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
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
to the eluding of the force of such places that he believed an acknowledgment of Christ as Creator was in effect a confession of his Godhead This then being by Arius granted and by Socinus denied that Christ created the Natural World it is that single point in which Arius apart from Socinus is chargeable with Idolatry And certainly he is not accused upon slight and idle suspicion if the charge be drawn up against him either from Scripture or Reason In the Scripture God himself doth prove himself to the World to be the true one God by his making of all things In what other sense will any man whose prejudice does not bend him a contrary way interpret the following places Who hath measured out the waters in the hollow of his hand and meted out the Heavens with a span and comprehended the dust of the Earth in a measure and weighed the Mountains in scales and the Hills in a ballance Who hath directed the spirit of the Lord or being his counseller hath taught Him Thus saith the God the Lord he that created the Heavens and stretched them out He that spread forth the Earth and that which cometh out of it He that giveth breath unto the people upon it and spirit to them that walk therein I am the Lord that is my name and my Glory I will not give to another Thus saith the Lord that created thee O Jacob and formed thee O Israel Fear not Before me there was no God formed neither shall there be after me The Lord is the true God he is the living God and an everlasting King or the King of Eternity Thus shall ye say unto them the Nations The gods that have not made the Heavens and the Earth even they shall perish from the Earth and from under these Heavens He hath made the Earth by his Power he hath established the World by his Wisdom and hath stretched out the Heavens by his Discretion Thus speaketh the Scripture In the next place let it be considered whether Reason can dissent from it What notion will Reason give us of the true God if it supposeth such wisdom and power in a creature as can make the World For does not Reason thence collect her Idea of God conceiving of him as of the mighty and wise framer of the Universe thus the very Americans themselves I mean the Peruvians did call their supreme God by the name of Pachaia Chacic which signifies as they tell us the Creator of Heaven and Earth In this then Arius is particularly to be condemned in that he supposeth the Creator a Creature and yet professeth to worship him under the notion of the Maker of all things It is true that Arius gave not to Christ the very same honour he did to the Father And his Disciples in their Doxologies were wont in cunning manner to give Glory to the Father by the Son And such a Form Eusebius himself used and we find it at the end of one of his Books against Sabellius Glory be to the one unbegotten God by the one only begotten God the Son of God in one holy Spirit both now and always and through all Ages of Ages Amen Neither do the Arians give any glory to Christ but that which they pretend to think enjoined by God the Father But if Christ had been a Creature the Creator would not by any stamp of his Authority have raised him to the value of a natural God and such a God they honour whatsoever the terms be with which they darken their sense for he is honoured by them as Creator and Governour and dispenser of Grace PART 3. Of the Idolatry of the Socinians THe point in which Socinus offendeth by himself is the Worship he giveth Christ whilst he maketh him but a man and such a man as is but a machine of animated and thinking Matter for though he declineth not the word soul or spirit I cannot find at the bottom of his Hypothesis any distinct substance of a Soul in Christ. If that Principle had been believed by him why doth he suppose the Lord Jesus bereaved of all Perception as long as his Body remained lifeless in the Grave Why do his Followers maintain that the dead do no otherwise live to God than as there is in him a firm purpose of their Resurrection for so the Vindicator of the Confession of the Churches of Poland written by Shlichtingius is pleased to discourse We believe said he not only that the Soul of Christ supervived his Body but also that the Souls of other men do the like But if Cichovius thinketh that the dead do otherwise live to God than as it is always in the hand and power of God to raise them up and restore them to life let him go and confute Christ where he saith I am the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living Now Reason the great Diana of Socinus though he often took a cloud of fancy for his Goddess can't but judg it a disparagement to the Idea of a God to suppose such Divinity as can govern the World and hear and act in all places at once as Christ is by Socinus confessed to do in a portion of living Matter not six-foot square reserved in the Heavens and perceiving by the help of motion on its organs Arius advanced the Idea of Divinity to a much higher and more becoming pitch for he overcome with the plain evidence of Scripture maintained the Praeexistence of the Logos and supposed him to be a distinct substance from Matter And he might consequently affirm with consistence to his Principles that Christ could know without the mere help of motion and be spread in his substance to an amplitude equal with that of the Material World For the Material World is but a Creature one Body of many Creatures and it implieth no contradiction to say of God that he can make one Creature as big as the collection of all the rest But notwithstanding such amplitude there would still be wanting infinite Wisdom For in the Idea of God we have no other notion of it than as of such a Wisdom as sufficeth to frame the World and to govern it after it hath been framed Now this latter Point is that in which both Arius and Socinus are together condemned whilst both worship Christ as one who under God disposeth and governeth all things It is true that he is such but such he had not been if he had not been consubstantial with the Father In that sense he is the Father's Wisdom and whilst Arius and Socinus adore him as Gods Wisdom yet not as God they ascribe to the Creature the Attribute by which the Creator is known For the Scriptures they in opposition to all other gods do as well ascribe the Government as the Creation of the World to that one God of Israel Hear them speaking in this matter with so
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
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
him an homage more agreeable to his Divine and to their own reasonable though humane nature They would then serve him with that pure Religion or sincere Christianity which is not adulterated either with Idolatry or Superstition Of these the notions being so commonly entangled that Hesychius expoundeth the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a superstitious person by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Idolater and the translators of the Psalms * render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the vain or empty that is the exceeding vanities of Idols by superstitious vanities I will in the first place offer to the Reader a distinct consideration of them Superstition if we have regard only to the bare derivations of its names in the Greek or Latin Tongues is no other than a single branch of Idolatry It is the worship of the Divi coelestes semper habiti as the Law of the twelve Tables speaketh that is of the Sempiternal Daemons and also of those Quos in coelum merita vocârunt as the same Law distinguisheth of such Hero's and superexisting Souls as were through their eminent and exemplary virtue translated from Earth to Heaven Yet in the notion of Plutarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Superstition consisteth not so much in the bare worship of such invisible Powers as in that servility and horror of mind which possessed the worshippers and inclin'd them like those who flatter Tyrants to hate them and yet to fawn on them and to suppose them apt to be appeased by ceremonious and insignificant crouchings Use hath further extended the signification of the word insomuch that sometimes it comprehendeth not only all manner of Idolatry but also every false and offensive way which disguiseth it self under the colour of Religion Thus Socrates the Historian when he mentioneth the signs which Julian gave of his proneness to Superstition he meaneth by that word the whole Religion of the Gentiles But there is still behind its proper and especial notion and the Synod of Mechlin hath attempted to set down a true description of it The Council of Trent having commanded the abolishing of all Superstition the Fathers of this Synod go about to explain the meaning of that Precept and they do it after the following manner This Synod say they teacheth that all that use of things is superstitious which is performed without the warrant of the Word of God or the Doctrine of the Church by certain customary rites and observances of which no reasonable cause can be assigned And when trust is put in Them and an expectation is raised of an event following from such Rites and not hoped for without them from the intercession of the Saints Also when in the worship of Saints they are done rather out of rashness and lightness than out of Piety and Religion But this description is in many respects defective For many of the Usages which it decrieth do not relate to Religion and they deserve rather the names of follies impertinences and ludicrous inchantments unless a man would distinguish concerning the kinds of Superstition and call some the Superstitions of common life and others the Superstitions of worship The rites of the former kind become the more Superstitious if their event be expected from some presumed Saint for then an impertinent custom becomes an impiety or the usage of a Magical charm by which invisible powers are depended on for the production of visible effects If for instance sake a man shall fall into that conceit which hath possesled many even Origen himself that certain names signifie by nature and not by institution and that an event will follow from a certain ceremonious pronunciation or other use of them he meriteth the Title of a Trifling and Credulous Philosopher But if he maketh such use of words suppose of Adonai or Sabaoth which Origen believeth to lose their vertue if turn'd into any other language and hopeth thence for the event from God through the intercession of some Spirit he deserveth the reproof due to a superstitious man who by supposing a Divine attendance on his Trifles doth highly dishonour God and his Saints Neither doth the Synod of Mechlin absolve such Rites from the guilt of Superstition by adding to the intercession of Saints the prescription of the Church for that cannot alter the nature of things though it may render some Rites indifferent in their nature expedient not to say necessary in point of obedience for the preservation of Peace and Order If Riâ—…es of worship are exceeding numerous under Christianity if they are light and indecent if being in themselves indifferent or decent in their use they are imposed or observed as necessary duties the stamp of Authority does not much alter the property of them Wherefore others have in more accurate manner defined Superstition A worship relating to God proceeding from a certain inclination of mind which is commonly called a good intention and springing always from mans brain separately from the Authority of the Holy Scriptures But neither in this definition are we to rest For if the reason of mans brain answers the Piety of his intention the worship which he offereth though not commanded in Scripture if not forbidden by it may be grateful to God I should therefore chuse in this manner to describe Superstition It is a corruption of publick or private worship either in the substance or in the Rites of it whereby men actuated by servile motives perform or omit in their own persons or urge upon or forbid to others any thing as in its nature Religious or Sinful which God hath neither required nor disallowed either by the Principles of right Reason or by his revealed Will. It is the paying of our Religious Tribute to God or an Idol in Coin of our own mintage The positive part of it is the addition of our own numberless absurd or decent inventions to the prescriptions of God in the quality of Laws and Rites equal or superior to those by him enacted First An observance of a very great number of such Rites and Ceremonies in the worship of God as admit of excuse or praise in their single consideration is a part of this Superstition For it prejudiceth the substance of our duty by distracting our attention and is unagreeable to the Christianity which we profess because it is not as was the Mosaic a Typical Religion The Greek Church as well as a great part of the Latin aboundeth with Ceremonies and the Rituals are of so great a bulk that they look like Volumes too big for the very Temple much more for the Church Neither probably should such a number of Rites have ever been imposed on the Jews if their ritual temper their conversation with a people of like ritual disposition and the use of Types in shadowing out the Messiah had not mov'd the Wisdom of God to prescribe them The late pretender to the Latin Text and English Translation of the Order and Canon of the Mass
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
Son of God the making of the Universe as they plainly sound and either wanted such confidence as the Socinians or rather such Grammatical subtlety by which they wrested them to a very different sense The places of Scripture which I mean are such as these All things were made by the Word and without him was not any thing made that was made Christ is the Image of the invisible God the first-born of every Creature For in or by him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers All things were created by him and for him And he is before all things and by him all things consist These words together with all other places of a like nature the Socinians do industriously and violently draw to a scope at which they were never aimed It is true that the aim of St. Paul in the place now cited has not been so particularly and critically discerned by some of the most Catholick Commentators But in general all of them well understood that these Expressions The Worlds Things visible and invisible all things that were made things in Heaven and things on Earth were such as no Jews or Christians commonly used in speaking of the founding the Christian Church and making the new world of the Gospel And where it is said That every house is built by some man but he that built all things is God there to interpret it after this fashion of Gods revealing the Christian Oeconomy as they may if they please for the same Key may serve for all such places is an absurd Comment which hath no need of confutation But with them who have denied first the Satisfaction of Christ and for the sake of that error his Divinity and then for the sake of that second error his Praeexistence and Creative power The beginning of the Logos is at the beginning of the Gospel and the Creation of all things is the new Creation in Evangelical truth and righteousness how harshly soever these Interpretations sound to the ears of the Judicious Why go they not on and say that God is called the Creator of Israel and therefore may mean the first words of the Book of Genesis of that people and not of the Material World Why do not they Comment in this manner on the words in the Acts God that made the World and all things therein that is the Gospel with all its appurtenancies seeing that he is Lord of Heaven and Earth that is of the new Evangelical Heaven and Earth wherein dwelleth righteousness dwelleth not in Temples made with hands They err who think the Apostle in that place to the Colossians did in Allegorical manner allude to Moses No he plainly opposeth himself to Gnosticism which was then on foot though put afterwards into many new dresses and to the Simonian Scheme of the world more like to that of Pythagoras than that of Moses though Moses has been thought to Platonize as some speak which to me does not so plainly appear from the words he has left us St. Paul calleth Christ the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Image of God and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first-born of every creature not thereby affirming that Christ was not very God but his first creature of a different substance but opposing him to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Images and the Beginning of the Platonick Simonians He therefore seems to me to speak to this effect You boast of I know not what first-borns and Beginnings which created other things Behold here the true First-born and Beginning who indeed made the World Thus Ignatius opposeth to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Gnosticks the Son of God affirming that there was one God of the Old and New Testament and one Mediator betwixt God and Men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the creating and governing of all things and those who believe otherwise he in the following Page condemneth as the Disciples of Simon Magus The Thrones Dominions Principalities Powers mentioned in the next Verse are in like manner opposed to the Principles or Angels which those Hereticks fancied to be subordinate Creators and Governours of the visible World Epiphanius in his Twenty-third Heresie of the Saturnilians declareth their odd opinion concerning one Unknown Father and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Virtues Principalities and Powers made by him and of the inferior creatures made by them And in his Twenty-sixth Heresie of the Gnosticks he setteth down the order of their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Heavenly Principalities How little now do these names differ from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Dominions the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Principalities the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Powers of St. Paul the Apostle And that Apostle doth no more assert in this place the creation of such Orders than he doth the making of the Gnostick AEons in the first Chapter to the Hebrews where he affirmeth of Christ that he made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In such places he said in effect that the Logos was the true Principle which they mistook in their notion and miscalled by other names though they were in a kind of pursuit of him but in the dark and in false ways That it was he that made the World visible and intellectual by what names soever they called it or into what Classes soever they had disposed it and that this was not the effect of any such powers as they dreamed of they having no existence but in the shadows of their own imagination In the following Chapter he opposeth the Principles of Christian Religion to the Elements of their Philosophy And in the next Verse he opposeth to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Simonians the fulness of the Deity which dwelt in Christ. And after that he twice mentioneth his Headship over all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Principalities and Powers And thence he most aptly proceedeth to the condemnation of the worship of Angels For of them the Gnosticks made egregious Idols I am the more confirmed in this Discourse upon St. Paul's words by those of Irenaeus God said he in his refutation of the Gnostick Heresie did make all things both visible and invisible sensible and intelligible not by Angels or other Virtues But by his Word and Spirit This God is neither Beginning nor Virtue nor Fulness That is as I suppose it was read in the Greek Copy which the Learned world much wanteth neither 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no Gnostick Principle but true and very God Neither am I concerned at the Objection of those who ascribe these Terms to Valentinus for 't is plain he was not the Inventer It appeareth by the studiousness of Socinus in order
be called an unwarranted impertinent idle labour It is as Saint Paul speaketh an intruding into the things which we have not seen And certainly when we pray not only to those that do not hear us but to such as have no existence but in fiction it is emphatical impertinence What else are the seven sleepers considered as such And yet in the institutions of a spiritual life published with Elogy by Sfondratus afterwards a Pope by the name of Gregory the fourteenth and composed by a nameless Virgin those seven are selected together with a few othere as Saints to be venerated with especial devotion What else are S. Sulpitius and S. Severus considered as distinct persons and yet in an ancient and fair Romish Manual I find this to be part of a Litany Holy Sulpitius pray for me Holy Severus pray for me Also Holy Faith pray for me Holy Hope pray for me Holy Charity pray for me The learned Bishop Montague doth call the Romish Invocation of Saints a Point of Foolery It being he saith at least uncertain whether they are and in what manner they can be acquainted with our wants seeing their condition is not to attend us and they are removed far above our reach and call He entertained the like opinion of praying to such Angels as are not Guardians But of them that are such he supposeth them to be ever in procinctu nigh at hand to men and in attendance on them all their days Hence he seeth no impiety in this Address Sancte Angele custos ora pro me Holy Guardian-Angel pray for me He had put the matter more out of doubt if he had supposed the Angel appearing and certainly known to be an holy spirit of that quality But for the Invocation of other Angels he thinketh it as foolish and ridiculous as his praying to a friend at Constantinople to help him whilst he himself is at London Others have gone further in their censure and they have called the Invocation of Saints more than an impertinent that is a sinful though not an Idolatrous practice And indeed so plain a misuse of a mans reason cannot but be offensive to the Creator who gave it not to man that he should trifle with it But this is not their manner of arguing They tell us such Invocation is not of Faith and that whatsoever is not of faith is sin But what Art of thinking teacheth them to draw consequences on this fashion Whatsoever is done by man against the present perswasion of his Conscience which admits it with great reluctancy as irreligious is in him sinful Therefore the Invocation of Saints or Angels by Papists who desire them to pray for them when they do not hear though they in their Conscience believe they do is a wicked practice because it ariseth not from faith or perswasion Had they said every thing in such weak and unconcluding Logick they had wounded their own cause more than that of their Adversaries If now there were nothing in this Romish Invocation besides their desire of Angels and Saints to pray for them to God Almighty I should forbear to call it Idolatry and give it the softer names of misperswasion impertinence irrational or fruitless beating the air For they amongst them who are the more prudent suppose the Saints to hear them by other means than by Divine Omnipresence and infiniteness of Understanding and they call upon them for such an Office as a good man on earth would do for them much more a Saint or Angel in Heaven For what Christian will deny the Petition of his Neighbour when he desireth him only to pray to God for him unless perhaps he neglecteth Prayer himself and appeareth to have sinned a sin unto death of which they are scarce guilty who beg the Prayers of others such piety being seldom discerned either in presumptuous Christians or in Apostates But in the Romish Invocation there is much more than a praying to Saints and Angels to pray for us It is not indeed intentionally the worship of any of them under the notion of a supreme God how high a note soever doth sound in their Forms for that their own Church renounceth as Idolatry And the Church-men teach the people That it is lawful to worship Angels and Saints with Dulia or inferior honour proportioned to their Excellency but not as God or with Gods honour They give not to them Gods incommunicable honour if they understand the Rule of their Faith but to me they seem to give them honour beyond the proportion of their Excellency even that which God hath to himself reserved This is plain by the natural construction of their Forms which they have not otherwise interpreted but confirmed this meaning of them by their Doctrines and by their daily practice This is that which I here mean and think I shall evince That though they make not any Saint or Angel the supreme Governour of the World yet they constitute the Spirits of either kind Deputies or Lieutenants under God and suppose him not only as occasion serveth to use their Ministry but to make them Guardians Patrons and Patronesses and to allow them for such upon the choice of Worshippers on Earth They instruct the people in their Manuals not only how to address themselves to their Guardian-Angels but also to chuse and worship their Guardian Saints They teach them c in their daily Exercises to remember such Saints that for every office of life they may take to them particular Assistants that so they may pray with this Saint and sleep with that That one Saint may be present at their Canonical Hours when they read that another may be by when they hear a sacred Lecture when they work when they dine when they sup They teach them to select one or more out of the number of the Saints as their Patron to love them to imitate them through their hands to offer daily all their works to God to commend themselves to their protection morning and evening and at other times especially in difficulties and tentations to use them as witnesses and directors of their Actions They give to this Spirit this precinct and that to another They give to some Authority over this disease to others over that They substitute some over one part of nature and others over another part of it though I think they do not quite tye them from intermedling in one anothers Diocesses or Precincts And St. Paul the Patron of Mariners may be called upon in a Fever and St. Luke the Patron of Physicians may have his aid implored in a Tempest This is an opinion maintained by them without imputation of Heresie This they conceive to be consistent with the Worship of one supreme God to this they conform their daily practice This Lieutenancy of Saints if they do not really hold their Church is a very Roma Subterranea and there is nothing of its meaning to be discerned above
though it may be and it is certain they have not in all Ages known according to what is in the Prophesie of St. John what Jesus Christ will do next yet that still by the spirit of Prophesie as it were the Saints have been guided to seek for those things at the hands of God and Christ which he was about to accomplish Also that the Saints in Heaven before the day of Judgment have a share and an hand in Christs government of the world and that they have a knowledg by the Angels that are continually Messengers from Heaven to Earth of the great things that are done here And he that writeth the Epistle to the Reader maketh this Application of Mr. Goodwins Doctrine Now saith he what may we think the Saints in Heaven who within these ten years last past lost their lives in the Cause of Christ he meaneth the Army-Saints from the year forty-four to that of fifty-four who dy'd in maintenance of the Bad Old Cause are EMPLOYED ABOUT at this time they understanding by the Angels what great changes are come to pass on our Earth Those of whose Saintship we have better assurance though in a state of rest and light are esteemed by the Fathers but a kind of Free Prisoners not being acquitted by the publick Sentence of the General Judgment And their opinion who give them a Lieutenancy under God in the Government of the World before that day does recall to my mind the Argument used by that truly great man Sir Walter Raleigh in his own unhappy Case He pleaded that the grant of a Commission from the King did argue him to be absolved and that he who had power given him over others was no longer under a sentence against his own life Abraham and Isaac do not now rule us and it may be they are ignorantt of us which whilst I affirm I do not wholly ground my Assertion on the Text in Isaiah That soundeth otherwise whether we take it in its positive or hypothetical sense It s positive sense may be this Doubtless thou art our Father notwithstanding we live not under the care of Abraham or Isaac but are by many generations removed from them who therefore knew us not or own'd us not we being not men of their times we are their seed however though at a great distance and to such also was thy promise made And for the Hypothetical sense it may be this Be it supposed that Abraham knows nothing of us yet certain we are that thou art the God of Israel whose knowledg and care of thy people never faileth I admit here that the Saints pray for the Church in general that Angels are concerned in particular Ministrations but that Angels and even Saints have shares of the Government of the World though in subordination to God so as to be Commission-Officers under the King of Heaven and not only Attendants on his Throne and as it were Yeomen and Messengers of his Court the general condition of the Angels I cannot admit without peril of Idolatry This in my conceit is the great resemblance betwixt the Romanists and the Gentiles Both of them suppose the World to be ruled under God by several Orders of Daemons and Heroes though I have confessed already that they are not so exactly alike but that Rome-Christian may be distinguished from Rome-Pagan For the Gentiles so much hath been shewn already and it may appear further from the place of the Greek Historian cited in the Margent And for the Romanists that too hath already been manifested in part and shall be further declâ—…red and Rivallius in his History of the Civil Law or Commentary on the Twelve Tables does very honestly confess it He having commented on that Law which ordereth the worship of the Heathen gods both Daemons and Heroes letteth fall words not unfit to be here gathered up by us Christians saith he meaning those of the Roman Communion retain a Religion like to this for they worship God immortal and for those that excel in Virtue and shine with Miracles first with great pomp and inquisition they register them among the Deities or Saints and then they worship them and after that they erect Temples to them as we see in the case of S. John S. Peter S. Catherine S. Nicholas S. Magdalen and other Deities In this point then let us join issue and offer on our side the manifestation of these particulars First On what occasions this worship of Ruling-spirits came into the Church Secondly How it derogateth from the honour of God as Governour of the World Thirdly How it derogateth from the honour of Jesus as the Mediator and King ordained by God First For the occasions of this Worship I conceive them to be especially these two The Celebration of the Memory of the Martyrs at their Tombs and the compliance of the Christians with the Northern Nations when they invaded Italy and other places in hope of appeasing them and effecting their conversion First I reckon as an occasion of this Worship the celebration of the memory of the Martyrs at their Tombs and Monuments and Reliques and in the Churches sacred to God in thankfulness for their Examples The thankful and honourable commemoration of the Martyrs was very ancient and innocent at the beginning For as the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna concerning the Martyrdom of St. Polycarp testifies They esteemed the bones of the Martyrs more precious than Jewels They kept their Birth-days that is the days of their Martyrdom on which they began most eminently to live they pursu'd them with a worthy affection as Disciples and Imitators of Christ but they worshipped none but Christ believing him to be the Son of God But laudable Customs degenerate through time And this in the fourth Century began to be stretched beyond the reason of its first institution as appeareth by the Apostrophe's of St. Basil St. Gregory Nazianzen and others of that Age. Afterwards the vanity of men ran this Usage into a dangerous extreme and those who had been commemorated as excellent and glorified Spirits and whose Prayers were wished were directly invoked and worshipped as the subordinate Governours of Gods Church This Veneration of the Martyrs which superstition thus strained was occasioned by the Miracles which God wrought where his Martyrs were honoured Times of Persecution at home and of Invasion from abroad required such aids for the Encouragement of Catholick Christians and the Conversion of Infidels and misbelievers Thus in the days of St. Austin in whose Age the Getae or Goths sacked Rome and many of the barbarous people imputed the present misfortunes of Italy to the Christian Religion God pleased to work Miracles at the Bodies of the Martyrs Protasius and Gervasius in the City of Milan Thus as is reported by Procopius and Egnatius he miraculously saved those Christians at Rome and Pagans also both in the time of Alaricus and Theudoricus who
her as Queen of Heaven the Author of the Monument of Galeacius Caracciolus dedicateth it in the quality of a Marble-Chappel in thankful acknowledgment of the many favours she conferred on that Marquis and of the many evils from which she secured him At Rome in the Church Mariae S. Angeli the Inscription seemeth to install the Virgin into that Presidency over it which before was held by some god of the Gentiles A like change is insinuated in the Inscription found in the AEdes Martis turned into the Temple of St. Martina Now what seemeth all this but refined Heathenism When men trust in St. Hubert as the Patron of Hunters do not they the like to those who trusted in Diana the Goddess of that Game and the Patroness of Forests upon which account she was of old the celebrated Deity of this Island which then was a kind of continued Wood When they apply themselves in a strom to the Virgin Mary do not they the like to those who in perils by water called on Venus When they put confidence in St. Margaret or the Virgin Mary as the Patronesses of Women in Travail and Children in Infancy do they not follow their pattern who relied on Diana Statina or Cunina in such cases When they pay their Vows to the Virgin for the safety of their Children do they not like Bassa or Sulpitia in the Inscriptions of Gruter who paid theirs in the same case to Lucina or Juno and to Castor and Pollux And is there so vast a difference betwixt the devotion of a Heathen Conquerour who offened his Sword to Mars and of Henry of Valois who obtaining a great Victory over the Rebels in Flanders consecrated to the Virgin the Horse on which he charged and the Arms with which he so successfully fought On both sides here is confidence in a Coelestial creature as a substitute of the supreme God and thanks most solemnly paid to it Only for the Objects the one sort of them is Christian the other Pagan but both kinds were reputed Divine and worthy by their Adorers both were judged Coelestial Magistrates and Senators as the Saints are called by Horstius and the Catechism of Trent And by the Intercession of such Senators is often meant in the Church of Rome their prevalence with God in executing the office of their Patronage Hence they sometimes pray to God That the glorious Intercession of the ever-blessed and glorious Virgin Mary may protect them and bring them to life everlasting The particular Instances of the Romish Patrons and Patronesses are too many to be here Historically spoken of I find enough of them together in the learned Homily against the peril of Idolatry and with them I will at present content my self What I pray you saith that Homily be such Saints with us to whom we attribute the defence of certain Countries spoiling God of his due honour herein but Dii Tutelares of the Gentile Idolaters such as were Belus to the Babylonians and Asfyrians Osiris and Isis to the Egyptians Vulcan to the Lemnians and to such other What be such Saints to whom the safe-guard of such Cities are appointed but Dii Praesides with the Gentiles Idolaters such as were at Delphos Apollo at Athens Minerva at Carthage Juno at Rome Quirinus c. What be such Saints to whom contrary to the use of the Primitive Church Temples and Churches be builded and Altars erected but Dii Patroni of the Gentiles Idolaters such as were in the Capitol Jupiter in Paphus-Temple Venus in Ephesus-Temple Diana and such like When you hear of our Lady of Walsingham our Lady of Ipswich our Lady of Wilsdon and such other what is it but an imitation of the Gentiles Idolaters Diana Agrotera Diana Coriphea Diana Ephesia c. Venus Cypria Venus Paphia Venus Gnidia Terentius Varro sheweth that there were three hundred Jupiters in his time There were no fewer Veneres and Dianae We had no fewer Christophers Ladies and Mary Magdalens and other Saints They have not only spoiled the true Living God of his due Honour in Temples Cities Countries and Lands by such devices and inventions as the Gentiles Idolaters have done before them but the Sea and Waters have as well especial Saints with them as they have had gods with the Gentiles Neptune Triton Nereus Castor and Pollux Venus and such other in whose places be come St. Christopher Clement and divers others and specially our Lady to whom Shipmen sing Ave Maris stella Neither hath the fire scaped the Idolatrous Inventions for instead of Vulcan and Vesta the Gentiles gods of the Fire our men have placed St. Agatha and make Letters on her day for to quench fire with Every Artificer and Profession hath his special Saint as a peculiar God As for example Schollars have St. Nicholas and St. Gregory Painters St. Luke neither lack Soldiers their Mars nor Lovers their Venus amongst Christians All Diseases have their special Saints as gods the curers of them The Pox St. Roche the Falling-evil St. Cornelis the Toothach St. Appolin c. Neither do beasts and cattel lack their gods with us for St. Loy is the Horseleach St. Anthony the Swineherd c. Where is Gods Providence and due Honour in the mean season Who saith The Heavens be mine and the Earth is mine the whole World and all that in it is I do give victory and I put to flight Of me be all counsels and help c. Except I keep the city in vain doth he watch that keepeth it Thou Lord shalt save both men and beasts But we have left him neither Heaven nor Earth nor Water nor Country nor City Peace nor War to rule and governn either men nor beasts nor their diseases to cure We join to him another helper as if he were a Noun Adjective using these sayings Such as learn God and S. Nicholas be my speed Such as neese God help and S. John To the Harse God and S. Loy save thee The Papists have read such Discourses as these and they endeavour to abate the force of them by the following evasion The reasonableness of making addresses to one particular Saint rather than another in some particular occasions will appear from the consideration upon which it is usually done And that is not a division of Offices among the Saints every one of whom may equally intercede without entrenching upon the propriety of another and their intercession may be implored by us in all kinds of necessities whatsoever But it is grounded upon a reflexion which the Suppliant makes either upon some signal Grace which shined in that Saint above others as Patience Humility Chastity c. for which reason the Church saith of every one of them Non est inventus similis Illi there was no other found like to him or upon the particular manner of his suffering Martyrdom or some particular Miracle or such like
them has in all cases such power by commission that little motive is left for immediate application unto God and much trust and gratitude due to him is paid to these Delegates Fifthly The Angel whose protection Jacob implored for the safeguard of Ephraim and Manasses as having had himself experience of his aid was a Diviner Spirit than either Michael or Gabriel even the Logos of God This is the opinion of Novatianus declared once and again in his Book of the Trinity This is the opinion of many of the Fathers whose Testimonies shall be produced in my Fourteenth Chapter At present it may suffice to bring forth that plain one of St. Cyril of Alexandria in his Thesaurus An Angel is said to have striven with the Patriarch Jacob and this Divine Writ testifies but the holy man retaining him said I will not let thee go unless thou bless me Now this Angel was God which the words of the Patriarch shew whilst he saith I have seen God face to face Him appearing to him as an Angel he desireth to bless the Children And a while after he thus discourseth When Esau his Brother designed against him he did not invoke an Angel but God saying Take me O Lord out of the hands of my brother Esau for I stand in fear of him Sixthly The story of Raphael protecting Tobias is not found in Canonical Scripture But if it be notwithstanding a true report this being a peculiar favour of God in an extraordinary case it doth not encourage men in all emergencies to pray for the like without a promise from God He sendeth not all to be our guides who may sympathize with our estate The Angels who never sustain'd infirmity do not so neither doth the ministration of an Angel argue that of a Saint Nor doth it follow that God doth use such ministrations so frequently and visibly under the Gospel as under the Law in which dispensation his Shechinah in which the Angels attended was shewn often on Earth Seventhly If St. Roch once assisted the infected it is not proved thence that God sends him where-ever he sends that heavy judgment And how appeareth it that he ever helped at a distance in that dreadful sickness which requires a Domine Miserere Why because say they the infected prayed to him and were healed But the event is not always the effect and God in pursuance of his own greater and mysterious ends doth often answer the matter of the requests of the superstitious and the wicked And often there are other ordinary second Causes which men fancy by the event to have been more extraordinary and divine They who among the Heathens prayed to Lavina for her assistance in a cleanly cheat might impute the effect unto their Goddess though she never understood them and their own cunning brain and slight of hand brought the couzenage to pass with such undiscovered Art S. Austin will furnish us with a better instance a matter of fact In his Eleventh Chapter de Curâ pro mortuis he telleth of one Eulogius a Master of Rhetorick in Carthage who was perplexed with a knotty place in the Rhetoricks of Cicero which he was next day to interpret to his Schollars And in that night saith the Father I interpreted unto him in his dream that which he understood not Nay not I but my Image I being wholly ignorant of this affair and being so far beyond the Sea doing or dreaming some other thing and being wholly careless of his cares The mans brain was heated and amongst other Images that of S. Austin came in his mind he being then the fam'd Schollar in Africa and his dreams as often it happens were luckier than his waking thoughts and he imputed to St. Austin that which followed his Apparition in the brain though that was not the cause of it Eighthly if St. Michael was once sent to succour the Jews it is not to be thence concluded that Saints do the like or that he himself hath always the same Office in reference to the quality or the object of it or that Angels appear alike under the dispensation of the Logos substituted without union to manhood and that of him incarnate and installed King of the World nor do all the Learned think that by Michael is always meant an Angel In sum the Romanists are not so much charged with Idolatry for praying to such Saints as most sympathize in their conjecture with their present conditions as for trusting in them as such whom God hath impower'd to succour all Christians in equal circumstances and like places and for returning the thanks to them which are oftenest due to the immediate Providence of the Omnipresent God If they do not apply themselves to them as such why do they use such Forms in their Prayers Why do they give them the name of Patron and Guardian-Saints Why do they as well call on the Virgin as on the highest Angel for Guardianship Why do the Popes in their many Bulls declare them to be Patrons of such places and helpers in such particular cases Why are the people directed in the choice of them and advis'd to an especial affiance in them Why is there mention in their Authors of their appearance in person to their Supplicants with present aid and further assistance This is done by Bernardin de Bustis and recited in a Manual Printed at Paris with approbation in a Discourse of the seven Joys of the Virgin to wit in their account her Annunciation by the Angel her Visitation by Elizabeth the glorious Birth of Christ the Adoration of the Magi the Retrieve of her Son in the Temple the appearance of Christ after his Resurrection and her happy departure and Assumption into Heaven With these Joys saith Bernardin St. Thomas of Canierbury a devout servant of the Virgins did every day salute our Lady To him as he proceeds she one day appeared when he was at his Prayers and she assured him that his saluting her with her seven Joys on earth which sometimes were said to be but five was very agreeable to her but that the saluting of her with her seven Joys in Heaven to wit her Exaltation above the Angels her illuminating Paradise as the Sun does the World the reverence paid her by Angels Archangels Thrones and Dominions her being the Conveyer of all the Graces which Christ bestoweth her sitting at the right hand of her Son her being the hope of sinners in such sort that all who praise and reverence her are by the Father recompenced with eternal Glory the augmentation of her graces and favours in Paradice until the Day of Judgment was acceptable to her in a higher degree And she promised to him and to others also who should daily repeat these Salutations adjoining to each an Ave Maria that she would be present with them at the hour of death and that for her sake they should be saved In which instance we have the Patronage of the
Virgin asserted and also a proof of the Imposture of such Appearances from the Story it self which representeth not a blessed Saint ascribing all Glory to the great God but a vain perfon delighted with the unjust flatteries of her self This then is the way in which I conceive the Church of Rome giveth away a degree of the Honour of God the Father to wit by her disposal of the Government of the World though in subordination to his Supremacy unto Angels and Saints without any sufficient declaration from him that he hath been willing so to prefer them and by her worshipping of them in that quality which her own imagination hath enstated them in I am next to consider how the Church of Rome doth by such estimation and worship entrench on the Divine Honour with respect to Christ as Mediator God hath not owned any Substitute besides his Son who hath all power given to him being as God-man most capable of it And though the Church of Rome doth acknowledg Christ to be the Author of Salvation and the Supreme Patron and Mediator yet still it doth entrench upon his Honour in its worship of Saints three several ways First More particularly in that Worship which is given to the Virgin In the second place More generally in the worship given to so many Saints and Angels Thirdly In the frequency of the worship given both to the Virgin and to the other Heavenly spirits First The Honour of Christ is particularly abated in the customary worship of the blessed Virgin Abated I say not quite removed For the Prayers to her are still per Dominum through Christ her Son though it seemeth sometimes to be intimated as in the Monstra Te esse Matrem Shew thy Mother-hood in the Hymn Ave Maris stella that she can command his Answers And when God is invoked by her Merits her Merits are supposed to be derived from his But an abatement there is of Christs Honour by that supereminent Advancement which is given to her by the practice of that Church without any declaration contrary to it For that Church doth set her as Solomon did his Mother in the Throne with himself though on that hand which signifies that he is still the Supreme Now it is manifest that Honour is diminished both where it is equally shared and where a second keepeth not distance but doth obtain a point next to the first For from degrees of Power and Distance arise degrees of Honour and a Prince that sitteth alone in the Chair of State is thereby in possession of higher Honour than he who hath a Second sitting next him though on the less honourable hand And accordingly it was esteemed a defect in Policy both through the occasion given by it of being supplanted and through the diminution it made of Supreme Honour of which each degree is a degree of Power when any Princes in the Roman Empire such as AElius Adrianus and Antoninus the Philosopher admitted Seconds to sit with them in the Throne of Government though themselves reserved still the first Place and remained as it were the Heads of the Empire Now it is the practice of the Church of Rome to celebrate the Virgin as a kind of Co-Ruler with her Son to salute her as we heard but now from the Office of her Seven Allegresses as a Queen on the right hand of Christ in his Throne The Scripture hath in it this Prophecy of the Messiah There shall come forth a Rod out of the stem of Jess and a branch or flower shall grow or rise out of his roots Hierom Xaverius hath wrested this place even from the sense of the Vulgar Translation and he thus readeth it in his Persic Gofpel A true branch shall rise out of the root of Jesse and out of that branch a flower shall be born Misapplying the first to the Virgin and the second to Christ whilst both are spoken of him To this misinterpretation he might be led by the Hymn in the Breviary which saluteth her by the Title of the Holy Root And it is evident by the Psalter of Bonaventure which is known to turn Lord into Lady throughout the Psalms not omitting to Travest that place of The Lord said unto my Lord into Our Lady said unto my Lord Sit thou on my right hand and by Salazar who in his Commentary on the Proverbs interpreteth Wisdom of the Virgin that the Marians would scrue up the sense of the Old Testament into the assertion of a kind of coequality of the Virgin with Christ. Hence Baronius himself calleth her the Ark in one place and in another the Tabernacle The things relating to Christ under the New Testament are equally perverted by this inordinate devotion to that Virgin who cannot give those a welcome reception who with such affront to her Son make their Court to her As the Scripture mentioneth the Nativity of Christ celebrated by a Quire of Angels so doth the Roman Church observe the Nativity of the Virgin from a story of melody heard from Heaven by a devout man in a Desart on her birth-day Hierom Xaverius hath set down this Story for Gospel among the Indians and Innocent the fourth upon that report caus'd the dav to be Sacred As Christs triumphant Ascension is spoken of in the Scripture and observed in our Church so in the Legends of Rome there is frequent mention of her Assumption and it is in that Church celebrated with pomp Before that Office she is pictur'd in the Missal lately Printed at Paris ascending with a glory about her head in equal shew of triumph with Christ. As Christ is said in the Te Deum to have opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers so is the Virgin called by them the Gate and the Hall-gate of Heaven As he is called Gods beloved Son so is she called Gods beloved Daughter As Christ is said to be exalted above all things in Heaven and Earth so is the Virgin called the Queen of Heaven and sometimes the Queen of the Heavens in reference to the Angels and sometimes the Queen of Heaven and Earth Nay the Jesuit Rapine hath enstated her in that Empire without any mention of the King her Son as above her As Christ is acknowledged by Christians to be the Head of the Church and the only Mediator and Advocate so the Virgin is stil'd in the Synod of Mexico the Universal Patroness and Advocatress As the day has been divided into several portions in which devout people have prayed to God and Christ so seven Canonical Hours have been appointed for the worship of the Virgin As God and Christ have the Sunday sacred to them so in the Roman Church the Virgin hath Saturday On that day therefore saith Augustine Wichmans more Requests of miserable mortals are sealed by her the Chancelaress of the greatest King in the Court of Heaven than on all the
other days of the week though put together the Lords day not excepted On that day rather than on our Lords Martin Navarre and Lewis the Eleventh of France desired to die As it is said of the Father that no man cometh to Christ except he draw him So it is said of the Virgin by Augustine Wichmans who calleth her the Treasuress of Graces that no man cometh to her Son unless she draw him by her most holy Aids As in the Litany the Father Son and Holy Ghost Three Persons and one God are invoked so in the next place they pray thrice to the Virgin saying Holy Mary pray for us Holy Mother of God pray for us Holy Virgin of Virgins pray for us Other Saints as also Angels have there but one compellation The Jesuit Canisius in his Manual for Catholicks hath made up his fifteenth Exercise of three Litanies of which the third is that of the Missal But the first is the Litany of Christ who in it is addressed to in fourty-four compellations And the second is the Litany of the Virgin who hath just so many and these amongst them Thou cause of our joy Thou seat of Wisdom Thou Ark of the Covenant Thou Gate of Heaven Thou Refuge of Sinners Thou Comforter of the afflicted Thou help of Christians Thou Queen of Patriarchs Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors Virgins All Saints As in the Bible the Lord hath one hundred and fifty Psalmes so saith the Pope's Bull the Lady hath an hundred and fifty Salutations in her Rosary which was therefore at first called her Psalter As Christ is the Lord in whom the Church hopeth so the Virgin is called in the Roman Offices The only hope of Sinners As Christ is said to be in Scripture the Life so the Virgin is called by the Marians the Mother of Life As devout Christians commend their souls when they leave this world into the hands of Christ so these Marians commend theirs into the hands of the Virgin being taught a form of so doing And they tell us that upon this account the worship of the Virgin is chiefly to be commended that she is always present with her Clients in the agony of death as a faithful Patroness and Mother This is said by Horstius who immediately crys out thus in a pang of Marian devotion “ O how many hath she snatched out of the Jaws of death O how many hath she restored to “ the favour of her Son and unto Heaven Such another Suppliant was the late Jesuit Labbee who when he was dying applied those words to the Virgin which are used of Christ I need not here add the Litany added to the Psalter of Bonaventure in which our Lady instead of God is desired to have mercy to deliver us from all evil and from particular evils in such Forms as this From the anger of God from despair pride luxury good Lady deliver us That which I have mentioned before this is such hyperdulia or excess of Veneration that by ascribing too much to a particular Saint it diminisheth the Honour of our common Saviour Thus it was not from the beginning but the superstitious world hath departed from the first measures of the reverence due to the Virgin and run into this insufferable extreme And how this has come to pass one of that Church and one of the most judicious and disinteressed amongst them has faithfully told us After that the impiety of Nestorius had divided Christ making two Sons and denying him to be God who was born of the Blessed Virgin the Church to inculcate the Catholick Truth in the minds of the Faithful made mention of her in the Churches as well of the East as of the West with this short form of words in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Latin Maria Mater Dei that is Mary the Mother of God This being instituted only for the Honour of Christ was by little and little communicated also to the Mother and finally applied to her alone So when Images began to multiply Christ was painted as a Babe in his Mothers arms to put us in mind of the worship due unto him even in that Age But in progress of time it was turned into the worship of the Mother without the Son he remaining as an Appendix in the Picture The Writers and Preachers especially those that were contemplative carried with the torrent of the Vulgar which is able to do much in these matters leaving to mention Christ invented with one accord new Praises Epithetes and Religious services insomuch that about the year 1050 a daily Office was instituted to the Blessed Virgin distinguished by seven Canonical hours in a Form which anciently was ever used to the honour of the Divine Majesty And in the next hundred years the worship so increased that it came to the heigth even to attribute that unto her which the Scriptures speak of the Divine Wisdom And amongst these invented Novities this was one her total exemption from Original sin yet this remained only in the breasts of some few private men having no place in Ecclesiastical Ceremonies or amongst the Learned At last about the year 1136 the Canons of Lions dared to bring it into the Ecclesiastical Offices Secondly The Honour of Christ is diminished by that Veneration though of an inferior nature which is given to so many Angels and Saints as Presidents and Patrons in the Government of the Church It is true that the Honour of a Prince is increased by the multitude of his Attendants Our Church therefore reverently declareth of Christ That ten thousand times ten thousand minister unto him But delegation of Power to many by commission as Presidents and not as Angels and Messengers Ministers and Attendants is a diminution of Honour by cantonizing of Power And he is most absolute and reserveth most of dependance and thanks and trust and reverence to himself who dispatcheth all things by his immediate Authority For Commissions cut power into many channels and import either love of ease or want of power to execute in person The Roman Emperors were in their Dominions high and mighty Potentates and their Vassals flattered them as Deities in flesh But they would have appeared greater still if they had not cut their Empire into its Eastern and Western parts and administred affairs by Prefects Vicars Counts Dukes Consuls Correctors Presidents and others executing power by subordinate Lieutenancy And doubtless the Praefectus Praetorio of Italy had many thanks paid him for his favours without any acknowledgment made to the Emperor though the fountain of his Power In such cases men look not beyond the State-officer who befriends them by virtue of his Patent and his derived Authority But they would look to the Prince if he immediately dispensed all honours and favours though attended with a numerous guard and employing many messengers and ministring Spirits A Caviller would here say that by this Argument
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
David or Solomon Such Images therefore the Council of Trent expresly disowneth professing the spirituality invisibility and infinity of God which nothing visible can represent By such Images as rightly S. Athanasius the mean Arts of the Painter and Statuary are exalted above the Maker of this beautiful Universe Remarkable here is that of Pliny as the sense of a very Atheist It is a weakness said he to search after the Effigies or Form of God Whoever is God if there be any other than Nature he is every-where all sense all sight all hearing all soul all spirit All Himself By Images of Presence I mean Pictures or Statues fram'd and honour'd as places of the especial residence and nighness of the Divine Power Such I have shew'd the Statues of the Heathen to be I know not whether they judg'd them to resemble Jupiter or Juno Mars or Venus for the resemblance has been generally such as pleas'd the Statuary or Painter but it is certain that they esteem'd them Shechinah's of God or Daemons The Poet describeth the Roman Empire as forsaken by its Coelestial Patrons when he representeth them flying from their Altars and Temples And the Ambrachienses in Livy complaining in the Senate against Fulvius Nobilior who had spoil'd their Temples and Images protest with lamentation That they had no Gods left them whom they might adore and to whom they might present their requests And the Oracle at Delphos confess'd to Augustus That it was a vain thing for any thenceforth to repair thither because an Hebrew Child had commanded the Daemon back to Hell And sometimes in their superstitious folly they chain'd down their Statues that their gods might not remove Now such Images are condemned by S. Paul who by telling the Gentiles that God dwelt not in Temples made with hands did both intimate that they thought them his Mansion-houses and plainly reprove their erroneous practice The making of such Houses or Statues of Presence to the Infinite Godhead which filleth all things and operateth when and where it pleaseth is an high presumption a confinement of the Deity or his operation by our will and fancy Wherefore the worship of them being the worship of an object for Gods Shechinah which is not his Shechinah is idolatrous or a robbing of the Creator by paying homage to the Creature Of the like Idolatry are they guilty who pretend to some kinds of natural Magic They think God has put certain signatures on his creatures or suffer'd such to be put on them by Art as tokens of his miraculous operation by them Thus did the Author of that Book which the credulous Camillus believeth to be Solomons He thought that a stone with the figure of a man sitting on a Plough with a little neck and long beard with four men lying in his neck and a Fox in one hand and a Vultur in another being hanged about ones neck would be efficacious to the fruitfulness of Plantations and the finding of Treasures Now by what other name can we truly call that Trust he placed in such Figures than that of Superstitious and Idolatrous Hope whilst God was no more present at them than at the most formless stone in the streets unless by his Malediction And Protestants have a suspition of some such Trust though not put in an Image of the Godhead forbidden at Trent yet put in the creatures consecrated in the Roman Church whilst they set them apart in such forms as this Bless and sanctifie this creature that by it that is sure by thy virtue in it Devils may repell'd and Tempests scatter'd CHAP. XII Of the Idolatry charged on the Papists in the worship of Images PART 1. Of the worship of the Image of Christ. THUS much then of the Image of the Godhead or of God the Father and its worship I pass to the consideration of an Image the making and veneration of which admitteth of more apology That of the Word Incarnate This Image has been made sometimes by way of Analogy and sometimes by way of Representation An Analogical Picture of Christ was made by Paulinus who caus'd him to be figur'd in the form of a Lamb as a type of his meek and innocent sufferings A Picture harmless in it self as the creature whence 't was taken yet apt to beget in weak and foolish minds not the meer notion of Christs humility and innocence but a phantasm of him in the form of a beast Wherefore though this way of painting Christ was most usual before the sixth Synod or third Council of Constantinople yet the Fathers of that Council saw reason to forbid it and to require the Governours of the Church to take care for the future that the Image of Christ might be expressed in human portraict And in such Form some Pictures of Christ might have place in Churches in the Sixth or Seventh Centuries But Statues it may be were not so soon received as Pictures and it is manifest that in the earlier times of St. Austin they were no part of the Inventory of the Church For after this manner it is that he argueth against the Heathens where he Commenteth on those words of David The Idols of the Gentiles are silver and gold the work of mens hands They saith he worship that which themselves made of Gold and Silver For our selves we indeed have many Utensils of this matter or metal which we use in the celebration of the holy Sacraments And being consecrated they are called holy in honour of him whom to our souls health we serve by them And we must confess these instruments or vessels are the work of mens hands but have they mouths and speak not eyes and see not do we pray to them though in the use of them we supplicate God However seeing Christ was made in the form of a man I know not why that form which appeared to the eye might not be painted by St. Luke himself without any immoral stain to his Pencil He that found no fault with the Image of Caesar stamped on his Coin hath said nothing which forbiddeth his own representation with respect I mean to his state of manhood here on earth For that is not pretended to be the picture or image of God-man any more than the image of any of the Caesars is pretended to be the picture of their souls but it is the external resemblance of so much of his person as was visible in flesh The Controversie then is not so much about the making as about the worshipping of the Image of Christ either as his Image in his state on earth or which seemeth very absurd as his portraict now in Glory For though the signs of his Passion may prepare us for Prayers yet the addresses themselves are made to him as he is glorious in the Heavens where his estate is unduly typified by a Crucifix which representeth him in Golgotha and not in triumph at Gods right hand where his brightness
too that God walked in Paradise Hear the answer I make to this Objection God indeed and the Father of all things is neither shut up in a place nor found in it For no place is there in which God can in such manner dwell In the mean time his Word by which he made all things being the Power and Wisdom of the Father himself personating the Father who is Lord of all came into Paradise in his Person and spake unto Adam who in the Scripture is said to have heard the voice of God Now Gods voice what is it else but the very Logos or Word of God which is likewise his Son After Adam was driven out of Paradise the Logos appointed a kind of Shechinah in the appearance of Angels to guard the way of the Tree of Life These I conceive were a Cherub and a Saraph and that the latter an Angel in the opinion of Maimonides himself was meant by the flaming-sword turning every way the versatile tayl of a Saraph or flame-like winged Serpent not being unaptly so called And this conceit when I come to explain my self about Urim and the brazen Serpent will seem less extravagant than now it may do in this naked Proposal And yet as 't is thus proposed 't is not so idle as that of Pseudo Anselm who will have this guard to be a Wall of Fire incompassing Paradise In process of time when Cain and Abel offered to God their Eucharistical Sacrifices the Son of God again appeared as Gods Shechinah and testified it may be his gracious acceptance of the Sacrifice of Abel by some ray of flame streaming from that glorious visible Presence and re-acting to it whilst he shewed himself not pleased with the offering of Cain by forbearing as I conjecture to shine on his sheaves or to cause them to ascend so much as in smoke towards Heaven And with this conjecture agreeth the Translarion of Theodotion in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Lord had respect to the oblations of Abel and set them on fire That seemeth to be the most ancient way of answering by Fire some obscure characters of which we may discern in that lamp of fire which passed betwixt the pieces of Abrahams Sacrifice And much plainer footsteps of it are to be seen in the contest of Elijah with the Prophets of Baal whom that true Prophet of the God of Israel vanquished by that sign triumphing also thereby over that false Deity which they so vainly and with Battologie invoked I doubt not but God vouchsafed to men many other appearances of his glorious Shechinah besides those granted to Adam and Abel before he expressed his high resentment of the immorality of the world in the Flood of Noah But we have no large Registers of the Transactions of those times PART 4. Of the Shechinah of God from Noah to Moses THis eminent declaration of God as a God of judgment by sending such a deluge not having its due effect on Cham God with great justice withdrew as I conceive this glorious Shechinah from him and his Line which continued his wickedness as well as his name From them he withdrew it especially though to the rest it appeareth not to have been a common favour Cham and his race being thus left to the vanity of their own brutish minds that race in the first place worshipped the Sun as the Tabernacle of the Deity that being the object which next to Gods Shechinah did paint in the brain an Image of the most venerable luster and perhaps likest to that glorious flame of Gods Shechinah which had formerly appeared for so glorious was that Planet in the eyes of the very Manichees in after-times that they esteemed it the seat of Christ after his Ascension and Installment in Heaven I have guessed already that this kind of Idolatry was exercised and with design promoted at the building of the Tower of Babel Now towards the prevention of that impious design the Shechinah of God appeared on the place For so Novatianus argueth from those words in the Eleventh of Genesis Let us go down It could not said he be God the Father for his Essence is not circumscribed nor yet an Angel for it is said in Deuteronomy That the most high divided the Nations It was therefore he that came down of whom St. Paul saith He who descended is he who ascended above all Heavens So that the Arabick Version the Angels came down must be interpreted of that part of the Shechinah which is made up by their attendance on the Son of God Whilst God was thus angry with the race of Cham it pleased him to vouchsafe though not in the quality of a daily favour the appearance of his Shechinah to that separate or holy seed from whence his Son not yet incarnate was to take the substance of his flesh A great Instance of it we have in the appearance which he vouchsafed to Abraham who often saw the Shechinah of God and in that manner communed with him so great was the ignorance of the Jews and causless their malice when they raged against the Son of God because he professed himself to have existed before that ancient Patriarch Such fall under the heavy sentence of the Council called at Sirmium a City of the lower Pannonia where the Eastern Bishops concluded on a Creed against Photinus who Haeretically maintained That Christ appeared not before he was born of the Virgin Of that Creed this is one of the Decretory clauses Whosoever saith that the unbegotten Father only was seen to Abraham and not the Son let him be accursed The second Chapter of the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius is wholly spent in the proof of the Pre-existence of Christ. And in that place as also in his Book of Evangelical Demonstration he insisteth amongst many other Examples on that of Abraham to whom Almighty God did once by his Son shew himself a while in the common similitude of a man at the Oak of Mamre the Shechinah in its especial luster being for a short season intercepted That Place from this occasion was for many ages esteemed sacred so high a respect there is in man for the visible presence of a Divine Power But such things being apt to degenerate into abuse the same place by degrees became sacred in the sense of the Heathens that is polluted with many idolatrous superstitions At length the Piety of Constantine the Great did there erect a Church for the worship of Christ who had appeared in that place in a like form they say to that which he afterwards assumed with personal union Another appearance was vouchsaf'd to Abraham when the Judgment of Fire was imminent over Sodom Moses witnesseth That he who revealed this overthrow to the Patriarch was truly God whilst he introduceth Abraham using towards him the Divine style of the Judg of all the earth and that this Lord and Judg was
the Son of God whom the Father hath appointed to judg the world Eusebius thinketh he hath warrant to say from the words of the same Moses For so the Father interprets the Prophet when he speaks of this Lord the Word the sensible descending Shechinah raining from the Lord or invisible Father fire and brimstone out of Heaven or the Region of the Clouds And in this particular the Council of Sirmium is so peremptory and so severe that it anathematizeth all who affirm those words The Lord rained from the Lord to have been spoken not of the Father and the Son but of the Father raining from himself that dreadful fire and brimstone This Lord then is the same with him of whose appearance we read in the Chap. 17. of Genesis It is said in the 22 verse of that Chapter That God went up from Abraham so runs the Hebrew Text. But the Chaldee Paraphrast calleth him who ascended Fulgur Dei that is the luster of the Divine Shechinah drawn up as it were towards the firmament of Heaven Of the appearance of Three in human shape to Abraham St. Hilary of Poictiers discourseth at large And in that Discourse he contendeth That the person to whom Abraham did particularly address himself calling him his Lord was the Son of God attended then only but with two visible Angels And this interpretation seemeth more probable than that of S. Cyril of Alexandria who because three appeared and Abraham spake as unto one concludeth thence an Apparition of the Trinity in Unity The same S. Hilary conceiveth the same Lord to have formerly appear'd to Hagar whom he observeth to give to him the like titles of Lord and God and to have receiv'd from him the promise of a numberless off-spring Moses himself before he mentions these titles given by Hagar had indeed call'd him who appear'd to her by the name of an Angel or the Messenger or Officer of the Lord. But even that name if spoken with emphafis is not improperly ascribed to the second Person or Logos who was the Shilo that is as Grotius doth interpret it the sent of God Of the name Angel there given to the Shechinah S. Hilary delivers his opinion after this manner To Agar saith he spake the Angel of God And he was both God and Angel God of God and called Angel as being the Angel of the Great Council So he is called saith Tertullian and styled a Messenger not as a name designing his Nature but his Office And they are superficially skill'd in Philo the Jew who know not that he calls the Logos both Gods Image and his Angel Jusiin Martyr also sheweth to Trypho the Jew that the God who appeared to Abraham was the Minister of the Universal Creator and he afterwards gives this as the reason why the Word is call'd an Angel to wit that he may be known to be the Minister or Substitute of the Father of all things Justin Martyr might here have respect to the words of St. Paul who teacheth that all things are of the Father and by the Son The Son was that Angel of God who strove with and blessed the Patriarch Jacob. Hence Jacob in grateful memory of that blessing call'd the place Peniel having there seen the Face that is the Shechinah or Image of God personated by the Logos his Son That Shechinah though it appeared without human figure might not unfitly be called the Face because it was that Divine Presence to the Majesty of which as to the Face of a Prince the religious subjects of the true God made their application This again is the opinion of Eusebius and St. Hilary and Justin Martyr our three former witnesses This last-named Father telleth Trypho the Jew That it was the Son of God who appear'd both to Abraham and Jacob and that it was absurd to think the Immensity of the Godhead leaving the Heavens should it self appear in a narrow and limited space on earth And the forementioned Fathers of the Council of Sirmium denounced in their Creed a solemn Curse against those who should maintain that it was the unbegotten Father and not the Son who strove with Jacob. Whilst God by such appearances as these encouraged true Religion in the holy Line the ungodly Race especially of Cham did further blot out the Image of God by receiving the impressions of numberless Idols of which some excelled others but none were worthy the veneration they paid to them The Idols which admitted of much better apology than many of their fellows and which approached nighest the Shechinah of God on earth when figured were mighty Potentates and Benefactors And so the Author of that Book de Mundo which hath been commonly ascribed to Aristotle representeth God as some Puissant King of Persia sitting in his Royal Palace at Susa or Ecbatane and giving Laws to all Asia and receiving intelligence of all its affairs Besides this more generous Idolatry there were many other kinds and those so apparently ridiculous that barely to repeat them were in effect to deride the Nations guilty of them Amongst other places Egypt was the nursery of these Follies There every thing which could help or hurt or represent and be assumed by a Daemon or acted by one of his Impostures was conceived to have in it a Divine power and received Religious worship The Rains of AEthiopia swell their River and break over into fruitfulness and the Nile is straitway a God Some natural or political cause preventeth or removeth some annoyance and the effect is ascribed with Divine Praises to the vain and insufficient Talisman for as Jamblicus speaking professedly of their Mysteries doth inform us They conceived a Divine Power able to procure or prevent good and evil did straightway adjoin it self to that piece of matter which was congruously chosen and figured according to some Coelestial aspect The Constellations are by fancy and such as is sometimes injudicious enough formed into the shapes of certain Creatures on earth and those Creatures are worshipped after having been supposed either eminently to contain the virtues or with singular perception to be sensible of the operations of such knots of Stars The seed of Abraham sojourning in this Land which abounded with Idols and with a great number of external rites and being by custom very prone to them and as it were moulded into a ritual temper it pleased that God who condescendeth sometimes as an indulgent Father to lisp with Infants to consider their infirmity when he led them out of bondage by the hand of Moses He therefore by the same Moses gave to that people such an Oeconomy a dispensation containing a visible Shechinah and a great many Ceremonies as might innocently gratifie their busie tempers and sensitive inclinations and divert them from the worship of false gods and from those abominable formalities with which in Egypt those Idols were
Wilderness the Pillar of Fire and Cloud nor himself whom they judg'd a cause of the Shechinah of God with them and remaining forty days and forty nights in this forsaken estate as they were apt to think it importun'd Aaron for some symbol of Gods Presence with which he might conduct them as Moses had done in former times Aaron wearied with their Cries made them a Golden Image after the manner of some part of Gods Shechinah which he had seen with Nadab and Abihu and the Seventy Elders in a certain ascent of the Mount He saw thenthe God of Israel that is as the Seventy expound the Hebrew sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the place or the Throne or as the Targum of Onkelos renders it the Glory or Shechinah of God not as Oleaster affirmeth the Pavement only which is mentioned afterward And in the Shechinah there was an appearance of Angels the Author to the Hebrews where he opposeth the Gospel to the Law in divers particulars mentioning an innumerable company of Angels in opposition to a smaller company on Mount Sinah The attending-Angels were usually Cherubim and the Cherubim appear'd with heads like those of Oxen and because the head only was of that likeness therefore if I conjecture aright Lactantius and St. Jerome call'd this Golden Image the Golden head of a Calf This I conceive to have been the figure of a Cherub though it pleaseth not the Painter who describeth it by the Face of a young round-visag'd man Thus much I collect from the Prophet Ezekiel That Prophet in the vision of the wheels saith of them That every one had four Faces The first Face was the Face of a Cherub and the second Face was the Face of a man and the third the Face of a Lyon and the fourth the Face of an Eagle If then the Face of a Cherub was the Face of a man then each wheel had not four differing Faces but one had two Faces of human Figure the second being said to be the Face of a man as the first was said to be the Face of a Cherub But if these two had been alike the Prophet would then have alter'd his style and said The first two Faces were the Faces of a man But it is evident by comparing this place in Ezekiel with the tenth verse of the first Chapter that the Face of a Cherub is the Face of an Ox. For there he mentions the three latter Faces as he doth here calling them the Faces of a Man a Lyon an Eagle but for the other Face called here the Face of a Cherub he calleth it there the Face of an Ox. And the comparing of these places induced the Learned Critick Ludovicus de dieu to be of this opinion that Cherub signifi'd an Ox and was derived from the Chaldee word Cherub He or It hath plowed Now by the worshipping of this Figure of the Face of a Cherub or Ox the sottish people chang'd their Glory b the glorious Image or Shechinah of God call'd as was even now said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the Seventy in the 12th of Numbers into the similitude of a man though useful creature whose likeness could at best be but the symbol of an Angel which was no more to the Shechinah of God nor so much by a great deal as one spoke of a wheel is to an Eastern Emperor in a triumphant Chariot They turn'd their Glory saith Jeremiah into a thing which did not profit them in Idolum into an Idol as is the version of the Vulgar Latine a helpless statue They turned the Truth of God as it is in St. Paul into a Lye The true Shechinah of God into an Idol which is vanity nothing of that which it pretendeth to be having no Divinity attending on it Aaron made it as Gods symbol which in truth it was not and the people worship'd it beyond his intention and after the Egyptian manner and in their hearts wishing they were again in that Land of Ceremonious Idolatry This folly kindled the wrath of God and Moses yet it did not quite remove his favour for Moses was a second time call'd up into the Mount and thence he brought the renewed Tables and the Statutes of Israel and the pattern of the Tabernacle and at his descent Rays of glorious Light did stream from his face as if he had been a second Shechinah reflecting the borrow'd beams of the first The Tabernacle which God had now discover'd and which Moses was ready to frame was but a model of the Temple built many years after by the Magnificent Solomon And in it God gave the people instead of the more aenigmatical and idle Hieroglyphicks of the World in Egypt a more excellent Scheme of it in this great and typical Fabrick representing in the three spaces of it the three Heavens which the Jews so often speak of the Elementary and Starry and Supercoelestial Regions St. Chrysostom speaking of this workmanship of God calleth it the Image of the whole World both sensible and intellectual And he attempteth the justification of his Notion by the 9th to the Hebrews and particularly by the 24th verse in which the holy places made with hands are call'd the figures of the true or heavenly places In this manner then God pleas'd to help the imaginations of the Jews by a visible scheme of his throne and footstool It were endless here to take particular notice of all things relating to the Tabernacle or Temple but if I take not the Ark into my especial consideration I shall be guilty of greater negligence than any foolish Astronomer who in his description of the Heavens should leave out the Sun This Ark of the Covenant consider'd in all the appendages of it God vouchsafed to the Jews in place of all the Statues or Creatures or appearances of Daemons which their fancy was apt to adore and in which Daemons did already or might afterwards counterfeit some shews of the glorious Shechinah of God Men saith Maimonides built Temples to the Stars and placed in them some Image dedicated to this or the other Idol in the Heavens and gave it unanimous worship Hence God commanded that a Temple should be built to himself and that the Ark should be put into it and that in the Ark should be deposited the Two Tables of stone in which it was written I am the Lord thy God and thou shalt have no other Gods besides me The whole of it was in singular manner typical of God-man who came to destroy the works of the Devil This virtue of Christ appearing on the Ark was manifested in the miraculous conquest of it over Dagon a Sea-god worshipped in Palestine in the City of Ashdod He fell before the Ark and laid on the ground a handless and headless Idol without more shew of Majesty Power or Wisdom than the Trunk of a Tree This Ark was not in it self properly an Image but
the form of a a flying fiery Serpent whose body vibrated in the air with luster and may be fitly described by the Image of such a sword And whereas Maimonides interpreteth this Sword of the property of an Angel of which the Scripture speaketh as of a flame of fire he saith nothing distinctly applicable to the second Angel but what was common also to the Cherub whilst something is pointed at in the Text as peculiar to the second Angel called a flaming-sword It may be further noted to our present purpose that the word Saraph or Seraphim is used in Scripture both to denote as was said a fiery flying Serpent and also an Angel of a certain order whom Isaiah representeth as having wings and flying to him with a coal from the Altar Accordingly Buxtorf in his little Lexicon in the word Saraph thus discourseth Saraph signifies a fiery and most venemous Serpent Seraphim is likewise a name of Angels who from the clearness and brightness of their Aspect are seen as it were flaming and fiery But there is an authority in this Argument to me more valuable not for the notation of the word but for the sense so accommodate to my notion It is that of Tertullian in two places The first place is in his Book de Praescriptione Haereticorum There he suggesteth from others That Eve gave attention to the Serpent as to the Son of God The second place is in his Book against the Valentinians There he saith That the Serpent from the beginning was one that sacrilegiously usurped the Divine Image This soundeth as if the Devil in Serpentine form had represented part of the Shechinab of the Logos and that Eve conceived him to be an Angel appertaining to his glorious presence and a minister of his pleasure and now come forth from him Now I here suppose the Seraphim or Urim to be two Golden winged Images not from the number of the word Urim for the Jews use that number frequently of a single thing or person but from that of the Images called Cherubim which were two Symbols placed on the Ark which is typed in the Pectoral And I do not think so much as doth Maimonides that the Cherubim were therefore two lest the form of a single one should have been mistaken for the Figure of the one God as that these two like the Model of the Temple had reference to Earth as well as Heaven and besides Angels represented Moses and Aaron as the Ministers of the Logos under the Law as the four Creatures in the Vision of Ezekiel typed out the four Evangelists as Christs servants under the Gospel Neither did the number of the Cherubim prevent misconstruction For St. Hierom reporteth of some that by the two Seraphim Cherubim he meaneth they understood the Son and the Holy Ghost In the Pectoral I suppose Seraphim and not Cherubim this being an Oracle for Civil affairs and not properly the Oracle of the Temple and the Cherubim being according to St. Hierom before cited the seven Spirits about Gods Throne and according to David the Chariots on which he rides and the Seraphim of inferior attendance though Appendages of the Shechinah and of more frequent ministration abroad in Temporal matters such as that of the Captivity of Judah in the declaration of which to Isaiah a Saraph assisted For the Answer of God by Urim I suppose it not to have been conveyed through the mouths of these Images which were to be put into the Ark whilst nothing is mentioned of the taking them out But it seemeth most probable that as the Logos spake with a voice out of the Glory above the Cherubim and not by them their mouths being turned from the High-Priest so the High-Priest who here was the Logos of the Logos the Substitute and Type of Christ spake by Inspiration over the Pectoral and Saraphs Neither is it fully proved from the Book of Samuel that God spake Vivâ voce as the Annotations published out of the Library of the Archbishop of York would have it to be for it may well be said that God spake when through miraculous inspiration he spake by the mouth of his Prophets or Priests The Urim or Seraphim were put into the Pectoral and not set upon it as the Cherubim were on the greater Ark not so much for the concealment of them from the eyes of the people prone to Idolatry as for some other cause for the Ark was often carried in Procession with the Cherubims on it unless we shall say that the upper cover of the Ark or Mercy-seat which is mentioned in Scripture as a distinct piece of Artifice from it was not taken along with it But to me this seemeth one reason the High-Priest was here the Type of Christ-Incarnate who in the days of his flesh though he had Angels ministring to him did not often please to occasion their appearance It may be here objected That this Notion of the Seraphim in the Ark ascribeth to God the setting up as part of his Shechinah the Image proper to the Devil for such is that of the Serpent I answer that the contrary is here true for the groveling Serpent doomed by God is such a Symbol and such a one the Heathens worshipped Neither was any other distinctly used in Egypt or so far as I have read in any other Country of the world For though the Egyptian Cneph had wings yet he was not a winged Serpent but a compounded Symbol of which the tayl of the Serpent was but a small part adjoined to the breast wings and head of an Hawk or Eagle And Eusebius relateth from Philo Byblius that the Egyptian Hieroglyphick of the World was a Circle of which the Serpent the Symbol of a good Daemon as they conceived was but the Diameter the whole figure being almost like to the great Θ of the Greeks And by that it appears that the sacred Egyptian Serpent was the creeping one and not the winged one of Arabia whose company they so detested that they deified the Bird Ibis for destroying it But now the glorious winged Serpent was the Symbol of a good ministring Angel And accordingly God used such a one in the Wilderness and it is known by the name of the Brazen-serpent or Saraph Of that inferior kind of Shechinah it is proper to speak here it being to be understood from the Contents of the foregoing Discourse This then seemeth no other than a winged Saraph put on a Pole or standard like a Roman Eagle and constituted as a Symbol of the presence of the Logos so far as concerned his Divine Power and Goodness in healing them by miracle who were bitten with fiery Serpents That this was some sort of the Presence of the Logos appeareth from himself in the New Testament where he opposeth to it as Antitype to Type the natural body of himself crucified As Moses said he lifted up the
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
He seemeth not to Platonize 165 408 Saw God what it means 335 336 Whether Osiris Bacchus Apis 125 c. Bishop Montague his opinion about praying to Saints Angels Guardian Angel 207 208 Mountains British Islands 28 Moon Its character on Apis not from the beginning 118 Muggleton 's gross Deity 221 309 310 N NAils of the Cross worshipped with Latria by C. Curtius 147 284 285 Nature Pliny 's and Spinosa 's Goddess 26 27 Called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 399 Negative honouring of Images 280 Neton in Macrobius is Mnevis 131 Nice Council second what it means by adoration of Images 288 S. Nicholas made a Guardian-Saint 231 Nocca a kind of Northern Neptune 16 Nous of Plato the Intellectual world 399 400 401 Numa 's Temple and fire in it what 48 53 His zeal against Images 59 The fire in his Temple why renewed each March 53 Nysa what place 128 O ONion of what kind the Idol of Egypt was 28 Ophites their Diagram 153 Of Orders of Angels 165 166 167 212 Origen of the power of words 4 Orpheus 's one God 56 Osiris Bacchus 129. Apis 130. Moses 131. Osarsyphus Disaris 131 144 Oxen how sacred 111 112 113 114 136 353. with their faces Cherubim appear'd 337 338 P PAgod what 410 Pamelius a false charge of his against Tertullian 332 Patrocinie of Saints 194 to 256 Pectoral a lesser Ark 351 Permiseer of the Benians 58 Of Petavius 's calling Arius a Platonist 77 396 Pictures of Christ crucified lawful 277 None of Saints departed as such possible 296 297 Of Gods Shechinah 383 to 387 Pillar of Fire and Cloud what 331 Pix carried as the Ark 296 Plato he own'd one God 57 58 Yet he was an Idolater 69 76 to 81 His Triad not the Christian Trin-unity 77 78 398 399 c. Whence it came 407 408 His Ideas what 78 79 399 c. His Daemons what kind of spirits 85 86 How far he own'd Providence 81 Platonism an occasion of Gnosticism 149 150 Plutarch's Translation mended Poets how causes of Idolatry 36 37 Polytheism what kind possible 411 Pluto who 124 Porphyry his reason for the worship of God by the image of a man 74 His Translation mended 86 His abstracted worship 96 His not owning the Gods to have been men 118 Prayer our Lords said to Saints 197 Of Socrates and Simplicius 63 To Saints if only to pray for us 192 to 196 c. To fictitious persons 207 259 To some of suspected Saintship 256 to 258 Real Presence 94 181 185 346 347 Profit that which did not profit in Jer. 2. 11. meant of an Idol 338 Providence its extent acc to Maimon 84 Purgatory Fire one probable occasion of the belief of it 378 Pyramids what 42 43 Pythagoras his two Principles 15 76 155 156 393 His Image among the Gnosticks 153 His Dogma of the Imnortality of the Soul not like Christs 409 410 The form of the Oath of his Disciples 405 406 His Tetractys not the Tetragrammaton a double Quaternary what it was 404 405 406. R RApine's excess of devotion towards the Virgin 249 Representations of God unmeet 272 273 Reprisal of all things at last into Gods substance the Cabala of the Pendets 36 Resora an Indian Idol 29 Revel 22. 9. its various reading 175 Rites of worship their indecence great number taxed 5 6 7 8 Romans their Religion when corrupted 59 S. Rosa made a Patroness 232 W. Rufus his Apparition 262 S. SAbbath designed against Idolatry 99 100 Sacrifices enjoined as a means against Idolatry 100 101 Saint-worship two occasions of it 217 218 219 220 Saints little mention of their appearing unraised in SS 206 Solomon 's beginning of Idolatry 103 342 Sanedrim above what 105 Saturday where and how sacred to the Virgin 249 Sandius his conceit about the Holy Ghost 399 Scarabee the Hieroglyphick of the Sun 19 Scaliger a mistake of his 364 Not Seen his shape what it means 373 Mr. Selden answered about the Antiquity of Apis 114 to 117 Semis a Northern Idol 125 Serapis Pluto 119 124 141 His image 91 120 Seraphim what 351 to 360 Serpent which seduced Eve what and in what form 354 355 Of the Brazen-serpent 359 360 Serpents sacred 352 353 Of the fiery flying kind 352 Servetus his Frenzies 158 Signs external Idolatry by them 286 to 290. what allow'd at Trent 285 Sleep of the soul 162 Sneezing Prayer at it 10 307 Socinians make Christ a kind of thinking Machine 169 170 Sons of God in Gen. 6. 1 2. what 39 Sophocles 's one God 56 Soul of the world an assistant form 35 394 395 Varro 's God 54 called the Father in Plato 394 408 Not very God as explain'd by Plato 401 402 403 Spalato his judgment concerning Saint-worship 263 Spirit moving the Chaos whether a mighty wind 409 Spirits whence their worship 34 Squango an Enthusiast of New-England 75 Statues of Idols what 30 69 88 89 90 91 Sun and Moon the first Idols 47 48 Sun a statue 68 Several Hieroglyphicks of it 115 Called the divine Harp 71 And the seat of Christ 278 323 377 Superstition described 3 4 5 Of the Pharisees what 9 Syncellus refuted 119 Shechinah whence 372 T TAbernacle of Moloch what 102 Holy Table by some called the Ark 389 390 Temple of Solomon what 339. whence occasioned acc to S. Chrysost 329. and Maimon 340. Christ the Temple 374 375 Prayers towards the Temple 369 Teraphim Seraphim Urim the same 349 350 Tertullian 's opinion of Idolatry in Seth 's time 38 Tetractys of Pythagoras 405 406. of the Gnosticks 153 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what 373 S. Thomas of Canterbury a devout servant of the Virgins 245 His shirt said to be mended by her 261 His Saintship doubted 256 Thorn a German Idol 27 28 Mr. Thorndike his opinion of worshipping Idols as ultimate objects 95. of Romish Forms of Prayer 190 191. of Idolatry as unjustly charged on the Church of Rome 176. of the peril of Idolatry in it 203 Throne and Fund of Matter what 394 Thrones Principalities Powers c. in S. Paul what 165 to 167 Tillage of Egypt 136 137 Truth by Christ in Joh. 1. 17. what 365 Trinity of its appearing under the Old Covenant 318 328 Triad Platonick how one 398 Thummim what 347 348 349 350 351 361 to 365 Two why Seraphim in the Pect Two 356 V U VAtablus 's exp of Bama 43 Of the Angel of Greece 83 Ubiquity whether ascribed to Saints and Angels by the Worshippers of them 204 205 Tho. de Villa Nova a Guardian-Saint 232 233 Ulma it s many Guardian-spirits 220 221 Viretus 's mistake about Plato 's Image of God 73 H. Virgin Forms of Prayer to her 189 190 195 198 201 211 212 225 227 230 231 235 By some Romanists parallel'd with Christ 248 249 251 Origine of her worship 251 252 A general Patroness acc to R. Rapine 234 235. and acc to the Synod of Mexico 249 Her seven joys on earth and
seven more in Heaven 245 Her Miracles in recovering Baronius 229. raising a boy from the dead 261. saving men in a tempest 254. curing S. Gilberts Throat 223 Of bowing at her name 308 St. Veit 233 Visions of God what 270 271 380 Vitzilopuchtli an American Idol 15 Urim what 347 to 358. How the Answer by it was made 357 W WIckmans high devotion towards the Virgin 249 250 Will-worship what kind to be allow'd or condemn'd 10 11 Witch of Endor 206 Word Christ why so called 372 Worship of Romish Saints and Pagan Heroes compared 234 235 236 237 World made out of things not seen what 403 Z ZArasdas or Zaratas who 15 393 Christ the true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 84 FINIS a Orig. cont Marc. S. 1. p. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal. 31. 7. b Plut. de superst p. 167. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. c Socr. Hist. Eccl. l. 3. c. 1. p. 168. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 d Concil Mech inter Conc. Max. c. 3. de Imag. p. 801. a Origen cont Cels. l. 5. p. 261 262. b Reform Lâ—…g Eccles. Tit. de Idol c. c. 6. de Superstit P. 32. a See their many ceremonies towards the very elements before consecr in Stat. Hodiern Eccles. Graec. p. 86. 87 and in receiving in Christoph. Angel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 20. b J. D's Great Sacr. of the new Law exp by the Figures of the old Printed Aâ—… 1676. a Miss Rom. Par. 1660. p. 210. Sacerdos paratus cum ingreditur ad Altare facta illi debita reverentia signat se signo crucis a fronte ad pectus clara voce dicit In nomine c. b Miss Rom. In Ord. Miss p. 213. c J. D. Order of the Mass p. 18 19 c. d J. D. Canon of the Mass. p. 36. 37. a Lassels in Voy. to Italy p. 190. b Ritual Roman p. 61. 62. Ed. Antv. 1617. c Missale Roman in Sabbato Sancto p 187 188. Ed. Paris 1660. See Pontif. Rom. de officio Sab. Sanct. fol. 192 c. d Miss Roâ—… p. 189. a Pontif. Rom. part 2 fol. 68 c. b Pont. Rom. part 2. fol. 113 c. c Pontif. Rom. part 3. fol. 186. e Journey of 14 English to Jerus p. 29. a Matt. 15. 3 4 5 6 9. b Hieros Beracoth fol. 3. ap D. Lightf in Matt. 15. 2. p. 185 186. c See Drusius on Matt. 15. 2. d Matt. 15. 20. a Culver Light of Nat. c. 17. p. 176. Some superstitious ones how devoutly do they complement with a Candle c b Abridgement of Christ. Doctr. in Expos of the Comm. of the Church of Rome p. 166. a Lutherus referente Hofnerâ—… in Saxon. Evang. p. 110. nibil pestilentius in Ecclesiâ potest doceri quam si ea quae necessaria non sunt necessaria fiant Hâc enim Tyrannide mendacium pro veritate Idolum pro Deo colitur a Philo Jud. de Monarch l. 1. p. 813. b Reform Leg. Eccles. Tit. de Idol c. 2. p. 32. a Plin. nat Hist. l. 2. c. 7. p. 3. a Theodor. Mopsuest Epist. apud Photium in Biblioth Cod. 81. p. 199. c Gages New Survey of the West-Indies c. 12. p. 116 117. c Gage ibid. p. 117. a Ol. worm monum Danic l. 1. c. 4. a Acts 3. 12. a Or rather in his Jupiter Tragaedus p. 700. for I find nothing like it in his Book de Sacr. though Pignorius in Exp. Mens Isiac p. 31. has thence cited it b Arnob. l. 6. p. 209. In Liberi dextrâ pendens potorius Cantharus c See F. H. Testimony a Porphyr dâ—… Abstin l. 4. p. 155 156. a Kircher in Oedip. AEg Synt. 5. c. 3. P. 401. b Epicharm ap Stobeâ—…min serm 89. p. 503. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a St. Cyril Alex cont Julian l. 9. P. 308. b Hakluits Navigations P. 778. a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eustath ad 5 Odyss b Job 31. 26 27. c Psal. 95. 6. Prosternamur Incurvemus nos genuflectamus See Petr. Picherell de Imagin P. 225 226 227 c. d Concil Rhem. inter Conc. Max. P. 73. Externae Ceremoniae sunt institutae ad declarandam suam in Deum affectionem a Rom. 1. 21. b Porphyr ap Euseb. de praep Evangel l. 3. c. 7. p. 98. a Erpen Proverb Arab. p. 2. b Bernier in his Letter to Mr. de la Mothe le Vayer p. 171 172. c Lactant. p. 146. Sed â—…erentur nè omnis Religio eorum inanis sit vana si nihil in praesenti videant quod adorent a Plin. nat Hist. l. 2. c. 7. p. 4. Per quae nempe illa quae ne quidem Deus potest declaratur haud dubiâ—… naturae potentia idque esse quod Deum vocamus b Tract Theol. polit c. 6. de Mirac p. 100. Ed. 2. virtus potentia materiae ipsa Dei virtus potentia Leges autem Regulae naturae ipsa Dei Decreta c. c Plin. ubi suprà p. 3. d Gott a Teut. Gut bonus e Grotii Proleg Histor. Gott Vaâ—…dal p. 21 a ush de Primord Eccles. Britan. p. 2. b Consultwisd 13. 1 2 3 4 7. c Hist. of the Carib Isl. p. 272. d Lucian in Necyomantia p. 159. Ad Tigridem me flâ—…vium ducens purgavit simul atque abster fit saceque lustravit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 b Oedip. Egypt Theatr. c. 〈◊〉 P. 74 75. c Clem. Alex. Admon ad Gent. p. 25. d Berniâ—…rs Memoirs Tome 3. p. 154 155 156. e Taverniâ—…'s Travels into India part 2. l. 3. c. 9. p. 173. a Acts 17. b Arnob. adv Gentes l. 6. p. 192. c Wisd. 14. 15 16. d See Mandeslo's Travels concern the Pillars of the Japoneses p. 154. e Wisd 14. 17. f Wisd. 14. 18. The singular diligence of the Artificer did help to set forward the ignorant to more superstition g Luciani ver Hist. l. 2. p. 403. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 b Lucian De deâ Syriâ p. 1059. c Cart. Seconda parte delle Imagini de i Dei p. 374 375 377 378 387 390 393 394 396 397 398 399. d See Kircher's Oëd. AEg Synt. 3. c. 5. p. 199. e See Bzov. ad Ann. 1313. Hotting Eccles Histor. vol. 3. p. 789. See also themirac discov of our Ladies Image on Mount Serat in Aug. Wichman's Sabbatismus Marianus c. 5. p. 47 48 a Schualenberg in Aphorism Hieroglyphic l. 17. p. 117 118. a By Filesacus who referreth to l. 1. Cod. de sum Trin. Tit. 1. Ex Coelesti arbitrio sumpserimus Though that may be meant of Arbitr divinum See Gothof in 16. Cod. Theod. de Fide Cathol p. 5. a Berniers Memoirs Tom. 3. p. 180. b Juven sat 13. Tua sacra major Imago humanâ turbat pavidum Dido ap Virg. AEn 4. Et nunâ—… magna mei sub Terras ibit Imago c Prov. 21. 16. Lxx. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a See Martyrol Roman in Jan. 10. b C.