settle to the greater settle and observing them to be rendred on this wise by the Seventy Interpreters From the lesser to the greater Propitiatory He applys the lesser Propitiatory to Christ in the form of a servant and the greater to Christ glorified in the Heavens Here is then both the Aaron and Aharon the true Ark and Priest of the most high God This Ark or rather this entire Temple of God like the Tabernacle in Shiloh seemed for a time forsaken possessed by the great Philistin for what is stronger than death and laid in the dust but God raised it up after three days in greater glory and so as that it is never to fall again This Ark was after a few days taken up into the true Sanctuary of God where it remaineth till the restitution of all things and whither our eyes and hearts are to direct themselves in all Religious worship From that Sanctuary he appear'd in a glorious light to his first Martyr St. Steven when well awake and whilst he directed his countenance towards Heaven whither his spirit was ready to take its way He being full of the Holy Ghost or divine energy looked up stedfastly into Heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing on the right hand of God Thence also he appeared to Saul in a light so vehement that for a time it took away the use of his eyes Thence he sent the Holy Ghost at Pentecost become now as it were the Substitute and Shechinah of the Glorified Jesus This hovered as a glorious flame over the heads of the Apostles declaring them thereby the Representatives of Christ on earth Under this notion Christ is worshipped by true and intelligent Christians This was the meaning of the Fathers in the Council of Constantinople who denounced Anathema against those who professed not that Christ ascended was Intellectual flesh neither properly flesh nor yet Incorporeal but visible to them who have pierc'd him without grossness of flesh They believ'd it a great point of Christianity that Jesus God-man sate in the Heavens in illustrious visible glory And this St. John saw in a Vision in which the Logos the God Omnipotent the King of Kings and Lord of Lords or Lamb God-man appeared on his Throne Crowned and with eyes like flames of fire To this effect is a saying of Eusebius cited by Bishop Andrews on the second Command I suppose he meaneth Eusebius Dorylaeus for he referreth to the second Ephesine Synod though I have not met with it in the Acts of that Council Eusebius it seems telleth Constantia That she must not any longer desire an Image of Christ as he is infirm man For now said he his Glory is much greater than it appeared on the Mount which if his Apostles were then dazled with how can it now be expressed This visible Glory of Christ the Ancients supposed situate in the Eastern part of the Heavens and it occasion'd as I think their directing of their worship towards the East The Gentiles who worshipped the Sun differed much from this external direction of their Faces For they respected especially the East-point by reason of the Sun-rising thence And often at other parts of the day they altered their posture They sometimes vall'd themselves saith Plutarch and turned themselves about with respect to the Heavenly motions And Trismegistus in Asclepio relates that it was a custom of some of the Gentile-Devotionists at mid-day to look towards the South and at Sun-set to look towards the West It was at the rising of the Sun when Lucian was turned towards it by Mithrobarzanes the Chaldaean Priest who mumbled his Prayers in a low and indistinct tone at the rising of that false God They respected not always the Eastern Angle though they had especial regard to it when the Sun appeared in it They respected also the South and West-points in their worship Hence Harpocrates a child represented amongst them the Sun in its rising Orus a young man the Sun in its Meridian Osiris an old man the Sun-setting This was also the way of the Manichees who supposed the Sun to be the Tabernacle of Christ. Of them St. Austin saith that their Prayers rolled about with the Sun But the Ancients thought the Shechinah of Christ more fixed and therefore did not in such manner alter their Quarter And that Quarter they esteemed proper to the Shechinah having read of the Messiah in the Old Testament under the name of the East and following the Translation of the Seventy which thus readeth Psalm 68. 33. Sing unto God who ascendeth above the Heaven of Heavens on the East They also esteemed Jerusalem the middle of the Earth and the parts which lay Easterly from thence they called the East and amongst them Eden about Mesopotamia And they had a Tradition that Christ was Crucified with his face towards the West but that he ascended with his face towards the East and went up to a place in the Heavenly Paradise standing as it were over that of the Earthly But whatsoever men may conceive of the space possessed by Christs meer body they ought not to think of his Shechinah as of a confined light in some one Quarter of the Heavens but as a glorious luster filling all Heavens and shining towards this Earth as a Circumference of Glory on a single point They ought to lose their imaginations in an Abyss of Light One saith and not amiss upon this subject That as Earth heightned unto a flame changeth not its place only but form and figure so the person of our Saviour was raised to a greatness a
Person into the World he said let all the Angels of God worship him And now he hath installed him as God-man and King of the world at his right hand let us and all the world adore him Let them worship him as God-man and neither worship an undue Image on earth as joyned to his person nor yet his heavenly body as apart by it self That as join'd in unity of person and now in glory is our object and a Crucifix ought not to be looked upon in prayer as the present Image of Christ for he is in Heaven glorious and not on the Cross. And though the Revelation of S. John speaks of him as in Garments roll'd in blood it mentions them not as miserable apparel but as the Purple of the King of Kings The Capitular of Charles the Great would have the Picture of Christs Resurrection as frequent as that of his Cross but by both of them we look back and if any be proper in helping us not meerly in our preparation as the Crucifix may be but in our immediate Religious addresses it is surely a picture of him in Glory if that could be well made but neither is this to be worshipped but made only an help to excite our mind nor is the humanity or body of Christ to be adored by it self yet in the manuals of the Roman Church I find addresses to the very body and I fear that upon the Festival of Corpus Christi and in the object under the shews of bread shews united in their act of devotion to Christs body our Lord is divided We have a form of Prayer to his body in the little French Manual called Petite Catechisme and in the Litanies of the Sacrament And the Learned Bishop Usher in his Sermon before the Commons mentions the Epistle Dedicatory of the Book of Sanders concerning the Lords Supper thus superscribed To the body and blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ under the forms of bread and wine all honour praise and thanks be given for ever A Judicious Christian would rather ascribe all praise and honour to Christ God-man Whole Christ let us supplicate and honour helping our Imagination by his Shechinah in Glory and remembring the words of St. Austin noted as remarkable by Agobardus Arch-Bishop of Lyons a man zealous in his Age against the corruptions of Image-worship and ill requited in his memory by them who as Baluzius noteth esteem him the less Catholick for it In the first Commandment saith S. Austine that is in the whole of that which himself elsewhere in his Questions of the Old and New-Testament divides into first and second each similitude of God is forbidden to be made by men not because God hath no Image but because no Image of his ought to be worshipped but that which is the same with himself nor that for him but with him God assisting us with this Image why should any religious Acts have any lower object total or partial Images set up as any sort of objects of our inward or external devotion are a sort of Anti-Arks And we ought not to touch them not because they are sacred but because they are unhallowed objects And worse still they are rendred too often by impious Art which maketh the lifeless Image as in the Rood of Bockley by help of Wiers and other instruments of Puppetry to bend to frown to roll the eyes to weep to bleed to exhibit signs of favour or displeasure This indeed is not the constitution but 't is the frequent practice of some in that Church and hereby are framed so many snares for the people who turn such Images into Christs Shechinah For if certain Monks who were also shepheards and people of low conception became through their rusticity absurd Anthropomorphites by reading the bare words of Scripture where it saith that God created man in his own Image how much more will mean people have corrupt fancies begotten in them by false Images which their eyes may see and their hands may handle Such will turn a common Chest into an Ark and a wooden Engine into the Divine Shechinah Of the Sindon at Besanson Chiffletius a Papist reporteth That great numbers met twice a year on a Mountain nigh the City to adore that cloth with Christs Image on it Of it he further saith that it always shineth with a Divine presence that is in effect that it is a Shechinah of God and that in great emergencies it is carried in procession like the Ark being yet more holy than that Mosaic Vessel How shall the people not fall into Idolatry when such false Shechinahs or Idols are layd in their way How much more would it tend to edification to direct them to the Image of God who sitteth in Glory at Gods right hand and whom our minds the less behold in our devotions the more our eye is fixed upon an Image of wood or stone In the City or Church of God described in the 21st chapter of S. Johns Revelation There was no Temple no material fixed place of Gods visible Shechinah though there must be Synagogues or Places for publick Assemblies but Christ himself was the Light or Shechinah and therefore to him as to the only true Image of the invisible God it is proper to direct our Cogitations and Prayers And let not any man think that because the Shechinah is in Heaven and not visibly in a Church as the Shechinah was in the Temple of the Jews that therefore Christians have less assistance than Gods ancient People for they have that which is much more excellent The Glory on the Ark was only a mixture of shapeless lights and shadows and in the Temple the people seldom saw it but being assured of it did view it in their imagination And few of them had other apprehensions of it than as of the presence of God the deliverer and Protector of that Commonwealth But Christians a people under a more spiritual dispensation than the Jews though they see not the Shechinah with their eyes on earth yet from the words of Scripture they can excite their minds to behold it even in the Sanctuary of Heaven And they behold it in the figure of God-incarnate an Image not confused but of a distinct person an Image which brings to their mind the greatest and most comfortable mystery of the means of Salvation aptest to encourage our Prayers and to enflame our Zeal and to raise our Admiration Some objects indeed are on earth exposed to the eyes of Christians by the Institution of our Lord the elements of Bread and Wine And the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or place on which they are consecrated is at this day called in the Greek Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Propitiatory or mercy-Seat And a late Author reporteth of the Abassine Priests upon the Authority of Codignus though in Codignus I could never find it That they blessed a certain Shrine or Coffer of the Sacrament
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
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
say their meaning is by a figure only to desire them to procure their requests of God how dare any Christian trust his soul with that Church which teacheth that which must needs be Idolatry in all that understand not that figure They who believe not that these are his words are sure unacquainted with the writings of the Author and the great Integrity of the Reporter It is certain that among our selves in our more ordinary conversation such forms of speech are used towards men which in their extent are applicable to God We say that such Students had their Grace in the Senate-house or that there they have been created Doctors a phrase it seems too crude for the digestion of some nice stomacks When the weak are pursued by a savage Beast or by a man cruel as such a creature they run into the arms of kinder persons and desire them to save them and deliver them And because these Forms are used to men by those who own nothing but what is humane in them and because the matter of their request is apparently such too and in the power of man these equivocal phrases are by general acknowledgment determined to one sense But were civil Forms more liable to mistake a Church sure should exercise a more tender care in those of Religion and chuse such as might be apter to edifie than mislead the meanest in her Communion Now in such Forms of common speech as I have mentioned though there is not any proper worship of men yet there is more desired of them than that they would pray to God for us When Esau beseeched his Father to bless him he did not merely request him to pray for a blessing but to pronounce over him that sentence of Benediction which he as the Father of that Family had commission from God to pronounce with authority and to effect And when an importunate widow does by her repeated crys for vengeance or publick justice for deliverance and safeguard render the very ears of an unjust Judg attentive she intreats more of him than that he would speak for her to the King She supposeth him in commission and indued with power to help her though she knows him in this very point of his assistance to be subordinate to his Prince There is more in the Forms of the Roman Church than the bare indiscretion of them And though the incommunicable honour of God be not by their measure the rule of Faith devolved on the creature for a Papist so interpreting those Forms should by that Church be condemned as an Heretick and a violater of the fundamental Article of one God in Trinity yet still to me it seemeth that the honour which God hath not actually communicated is by them misplaced on Angels at least on Saints I do not in saying this ground my perswasion barely on the common Argument of that Ubiquity which many conclude to be ascribed to Saints and Angels in the Invocation of them The foundation of that Argument is laid on a matter which is disputed For they who contend that the Angels hear or know what is done on Earth do expresly deny Ubiquity to them Though some private Romanists have mentioned appearances of the person of the Virgin in distant places at the same time and others have represented her or some other Saint as dwelling in a particular statue And to such it is proper to put the question of Arnobius Let us suppose said he that there are ten thousand Statues of Vulcan in all the world can that one Deity be in so many thousand habitations at one time But others infer this knowledg in the Saints and Angels partly from the perfection of their spiritual nature by which saith Dr. Holden they know all the natures motions and actions of Corporeal things partly from their personal presence as Guardians of men and as Gods Retinue in Religious Assemblies and partly from the Revelation of God and from what they call the Glass of the Trinity a mirrour of which I profess my self very ignorant and which my curiosity desires not to look into and which the inventers might in reverence have spared rather than to have exposed the essence of God as a substance reflecting all visible Ideas They gather this also in part from the Intelligence given by some Angels unto the rest who are of the same community This they say plausibly concerning Angels for of Saints they have much less ground thus to speak Only this may be allowed them concerning both that being spirits we know not whether such distance as that of this world does hinder communication For if it be not done by motion they may possibly as well understand at the distance of an hundred miles as at that of a furlong This only I observe by the way as an Objection That the Ancients who are said to Platonize held neither Angels nor Souls departed to be uncloathed Spirits but united to Bodies of AEther or AEr Wherefore it seemeth that their knowledg of external material objects must depend on Physical motion which by distance is scattered or diverted from the streightness of its lines and consequently from the exact truth of its intelligence It is most probable that Angels are often absent from grown men especially whilst they remain in ordinary circumstances And the Scripture speaks of the Angels as being on this or the other occasion sent to men and then removed from them This is manifest in the known cases of Abraham Daniel S. Peter S. John and the blessed Virgin her self More probable still it is that the same Angel hath not intelligence not only of all the affairs of the world but of all the prayers that are addressed to him For many such Addresses being very improper and sometimes immoral we must not think that God or other good Angels are concerned in telling him the news of them unless it be in order to punishment And for the Saints whom God hath not that we know of made ministring spirits who are not before the Resurrection and final Judgment in complete glory of whose appearing after death the Scripture hath given us in the Old Testament but one instance and that a very doubtful one it not being certain whether it was the Apparition of Samuel or of the Devil or the Imposture of the Witch of Endor speaking inwardly And in the New but that one as I remember of Moses and Elias when Christ was transfigured It is not so much as by probable arguments yet evinced that they know our particular estate though it is evident that they wish well to the world of mankind and especially to the body of the Christian Church For sure they lose not their affection in Heaven where whilst some other Graces cease Charity is eternal and in perfection Wherefore though the praying to Saints and Angels may not necessarily infer their Ubiquity and for that reason be called Idolatrous yet if they hear us not it may
fled to the Churches of St. Paul and St. Peter And he did it saith Grotius by a Providence like to that by which they were saved in Jerusalem who had kept the Law which was signified by the Letter Thau that is Thorah the Law written on their foreheads as is said in Ezekiel They went out of Babylon or Rome to the holy places which stood without the City and there remained in undisturbed peace more by Gods protection than the Gothick Clemency though by the Edict of Alarick such Churches were made the Sanctuaries of Christians This Instance no doubt heightned the veneration of many towards the Martyrs though God wrought such things not as testimonies of the power of the Martyrs but as supports to the Christian Religion And this being an Instance in the Gothick story it reminds me of The second occasion of the worship of Spirits as Rulers of the World in certain Precincts especially in this Western Church to wit the Invasion of the Northern Nations who sought their preferment by quitting their own Country In Rome it self a great number of the Senators worshipped Idols in the very reign of Theodosius the Great And many worshippers of false gods upon the Sack of Rome by the Goths under Alaricus did saith St. Austin in the Argument of his Book of the City of God charge the calamity on the Christian Religion and blaspheme the true God with bitterer words than it was their custome to use And this as he declareth stirred up his zeal and moved him for the stopping of their ungodly mouths and refuting their Errors to write that Book For the Goths themselves the general body of them was barbarously Idolatrous though some of that people had received betimes the Christian Faith for Theophilus a Gothick Bishop was at the Council of Nice and the Vandals were wholly Pagans Neither were there under Heaven a people more zealously devoted to Daemons than the Scythians Getes or Goths Of the Thracian Getes Pausanias saith in his Baeoticks that they were a more acute Nation than the Macedonians and by no means so negligent in the worship of their gods Schedius in his Dissertations concerning the German-gods hath remembred very many Gothick Deities and there is a Learned man of our own Nation who tells us that he hath not numbred the half of them Of Herald the first King of Norway it is reported by Crantzius that he offered two of his own Sons unto his Daemons for the obtaining at Sea such a Tempest as might disperse that Armado of Herald the sixth King of Denmark which was prepared against him and that he obtained that for which he had bidden so dear and bloody a rate After the further Conversion of those Northern people none more corrupted their worship than they with the observance of Tutelar Saints In the Chronicle of Swedeland the inferior Deities of that place exceed the number of the Villages and I need no further instance than that which I find in Felix Faber a Monk of Ulma A Town saith he night to Ulma is Seflingen in which is the Blessed Virgin presiding in the Garden of Virgins and keeping on the West the Walls of that City On the South is situate the Village of Wiblingen in which St. Martin armed both with the Temporal and Spiritual Militia is the Patron of the Church and the Guardian of the Ulmenses Nigh also is Schuvekhofen an ancient Town where at this day standeth a Church in which S. John the Evangelist watcheth over Ulma On the East is the Village Pful where standeth the Mausoleum of the Blessed Virgin in the publick street There she demonstrates by certain Miracles that she dwells in that place Thence she looks upon Ulma with the eyes of mercy and defends it In that Village S. Udalricus is Patron of the Church an excellent Guardian of the Citizens who implore his Aid On the North on the Royal Mountain of Elchingen is placed a lofty Throne of the Blessed Virgin to the terror of all that have evil will at Ulma He further mentions St. George St. Leonard all Saints with the Virgin in the midst of them St. James and St. Michael as Patrons and defendants of that place And for St. Michael he is placed on a Mountain on the West-side as a Watchman looking over the whole City and in Armour as the Protector of it Now the Northern Barbarians being so inclined to the worship of Tutelar Daemons it is no wonder if many Christian Romans to mollifie their savageness and to induce them to Christianity so far complied as to offer them Tutelar Saints and holy Angels instead of their evil Guardian Spirits This I suppose they did because I find the Concurrence of their Invasion and stay in Italy and of the rise and growth of Daemon-worship there both happening in the fourth and fifth Centuries And it may not be unworthy the Observation of the Reader that in the fifth Century St. Michael the Archangel a most eminent Patron as we just now heard from Felix Faber among the Northern Christians was first Commemorated in the Western Church by a solemn Feast I would here further note that Woden not the Mercury but the Mars of the Northern Idolaters was in highest esteem among them That Michael answereth to him being as the Roman Litanies stile him the Prince of the Heavenly Host That this Feast of St. Michael was then instituted when Peace was desired betwixt Odoacer King of the Heruli who came first from Scandanivia and were called afterwards Lombards and Theodorick the first King of the Goths in Italy Having thus aimed at the resolution of the fiast Inquiry the occasion of Daemon-worship in the Church I proceed to shew in the second place That this worship derogateth from the Honour of God as Governour of the World by his immediate self though also by a Substitute for he is likewise the same Essential God It is both by the Romanists and the Reformed acknowledged that God is the Governour of the World That in him we live and move and have our being That he giveth us life and breath and all things That to him all glory is to be referred Neither hath he anywhere declared that he hath divided the Regiment of the World into several Lieutenancies of Angels or Saints He hath no-where shewed us that he hath given to this Angel and that Saint not to a Saint especially a Commission to rule in such a Precinct or a Patent to practice as a Supernatural Physician in such a City or Town or any-where in the cure of such a disease or Orders to assist at this Mass and that Confession If therefore such effects of Protection Health and assistance follow and are believed to comefrom this or the other Saint though as subordinate to God the supreme Governour and infinite Physician yet a degree of Trust is put in them as Plenipotentiaries or Substitutes of the King of the
as King Pauper Absit God forbede He speketh not to the ymage that the Carpenter hath made and the Peyntour painted but if the Priste be a fole for that stocke or stoone was never Kynge but he speketh to him that dyed on the Croce for us al to him that is King of alle thynge The xiii Chaptre Pauper The Lawe clepith ymages venerable and worshipful for ther shuld no man dispyse them ne defoul hem brenne them ne breke them De Consecrat di iii Venerabiles and for this manner of Veneration and worship saith the Lawe in the same place summe doctoures that Ymages Boke or Vestment and Chalice may be worshipped with Dulia But they take that Dulia fulle largely and full unproperly for such worship and veneration is ne service ne subjection as I said before For them who can instruct their minds help their memories excite their passions and fix their fancy by praying before an Image they are at liberty to use such helps in their private Closets In publick let them consider whether the scandal of others be not a greater evil than this kind of help can be a good And to me it seemeth that what help soever it may be to dispose and prepare us yet in the very act of devotion it is an impediment for then we exercise the heart and mind rather than the eye and the imagination which latter when it hath an Idea of God-man it apprehendeth him as in glory And in this point Thomas a Kempis himself was not determined in his judgment for in one place he commendeth the use of a Crucifix in praying to God and yet in another place he prescribeth a form of Prayer in which God Almighty is intreated to free the mind from bodily fantasms For St. Austin He thought that no body could worship or pray with his eyes fixed on an Image but he must be so affected as to think it hears him and will give him the aid which he implores He saith in another place that the figure of the parts of an humane body doth even extort this that the soul which lives in the body shall thereby be the apter to think that body perceives which it sees like to its own And that Images avail more to the bowing down of the unhappy mind in that they have a mouth eyes ears and feet then to the correcting of it by their not speaking seeing hearing or walking Bellarmine himself confesseth that they who adore God in an Image or Creature do expose themselves to great peril and are compelled to use the most subtle distinctions which the Learned scarce understand much less the vulgar Let them see to it who lay such snares in the way of the people whatsoever they intend they may plainly foresee that their feet will be taken in them and that many thousands have been so caught they may know from History and Experience Most unhappy have been the consequences of the second Synod of Nice which decreed the relative worshipping or bowing down to Images which by its President Tarrhasius and its defender Adrian the first owned a Transition of the worship through the Image to the Prototype like an arrow which first passeth actually through the Medium e're it hitteth the mark and which in the opinion of Mr. Thorndike brought in and authorized Addresses to solitary Images of Saints Since that time Gods worship has been exceedingly depraved and such bold men as Naclantus Bishop of Clugium have openly declared that the same Latria or Divine honour is due to the Image which is due to the Prototype And it hath been shewed a while ago that the Pontificale it self affirmeth Latria to be due to the Cross without distinguishing of it into absolute and relative But I would not misconstrue one unadvised passage as the constitution of the whole Church of Rome and a condition of its communion though I cannot but from the premisses conclude the danger of its communion or the peril of Idolatry in it Further there is another kind of Idolatry towards the Image of Christ visible in the practice of many Romanists though not enforced by the Decrees of their Church I mean that divers make it a Divine Shechinah or Image in which Christ eminently dwells and miraculously operates It was the custom of Asclepiades the Philosopher as in the 22d Book of Ammianus we are informed to carry with him whithersoever he journeyed a little silver-Image of the Goddess Coelestis 'T is probable that he hoped amongst other things for the fairer weather for she was Urania the Goddess of the Clouds And a late King of France is said to have carried about with him as his Coelestial Guardian a Crucifix of Lead If other Roman Catholicks wear it about their necks as a Remembrancer and not as an Amulet they have the greater protection from God for their removing a superstitious defensative And it is great pity that such things should be laid before the people as instruments of Inchantment by the literal sound at least of the Ritual and Pontifical which bless Crosses and Relicks as weapons of defence against evil Spirits Tempests malignant air Thieves Invaders hurtful beasts And he does not dwell within many doors of a Prophet who cannot guess at the proneness of the people to superstitious usages The Rebels of Devonshire in the Reign of Edward the sixth in their march to the siege of Exeter carried before them as the Jews did the Ark of God in the times of old the Pix or consecrated Host born under a Canopy with Crosses Banners Candlesticks Holy-bread and Holy-water and other things though the walls of Exâ—…ter fell not down before this false Ark as Dagon did before the true And it is commonly known what virtue is ascribed to the Pope's Agnus Dei's and how the people use them as holy Statues in which Christ's Divine Virtue so resides as by its glorious presence and power to expell all enemies ghostly and bodily Here trust is put in a Creature as a Shechinah of Christ which is not such and consequently that trust is no better than a reliance on an Idol PART 2. Of the Idolatry charged on the Romanists in the Worship of the Images of Saints Touching the Images of the Saints and the Veneration of them it is fit I say something but the Premisses being considered I have the less need of being voluminous It is a question whether any such Images can be made with any suitableness to the Prototypes Christ indeed hath raised his own body long ago and it is contained in the Heavens But of Saints who are yet in an imperfect estate whose bodies are yet asleep in the dust what Praxiteles or Titian can give us fit Statues or Pictures of them What they were we may by Images and Pictures conceive But what they now are in the present heavenly condition with relation to which the Romanists worship
them who on earth can reveal to us whilst eye hath not seen it neither hath ear heard it But for the Images or Pictures of the Saints in their former estate on earth if they be made with discretion if they be the Representations of such whose Saintship no wise man calleth into question if they be designed as their honourable Memorials they who are wise to sobriety do make use of them and they are permitted in Geneva it self where remain in the Quire of the Church of St. Peter the Pictures of the twelve Prophets on one side and on the other those of the twelve Apostles all in wood also the Pictures of the Virgin and St. Peter in one of the Windows And we give to such Pictures that negative honour which they are worthy of We value them beyond any Images besides that of Christ we help our memories by them we forbear all signs of contempt towards them But worship them we do not so much as with external positive signs for if we uncover the head we do it not to them but at them to the honour of God who hath made them so great Instruments in the Christian Church and to the subordinate praise of the Saints themselves They who worship such Images do either worship them as the Statues of such invisible Powers as do under God govern the world or of holy Spirits who hear them in all places and pray to God particularly for them or who only pray for them in general or as so many Shechinahs of ruling or interceding Saints And First If they worship them as Representations of ruling Daemons they are Idolatrous For they thereby give away the honour of Gods reserved power to a Creature They honour as Clients the statue of a Saint whilst God is by right their Patron Secondly If they worship the Images of Saints only as holy spirits who pray for them and hear them in any place by the help of that God whose essence is every-where and who enabled the Prophet to know the actions of Gehazi when he was out of his sight they are still thereby in peril of Idolatry for if God does not enable them to hear and they pray with confidence in them as hearing they relye on a power in the Creature which God hath not communicated to it Thirdly If they honour the Images of Saints only as holy spirits who in general pray for them they are not to be thence condemned as Idolaters for should they so far debase their reason as to give to the Image the same honour which is due to the Saint they honour but a creature that is inferior with the honour of a creature superior to it who prayeth for them in the mass of mankind And if they bow to such an Image that external sign of worship can't reasonably be interpreted by the beholders as a sign of Divine honour because they bow to that which appears no other than the Image of a Saint and not a Crucifix or Image of Christ the eye sufficiently distinguishing these and therefore it hath no higher honour than the Prototype which is a Creature I except here such bowing and kneeling to the Image of a Saint as is in use in the Roman Church and is accompanied with a form of Prayer proper to be addressed to God and particularly that form which Christ hath taught us For though the Catechism of Trent requireth the Parish Priest to let the people understand that when any one pronounceth the Lords-Prayer to the Image of a Saint he should think only that he joineth his Prayers with those of that Saint to God for him Yet the people are not so apt to receive the instruction and to be free from mistake and this the Catechism it self supposeth whilst it speaketh of the need there is of the greatest caution in this matter need of it not only for the moment of the thing but for the easiness of erring in it Fourthly If they worship them as Shechinahs of ruling Daemons they honour that as the presence of a power which God is pleased every-where to exercise and which he hath not fixed in such Statues in order to any eminent operation Wherefore they give the honour of Gods Schechinah to that which is not such and their trust is in an Idol And here the practice of the Church of Rome is scandalous if its constitution be not There is a common perswasion among that people that Prayers are more effectually heard and that Miracles are sooner done before an Image than in the absence of it That one Image is a more excellent Shechinah than another that our Lady will perform things at Loretto which she will not do at Rome it self And they who desire blessing of St. Winifred think they soonest attain it at her well The Liber Festivalis as they called it in use here in England in the time of Henry the seventh aboundeth with stories of Divine power working in Images and amongst other tales it telleth of the power of the Image of St. Nicholas in keeping mens Goods in safety and how certain Thieves who were permitted for a time to steal a few Goods committed to its care were by St. Nicholas forced to speedy restitution We read in Krantzius that Count Gerhard Uncle to Waldemare of Sleswick went to battel against the Danes with the Image of the Virgin about his neck after the manner of Sylla the Dictator who used in such emergencies certain little statues of Apollo or Jove one of which after his escape in a very dangerous Fight he kissed saying O Jupiter I had almost fallen with you this day and you with me And the Books of the most learned Papists are full of Legends which by telling of the motion of the Images themselves in wonderful manner or of the miraculous events succeeding the Addresses made at them do incline the people to come thither with confidence as to the Shechinahs of God Curtius the Provincial of Belgium is one of these writers and I find this story in him There was a certain poor man who in extreme need beseeched our Saviour to preserve him from perishing by some small Alms. At this Prayer the Image or rather Christ in the Image bowed himself and gave to the beggar his right shoo as a help in his need Away went the man with this new prize but the neighbours hearing of it redeemed the shoo with the equal weight in gold But that shoo to this day could never be fitted again to the foot but is supported with a Chalice It seems this Crucifix was made of Cedar by Nicodemus himself but methinks with no good fancy the Artist having carved a Crown of Gold instead of one of Thorns upon the head of our holy Lord. Lipsius a man rather learned than wise telleth of the many drops of blood which distilled from a certain wooden Image of the Virgin at Halla And on this he looked as on a miracle
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
and predisposed it for the reception of the Christian Faith B. That kind of Immortality which they held was not agreeable to Christian Doctrine They asserted indeed the Incorporeal and indissoluble nature of the substance of mans soul but by the Dogma of its Circulation through several Bodies they taught a false and uncomfortable Faith which our Lord never justified He taught not only that the Soul was not a concretion of separable Atoms and that it was a substance not to be killed a substance subsisting after death but that it was if righteous immortal in unchangeable blessedness He did not dishearten the virtuous by saying as did Pythagoras that the Soul after having attained the height of the Heavenly state might come down again from the top of the Circle and be happy and unhappy in eternal Rotations and Vicissitudes For this reason St. Austin in the first Book of his Retractations speaking of the Souls ascent into Heaven thinketh it had been safer to have expressed himself by the word Going than that of Returning lest any should believe he favoured the Platonick notion of its being thrust down from its seat in Heaven A. Of Platonism enough I will trouble you again as I did at the beginning with a few Remarks of another kind and then I will suffer you to be quiet B. Pray let us hear them A. In Chap. 5. pag. 52. you make Pagods to be the Statues whereas they are only the Temples of Idols B. I use not my own words but Vincent le Blanc's and with him many others agree though I do not remember that either in Sir Thomas Roe's Voyage to the East-Indies or in Monsieur Tavernier's Travels Pagod is otherwise used than for a Temple But why may it not signifie both the Statue and the Temple At Rome they do not think it absurd to call the Saint the Church the Image Sancta Maria. A. It may be so I pass to another Note In Chap. 6. pag. 97 98. you expound the second Commandment or prohibition of a Vow forbidden to be made to an Idol or Vanity in the name of El Elohim Jehovah or if you will have it so Jahveh or in any other name of the God of Israel So far the Novelty perhaps is passable But then to obviate an Objection which may be made from our Lords Interpretation Thou shalt not forswear thy self you add this That he who voweth by an Idol seeing he cannot be enabled by it to perform his Vow is therefore in effect forsworn And this looks more like an Evasion than an Answer B. It doth so Nor will I go about either to defend that or the Exposition which occasioned it Thus much only I chuse to subjoin That a Jew or a Christian vowing by an Idol though coloured with some Name of the true God is actually forsworn because he breaketh either the Mosaical or Evangelical Covenant an especial part of which is the renunciation of the worship of all Daemons In speaking to the first Commandment in p. 97. I am guilty of a fault of omission which you take no notice of A. What may that be B. I ought to have observed that the Jews did generally interpret that Prohibition against the worship not so much of any other supreme god as of the middle powers or supposed Mediators betwixt God and Man A. There needs no command against the worship of many supreme gods that being a contradiction to the sense of mankind B. True when you use the words many supremes But the common people think not of the World as one Body necessarily placed under one Governour but they may be brought to think of the Kingdom of Heaven as they do of the kingdoms in this world where there is no Universal Monarch They may think there are several coequal gods in their several Precincts Nay generally the Barbarous in several Countries may be apt to think their Topical god superior to all others The ignorant Frier thought the French King his Master the greatest on earth when he irreverently compared him to God the Father and called our Holy Lord the Dauphine of Heaven And some poor Peasants believe there is scarce one higher on earth than the Lord of the Mannor A. I have met with such in my time But I go on In Chap. 6. p. 122 and in other places you much disparage the Ancient Histories of Greece B. Plato himself speaking of the first Phoroneus Deucalion and others suggesteth that their stories are fabulous And that which he there remembers of the Discourse of the Priests of Sais to Solon about the Antiquities of Egypt and Greece and of Athens as an Egyptian Colony is at first hearing so Idle a Tale that I wonder the Philosopher or any discreet Reader of him hath had any reverence for it A. I confess I have not Give me leave to trouble you with one objection more In Chap. 7. p. 146. You say Two things concerning the Idolatry of the Mahometans which will not pass First You affirm that they pray to Mahomet whereas they are forbidden to do any such thing by their great Article of Faith in one God Secondly You say it is most notorious that they do so whereas some judicious Persons who have lived amongst them and such who are of better credit than the Author you cite do profess they could never observe them doing it B. To your first exception I thus answer Their Article of Faith in one God was not so much designed against the worship of subordinate powers as against the acknowledgment of three coequal Subsistences in the God of the Christians It is one of the Dogmata of the Moslemans saith Gabriel Sionita That God is One and that there is no other equal to Him And this last Clause Mahomet added with direct design against the Christian Trinity And he would not have been so vehement in his charge of Idolatry against the Christians if they had worshipped Christ and the Holy Ghost with subordinate honour and not as very God For your second Exception I must confess that the words most notonious may seem a little too bold they relating to a matter which is under dispute as likewise that on your side there are Authors of better credit then Monsieur de la Guilliotiere whom I have produced I have not much relyed upon his word since I was taught by a person of great integrity that his Book of Athens to his knowledg was wide of the truth But Monsieur de la Guilliotiere is not my only Author I am told by others that the worship of Heroes and trust in their Aids as Patrons under God is to be charged on Mahometans if not on the constitution of Mahomet who taught expresly the Intercession of Saints Busbequius relateth that the Turks believe their Hero Chederle a kind of Mahometan St. George to be propitious in War to all who implore his Aid He further telleth that the
c. 22. p. 392. Sic Cher. Ser. aurea in Arcâ figuratum exemplum certè simplex ornamentum accommodata suggestui longè diversas habendo causas ab Idoiolatriae conditione ob quam similitudo prohibetur c. g T. G. Cath. 〈◊〉 Idol p. 20â—… a In Tom. 1. Op. S. Hieron p. 123 124. b Socr. Eccl. Hift. p. 191. l. 3. c. 18. c See Epist. S. Hieron ad Ripar Presbyt op Tom. 2. p. 118. d See Bishop Whites Orthod Faith p. 111. Capit. Caroli Magni c. 26. p. 271. Dr. Still against T. G. p. 710 711 c. e In Votâ—… pro Pace p. 41. a Act. 14. 8 tâ—… 13. b Exod. 28. 30. a Philo Jud. de Prosugis p. 466 B. b Dr. Jackson in vol. 3. p. 803. c H. Grotius in Exod. 28. 4. And Munster in v. 5. p. 653. Crit. Maj. d Exod. 28. 5 8. a Breast-plate an Ephod a Robe a broider'd Coat a Miter a Girdle v. 36. a Plate of gold e Hosea 3. 4. f LXX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. sine urim g Doctiss. D. Spenc. in Dissert de Urim Thummim c. 5. sect 2. p. 251 252 253. h S. Hier. Tom. 3. ad Dam. p. 117. Seraphim sicâ—…t in interpret nom Hebr. invenimus Ardor aut Incendium interpretantur Tom. 5. p. 29. Seraphim interpretantur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the LXX who in Isa. 6. 2. use 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quod nos â—…e possâ—… Incendentes seu comburentâ—…s i In Judic c. 17. v. 4. p. 2123. ap C. M. k S. Hiâ—…ron ad Marcell Tom. 3. op p. 72 73. l Exod. 26. 31. With Cherubims shall it be made Vers. Arab. With Pictures a S. Hieron in Isa. 6. p. 29. Tom. 5. op In Cherubim ostenditâ—…r Dominus ex Seraphim ex parte ostenditur ex parte celatur Idem Tom. 3. op ad Damasum Papam p. 121. Super Cherubim sedere Deum scriptum est super Seraphim verò sedere Deum nulla script commemorat ne ipsa quidem Seraphim circa Deum stantia excepto present loco viz. Isa. 6. in SS invenimus b Exod. 25. 18 19 20 21 22. c Levit. 8. 8. a Numb 2â—… 6 8. b Deut. 8. 15. c Herod l. 2. p. 132. â—…ic de Nat. Deor. l. 1. d Isa. 14. 29. e Abarb. Com. in Leg. fol. 305. ap G. Moebium de AEneo Serpente Exerc. 2. c. 2. sect 11. f Gages Survey of the West-Indics p. 117. g Herodot in Eâ—…ter p. 132. h See Pignor. de Mâ—…â Isiacâ p. 23. a Max. Tyr. dissert 38. p. 373. b Eras. Stel. ad Init. l. 1. de Antiq. Boruss samog c See Tertullde paescrip Her c. 47. p. 220. d Kircher in Oedip synt 18. p. 508 509. c. 1. e Wisd. 16. 5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f See Porphyr de Abstin l. 4. p. 155. giving the like reason for the worship of the Egâ—…ptian Hawk 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. g Diod. Sic. l. 3. c. 10. p. 143. See Max. Tyr. diss 38. p. 373. h Voss. de Idol l. 9. c. 11. p. 234. i Pignor. de mensâ Isiaca p. 24. k Herod l. 2. p. 132. A. l Euseb. de praep l. 1. c. 10. p. 41. a Kirch Oed. Tom. 3 p. 160 199. b Macrob. l. 1. Sat. c. 20. p. 295. c See Cartari's Imag. p. 156. d Kirch Sphinx mystagoga p. 57. e Eus. de praep Evang. l. 1. c. 10. de Phaen. Theol. p. 41 42. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. f Elucid Pseudo Anselmi l. 1. c. 15. p 461. Disc. Quamdiu suerâ—…nt in Paradiso Mag. Septem al. Sex horas a Mr. Mede's Works p. 292. b Oëdip Egypt Synt. 3. c. 4. c Maimon More Nevochim par 2. c. 30. p. 280. d Id. ibid. par 1. c. 49. p. 73. e Isa 6. 2 6. a Tertull. de Praescr Haer. p. 220. C. Iftum suisse serpentem cui Eva ut filio Dei crediderat b Id. adv Val. c. 2. p. 251. Illa i. e. Columba a primordio Divinae Pacis Praeco I lle i. e. Serpens a primordio divine Imaginis Praedo c Maim More Nev. par 3. c. 45. p. 476. d S. Hier. in Isa. c. 6. Tom. 4. p. 29. e See Doctiss. D. Spenceri Diss. de ur Thum. p. 16 17 18. f Levit. 8. 8. a I Sam. 23. 11 12. The Lord said by the Ephod he will descend they will deliver ye up * See notwithstanding Dr. Spencer Dissert de ur Thum. p. 34 c. b Exod. 28. 1 2 3 4 5 6. c Numb 21. 8. Ar. Mont. vers Fac Tibi Saraph a Numb 21. 8. Lxx. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ar. Mont. super vexillum b Joh. 3. 14. c D. Jackson vol. 2 p. 916 917 c. * Marius ap Moëb de AEn Serp. Ex. 2 e. 2. Sect. 15. Atque ità lignum â—…oc Crucis gessisset figuram sicuti Christi 〈◊〉 Typum gessit hic Sâ—…rpens d Wisd. 16. 7. See Chald. Par. in Num. 21. 8. He shall recover if he direct his heart to the Word of the Lord. Targ. Hieros If he lift his face to his Father in the Heavens a Diod. Sic. l. 1. Bibl. c. 75. p. 66. b AEl var. Hist. l. 14. c. 34. c See LXX Scalig. de Emend Temp. l. 7. p. 654. * Consider Exod. 24. 7. a Grot. in Heb. 9. 4. p. 4268. in M. C. b Joseph 8. 2. c King 8. 9. d 2 Chron. 5. 10. e Exod. 16. 33. f Numb 17. 10. g Heb. 9. 3 4. h Judg. 18. 12. i 1 Sam. 28. 6. a Diod. Sic. l. 1. c. 87. p. 76. * Psal. 119. 142 151. * Psal. 19. 7. * Psal. 119. 96. b Ecclus. 33. 3. Sec. Vers. LXX c. 36. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c Scal. de Emend Temp. p. 654. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 h. e. tanquam urim Thummim c Joh. 1. 17. d Deut. 33. 8. e Munster in Exod. 28. de urim Thummim Quales fuerint Res nemini mortalium constat a Josh. 5. 13 14 15. b See Hen. Valesii not in Euseb Eccl. Hist. l. 1. c. 2. p. 7. d Usher in Annal vet Testam p. 21. Ed. Paris a See Bisterfeld contr Crell l. 1. Sect. 2. c. 30. p. 298. b Psal. 17. 15. c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 d 1 Kings 8. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11. e 1 King 8. 12 13. f 2 Chron. 6. 1. g 2 Chron. 5. 13. h Matt. 17. 5. i 1 King 9. 2. k 1 King 3. 5. l 1 King 19. 8 10 14 15. m S. Hieron Tom. 5. oper fol. 211. D. n Isai. 6. 1 2 3 4. o John 12. 41. p See Ezek. 10. 18. c. 11. 23. q Cippi Hibraici p. 24. r Pseudo Anselmi Elucidar c. 24. p. 476. a See Othon Lex Rabbin p. 476 477. b Dan. 7. 9 to 15. c S. Hier. in Dan. p. 587. Also Euseb. in l. 1. c. 2. Eccl. Hist. p. 10. a See
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
Throne of his most eminent Glory He cannot behold that now unless in such a glymps as St. Stephen enjoy'd which he shall see after the Resurrection when the vail of this gross body shall be removed for to the meek in heart it is promised that they shall see God To them shall be revealed that secret of faces which the Jews so often speak of and adjourn to the future life But for the substance of the Godhead it is for ever invisible the infinity of it which Tertullian seemeth to call the fulness of the Deity and denieth to have been seen by Moses can no more be taken in by mans eye than a whole circle of the Universe can be taken in at the same moment by the glass of a Telescope And for the Essence of it it seems indiseernible even to the very Angels For although Angels be spirits yet they possessing a space are of a far differing nature from the divine substance which filleth and pierceth all things The Ranters indeed professed to see in this life the very Essence of God but the true God was not every thing which they dream'd of Now man in this earthly state receiving knowledg chiefly from the senses he is exceeding covetous of sensible helps in his research after the most abstracted notions which inclination being vehement in the vulgar who are generally of very gross apprehension they pursue not the object of their minds be it the most Divine and Spiritual God himself with pure and unmixed reason but they at best blend it with some bodily phantasm and often dwell wholly upon such an Image and the external object of it insomuch that their imagination worshippeth that which should be entertained only as the help and instrument of their mind So that although the natural desire of a visible object be not the necessary cause yet it is the occasional root of all that proper Idolatry or Image-worship which divided it self into more kinds than there are Nations in the world PART 2. Of the Cure of Idolatry by the Shechinah of God GOD knowing well the frame and infirmity of man though himself did not erect it so as now it stands with much decay and many breaches was pleased to condescend to the weak condition of his nature and to vouchsafe him a kind of visible presence lest in the entire absence of it his fancy should have bow'd him down even to such creatures to which man himself being compared is a kind of subcaelestial Deity It pleased then the wise and merciful God to shew to the very eyes of man though not his spiritual and immense substance or any statue or picture of it properly so called yet his Shechinah or visible glory the symbol of his especial Presence This divine appearance I suppose to have been generally exhibited in a mighty lustre of flame or light set off with thick and as I may call them solemn Clouds Nothing is in nature so pure and pleasant and venerable as light especially in some reflexions or refractions of it which are highly agreeable to the temper of the brain By light God discovereth his other works and by it he hath pleased to shadow out himself and both secular and sacred Writers have thence taken plenty of metaphors dipping as it were their pens in light when they write of him who made Heaven and Earth “ Jamblichus in his book of the “ Egyptian Mysteries setteth out by light the Power the Simplicity the Penetration the Ubiquity of God R. Abin Levita supposeth it to be the garment of God it having been said by David that he cloatheth himself with it Maimonides supposeth the matter of the Heavens to have a risen from the extension of this vestment of Divine Light Eugubinus supposeth the Divine Light to be the Empyrean Heaven or habitation of God And this he thinketh to be the true Olympus of the Poets so called quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it shineth throughout with admirable glory S. Basil calleth the Light of God not sensible but intelligible and conceiteth that after that first uncreated the Angels are a second and created light Such sayings though they have in them a mixture of extravagance yet in the main they teach the same with the Scripture that God is light or that there is nothing in the Creation so fit an Emblem of him and so fit to be used in his appearance to the world Thus therefore is the Shechinah of God described in the Prophecy of Habakkuk God came from Teman and the holy One from Mount Paran Selah His glory covered the Heavens and the Earth was full of his praise And his brightness was as the light he had horns or beams coming or streaming out of his hand or side Whether the Shechinah of God ever appeared out of a vision in light organiz'd in mans shape I am not certain though such a Representation be apt to excite the veneration of mankind For even when Herod spake from his Throne of Majesty and the light was with singular advantage reflected from his Robe of silver the amused people were the more readily induced to celebrate him as a God on Earth But of the figure of the Shechinah I profess my self uncertain and often ruminate upon the Chaldee Oracle which adviseth us when we see the most holy Fire shining without a form or determinate shape then to hear the voice of it that is to esteem it then the true Oracle of God and not the imposture of a Daemon And such a fire Psellus the Scholiast on this Oracle affirmeth to have been seen by many men And I might shew somewhat like it in the Instances of Abraham and Moses But there has been seen a false Fire also and the Massalians whom Epiphanius calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bending down their head to their navel professed they saw a divine fire and received the ardor of a divine spirit being either deluded by the Devil or deceived into this conceit by some odd fantasms which arose from the nerves extended in an uncommon posture Now for the Shechinah or visible glory of God in this world for whether it appeared to any as in the other till the day-break of the Gospel will bear a dispute it was in all likelihood effected not by the Father whom no man hath seen but by the second Person in the Trinity the King and Light of the World who was afterwards Incarnate Both the Orthodox and the Haeretical have maintained the visibility of the Son and the invisibility of the Father though upon different reasons This did Origen this did the Arians Thus Bisterfeldius in that very Treatise in which he defendeth against Crellius the natural Divinity of the Son of God doth maintain that the Father is invisible to the very Angels and that Christ even in the Ages long before the Gospel was the visible Image of the Father Now the reason why true Catholicks affirm the Father to