constituted by the express command of God and to which he was by his Word eminently present and those which he neither commands nor consecrates with his Presence But here it ought not to be imagined that the Ark or Cherubims were by Gods appointment objects of worship The Heart was only to worship the Immense God appearing in the Shechinah though in that act the Reverence of the Body could not but pass towards the Ark and the Mind it may be did not always use nice abstraction any more than we now do when with civil reverence we bow to the King not considering just then his clothes and chair of state apart from him yet then it is to the Prince and not to his Robes or seat that we bow It is therefore absurd to say with Bellarmine that the Cherubims over the Ark were of necessity worshipped with the Ark it self for neither were ador'd no not the luster of the Shechinah it self it not being immediately assumed by the Logos but only used as a sign of his gracious Presence but God only who was the object of the worship whilst they were but circumstances and appendages of his Glory towards and not to which the external sign of adoration used by the High-Priest was directed For we must not here conceive of the Typical Ark as of the real Ark the Lord Incarnate in whom the Humane and Divine Nature are so united that the Christians have worshipped him always as God-man though as St. Cyril professeth in his first Book of Answers to Julian they had all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Man-worship in abhorrence I know that very often the words of David are alledged for the worship of the Ark but with as little ground as other Scriptures are often produced by men who first take up opinions and then seek colour for them in the Bible We read the words after this manner Fall down before his Footstool for it or he is holy and we have amended the Translation with Reason it being read of old Worship the footstool of his feet a Reading indiscreet as that of lifting up the hands unto thy holy Ark most high in the singing Psalms which are rather permitted than allowed The Divine Poet intended no more in that place to urge the Israelites to a precise adoration of the Ark it self than any other Poet designs to worship the very knees or feet of the King or Pantofle of the Pope when in his raptures of humility he speaks of falling prostrate before them Genebrard himself thinks David to make allusion to such Rites And the Hebrew reading La-hadhom is surely to be interpreted at his footstool unless the Lamed signifieth nothing which Dr. Vane either did not or would not observe when he so magisterially accus'd the Protestants of translating falsly A greater Doctor by far hath reckoned together the Brazen Serpent and the Cherubims as other things than Images of worship so far he is from that that he calls the Cherubim on the Ark a simple ornament accommodated to that Throne or Chair whence Oracles were dispensed But St. Hierom it seems establisheth the worship of the Ark in these words The Jews in time past did worship or reverence the Holy of Holies because there were the Cherubims the Propitiatory the Ark. So T. G. translateth him citing his 17th Epistle ad Marcellam But if he had pleafed he might have left out the word Worship and used that of Reverence only The holy Father indeed in that Epistle penned by him for Paula and Eustochium owneth a reverence due to them So do we very readily an high honorary respect but not a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word of the Seventy a giving them the homage of the external sign of bowing in a Temple and in our time of devotion for that so circumstantiated belongeth to God So did putting off the shoos it was a giving as 't were to God by that sign possession of that place although a forbearing to trample rudely there might be also a relative respect to the consecrated place Neither did St. Hierom in that place design such reverence or worship for in the following part of the Epistle which T. G. did forbear to cite the Manna the rod of Aaron the Golden Altar which the High-Priest did not worship although he reverenced them and separated them from vile use are reckoned in the same Classis of things to be rever'd with the Ark and Cherubims as also the Sepulchre of Christ which the Primitive Christians no more ador'd than they in Socrates worshipped the body of Babylas the Martyr who danced about his Coffin singing Psalms and deriding the worship of Idols whilst they removed it into the City of Antioch from Daphne But in this Argument I need not abound Others have said a great deal in it and I will not transcribe them but rather refer to them I will note only here an odd assertion of Grotius which I wonder how it dropped from the Pen of that great man Whilst said he the Catholicks meaning the Papists profess that they exhibit the signs of honour to Christ whom many Protestants acknowledg to be present in the Sacrament they are no more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bread-worshippers then the Jews were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worshippers of the Ark when they exhibited the honour of God at it But the Jews did not worship the Ark at all much less as the body of the Logos whilst such Catholicks worship not only Christ as present but that very substance which is under the shew of bread as the natural body of Christ and therefore if it prove bread they worship bread whatever they think it for the false opinions of men change not the nature of things and bread is bread and the worship of that which is bread is certainly Bread-worship though it be judged of and honoured as another thing And Barnabas and Paul were no other persons though the Lycaonians thought one to be Jupiter and the other Mercury being induced to that misbelief and an inclination to offer sacrifice to them by perceiving a miracle wrought by a word of their mouth This Ark which I am speaking of as the instrument of the Shechinah but not as an object of worship in it self was a while placed in Shiloh but it was not till Davids or rather Solomons time properly fixed in one certain place of the Holy Land God causing his favour to be valued by the suspence of it and shewing thereby that he was not confined to any particular place Besides the Shechinah in the Tabernacle and afterwards in the Temple God vouchsafed the Jews another especial Presence of his Logos by the High Priest and the Sacerdotal Appendages of the Ephod and Breastplate Of the appointment of these we read in the eight and twentieth Chapter of Exodus And in that Chapter it is said concerning the Breast-plate of the High-Priest
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
sense of St. Cyprian's words in his conclusion of the Book de Bono Patientiae Jesus Is he who was silent in his sufferings but will not be so afterwards when he executeth vengeance This is our God not the God of all but the God of the Faithful and of them who believe Him most dear Brethren let us expect as our Judg and Avenger God the Father commanded this his Son to be adored And Saint Paul the Apostle mindful of his command saith That God hath exalted him and given him a name above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things Coelestial Terrestrial and Infernal And in the Revelation the Angel forbiddeth John who was willing to worship him and saith See thou do it not for I am thy fellow-servant and of thy Brethren Adore the Lord Jesus CHAP. X. Of the Idolatry with which the Roman-Catholicks are charged and how far they are justly or unjustly accused PART 1. Of the Charge which is drawn up against them BY Roman-Catholicks I mean those who pretending to own the Doctrine of the Universal Church and to submit to the Discipline of it as it is derived from the supposed Fountain and Head of it the Bishop of Rome do confess the Faith of the Council of Trent These also are guilty of worshipping Idols if the multitude of Accusers createth guilt to omit as yet the Arguments which move so many to that accusation Mr. Thorndike supposeth them accused when he affirmeth That they who separate from them as Idolaters are thereby Schismaticks before God As also when he saith They who charge the Papists to be Idolaters let them not lead the people by the Nose to believe that they can prove their Supposition when they cannot Accused then they are and their Accusers are neither few nor of inconsiderable quality I mean not here the Mahometans and Jews so much as the Christians who are of this judgment The Mahometans are the professed enemies of visible Idols and in some places where they have unhappily succeeded in their Invasions of Christendom they have been as fierce and zealous Iconoclasts as any to whom that name has been given And of such zeal the Jews would give external signs if they had equal power Of both the learned Grotius saith That they are much diverted from Christianity by the Images which they see cast in the way before them The Christians of the Greek Church use painted Tables But many of them if many there be of the same faith with their late Patriarch of Alexandria S. Cyril do think of the Images of Roman-Catholicks as of so many Idols That Patriarch being askt what the Grecians thought of Images returned this Answer not as his private opinion but as the Faith of the Oriental Church the members of which he personateth in that Confession We do not reprobate the noble Art of Painting So far are we from that extreme that we allow to such as please the Pictures of Jesus and his Saints But for the adoration and worship of them we detest it as contrary to the Scripture and lest instead of God we should ignorantly worship Colour Artifice Creatures He indeed useth the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I rend'red Adoration but he joineth it with the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I translate Worship and which St. Paul useth in setting forth the Idolatrous adoration of Angels by the Gnosticks And it is certain by his scope that he meaneth the Worship of Rome Modern and he elsewhere calleth it superstitious and that which smelleth rank of Idolatry Touching those Christians who are known by the Title of the Reformed they judg it one great part of their Reformation that they have purged their Churches of Romish Idols The Confession of Helvetia rejecteth as Idolatrous not only the Idols of the Heathens but the Images also of those who have taken upon them the Christian name The general Confession of Scotland to which the Royal Family and many others of condition subscribed calleth Transubstantiation a blasphemous opinion meaning thereby that blasphemy which saith a Creature is God and supposing that the Object under the shews of bread is bread though set apart to a Religious use The Confession called the Consent of Poland having declamed against many of the Usages of Rome and imputed much of the Turks success in Christendom to Gods displeasure at them proceedeth to an Address to Christ by a Prayer in which he is beseeehed to blot out Idols Errors and Abominations The Confession of Strasburg rejecteth that Worship of Images which is practised in the Roman Church as contrary to the Scripture and to the sense of the ancient Church citing to this purpose the Epistle of Epiphanius and its Translation by St. Hierom as also the Authorities of Lactantius and Athanasius The Augustan Confession condemneth the Invocation of Saints as a custom which transferreth to men the honour which is due to God only and which ascribeth Omnipotence to the dead by attributing to them the knowledg of the Heart The Confession of Saxony saith of the Invocation of Saints both that it leadeth from God and that it ascribeth Omnipotence to the Creature And it seteth upon the Worship both of Saints and Images the reproachful brand of an Heathenish corruption The Confession of Wirtemburgh though being mindful of the difficulties of its own absurd Consubstantiation it condemneth not the Worship of Christ under the shews of Bread in the Church of Rome as an Idolatrous practice though it granteth that it is possible with God to change the Elements into the Body and Blood of Christ yet it doth not express such favour towards their Worship of Saints It condemneth the Invocation of them according to the Roman Litanies as a practice which ascribeth to them such ubiquity and such knowledg of the Heart as belongeth to God only The Confession of Bohemia allowing some publick Festivals in memory of the Virgin and other Saints does yet suppose that Worship of them which is used in the Church of Rome to be an honour and adoration due to God The Confession of Basil speaking of such precepts and permissions under the Papacy as it esteemeth unlawful doth number the Invocation of Saints and Veneration of Images amongst those things which by virtue of the second Commandment are prohibited by God In the French Synods of the Reformed there is frequent mention of Romish Idolatry For the Church of England she designed in her Articles briefness and avoidance of disputes and having professed the Faith of one God and one Lord Jesus Christ she doth not insist particularly on the Invocation of Saints or the Worship of Images Yet in her twenty-second Article concerning Purgatory she saith of that and of the Romish Doctrine touching Pardons Worship and Adoration as well of Images as of Relicks and also of Invocation of Saints
That it is a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture but rather repugnant to the Word of God Now what can we judg of that Worship which hath for its object something else besides God and is contrary to the Scripture We cannot but think it not a mere impertinence but a wicked act an act which by contradicting his Authority diminisheth his honour and being an act of Worship nothing less than one degree of Idolatry Again in its twenty-eighth Article it teacheth concerning the consecrated Elements That they were not by Christs institution or ordinance reserved carried about lifted up and worshipped By which words it noteth the Adoration of the Host in the Church of Rome not as an innocent circumstance added by the discretion of that Church but as an unlawful worship though it doth not expresly brand it with the name of Idolatry In the Rubrick after the Communion the Adoration of the consecrated Elements is upon this reason forbidden Because the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances And it is there added That they so remaining the Adoration of them would be Idolatry to be abhorred by all faithful Christians This Rubrick doth in effect charge the Church of Rome with gross Idolatry for it supposeth the Object which they materially worship to be in its natural substance still a creature and a creature disjoined from Personal union with Christ and not according to the words of their St. Thomas inserted into their Missal a Deity latent under the accidents of Bread and Wine And it concludeth that the worship of such a substance is such Idolatry as Christian Religion abhorreth It doth not indeed affirm in terms that the worship of such a substance by a Romanist who verily thinks it to be not bread but a Divine body is Idolatry but it saith that whence such a conclusion may be inferred It saith that the bread is still bread in its substance and if it be really such whilst it is worshipped the mistake of the worshipper cannot alter the nature of the thing though according to the degrees of unavoidableness in the causes of his ignorance it may extenuate the crime Upon supposition that still 't is very bread in its substance Costerus and it may be Bellarmine himself would have condemned the Latria of it as the Idolatrous worship of a Creature even in Paul the simple of whom stories say that he was extreamly devout but withal that he knew not which were first the Apostles or the Prophets And here it ought to be well noted that there is a wide distance betwixt this saying That Idolatry is a damnable sin and this assertion That Idolatry in any degree of it and in a person under any kind of circumstances actually damneth I would here also commend it to the observation of the Reader that the Church of England speaketh this of the worship of the corporal substance of the Elements present in the Eucharist after consecration and not of the real and essential presence of Christ. And for this reason it left out the terms of Real and Essential used in the Book of King Edward the sixth as subject to misconstruction Real it is if it be present in its real effects and they are the essence of it so far as a Communicant doth receive it for he receiveth it not so much in the nature of a thing as in the nature of a priviledg But I comprehend not the whole of this Mystery and therefore I leave it to the explication of others who have better skill in untying of knots In the Commination used by the Church of England 'till God be pleased to restore the Discipline of Penance a curse is denounced against all those who make any carved or molten Image to worship it And it is the curse which is in the first place denounced on Ash-Wednesday It is true that it is taken out of the Book of Deuteronomy and it is the sense of a verse in that Book used at large in the former Common-Prayer-Book in these words Cursed is the man that maketh any carved or molten Image an abomination to the Lord the work of the hands of the craftsman and putteth it in a secret place to worship it That is though it be done without scandal to men and in such private manner as to avoid the punishment which the Law inflicteth on known and publick offenders But the Church of England repeating this Law in its Commination doth thereby own it to be still of validity and to oblige Christian men The Homilies which are an Appendage to our Church do expresly arraign the Roman-Catholicks as Idolaters in the learned Discourses of the peril of Idolatry Also English Princes and Bishops have declared themselves to be of the same perswasion King Edward the sixth in his Injunctions reckoneth Pictures and Paintings in the Churches of England as adorned by the Romanists amongst the Monuments of Idolatry Of the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth this is the Thirty-fifth That no persons keep in their houses any abused Images Tables Pictures Paintings or other Monuments of feigned Miracles Pilgrimages Idolatry and Superstition Of the Articles of Inquiry in the first year of her Reign this is one and pertinent to our present Discourse Whether you know any that keep in their Houses any undefaced Images Tables Pictures Paintings or other Monuments of feigned and false Miracles Pilgrimages Idolatry and Superstition and do adore them especially such as have been set up in Churches Chappels and Oratories This likewise is one of the Articles of Visitation set forth by Cranmer Arch-bishop of Canterbury in the second year of Edward the sixth Whether Parsons c. have not removed and taken away and utterly extincted and destroyed in their Churches Chappels and Houses all Images all Shrines Pictures Paintings and all other Monuments of Idolatry and Superstition Bishop Jewel's opinion is so well known that his words may be spared And that Confession of Faith which he penned and which maketh a part of his Apology for the Church of England and in which he calleth the Invocation of Saints in the Church of Rome a practice vile and plainly Heathenish is put into the collection of the Confessions of the Reformed under the Title of the English Confession But the Churches Confession it cannot be called with respect to her Authority which did not frame it whatsoever it be in its substance and in its conformity to her Articles For others of the Church of England a very Learned person the Hannibal and Terrour of Modern Rome hath named enough T. G. hath indeed excepted against many of the Jury but whether he hath not illegally challenged so many of them remaineth a Question or rather it is with the Judicious out of dispute The sentences of private men spoken on this occasion both here and beyond the Seas either broadly or indirectly are scarce to be
ground This opinion and practice had been the more tolerable if they had restrained it unto Angels of whose presence knowledg ministration the Scripture hath spoken but they extend it to Saints and for the holy Virgin their devotion is greater towards her than towards the highest Angel she being called the Queen of those Heavenly Powers The Authoress of the Spiritual Institutions prays not only to the Angels to the Angel-Guardian of her Person and to the Angel-Guardian of her Religion that is of her Order but likewise to St. Bernardine St. Placidus and other Saints as to her selected Patrons And Horstius a man of rank devotion towards Spirits and often to be remembred by me treateth first of the Worship of Saints and of them as Patrons and then of the Worship of Angels and Angel-Guardians Concerning Angels he sheweth that holy men such as he so esteemeth did both pray to their Guardian-spirit and to such Angels as were Presidents of Kingdoms Provinces Cities Towns with solioitous zeal and he nameth St. Xavier St. Aloysius and St. Francis and calleth to mind the singular devotion of the last towards St. Michael the Archangel Then for the Saints he celebrates them as such Who being formerly servants and stewards are now set over all the Goods of their Lord in the land of the living He saith that it belongeth to their praise and glory that their Aid be invoked and that they protect us in necessity And he teacheth his Reader thus to worship the Virgin Holy Mary Mother of God and Virgin I though unworthy to serve thee yet trusting in the clemency of thy Motherly heart chuse thee this day before my Guardian-Angel and the whole Court of Heaven for my Mother and peculiar Lady Patroness and Advocatrix And I firmly resolve henceforth to serve thee and thy Son with fidelity and perpetually to adhere to you I beseech thee by that love by which thy Son when he was giving up the Ghost upon the Cross commended himself to his Father and thee to his true Disciple and him again to thee to take me into thy care and protection and be thou with me in all the straits and dangers of my whole life but especially help me in the hour of my death Amen I have said that it is more tolerable to pray thus to Angels than it is to Saints but I can find little ground in Reason or Scripture thus to worship the Angels themselves Reason teacheth that God who made the World is the Governour of it The Scripture teacheth that there are distinct Orders of Angels but it disalloweth of such Lieutenancy under God as men have ascribed to them It mentioneth Thrones and Powers and Dominions and Principalities yet rather in allusion to the Gnosticks as was above conjectured than by way of assertion of such Orders Those Hereticks Irenaeus provoketh to tell what is the nature of Invisible Beings what is the number and order of Angels what are the Mysteries of Thrones and the diversities of Dominions Principalities Powers Virtues and he assureth us they were at a loss So ignorant was the Christian World in his time of the Nine Orders of the feigned Dionysius the Areopagite That there are distinct Orders of Spirits that there are Angels and Archangels I firmly believe But it does not thence follow that the Government of the World is shared amongst them though they have a Ministerial part in the affairs of it Archangels seem no other than the seven Spirits typified by the seven Lamps in the Temple Their Office was as elect and eminent Spirits to minister before the Throne of God and on solemn occasions to be sent in Embassie to the World Such a one was Gabriel who stood in the Presence of God and was sent to the Blessed Virgin Nothing of this inferreth their distinct Provinces committed to them but it sheweth only the dignity of their station and their occasional Ministry Neither doth it follow from the seven Angels mentioned as Presidents of the seven Churches of Asia that they as some have taught were under the Charge and Patronage of seven Spirits For St. John is required to write to these Angels and to reprove their faults as the abatement of Love in the Angel of Ephesus and his Church And he makes distinct mention of the seven Spirits and the seven Stars which latter he had shewed to be the Angels of those Churches and who were therefore no other than the Bishops of them called by a name which is given the High Priest in the Prophet Malachy and by the Jews in Diodorus Christian Religion owneth but one proper Substitute under God one Paraclete or Patron for so that title signifies one proper Mediator the glorified Jesus the Spirits under him are but Angels or Messengers though sent abroad on different Embassies Wherefore I know not how to approve of the expression of a late very grave and learned Author who speaketh of the Invisible Regiment of the World by the subordinate Government of good and evil Angels It is true that the good are a Community and so in some sort are the bad but their divers Orders concern their own society most and they are not to be construed as the Orders and Powers in the frame of Gods Government of the whole World It is also to be confessed that Elisha's servant to reflect a little on his instance saw fiery Chariots and Horsmen in the Mount and that this was a representation of Gods Angels in the scene of a Camp But no other Argument ought to be fetched thence besides that which concludeth that there is a greater power in God and his Coelestial Ministers than in the Armies of the World He that will torture this Vision and make it confess commission-Officers amongst them ought also to make them ride on Horses and Chariots For evil Angels their dominion is oftner mentioned than that of the good But certainly though they are called in Scripture Principalities and Powers no man that carefully attendeth to his words will call them also subordinate Governours of the World For they are professed Rebels against God who doth not own or treat them as his subjects but he being provoked by the perverseness of wicked men permitteth those rebellious Daemons to exercise great power amongst the children of disobedience who are in indirect Covenant with them It is worse still to say that God ruleth the World by Saints than to affirm so much of him in reference to his holy Angels yet this the Romanists openly maintain and some also who have not only disputed but even raved against the Church of Rome For so it is said by Thomas Goodwin in his Sermon of the fifth Monarchy That the Saints on earth have by their Prayers an influence in the managing the affairs of the World and into the accomplishment of all the great things that Christ doth for his Church That
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 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
doth the Scripture ever say that God answered by Thummim It saith not that God did forbear to answer Saul by Urim and Thummim but only that he did not answer him by Urim For the Moral Law was a standing Rule and not an Extemporary Oracle And we may observe from Diodorus Siculus that the Egyptian Judg whom he speaketh of when he put on his glorious 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sign or image called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had also the Law in Eight Books laying before him AElian and Diodorus tell this story in differing manner and it may be the thirty Judges were so many of the seventy Elders and the Eight Books of Law were the Ten Commandments and the Saphire or Gems in the Pectoral were the twelve precious stones according to the number of the Tribes all used by the High-Priest of the Jews at Heliopolis where was Schismatically aped the worship and judgment of Jerusalem For in such matters the blunders of Historians are often more shameful than these Nay what if the Book containing the worship of the gods and bound about with scarlet-threads mentioned by the same Diodorus should be the Copy of the Moral Law in the Ark whose outside was wrought with gold with blue with purple with scarlet and fine-twined linnen This is none of my Faith yet many such imperfect Narrations are to be found in him and other Historians who write of things in such ancient and dark times For the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though that was given to the Pectoral or to the illustrious Gem or Gems on it and not particularly to the Law yet to the Law of God it well agreeth David saying concerning it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thy Law is Truth As congruous is the name of Thummim or Perfections the same Royal Prophet saying Thy Law is perfect 'T is perfect and without blemish in it though the Laws of men are stained with divers spots and imperfections It is perfect as a straight Rule it bendeth not to mens corrupt wills It is a compleat Rule extending to all our needful cases It is exceeding broad whilst there is an end of all other pretended Perfections Of the perfection of this Law the Son of Sirach speaketh saying A man of understanding trusteth in the Law and the Law is faithful unto him as an Oracle or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the reading of the Alexandrian Copy of the Seventy as the asking of or the answer to the Interrogatory at Urim In which words let the Reader well consider whether the Author does not oppose the Law to the Oracle as the Thummim to the Urim saying in effect The Law laid up in the Ark is as certain a Rule to go by in the Moral course of a mans life as the Oracle from above the Ark where the Urim was an appendage of Gods Shechinah was a direction in extraordinary cases And whereas Urim is only mentioned why Scaliger should say the meaning is The Law is faithful to him as Urim and Thummim he himself best knows But it may be thought from the force of the Premisses that he has in effect rendred the saying such a kind of Tautology as this The Law is faithful as the Law Another place there is worthy our observation in this Argument and the rather because it is a more Canonical portion of Scripture It is that of S. John who saith that the law was given by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. These words if I will serve my Hypothesis I must thus Paraphrase The Thummim or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Law was received from Gods substitute the Logos by Moses who delivered it to the people but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Christian Law of the Gospel of Grace came not only from but by Jesus Christ the Logos made flesh as was said a verse or two before and he even God-incarnate did publish it with his own mouth If this notion hath any truth in it then that Prayer of Moses or blessing of Levi Let thy Thummim and thy Urim be with thy holy One may be thus expounded let thy Law the ordinary Rule preferable before any extemporary Oracle and also thy extraordinary inspiration together with thy blessing be present with the linage of Aaron consecrated to the Priest-hood though thou wert angry with him for his carriage at the waters of Meribah or Massah and for that reason deniedst him an entrance into the land of Canaan But I will plainly acknowledge that notwithstanding all here said by me that may be true which Munster said That no mortal man can now tell what the Urim and Thummim were But in aiming with our conjectural Bolts at Truth as in shooting if the white be not hit it is some kind of felicity to come nigh the Mark. Now though the Logos appeared on the Ark both in the Tabernacle and the Temple and though he was also present with this lesser Ark the Pectoral yet he did not limit himself to these holy Instruments and the places of them He appeared elsewhere sometimes when the emergent occasion was remote from these Arks and when the privacy of the Revelation to those who were not High-Priests was expedient or necessary unless we should say that the less solemn and less majestick Apparitions were made by Angels That it was the Logos who shew'd himself to Joshuah giving to him a promise of defence is the joynt opinion of Justin Martyr Eusebius and Theodoret and likewise of one more modern yet not unworthy to be named amongst them the most learned Archbishop of Armagh But a fragment of an antient and venerable Greek Scholion produced by Valesius will have it to be Michael and not the very Son of God Be it the one or the other I hold â—…ot my self much obliged to concern my self as a party in the dispute Only I am inclined to think it the Logos because the place of the appearance was sacred Joshuah pulling of his Shoes in token of a Divine rather than of an Angelical presence Little is recorded of Gods Shechinah from the time of Joshua to David But David in his Psalms is very frequent in celebrating Gods presence in the Sanctuary on Mount Sion And of his being there where God was present by his Image or Shechinah in the Temple though not in the holiest place of it after deliverance from his enemies who stood in his way both to the holy City and holy Temple some interpret these words of his in the 17th Psalm As for me I will behold thy face or Shechinah in righteousness I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness Or as I find it expounded in the Septuagint when I shall see thy glory or glorious presence Thy Temunah the word in the Hebrew thy Image of the Logos In Solomon's time the Ark was placed in a most magnificent Temple which
Joshua flat to the ground when the Prince of the Host of God appeared to him The like proof is produced by the Catechism of Trent from the blessing which Jacob obtained of the Angel with whom he strugled If Christ were considered as the Angel of the great Council appearing in cases of moment under the Old Testament and receiving the veneration most due to him the Worshippers of Angels would either change their weapons or quite lay them down Then touching the Worship of Images this notion is very serviceable in that controverted point as likewise in the point of making either Religious Sâ—…atues or Pictures If any thing of the Divinity be to be portraied we learn from hence what it may be not the Godhead but the Shechinah That is visible and the expressing of it with the best lights and shadows of Art may therefore be not unlawful though I know not whether I ought to plead for the expediency of it in common use There was it seems in a Frontispiece of our Common-Prayer Books some such Embleme The word Jehovah and a three corner'd radiant light and clouds and Angels He that took notice of this in Print and might have observed the like before some of the great Church-Bibles and somewhat worse the picture of a Dove with rays of glory before the Biblia Polyglotta did not well to call it a representing of God and to charge that upon the Church which was the fancy of the Engraver and Printer I have already noted a much worse Frontispiece in each of the three parts of the Pontifical where God is pictured as man And in those days in which the Bishop of Rome ruled in England there were Emblemes apt to suggest a very dangerous fancy to common brains Pictures of the Trinity in three conjoined heads of human Figure And so ordinary they were that they served as Signs to the Shops of Stationers as now do the Heads of a King or a Bishop And he that printed the Pupilla Oculi of de Burgo was pleased to stamp his Sign in that manner on the Title-page of the Book Nay in the late Missal reprinted at Paris there is none of the best faces of an Old man pictured amongst Clouds and Angels over the Crucifix before the Canon of the Mass. And though I know not how to commend these things yet I will not blame them as acts of their whole Church It does not any-where appear to me that the Jews of old pictured the Ark or the Temple though now they make models of the whole How near they come to the Original I cannot tell but it is certain that in picturing the Sanctuary above we create a Phantasm which needs much to be helped by our Reason and Faith it being in it self not equal in glory to those of the Sun and the Rainbow It is true that Pictures are but signs and that words are so too but it is not expedient to describe all things by the pencil which come from the voice Words are Signs without Imagery in them and they are transient Ye heard a voice only but ye saw no similitude saith God Almighty to the people to whom he forbade Images Words are properly the symbols of the conceptions of the mind and not of the external object They are notes of memory and helps of discourse They are in themselves a kind of spiritual and immaterial marks And though sometimes especially in Poetick characters they bring to the fancy some present representation yet they thereby fix a notion rather than a proper constant phantasm unless where fancy is indulged and they do not so grosly impress upon the brain the Image they convey as a material Picture which having also some tangible substance to sustain it is apt to be transform'd into an object of worship distinct from the Prototype in dull and sensitive minds Besides when by words we convey to the mind a representation of Heaven or the Shechinah of God we rest not there but following the pattern of the Holy writers we offer to the mind what the Painter cannot to the eye this further document that we have not by far reached the original and that it is indeed beyond all expressions but those of admiration When any such Pictures hang before us we should in this manner exalt the phantasm into mental astonishment and not dwell on the mean portraict but refine and exalt it by the assistance of the words of Scripture which call the Shechinah the excellent Glory the Throne before which the Cherubims fall down with vailed face the light inaccessible in which God dwells The Throne of the Lamb who is brighter than the Sun words by which the Pen assisteth us beyond any Pencil of Angelo or Titian yet neither are their devotional pieces where they mix not as Angelo doth in his portraict of the Judgment Heaven and Christian Images Charon and Christ to be despis'd either as ornaments or hints of memory In the Catechism of the Council of Trent the Parish-Priest is required to take care that Images be made Ad utriusque Testamenti cognoscendam Historiam for procuring the knowledg of the History of the Bible And well it had been if it had stayed there but it proceeds in requiring the Priest to teach the people that Images of Saints are placed in Churches ut Colantur that they may be worship'd either the Images or the Saints by them Better sure it were to remove Images quite out of the Church than to leave them as such stumbling-blocks for the commonalty who are Children in understanding When they see them only at a distance with their eye they may sometimes instruct them and afford them hints of very good meditations but when they are directed to bow down before them and to them also though with distinctions which the vulgar understand not they then are if Laymens Books Books of Magick rather than of Christian Piety God you see hath provided a better remedy for mankind His Son hath taken our nature into unity of person and he offers himself to us as an object shining with glory and power in the Heavens though not there in his Godhead confined and therefore to use any Image of him otherwise then to be a hint to us of his more glorious one at Gods right hand is to direct our devotion to the light of rotten Wood or Gold or Pearl when we have the Sun in the Firmament If we worship Christs Image as apart from him we do in effect divide Christ. If we worship it together with him we in effect multiply Christ joyning a second lifeless body to his glorious one and by that means adoring it as if it were in personal union with him They are safe who say with S. Jerome “ We venerate only one Image to wit Jesus Christ the Image of the Invisible and Omnipotent God When the Father brought this brightness of his glory and the express Image of his