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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56393	Reasons for abrogating the test imposed upon all members of Parliament, anno 1678, Octob. 30 in these words, I A.B. do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God, profess, testifie, and declare, that I do believe that in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, at, or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever, and that the invocation or adoration of the Virgin Mary, or any other saint, and the sacrifice of the mass, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous : first written for the author's own satisfaction, and now published for the benefit of all others whom it may concern.	Parker, Samuel, 1640-1688.	1688 (1688)	Wing P467; ESTC R5001	62,716	138

of the Gods of the People which are round about you nigh unto thee or far off from thee from the one end of the Earth unto the other Thou shalt not consent unto him nor hearken unto him Neither shall thine Eye pity him neither shalt thou spare neither shalt thou conceal him But thou shalt surely kill him thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to Death and afterward the Hand of all the People And thou shalt stone him with Stones that he die Because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt from the House of Bondage This was the Crime and this the Punishment of Idolatry and the Sentence was so severely Executed that for the setting up the golden Calf or Symbol of the Sun that the Aegyptians Worship'd as the supreme Deity as will appear in its proper place Three thousand of the Ring-leaders were put to the Sword by the Command of Moses Exod. 32. 27. And for this Reason it pleased God to destroy the Canaanites from off the Face of the Earth i.e. for giving Divine Worship to false and created Deities in Defiance to the Eternal Creator of it So black a Crime as this that is no less than renouncing God is not lightly to be charged upon any Party of Christians not only because of the foulness of the Calumny but the barbarous Consequences that may follow upon it to invite and warrant the Rabble when ever Opportunity favours to destroy the Roman Catholicks and their Images as the Israelites were commanded to destroy the Canaanites and their Idols But before so bloody an Indictment be preferr'd against the greatest part of Christendom the Nature of the thing ought to be very well understood The Charge is too big for a Scolding Word And how inconsistent soever Idolatry may be with Salvation I fear so uncharitable a Calumny if it prove one can be of no less damnable Consequence It is a piece of Inhumanity that out-does the Salvageness of the Canibals themselves and damns at once both Body and Soul. And yet after all we have no other ground for the bold Conceit than the crude and rash Assertions of some popular Divines who have no other Measures of Truth or Zeal but Hatred to Popery and therefore never spare for hard Words against that Church and run up all Objections against it into nothing less than Atheism and Blasphemy of which Idolatry is the greatest Instance But if they would lay aside their indecent Heats and soberly enquire into the Nature and Original of Idolatry they would be as much ashamed of the Ignorance of their Accusations as they ought to be of its Malice And therefore I shall set down a plain and brief Account of that Argument that when we understand the easie obvious and natural Notion of Idolatry it will for ever expose the Vanity of these Men's Fanatique Pretences I pray God there be nothing worse at bottom seeing it has ever been set up as the Standard against Monarchy It is a Subject that hath entertained the most able Pens in the World but I shall not presume or pretend to be so learned but shall confine all my Knowledge to the Word of God chiefly to the Mosaick Writings for there it is fully and clearly stated the Mosaick Law being enacted purely in Opposition to Idolatry Now nothing can be more obvious than that the Notion of it there is neither more nor less than this The Worship of the Heavenly Bodies the Sun the Moon and the Stars or any other visible and corporeal Deity as the Supreme God so as to exclude all Sense and Apprehension of a spiritual and invisible Godhead This evidently appears both by the Almighties several Revelations that he made of himself to the Children of Israel to preserve them from it and from the several Characters and Descriptions that himself hath upon numberless occasions made of it Most learned Men would trace its Original from before the Flood but they follow their Chase without any Scent as generally all Antiquaries do when they pursue into the first Source and Original of things The Iewish Robbies that are of too late a standing to pretend to any Authority in such Antient Matters for as they lived not above Six Ages before us so they had no other Records than what we have the Writings of Moses and the Prophets derive its Original from the Age of Enos but as their Conjecture is founded upon an ambiguous Word so it is contradicted by the State of the World at that time for by reason of the long Lives of the Patriarchs from the Creation to the Flood it is not easie to conceive That the Memory and Tradition of the late Creation of the World should be worn out in so short a time Enos being Adams's Granchild and living in the same Age with him for some Hundred Years But the plain Demonstration that there was no such Impiety before the Flood is that Moses when he reckons up the Causes that provok'd God to bring that Judgment upon the World makes no mention of the Sin of Idolatry of which if they had been Guilty as it is a Sin of the first Magnitude so it would have held the first place in the Indictment Others make Cham the Father of this Monster as they do of all other Crimes but for no other Reason beside his ill Name Others derive it from the Tower of Babel which they will have to have been built for an Altar to the Sun after the Custom of after-times when they Worshiped him upon High Towers for Altars Maimonides and his Followers find deep Footsteps in the time of Abraham who was born in Ur of the Chaldees that is say they the Country of the Antient ZABII the Founders of Idolatry and for that reason he was commanded out of his own Country to the Worship of the True God. But this Dream of the ZABII is so modern and so void of the Authority of any Antient Record that it proves it self a fond Imposture Tho in Abraham's time and that was many Centuries after the Flood we meet with the first Traces of this Apostacy For that extraordinary Discovery that God was pleased to make of himself as Supreme Lord of all things was made to Abraham in Opposition to the Idolatry of his own Country i.e. Chaldea who seemed to have been the first Founders of it and for that reason God commanded him to leave his Country his Kindred and his Fathers House and sojourn in the Land of Canaan where the Tradition of the Knowledge of the True God seems to have been much better preserved So that tho there were some Decays from the true Old Religion yet they were as yet very far from an Universal Apostacy That the Plague was then broke out in Chaldea is evident from the words of Ioshua 24. 2. Your Fathers dwelt on the other side the River in old time even Terah

Moses the Man that brought us up out of the Land of Egypt we wot not what is become of him they force Aaron to restore to them the Symbols of their Old Gods to go before them instead of this new God that now seem'd to have deserted them and to those they ascribe their Deliverance out of Egypt and this is the first chearful Act of Devotion that they seem to have perform'd since their Deliverance For as for all their Worship of the True God especially at the Delivery of the Law it seems to be forc'd and uneasie to which they were rather over-aw'd by dreadful Appearances than inclin'd by their own Choice And the Solemn Sacrifice that was made immediately after was the Act of Moses rather than the People who rather seem'd Spectators than Actors and therefore as soon as they thought themselves quit of him which was immediately after they set up their Idol and were transported in their Devotions towards it to a Degree of madness They rose up early in the Morning and offered Burnt-Offerings and brought Peace-Offerings and the People sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play This Solemnity had been endear'd to them by Custom and Education and there could be no other ground of their great Joy than that they were restored to the Exercise of their former Religion and the Worship of their Old Gods of which the Calf was one of the most eminent Symbols so that when they say that was the God that deliver'd them out of Egypt their meaning is the God of which That was the Symbol or Representation according to the Language of those Times and indeed of the whole Old Testament to give the Name of the Deity to the Idol Now at that time we find no other mention of any other Deities than the Sun and Heavenly Bodies so that this Calf could be the Symbol of no other Gods than the Sun and therefore was ever reckoned among their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their holy Animals as the Egyptian Priest and Antiquary Manetho informs us of which Aries and Taurus were the chiefest and both of them consecrated in honour of the Sun being the two first Signs in the Heavens but the Festival of Aries was the most Solemn when the Sun entring into that Sign began the Joyful New Year In Opposition to which the Israelites were commanded to cut the Throat of the Paschal Ram upon that very Day with all the Ceremonies of Contempt as shall appear more afterward This invincible Obstinacy in their Old Religion notwithstanding the mighty Works God had wrought for their Deliverance is severely upbraided to them long after by God himself to his Prophet Amos Have ye offered unto me Sacrifices and Offerings in the Wilderness Forty Years O House of Israel But ye have born the Tabernacle of your Moloch and the Star of your God Remphan and their Images which ye made to your selves This is a plain Description of their great averseness to the Worship of the True God in the Wilderness when God declares that in reality they never Worshiped him at all but stuck close to their old God Moloch which is but a Synonymous Word for the God Baal i. e. the Sun and therefore they are promiscuously us'd in Scripture to express one and the same Deity Thus Ieremy 19. 5. They have built the High Places of Baal to burn their Sons in the Fire for Burnt Offerings unto Baal But Chapter the 32. v. 35. the same Crime is thus express They built the High Places of Baal to cause their Sons and Daughters to pass through the Fire unto Moloch by which it is undeniably evident that they were but Synonymous Terms for one and the same God and indeed they are Words of the same Signification denoting Supreme or Kingly Power and so were appropriated by them to the Sun as Sovereign Lord of the Universe This strange Inclination of the Israelites to Idolatry or the Worship of Baal and Moloch is so vehemently upbraided to them in the Scripture as shews it to have been inveterate and impetuous beyond Example So God himself upbraids it to them that when he did such mighty things for them in their Deliverance from Egypt and only required them to renounce the Idols of Egypt Yet they rebelled against me and would not hearken to me They cast not away the Abomination of their Eyes nor the Idols of Egypt And when Ioshua had setled them in the Holy Land he forewarns them to serve the True God sincerely and to put away the Gods which their Fathers served on the other side the Flood and in Egypt By which it appears they had not yet parted with their Old Gods but the next Generation made a total Revolt and the Children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served Baalim and they forsook the Lord God of their Fathers which brought them out of the Land of Egypt and followed other Gods of the Gods of the People that are round about them and bowed themselves unto them and provoked the Lord to Anger and they forsook the Lord and serv'd Baal and Ashteroth This whole Book is nothing else but a Narrative of their Sin by Idolatry their Punishment by Captivity their Repentance by imploring of the Mercy of the God of Israel till at last after so many Relapses they are thus answered by God in their Addresses and Supplications unto him And the Children of Israel cryed unto the Lord saying We have sinned against thee both because we have forsaken our God and also served Baalim And the Lord said unto the Children of Israel did not I deliver you from the Egyptians from the Ammorites from the Children of Ammon from the Philistins Also the Zidonians and the Amalekites and Maonites did oppress you and you cry'd to me and I delivered you out of their hand yet you have forsaken me and served other Gods wherefore I will deliver you no more go and cry unto the Gods that ye have chosen let them deliver you in the time of your Tribulations But upon their Reformation they are delivered and as soon relapse of which a Train of Instances are to be seen in that Book Here it may be observ'd all along that the Scripture Notion of Idolatry is renouncing and forsaking the True God to Worship other Gods or Baalim that is Idols of the Sun whom they commonly call'd the King of Heaven And so they sin on till God suffered his own Ark the Symbol of his own Presence to be carried into Captivity They apply themselves to Samuel to intercede for them Samuel returns them the old Answer that God himself had often made If ye return unto the Lord with all your Hearts then put away the strange Gods and Ashteroth from among you and prepare your Hearts unto the Lord and serve him only and he will deliver you out of the Hands of the Philistins Then the Children of

Israel put away Baal and Ashteroth and served the Lord only And Samuel at the resigning of his Government upon the Election of Saul upbraids them with their continual Ingratitude against the Lord their God from their first Deliverance out of Egypt to that very Day in for saking the Lord to serve Baalim So plain is the practical Notion of Idolatry through the whole Sacred History Under the pious Reigns of David and Solomon the Sin of Idolatry was competently well retrench'd till the Dotage of Solomon when his Wives and Concubines turn'd away his Heart after other Gods So that Solomon went after Ashteroth the Goddess of the Zidonians and after Milcom the Abomination of the Ammonites But the great Revolt was made by Ieroboam upon the Division of the Kingdom tho rather upon a Political than Religious Account Ieroboam said in his Heart now shall the Kingdom return to the House of David if this People go up to do Sacrifice in the House of the Lord at Ierusalem whereupon he makes two Calves of Gold and said to the People It is too much for you to go up to Ierusalem behold thy Gods O Israel which brought thee up out of the Land of Egypt It was only an Artifice to oblige the People to himself by restoring to them their old Egyptian Idolatry Some will have these Calves to have been set up in Imitation of Solomon 's Cherubin but this is fully confuted by the learned Visorius If Ieroboam saith he by his Calves design'd to imitate the establish'd Religion of his Country I pray you when he took these counterfeit Cherubs why not also the Ark the Propitiatory the Seat of God where the Divine Majesty appear'd most conspicuously in giving of Oracles the Tabernacle and the Temple Why if they were made only in imitation of the Cherubs why did he not call them by their own Name by which they were known to the People when that would have been a more easie way to deceive them Why did he not take the Priests of the Family of Aaron why did he banish them out of his Kingdom why did not the People comply for three whole Years if it had been an Imitation of their Old Religion under David and Solomon Why if they were nothing but Cherubins are they so often in Scripture styled other Gods Why should he Sacrifice to them when in the Law of Moses no Sacrifices were offered to the Cherubim So that it is plain that these Calves were set up by him as Idols or Symbols of a new or separate Religion from the Tribe of Iudah and tho he took up the old Egyptian Idol for his Foundation yet he seem'd to have erected a Motley Religion upon it like that of the Samaritans of old partly to invite the People of all Nations into his Kingdom where every Man worshiped his own God and partly by diversity of Religion more effectually to divide his own Kingdom from that of the Line of Solomon Tho not long after Rehoboam and the Tribe of Iudah revolt from the Worship of the true God as the Scripture aggravates it above all that their Fathers had done And from this time Idolatry or the Worship of Baal was the prevailing Religion in both Kingdoms tho sometimes check'd by the Piety of reforming Princes But it spread so fast that Elijah thought himself left alone tho for his comfort God informed him that he had the small remainder of 7000 in Israel all the Knees which have not bowed unto Baal But the Infection soon became universal and tho God Almighty sent his Prophets from time to time to reclaim them yet all in vain they still continued to worship the Host of Heaven and serve Baal till finding them irreclaimable he first delivered the Ten Tribes into the hands of Shalmaneser King of Assyria where they continue in Captivity to this Day and are a lost Nation But the Piety of Hezekiah at that time for a while repriev'd the Tribe of Iudah But his Son Manasseh built up again the High Places which Hezekiah his Father had destroyed and he rear'd up Altars for Baal and worshiped all the Host of Heaven and served them Upon this God by his Prophets denounces their Destruction Because saith he they have ever done that which was evil in my sight and have provoked me to Anger since the Day their Fathers came forth out of Egypt unto this Day or because they have forsaken me and burnt Incense unto other Gods that they might provoke me to Anger with all the work of their Hands therefore my wrath shall be kindled against them and shall not be quenched But the Execution of the Sentence is suspended during the pious Reign of his Son Iosiah but as soon as he is gathered to his Fathers Ierusalem and the Temple are destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and King Zedekiah with all his People are carried Captive into Babylon This is a compendious History of the old Jewish Idolatry and I think a sufficient Proof both of their strange Inclination to it to the highest degree of Madness and wherein it plainly consisted their forsaking the true invisible God to worship created Deities than which nothing is more evident through the whole Series of Scripture To this Evidence I might add a more ample Proof out of the Writings of the Prophets that are almost wholly imployed upon this Subject But I must not be too tedious and therefore I shall only observe that they generally express the greatness of this Folly under the Figure of ungovernable Lust. Thus Ezekiel the 23d God describes it to the Prophet under this Scheme Son of man there were two Women the Daughters of one Mother and they committed Whoredoms in Egypt they committed Whoredoms in their Youth there were their Breasts pressed and there they bruised the Teats of their Virginity and the Names of them were Ahola the Elder and Aholibah her Sister and they were mine and they bare Sons and Daughters Samaria is Ahola and Jerusalem Aholibah and Ahola played the Harlot when she was mine and she doted or run mad for her Lovers the Assyrians her Neighbours with all their Idols she defiled her self neither left she her Whoredoms brought from Egypt for in her Youth 't is in the Hebrew before she was ripe of Age they lay with her and they bruis'd the Breasts of her Virginity and poured their Whoredom upon her wherefore I have delivered her into the Hand of her Lovers into the Hand of the Assyrians upon whom she doted and after whom she ran mad The same is repeated of her Sister Aholibah who for her incorrigible Adulteries is delivered into the hands of the Babylonians nothing can be expressed with greater vehemence than this that is compared to the utmost lewdness of Female Lust and nothing more evident than that this Lewdness consisted in deserting the true invisible God to worship the false Deities of their Neighbours particularly the Gods of

and therefore it is not for the King's Interest to suffer them If it please the King let it be written that they may be destroyed This is perpetually objected by Manetho the Egyptian Priest against the Jews that they aimed at nothing so much in the Rites of their Religion as to affront and reflect Defiance upon the Egyptian Devotion And so Tacitus his account of them is this Moses ut sibi in posterum Iudaeorum gentem firmaret novos ritus contrariosque caeteris mortalibus indidit Prophana illis omnia quae apud nos sacra rursum concessa apud illos quae nobis incesta Moses that he might the better confirm the Iewish Nation to himself instituted new Rites contrary to the customs of the rest of Mankind what is most sacred with us is most prophane with them and what with us is esteemed most abominable is allowed to them as lawful and innocent This is the certain ground of that known universal contempt and hatred of all other Nations against the Jews And so that Passage in Ieremiah cap. 12. ver 9. is applyed by Grotius to the Jews Mine Heritage is unto me as a speckled Bird the Birds round about her are against her Mine Inheritance is become like a strange Bird and is pursued by all the Birds of the Field As when a Bird of a strange Colour happens to consort with other Birds it is natural for them all to set upon it and this was the case of the Jews in reference to all their Neighbour Nations It were an endless work to recite all the Rites peculiar to the Jews and instituted in contradiction to the Customs of their Neighbours when it is the only reason that runs through almost all their Law even to the boiling of a Kid or Lamb in its Dams Milk to the sowing of divers Seeds together plowing with an Ox and an Ass wearing Linsey Woolsey c. And therefore I shall only instance in two remarkable particulars The Institution of the Passover And the Law against Sacrificing in High Places both which are enjoyn'd as most effectual Remedies against Idolatry The Passover was the first Law instituted by God at or upon their Deliverance out of Egypt In the Tenth day of this Month they shall take to them every Man a Lamb a Male of the first Year according to the House of their Fathers In the Observation of this great Solemnity as it is there prescribed every the most minute Circumstance is an express defiance to the Egyptian Follies First the Paschal Lamb must be a Male a year old that is a young Ram and that was the greatest Affront that could be put upon the Egyptians that held a Ram not only in religious esteem but the most Sacred of all their Holy Animals in more antient times as the Symbol of the Sun entring the Sign Aries and beginning the New Year And afterwards of Iupiter Ammon whom the Greeks planted upon the Stock of the Old Egyptian Idol of the Sun. Now upon the account of the Sacredness of these Animals they never offered any of their Species in Sacrifice And hence when Pharoah bid Moses go Sacrifice to the Lord in the Land of Egypt Moses answers that they dare not Because it would be an Abomination to the Egyptians so that they would stone them that is it would be a Prophaneness and open Affront to the Religion of the Egyptians if they should offer in Sacrifice according to the custom of their Fore-fathers those very Animals that the Egyptians had consecrated to the Honour of their Gods. And for the same reason they are commanded to Sacrifice the Passover with a young Bullock as well as a young Ram out of the Flock or out of the Herd as the Scripture expresses it And when King Iosiah kept after a long intermission a most solemn Passover besides Lambs and Kids he gave to the People 3000 Bullocks Now next to a Ram the Bullock was the most Sacred of all the Holy Animals and therefore made the second Sign in the Zodiack And therefore when the Greeks or later Egyptians gave the first Symbol to Iupiter Ammon their Supreme God they gave the second to Osyris by them commonly called Apis not understanding that that word only signifyed the Image not the Deity so that here Tacitus his Malice is not much in the wrong Caeso Ariete velut in contumeliam Ammonis Bos quoque immolatur quem Egyptii Apim vocant They sacrifice a Ram in Affront to Ammon and a Bullock in Affront to Osyris Beside it must be a Male not a Female because the Egyptians and Heathens who indeed generally followed the Egyptian Customs especially the Greeks used only Females in their Sacrifices But the most observable circumstance in this whole Solemnity is the time of its Celebration the Lamb was to be solemnly set apart for the Sacrifice on the Tenth Day of the Month till the Fourteenth because on the Tenth Day on which the Sun entred the Sign Aries began the great Festival of Aries or the New Year so that beginning the Jewish Passover at the same time it was a manifest Triumph over the Egyptian Deity by cutting the Throat of the poor Beast with as much Solemnity as the Egyptians at that very time worship'd it And for the same reason a Cow that was sacred to Isis or rather to some more antient Deity I suppose the Moon was commanded to be driven out of the Camp and burnt as an unclean Beast and so because the Egyptians addressed their Worship to a Goat as the Symbol of some Deity probably the Sun in that Sign God commanded the Jews to make use chiefly of Goats in their Expiatory Sacrifices and particularly the Scape Goat laden with all the Sins and all the Curses of the People and hence the Israelites were strictly forbidden to Sacrifice to Goats which we translate Devils And they shall no more offer Sacrifice to Devils 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Goats after whom they have gone a whoring This shall be a Statute for ever unto them throughout their Generations But to return to the Paschal Ram all the circumstances of the Institution carry a remarkable significancy in them Thus when they are commanded to besmear the Side-posts and upper Door-posts or Lintal of every House What could have been a more publick Contempt of the Egyptian Religion when by it they declared that the Almighty Power that had prov'd it self by so many Miracles and Judgments especially this Last in the Death of the First-born commanded to put all manner of contempt upon those Creatures that were consecrated to the Worship of their Gods and to leave those Bloody Posts to the Egyptians as Monuments of their baffled Deities And tho I have no Reverence to the Authority of the Jewish Rabbies in the account of antient times being not only very trifling but very modern Writers yet there is cited an excellent Passage out of R. Abraham Seba that

the Egyptians Assyrians and Chaldeans And that is my Second Head of Discourse that the Gods that they worshiped at that time were nothing but the Heavenly Bodies or the Sun as the Supreme Deity This is evident enough from what hath already been discoursed Idolatry in general being every where described in Scripture by the Worship of the Host of Heaven or Heavenly Bodies Thus Deut. 4. 19. Lest thou lift up thine Eyes to Heaven and when thou seest the Sun and the Moon and the Stars even all the Host of Heaven shouldst be driven tempted to worship them which the Lord thy God created for the use and benefit of all Nations under the whole Heaven So Chap. 17. v. 2 3. If there be found any among you that have wrought Wickedness in the sight of the Lord your God in transgressing his Covenant and hath gone and served other Gods and worshiped them either the Sun or Moon or any of the Host of Heaven ye shall stone him to Death 2 King. 17. 16. They left all the Commandments of the Lord their God and made them Molten Images two Calves and made a Grove and worshiped all the Host of Heaven and served Baal So Manasseh erected Altars to Ball and worshiped the Host of Heaven chap. 21. 3. So Iosiah when he destroyed Idolatry brought out the Vessels of the Host of Heaven And the Jews when after their return from Captivity they would enter their solemn Protestation against Idolatry they do it in this form Thou even Thou art Lord alone thou hast made Heaven the Heaven of Heavens with all their Host c. Nehemiah 9. 6. So Jeremiah 19. 13. Ierusalem and Iudah shall be destroyed because they have burned Incense unto all the Host of Heaven and have poured out Drink Offerings unto other Gods. So Zephaniah 1. 5. God threatens to destroy the Worshipers of Baal and of the Host of Heaven And lastly St. Stephen in his last Speech upbraiding the Jews with their Idolatry says that God gave them up to Worship the Host of Heaven So evident is the Practical Notion of Idolatry through the whole Series of Scripture that it was the worshiping the Heavenly Bodies as the supreme Deities or as Iob emphatically expresses it Chap. 31. ver 26. If I beheld the Sun when it shin'd or the Moon walking in brightness and my Heart hath been secretly enticed or my Mouth hath kissed my Hand this also were an Iniquity to be punished by the Iudge for I should have denyed the most High God. What can be more plain than this Definition of Idolatry that it is the Worship of the Sun and Moon because it would have excluded the Worship due only to the most High God And the very Word that we commonly translate Images in general signifies properly Images of the Sun. Thus Leviticus 26. 30. God threatens them I will destroy your Images as we translate it but in the Hebrew your Chamanim i.e. Images of the Sun. So the second of Chronicles chap. 34. v. 7. And so it is set sometimes in the Margent even in the English Translation or Sun Images as Isaiah 17. 8. Ezek. 6. 4. And so all learned Men of all Nations all Religions ever understood the old Notion of Idolatry till this last Age when Folly and Passion cast it at any thing that peevish Men were angry with So Rabbi Maimon the most learned and judicious of the Jewish Doctors discourses at large that the antient Idolatry was nothing but the Religion of the Eastern Nations who acnowledge no other Deities but the Stars among whom the Sun was supreme in Opposition to which false Principle he says God enacted the Law of Moses This was the sense of all the other old Heathen Nations as may be seen at large in Eusebius's Collections of their several Opinions in his First and Third Book of the Preparation of the Gospel where he proves that the antient Heathens worshiped only the Stars without any Notion of Heroes and Demons The same is attested by all the Historians by Diodorus Siculus of the Egyptians by Herodotus of the Persians and Chaldeans by Strabo and Iustin of the Arabians by Caesar of the Germans so Macrobius in his first Book Saturnal proves it of all the antient Idolaters that it was the Worship of the Sun as the supreme Deity So in the antient Hymn to Iupiter ascribed to Orpheus it is the Sun only that is all along adored In short so all learned Men interpret all the several Idols that we read of in the Holy Scriptures particularly those two learned Protestants Mr. Selden in his learned Book De Diis Syris and Gerard Vossius de Idololatria proves all the Idols mentioned in Scripture to have been only so many several Appellations of the Sun whom the antient Idolaters believ'd to have been the supreme God and Creator of the World as Baal Baal Peor Bel Moloch Dagon Baalzebub Mythras c. In a Word the whole Nation of the Critiques that agree in nothing else are unanimous here tho indeed the thing is so evident in all the Accounts Histories and Descriptions of the Antient Idolatry that it is to me the greatest astonishment in the World that Men should apply it to any other purpose I know there was another sort of Idolatry introduced afterward the Worship of Men and Women but I find no such Practice in the Scriptures but take it to have been much more modern and a meer Invention of the vain and lying Greeks but whensoever it came in it was grafted upon the old Stock of giving the Worship of the supreme God not only to created but to mortal Beings Here it were easie to wander into a large Field of Mythologick Mystery but besides that I take all Mythology to be much more Fable than the literal Fable it self I have resolved to confine my self to the Information of the Holy Scriptures from whence as we have the most infallible Testimony that can be had so in this case we can have no other all other Writings whatsoever being by some Thousands of Years too modern to give any Account from their own Knowledge of those Antient Times And for a more acurate account of this I shall refer the Reader to that admirable Book of Dr. Spencers concerning the Jewish Laws and the Reasons of them in which he proves every Minute Circumstance of the ritual and ceremonial Law to have been enacted only for the prevention of Idolatry or Sun-Worship There any Gentleman that delights in antient Learning may have his glut of Pleasure and Satisfaction for beside the great Compass and Variety of polite Literature he hath brought Wit Sense Reason and Ingenuity into the Synagogue I will only exemplifie the thing in some few Particulars The first is the Institution of some Rites peculiar to God's own Worship both as a Bar to preserve them from any other Worship in which those Rites were not us'd and as an Obligation to bind them the faster

to their Duty to himself among these the chiefest are Circumcision and the Sabbath which he instituted as it were the two Sacraments of the Jewish Religion or the Worship of the Creator of Heaven and Earth to distinguish them from their Neighbour Nations who Worship only his Creatures With Circumcision God sign'd his Covenant with Abraham which was the first Revelation of himself against Idolatry and the Foundation of the whole Mosaick Law which was seal'd to by this sacred Rite of Circumcision so that without it they were esteemed no better than Idolaters and an uncircumcised Man signifies no less than an Heathen This Reason is expresly given by God himself at the first Institution of it in his Covenant with Abraham I will establish my Covenant between thee and me and thy Seed after thee in their Generations for an everlasting Covenant to be a God unto Thee and to thy seed after thee This is my Covenant which ye shall keep between me and you and thy seed after thee every Male Child among you shall be Circumcised And you shall circumcise the Flesh of your Fore-skin and it shall be a Token of the Covenant betwixt you and me and therefore the uncircumcised shall be cut off from his People as having broken my Covenant i.e. renounced the true Religion which is as Grotius observes not reasonably to be understood of Infants but of Men grown to Years of Understanding whose Parents had neglected that Office in their Infancy and therefore if they did not supply that Defect when they came to Age it was looked upon as renouncing the Worship of the true God of which this was the first Sacrament or Ceremony of Admission into the Jewish Church which alone profess'd it and that is the Reason of St. Paul's Assertion Every Man that is circumcised is a Debtor to do the whole Law i.e. he that willingly and knowingly undergoes this initiating Ceremony by Vertue of that he obliges himself to the Observation of the whole Mosaick Law and all things commanded in it And for this Reason no Proselyte was admitted to the Paschal Festival the most sacred Solemnity of the Jewish Religion without Circumcision When a stranger shall sojourn with thee and will keep the Passover to the Lord let all his Males be circumcised and then let him come near and keep it and he shall be as one that is born in the Land for no uncircumcised Person shall eat thereof This seems to be the meaning of that Passage Ioshua 5. 9. when God commanded Ioshua to circumcise all the People that were born in the Wilderness and that indeed is all then living for those that came out of Egypt were dead and when Ioshua had done it God tells him This day have I rolled away the Reproach of Egypt from off you the Reproach of Egypt was their Idolatry which they had now renounced by the Sacrament of Circumcision And accordingly in the Persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes to abolish the Jewish Religion and establish Idolatry the Jews are commanded to leave their Children uncircumcis'd and the Apostates endeavoured to blot out the Marks of their Circumcisioni and certain Women that had taken care to circumcise their Children were put to Death and the Infants hanged about their Necks That was the distinctive Mark through all Ages between a Worshiper of the true God and an Idolater So that it was the same thing not to be circumcised and to apostatise to Idolatry The second and indeed the greatest Bar of all against Idolatry was the Institution of the Sabbath in memory of Gods Creation of the whole visible World and for that reason this Doctrine of the Sabbath was reputed as fundamental an Article in the Jewish Church as the Doctrine of the Cross in the Christian because all other Articles of their Religion depended upon the belief of their God's Creation of the World. And therefore when God had given Moses a compleat Body of Laws for his own Worship he ratifies and as it were comprises them all in a vehement and reiterated pressing that one Law of the Sabbath Exod. 31. v. 12. to the end of the Chapter And after the Children of Israel had committed Idolatry in worshiping the Golden Calf for which God had for some time cast them off he is at last prevailed upon by Moses to renew his Covenant with them upon a new Contract First That they worship none of the Gods of the Heathen Nations nor ever use any of their Rites and Ceremonies And then that they be more careful to observe the Passover and the Sabbath Exod. 34. 12. And the Observation of the Sabbath is again enforced in the very beginning of the next Chapter as the Bond and Epitome of the whole Law And Moses gathered all the Congregation of the Children of Israel together and said unto them these are the words which the Lord hath commanded that ye should do them Six days shall work be done but on the Seventh day there shall be to you a Holy day a Sabbath of rest to the Lord whosoever doth work therein shall be put to death As if the Sabbath alone were the whole Law according to that Saying of the Talmud Whosoever denies the Sabbath denies the whole Law. Because that 's an Acknowledgment of the Creator of the World as the Author of the Mosaick Law. And for that reason the Almighty upon all occasions styles himself in Scripture Creator of Heaven and Earth which we improperly enough translate Possessor of Heaven and Earth and indeed the History of the Creation it self and the whole Pentateuch seem to have been written on purpose to prevent Idolatry or the Worship of Created Beings and therefore Moses doth not set down the Creation of the Universe in gross but of every part by it self particularly of the Sun Moon and Stars And that is in it self a sufficient Security against giving them that were meer Creatures the Worship that is only due to the Creator And this seems to be the reason of the particular form of words in the Fourth Commandment Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy for in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth and rested the seventh day As if he had said be sure that you be particularly mindful of this Commandment of the Sabbath above all others for it is a Day dedicated to the Eternal Memory of the Creation and therefore enjoyn'd to be observ'd every Seventh Day that it may continually bring to mind that great work and never suffer it to decay out of thy Memory And from hence it is that the Precepts of not worshiping Idols and observing the Sabbath are so frequently coupled together in the Scriptures as if they were inseparable Exod. 23. 12 13. Six days thou shalt do thy work and on the seventh day thou shalt rest and make no mention of the Names of other Gods neither let them be heard out of thy mouth Levit. 19. 34. Ye shall keep my

High Places These two things Idolatry and Adultery being so frequently joyned together in Scripture as the same Crime Thus far to mention no more it pleased God to provide against Idolatry by enacting special Laws in direct Opposition to the Heathen Rites When God had casher'd the more rank and notorious Acts of Heathen Worship he retained some of their more innocent Rites especially those that were derived from the antient Patriarchs before the later Corruptions were crept in lest if God had given a Law altogether new and abolished all their Old Customs People that are always fond of the Usages of their Fore-fathers should rather have revolted to the Heathen Idolatry than submit themselves to such a new and uncouth Religion and therefore out of condescention to their rudeness and weakness God permitted them to retain several of their former Rites and Ceremonies in his new Worship that by that Indulgence he might win them more easily to embrace his new Institution And this seems to be the Grammatical Sense of St. Paul's Expression That God suffered their Manners in the Wilderness Forty Years where the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 suffered is taken from the Use or Language of Mothers or Nurses that are forced to humour and comply with the little Follies of their Children by any way to please them In allusion to this word God was pleased to express his Treatment of the Children of Israel who knowing the weakness of their rude and childish Understandings permitted and indulged them to enjoy not a few of their former Conceits together with his own Divine Law. And so Moses lets them know in his Farewel Speech That the Lord had all along born with them as a Father doth with his Child And so Grotius paraphrases that passage of St. Paul When we were Children we were in Bondage under the Elements of the World i. e. says he we were under subjection to those Rites and Usages that were common to us with the rest of the World as Temples Altars Sacrifices New Moons to which he might have added Oblations of First Fruits Purifications Festival Solemnities Tabernacles Dedication of Tenths the Ark the Cherubim or Teraphim for they are promiscuously used in Scripture and are of very antient use These and the like old Customs were enjoyned the People of Israel lest for want of them they should relapse to Idolatry And because these Customs were common to the Jews with the rest of the World therefore they are call'd the Elements of the World and weak and beggarly Elements and carnal Ordinances that were impos'd and born with till the time of Reformation in the Apostolical Writings when they would beat down the value of the Mosaick Law. But to omit the rest I shall only insist upon the Cherubim that God commanded to be placed over the Ark and all Divine Worship to be directed towards them And thou shalt make two Cherubims of Gold of beaten work shalt thou make them in the two ends of the Mercy seat c. That they were Statues or Images is out of doubt by their Description but of what particular Form is matter of Controversie among learned Men tho what ever they were I am not concerned it is enough that they were Images used in the Worship of God and then the use of Images is not in it self Idolatry That the Word originally and properly signifies an Ox is evident from Ezekiel who uses the Words promiscuously Chap. 1. 10. As for the likeness of their Faces They four had the Face of a Man and the face of a Lyon on the Right side and they four had the face of an Ox on the left side they four also had the face of an Eagle but Chap. 10. 14. the same things are thus described And every one had four faces the first Face was the face of a Cherub the second the face of a Man the third of a Lyon and the fourth of an Eagle And as an Ox or a Cherub was used by the Antients as a Symbol of Strength or Power so thence came they to signifie the thing it self so God tells the King of Tyre that he was his anointed Cherub i. e. that he had made him great and powerful Hence whenever God in Scripture is said to sit upon or dwell between the Cherubims it is when his Power particularly is represented Thus when the Israelites were defeated by the Philistins they agree at a Council of War to send for the Ark of God to save them out of the hands of their Enemies So the People sent to Shiloh that they might bring from thence the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts who dwelleth between the Cherubims So King Hezekiah in his Distress calling upon the Divine Protection and Deliverance from his Enemy And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said O Lord God of Israel that dwellest between the Cherubims thou alone art God of all the Kingdoms of the Earth So Psal. 99. 1. The Lord reigneth let the People tremble he sitteth between the Cherubims let the Earth be moved And for this reason were these sacred Images placed over the Ark as the Symbols or Hieroglyphicks to represent the Presence of the Divine Majesty so that as the Ark is styled God's Footstool the Cherubims are called his Throne And so when the Ark and Cherubims were brought into the Temple this Anthem was sung Lift up your Heads O ye Gates and be ye lifted up ye everlasting Doors and the King of Glory shall come in Who is this King of Glory the Lord of Hosts the Lord strong and mighty the Lord mighty in Battle In short these Images were the most sacred things in all the Jewish Religion what they were I will not determine some will have them to have been Statues of Beautiful Youths as they are now vulgarly represented Others the Statue of a young Bullock from the synonymous signification of the Words But the most learned conclude them as they suppose with good Authority from the Scriptures not to have been any one certain Form but mixt of several Forms in which that of a Bullock had the biggest share but compounded of these four shapes a Man's Face an Eagles Wings a Lyons Back an Oxes or Bullocks Thighs and Feet As they are described in the fore cited Chapters of Ezekiel 1. 10. And to this no doubt St. Iohn alludes in his Vision of the Four Beasts Rev. 4. 6 7. Round about the Throne were four Beasts and the first Beast was like a Lyon and the second like a Calf and the third had a face as a Man and the fourth was like a flying Eagle And they rest not day and night saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come In Allusion 't is no doubt to the representation of the immediate Divine Presence in the Ark by the Cherubims that were made up of these four Beasts that were probably pitcht