and overthrows the worship of the Poetical Gods upon this principle because they were not eternal and were confessed to be at first made out of matter and why should we worship them which are material and generated and lyable to all sorts of passions according to the Poets description of them But it may be this was nothing but Poetical figments and they ought all to be understood of the natures of things as Empedocles explains them why then saith he should we attribute the same honour to matter which is subject to corruption and mutation as to the eternal unbegotten and immutable God Jupiter according to the Stoicks was the most active and fiery principle of matter Juno the air Neptune the water but they all agreed that by their Deities were understood the several parts of the Universe although with different manners of explication Now saith he against the Stoicks I thus argue and here Athenagoras knew that the Emperour M. Aurelius would think himself particularly concerned If you own one Supreme God eternal and unbegotten and all other things to be made up of matter and the Spirit of God to receive different names as it passes through the various changes of matter then these several kinds of matter will make up one body whereof God is the soul and consequently upon the general conflagration which the Stoicks acknowledged all the several names of matter will be lost by the corruptions of the kinds and nothing will be then left but the Divine Spirit why should we therefore look on those as gods that are lyable to such a change And so he proceeds to argue against the other hypotheses as the Egyptians and others whereby all their Deities were reduced to the principles of nature too from the same principle viz. that because these things were made and corruptible they were not capable of receiving divine honour from us By all which we see that the fundamental principle which Athenagoras went upon in this elaborate discourse of his to one of the Wisest Emperours Rome ever had was this that nothing but the eternal God ought to receive Divine Worship from men whether they called it Soveraign or Relative or what name soever they gave it nay although they did acknowledge one supreme God yet if they gave divine worship to his Creatures as the Stoicks did the Christians thought it so unlawful that they would rather die than comply with them in it And here I appeal again to T. G 's conscience for since he hath shewed me the way I hope I may follow him in it whether he think so Wise and Vertuous an Emperour as Antoninus was would not have preserved the Christians from suffering persecution as they did very smartly in his days if they would have declared themselves to have understood the principles of the Roman Religion after the Emperours own way viz. by believing one Supreme God and worshipping the several parts of the Universe under the names of those Deities that were commonly received and they might have directed this worship as they had thought fit and have disowned all the ridiculous and prophane stories of their Poetical Gods as the Stoicks did and what principle then could hinder the Christians from complying with the Laws but this that they accounted it Idolatry to give divine worship to any created Being From Athenagoras I proceed to Clemens Alexandrinus who understood the principles of the Heathen Theology as well as any and exposes all their Poetical Fables and Greek Mysteries with as much advantage as any Christian Writer in his Admonition to the Greeks After he hath sufficiently derided the Poetical Theology and the Vulgar Idolatry he comes to the Philosophers who did he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make an Idol of matter the Images whereof were not surely the representation of a thing not existent as a Centaur or Sphinx and yet called an Idol and after reckoning up Thales Anaximenes Parmenides Hippasus Heraclitus and Empedocles he calls them all Atheists because with a foolish kind of Wisdom they did worship Matter and scorning to worship Wood and Stones did Deifie the Mother of them And so runs out after his way into a discourse about the several Nations that despised Images and worshipped the several parts of the Universe and the symbols of them as the Scythians Sarmatians Persians and Macedonians who he saith were the Philosophers Masters in the worship of these inferiour Elements which were made to be serviceable to men Then he reckons up other Philosophers that worshipped the Stars as animated beings others the Planets and the World and the Stoicks who said God passed through the meanest parts of matter yet after all this he confesseth that there is a certain divine influence distilled upon all men especially on those who apply themselves to learning by vertue of which they are forced to acknowledge one God incorruptible and unbegotten who is the only true Being and abides for ever above the highest Heavens from whence he beholds all the things that are done in Heaven and Earth who according to Euripides sees all things without being visible himself And for the proof of this he brings the Testimonies of Plato Antisthenes and Xenophon who all acknowledge Gods incomparable excellency as well as unity and then adds the Testimonies of Cleanthes and the Pythagoreans and not contented with the Philosophers he heaps the testimonies of the Poets to the same purpose as Aratus Hesiod Orpheus Sophocles Menander Homer and Euripides In the fifth Book of his Miscellanies for so his Stromata truely are he falls upon this subject again and then saith to the same purpose that there is a natural knowledge of one omnipotent God among all considering men he grants the Stoicks opinion about God to be agreeable to the Scriptures and shews that Thales confessed Gods eternity and omnisciency that Epicharmus attributed omnipotency to him and Homer the creation of the world which he described in the shield of Achilles and then makes this observation as though it were purposely intended for T. G. he that is called both in Verse and Prose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Iupiter carries our apprehension to God not to the Arch Devil as T. G. saith and therefore he is said to be all things and to know all things and to give and take away all things and to be King over all that Pindar the Baeotian being a Pythagorean said there was one maker of all things whom he called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Wise Artificer and then he repeats several of the Testimonies which he had produced before to which he adds that of Xenophanes Colophonius proving God to be one and incorporeal and of Cleanthes reproving the opinion of the vulgar about the Deity and of Euphorion and Aeschilus about Iupiter which for T. G 's better information I shall set down 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iupiter is
God-head which was to be seen by the things that were made so as to leave them without excuse Was this their knowing of God and that incorruptible God whose glory they turned into the Image of a corruptible man c Was all this nothing but Iupiter of Crete and the Arch-Devil under his name But what will not men say rather than confess themselves Idolaters Although these Testimonies of Scriture be never so evident yet I am not sure but T. G. may be the Polus mentioned in Erasmus now whom he mentions for my sake more than once and may espy a red fiery Dragon even the old Serpent there where I can see nothing but the discovery of the True God Therefore supposing that the Testimony of Heathens or the Scriptures may not weigh much with him methinks he might have considered what the Learned men of their own Church have said to this purpose Th. Aquinas confesseth that the most of the Gentiles did acknowledge one Supreme God from whom they said all those others whom they called Gods did receive their being and that they ascribed the name of Divinity to all immortal substances chiefly by reason of their wisdom happiness and Government Which custom of speaking saith he is likewise found in Scripture where either the holy Angels or Men and Iudges are called Gods I have said Ye are Gods and many other places Franciscus Ferrariensis in his Commentaries on that place saith that Aquinas his meaning was that the Scripture only agreed with the Heathens as to the name but that they called their Gods properly so whereas the Scripture speaks of them only by way of participation And did Aquinas mean any otherwise of the Heathens when he saith that all their inferiour Gods derived their very being from the Supreme The same Aquinas in his Book purposely written against the Gentiles gives this account of their Principles of Religion that some of them held one God the first and universal principle of all things but withall all they gave Divine Worship Latriam next to the Supreme God to intellectual substances of a heavenly nature which they call Gods whether they were substances separated from bodies or the Souls of the heavenly Orbs and Stars in the next place to intellectual substances united to aerial bodies which they called Daemons whom they made Gods in respect of men and thought they deserved divine worship from men as being Mediatours between the Gods and them and in the last place to the Souls of good men as being raised to a higher state than that of this present life Others of them suppossing God to be the Soul of the World did believe that divine worship was to be given to the whole world and the several parts of it not for the sake of the Body but the Soul which they said was God as a wise man hath honour given him not for the sake of his Body but of his mind Others again asserted that things below men as Images might have divine worship given to them in as much as they did participate of a Superiour nature either from the influence of heavenly bodies or the presence of some Spirits which Images they called Gods and from thence they were called Idolaters And so he proves that they were who acknowledging one first principle did give divine worship to any other being because it weakens the notion and esteem we ought to have of the Supreme Being to give divine worship to any other besides him as it would lessen the honour of a King for any other Person to have the same kind of respect shewed to him which we express to the King and because this divine worship is due to God on the account of Creation which is proper only to him and because he is properly Lord over us and none else besides him and he is our great and last end which are all of them great and weighty reasons why divine worship should be appropriated to God alone But saith he although this opinion which makes God a separate Being and the first Cause of all intellectual Beings be true yet that which makes God the Soul of the World though it be farther from truth gives a better account of giving divine worship to created Beings For then they give that divine worship to God himself for according to this principle the several parts of the world in respect of God are but as the several members of a mans body in respect of his Soul But the most unreasonable opinion he saith is that of animated Images because those cannot deserve more worship than either the Spirits that animate them or the makers of them which ought not to have divine worship given them besides that by lying Oracles and wicked Counsels these appear to have been Evil Spirits and therefore deserve no worship of us From hence he saith it appears that because divine worship is proper only to God as the first principle and none but an ill disposed rational Being can excite men to the doing such unlawful things as giving the worship proper to God to any other Being that men were drawn to Idolatry by the instigation of evil Spirits which coveted divine honours to themselves and therefore the Scripture saith they worshipped Devils and not God From which remarkable Testimony we may take notice of these things 1. That he confesseth many of the Gentiles whom he charges with Idolatry did believe and worship the Supreme God as Creator and Governour of the world 2. That divine worship is so proper to the true God that whosoever gives it to any created being though in it self of real excellency and considered as deriving that excellency from God is yet guilty of Idolatry 3. That relative Latria being given to a creature is Idolatry for so he makes it to be in those who supposed God to be the Soul of the world And I desire T. G. or any other cunning Sophister among them to shew me why a man may not as lawfully worship any part of the world with a relative Latria supposing God to be the Soul of the world as any Image or Crucifix whatsoever For if union contact or relation be a sufficient ground for relative Latria in one case it will be in the other also and I cannot but wonder so great a judgement as Aquinas had should not either have made him justifie the Heathens on this supposition or condemn the Christians in giving Latria i. e. proper divine worship to the Cross. For there is not any shadow of reason produced by him for the one which would not held have much more for the other For if the honour of the Image is carried to the Prototype is not the honour of the members of the Body to the mind that animates them If the Image deserve the same worship with the person represented by it is not much more any part of the body capable of receiving the honour due to the Person as the
Popes Toe is of the worship that is given to him Why should it be more unlawful to worship God by worshipping Fire or Water or the Earth or any inferiour creature supposing God to be the Soul of the World than it is to shew Reverence to the Pope by kissing his Toe which I suppose can be upon no other reason but because it is a part of his body which is animated by the same Soul in all the members of it 4. That Aquinas doth not therefore say that the Heathens worshipped Devils because the Supreme God whom they worshipped was an Arch-Devil as T. G. saith but because none but evil Spirits would draw men to give divine worship to any thing but God himself and then that evil Spirits did appear to heighten and encourage this devotion by acting and speaking in Images The consequence of which I desire T. G. to consider And this testimony of Aquinas is the more considerable not only for his great Authority in the Roman Church and because Pius 5. in the approbation of his Works A. D. 1567. very gravely mentions Christs speaking to him from a Crucifix when he was praying before it that he had written well concerning him it seems the Crucifix was animated too but because I find this Book so highly applauded by Possevin and others for the best account of the Christian Religion in opposition to Heathenism Card. Cajetan in his Commentaries on Aquinas speaking of the Images of God he distinguishes them into 3. sorts 1. Some that were to represent the Divinity which he utterly condemns 2. Some to set forth the appearances of God mentioned in Scripture 3. Some by way of Analogy that by sensible things we may be brought to the veneration of insensible as the Holy Ghost in the form of an old man holding a globe in his hand which last way saith he comes near to the custom of the Heathens who represented God diversly as he is the cause of divers effects as under the form of Minerva by reason of his Wisdom and the like Would Cajetan ever have parallel'd the Custome of the Church of Rome with that of the Heathens if he had thought they had only pictured the Devil under these representations In another place he puts this Question how it could be said that all the Gods of the Heathens were Devils since although they worshipped many Gods yet withal they worshipped one Supreme God To which he answers 1. That the Devils were the causes of Idolatry and so they were Devils causally though not essentially 2. That although those they worshipped were not in themselves Devils as the heavenly intelligences yet they were so as they were the Gods of the Heathens i. e. as they had divine worship given to them And the true God himself he saith was not worshipped according to what he was but according to what they conceived of him But he grants before that they conceived of him as the Supreme God which was a right conception of him but if he means it was imperfect is it not so in those who worship him most truly Martinus Peresius Ayala a learned Bishop in Spain treating the Question of the worship of Images saith expresly That S. Augustine condemned all divine worship or Latria to be given to any kind of Images not saith he in regard of their matter for there was no need to give caution against that but in regard of their representation and he calls them Idolaters which give that worship to Images which is due to God with T. G 's leave I translate Simulachra Images for so I am sure Peresius understands it Neither saith he was S. Augustine ignorant that there were few or none among the Gentiles who thought the matter of their Idols so fashioned to be Gods or God let T. G. mark that but on that account he seems to condemn them that they gave divine honour to their Images as they represented God for there were many Idols among them in which there was no Devil who gave answers but they only represented God as their benefactor neither did all the things which the Gentiles worshipped signifie a false God For there was an Altar at Athens to the unknown God Ioh. Ferus saith that the intention of the Heathens was through their Idols to give worship to the true God Now T. G. knows that humane acts dâ— certainly go whither they are intended so that according to Ferus these Heathens did truly worship the true God Athan. Kircher layes it down as a certain principle that there never was in any Age any People so rude and barbarous which did not acknowledge and worship one Supreme Deity the first principle and Governour of all things But saith he that they might teach the people that the Supreme Being whom we call God wâ—â— present in all places therefore they maâ—â— abundance of Gods in all places and ovâ—â— all things So that as Max. Tyrius saith no place was left without a Deity Petavius not only makes use of the arguments produced by the Heathens to prove one Supreme God and thinks them considerable but saith that S. Paul demonstrates mark that that the Gentile Philosophers attained to the knowledge of God by the works of Creation and quotes the saying of Max. Tyrius with approbation that however the several Nations of the world differed from each other in customs and languages and modes of worship yet they all agreed in this that there was one God Lord and Father of all and saith that the Testimony of Orosius is most true that both the Philosophers and common Heathens did believe one God the authour of all things and to whom all things are referred but that under this God they did worship many inferiour and subservient Gods and he adds that passage of S. Augustin that the Heathens supposed all their Gods to come at first out of one substance but I wonder he omitted what is very observable in the same chapter viz. that Faustus the Manichean holding two first principles saith that the Christians joyned with the Heathens in believing but one and S. Augustin confesseth that the greatest part of the Heathens did believe the same with the Christians in that point but the difference he saith lay here that they worshipped more Gods than one and therein the Manichees agreed with them and the Christians only with the Jews but the Manichees in that were worse than the Heathens that these worshipped those things for Gods which were but were not Gods but they worshipped those things which were so far from bein Gods that they were not at all Faber Faventinus in his discourse against Atheists insists upon this as an argument of some weight to prove a Deity because all mankind had so settled a notion of one first principle in their minds from which all things come and by which they were governed and however they differed in other conceptions about
worship the same Gods with them nor offer up libations and the smoak of sacrifices to dead men Nor crown and worship Images that they agreed with Menander who said we ought not to worship the work of mens hands not because Devils dwelt in them but because men were the makers of them And he wondered they could call them Gods which they knew to be without soul and dead and to have no likeness to God it was not then upon the account of their being animated by evil Spirits that the Christians rejected this worship for then these reasons would not have held All the resemblance they had was to those evil Spirits that had appeared among men for that was Iustins opinion of the beginning of Idolatry that God had committed the Government of all things under the heavens to particular Angels but these Angels prevaricating by the love of Women did upon them beget Daemons that these Daemons were the great corrupters of mankind and partly by frightful apparitions and by instructing men in Idolatrous rites did by degrees draw men to give them divine worship the people not imagining them to be evil Spirits and so were called by such names as they liked best themselves as Neptune Pluto c. But the true God had no certain name given to him for saith he Father and God and Creator and Lord and Master are not names but titles arising from his works and good deeds and God is not a name but a notion engrafted in humane nature of an unexpressible Being But that God alone is to be worshipped appears by this which is the great command given to Christians Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve with all thy heart and with all thy strength even the Lord God that made thee Where we see the force of the argument used by Iustin in behalf of the Christians lay in Gods peremptory prohibition of giving divine worship to any thing but himself and that founded upon Gods right of dominion over us by vertue of creation In his Book of the Divine Monarchy he shews that although the Heathens did make great use of the Poets to justifie their Polytheism yet they did give clear testimony of one Supreme Deity who was the Maker and Governour of all things for which end he produces the sayings of Aeschylus Sophocles Orpheus Pythagoras Philemon Menander and Euripides all very considerable to this purpose In his works there is extant the resolution of several Questions by a Greek Philosopher and the Christians reply in which nothing can be more evident than that it was agreed on both sides that there was one Supreme God infinitely good powerful and wise Nay the Greek Philosopher looks upon the ignorance of God as a thing impossible because all men naturally agree in the knowledge of God But there are plain evidences in that Book that it is of later date than Iustins time therefore instead of insisting any more on that I shall give a farther proof that in his time it could be no part of the dispute between the Christians and Heathens whether there were one Supreme God that ought to be worshipped by men and that shall be from that very Emperour to whom Eusebius saith Iustin Martyr did make his second Apology viz. M. Aurelius Antoninus It is particularly observed of him by the Roman Historians that he had a great zeal for preserving the Old Roman Religion and Iul. Capitolinus saith that he was so skilful in all the practices of it that he needed not as it was common for one to prompt him because he could say the prayers by heart and he was so confident of the protection of the Gods that he bids Faustina not punish those who had conspired against him for the Gods would defend him his zeal being pleasing to them and therefore Baronius doth not wonder that Iustin and other Christians suffered Martyrdom under him But in the Books which are left of his writing we may easily discover that he firmly believed an eternal Wisdom and Providence which managed the World and that the Gods whose veneration he commends were looked on by him as the subservient Ministers of the Divine Wisdom Reverence the Gods saith he but withal he saith honour that which is most excellent in the world that which disposeth and Governs all which sometimes he calls the all-commanding reason sometimes the Mind and Soul of the World which he expresly saith is but one And in one place he saith that there is but one World and one God and one substance and one Law and one common reason of intelligent beings and one Truth But the great objection against such Testimonies of Antoninus and others lies in this that these only shew the particular opinions of some few men of Philosophical minds but they do not reach to the publick and established Religion among them which seemed to make no difference between the Supreme God and other Deities from whence it follows that they did not give to him any such worship a◠belonged to him Which being the most considerable objection against the design of this present discourse I shall here endeavour to remove it before I produce any farther testimonies of the Fathers For which we must consider wherei◠the Romans did suppose the solemn and outward acts of their Religion to consist viz. in the worship appropriated 〈◊〉 their Temples or in occasional prayers and vows or in some parts of divination whereby they supposed God did make known his mind to them If I can therefore prove that the Romans did in an extraordinary manner make use of all these acts of Religious worship to the Supreme God it will then necessarily follow that the controversie between the Fathers and them about Idolatry could not be about the worship of one Supreme God but about giving Religious worship to any else besides him The Worship performed in their Temples was the most solemn and frequent among them in so much that Tully saith therein the people of Rome exceeded all Nations in the world but the most solemn part of that Worship was that which was performed in the Capitol at Rome and in the Temple of Iupiter Latialis in Alba and both these I shall prove were dedicated to the Supreme God The first Capitol was built at Rome by Numa Pompilius and called by Varro the old Capitol which stood at a good distance from the place where the foundations of the great Temple were laid by Tarquinius Priscus the one being about the Cirque of Flora the other upon the Tarpeian Mountain There is so little left of the memory of the former that for the design of it we are to judge by the general intention of Numa as to the worship of the Deity of which Plutarch gives this account That he forbad the Romans making any Image of God either like to men or beast because the First Being is
and Governour of the Universe the Soul and Spirit and Lord and Maker of the world which is as full a testimony as can be wished for to our purpose The title of Iupiter Omnipotens is so frequent in Virgil that it is needless to cite any places for it and he was particularly observed by the ancient Criticks to be so nice and exact in all matters that concerned their Religion as if he had been Pontifex Max. as Macrobius observes He is called in the known verses of Valerius Soranus produced by Varro Iupiter omnipotens Regum Rex ipse Deusque Progenitor genitrixque Deum Deus unus omnis And this man was accounted the most learned among the Romans before Varro on which account his testimony is the more considerable But besides the Poets we find others attributing omnipotency to their Iove Tacitus disputing what God Serapis was says some called him Iove ut rerum omnium potentem whereby it appears that they looked on omnipotency as proper to him So in the speech of young Manlius in Livy to Geminius when he asked him when the Roman Army would come out he said very speedily and Iupiter would come with them as witness of their Falseness Iupiter qui plus potest polletque which signifies no less than an Almighty power When the miraculous victory was obtained by M. Antoninus over the Marcomanni by the prayers of the Christians as Tertullian and Apollinaris say upon good grounds although the Heathen historians attribute it to the vertue of Antoninus or to some Magicians with him the whole Army made this exclamation saith Tertullian Deo Deorum qui solus Potens whereby they did saith he in Iovis nomine Deo nostro testimonium reddere by which it is evident they intended this honour to their own Iove for in the whole Army only the Legio Fulminatrix are supposed to have been Christians and besides this upon Antoninus his Column at Rome Baronius tells us there is still to be seen the Effigies of Iupiter Pluvius destroying men and horses with thunder and lightning Dio Chrysostome who lived in Trajans time saith that by Jupiter whom the Poets call the Father of Gods and men was meant the first and greatest God the Supreme Governour of the world and King over all rational Beings and that the world is Jupiters house or rather his City being under his care and government and that in their prayers to him they called him Father which shews not only their esteem of him but the particular worship they gave to him as Supreme God Besides the worship of him in the Temple they made solemn addresses and prayers and vows to him on special occasions Livy mentions Romulus his prayer to Iove with his Arms lifted up to Heaven when his Army was flying Iupiter tuis jussus avibus c. At â—â— Pater Deûm hominumque hinc saltem arcâ—â— hostes and then makes a vow to him of building a Temple in that place Statori Iovi and presently he speaks to his Souldiers as if he were sure his prayers were heard Iupiter Opt. Max. resistere atque iterare pugnam jubet upon which Livy saith they stopped as if they had heard a voice from heaven Dionys Halicarnassaeus mentions his prayer he made when the people chose him King 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to King Iupiter and the other Gods as Iulius Caesar when M. Antony would have puâ— the Diadem on his head sent it to thâ— Capitol to the Statue of Iupiter O. M with this saying solum Iovem Regem Romanorum esse When Numa Pompilius was to be inaugurated the Augur made this prayer in Livy Iupiter Pater si est fas hunc Numam c. When some were applauding the felicity of P. Camillus upon the taking of Veii Plutarch saith he made this appeal to heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O mighty Jove and ye Gods that behold the good and evil actions of men c. When Manlius Torquatus found Annius after his insolent speech against the Romans in the Senate lying dead at the foot of the steps of the Temple of Iupiter Capitolinus he cryed out Est coeleste Numen Es Magne Iupiter haud frustrate Patrem Deum hominumque hac sede sacravimus There is a God in heaven Thou art O mighty Jove It is not in vain that we have consecrated this Temple to thee the Father of Gods and Men. Plautus affords us many instances of prayers to the Supreme God so Hanno the Carthaginian in his Poenulus Magne Iupiter restitue certas mihi ex incertis opes and the Punick Nurse cryes out at the sight of him Proh Supreme Iupiter and more fully Hanno in the following Scene Iupiter qui genus colis alisque hominum per quem vivimus Vitale aevum quem penès spes vitaeque sunt hominum omnium Da diem hunc sospitem quaeso rebus meis agundis And in his Capteivi Iupiter Supreme servas me and again Serva Iupiter Supreme me meum gnatum mihi It was a custome among the Romans as Turnebus observes to lift up their eyes to heaven and by way of amplification to cry ille Iupiter So Plautus in Amphitryo Quod ille faciat Iupiter and in his Mostellaria Ita ille faxit Iupiter in his Curculio nec me ille sirit Iupiter Virgil likewise hath many prayers to the Supreme God with the acknowledgement of his Almighty Power as in the prayer of Anchises Iupiter omnipotens precibus si flecteris ullis Aspice nos hoc tantum si pietate meremur Da deinde auxilium Pater atque haec omina firma And in the prayer of Aeneas Iupiter omnipotens si nondum exosus ad ununo Trojanos si quid pietas antiqua labores Respicit humanos da flammam evadere classi Nunc Pater tenues Teucrûm res eripe letho So in the prayer of Ascanius Constitit ante Iovem supplex per vota precatus Iupiter omnipotens audacibus annue coeptis In the prayer of Venus O Pater ô hominum Divúmque aeterna Potestas Namque aliud quid sit quod jam implorare queamus Which is after explained in these words Tum Pater omnipotens rerum cui summa Potestas Infit And in the prayer of Turnus Omnipotens genitor tantón me criminâ— dignum Duxisti But besides Virgil who was so Critical in the rites of Religion that he would never have brought in such prayers as these if they had not been agreeable to the Roman customs we have the like instances in others as in Silius Itâ—licus Nosco te summe Deorum Adsis ô firmesque tuae Pater alitiomen And in Persius Magne Pater Divûm saevos punire Tyrannos Haud aliâ ratione velis But this was not only the custom of their Poets whom T. G. may imagine to have been as extravagant in their
Divines do confess That sacrifice doth not naturally signifie any worship of God but only by the imposition of men and that which it signifies say they is Gods being Author of Life and Death and if we take away this imposition it contains nothing of divine worship in it so Suarez who saith he follows St. Augustin in it How comes the destruction of any creature under our command to signifie the inward subjection of our selves to God What pleasure can we conceive the Almighty should take in seeing us to destroy his creatures for his sake Our minds may be as far from submitting to God as these things are of themselves from signifying such a submission Nay how comes a sacrifice to stand so much in our stead that because we take away the life of that therefore we own God as our Lord It might rather of it self signifie that we have the power of life and death over Beasts than that God hath it over us yet all that Sacrifice signifies saith Vasquez is that God is acknowledged thereby to be the Author of life and death and to this end saith Ysambertus it is necessary that the thing be destroyed because the reason of Sacrifice lies in the destruction of a thing offered to God Be it so but of all things in the world it would never have come into my mind nor I think into any mans well in his senses to offer up God himself unto God as a Sacrifice in order to the testifying the devoting of our selves unto him and yet this after all their talk comes to be that external Sacrifice which is the only appropriate sign of the absolute worship of God viz. the Sacrifice of the Mass wherein the Priest is believed to offer up God himself under the species of Bread and Wine to the Eternal God in token of our subjection to him Methinks yet it were somewhat more reasonable to offer up brute Creatures that are under us than God that is so infinitely above us and such is the weakness of my understanding that this seems to be rather an argument of our power over God than of our subjection to Him But since the formal reason of a Sacrifice is said to lie in the destruction of it Good Lord what thoughts must these men have in their minds if they have any when they think it in their power first to make their God by speaking five words then to offer him up as a Sacrifice then to suppose him destroyed and all this to testifie their submission to God! I want words to express the intolerable blasphemy and absurdity of these things Yet this saith T. G. is so appropriate a sign of the absolute worship of God that that Religion which admits no external visible Sacrifice must needs be deficient in the most signal part of the publick worship of God What external visible Sacrifice have you that we have not besides that of God himself whom you believe to be personally present as the object of divine worship under the species of Bread and Wine and yet when you have pleaded so much for this presence to justifie your Adoration you then make a Sacrifice of Him and that he may be so you grant it is necessary there be some destruction of what was before i. e. if to the purpose of him that was the Sacrifice otherwise the species are made the Sacrifice and not the body and blood of Christ. But suppose you only make him a Sacrifice as to his body and blood and not as to his divine nature what becomes then of the body and blood of Christ for it must be destroyed to make a Sacrifice where how by what means comes the body and blood of Christ to be destroyed When you say it is there without the qualities of a body that it cannot be seen or felt or tasted and yet is capable of being destroyed suppose all this be passed over how comes the offering up the very body and blood of Christ to God to signifie our absolute worship of him Will nothing else satisfie to testifie that we are his subjects unless we offer up to him the body and blood of his own Son Is this indeed the most signal part of divine worship which we must be deficient in if we have it not We do from our souls praise God for that unvaluable Sacrifice the Son of God was pleased to make of his own life when he was incarnate in our nature We do frequently commemorate this Sacrifice of his according to his own institution and in the doing of that we offer up our selves unto Him as a reasonable service We adore and magnify Him for all His mercies especially the sending of His Son to die for us as the greatest of all But we dare not let it enter into our thoughts that we should ever eat or swallow down the very body and blood of Christ and then pretend we have offered it up to God as a Sacrifice and that in token of our absolute worship of Him But setting aside the nature of this Sacrifice which is the only external and visible sign of appropriate worship to God they pretend to have I desire yet to know how a Sacrifice doth come to signifie this absolute worship more than adoration Not by nature for the lowly submission of our bodies seems more naturally to signifie the behaviour of our minds than anything without us can do if it be by institution it must be either Gods or mans if mans then either offering Sacrifice to a creature is Idolatry or not if not then giving absolute worship to a creature is no Idolatry if it be then it is Idolatry to make use of the outward signs of divine worship which mankind have agreed upon to any thing else but God If it be said to be Gods institution then it follows that the applying any outward signs of worship which God hath appropriated to himself to any Creature is Idolatry which is as much as I desire for then it will equally hold for Religious Adoration especially if the principle of Arriaga hold true true that the value of Sacrifice lies in the act of adoration performed by it But T. G. pleads That the act of adoration is equivocal that is that we read in Scripture that it hath been given to men as well as to God and therefore cannot be such an appropriate sign of divine worship To this I have already answered by distinguishing the Act and the signification of it the external act I grant may be performed upon several grounds As 1. Civil subjection as by Nathan to David 1 Kings 1.23.2 Civil respect as by Abraham to the Children of Heth Gen. 23.7.3 Religious respect or as some call it Moral Reverence i. e. out of an opinion of great sanctity without superiority as Nebuchadnezzar to Daniel Dan. 2.46 And so Abraham bowed to the Angels Gen. 18.2 if he knew them to be what they were but if not as
my works may be directed and disposed according to thine and thy Sons Will. Amen I confess intercession is here mentioned but withal it is plain that is not the only thing relyed upon for her merits are immediately added and whatever ground it be upon it seems it is not only lawful but a devout thing to commit Soul and Body to her trust and custody both in Life and death What could have been said more to the Eternal Son of God than is contained in this Commendation to the Blessed Virgin in all the expressions of it In another prayer to her which is not only in the Manual but in the Primer or Office of the Blessed Virgin and is too long to repeat we have this beginning I beseech thee O holy Lady Mary Mother of God most full of pity the daughter of the Highest King Mother most glorious Mother of Orphans the Consolation of the Desolate the way of them that go astray the safety of all that trust in thee a Virgin before Child-bearing a Virgin in Child-bearing and a Virgin after Child-bearing the fountain of mercy the fountain of health and Grace the fountain of consolation and pardon the fountain of piety and gladness the fountain of life and forgiveness I am now got from Lilly's Grammar to Aristotles Threshold and I desire to know of T. G. whether these expressions are true or false Is the Blessed Virgin all these things or not If they be not true they are horrible blasphemies if they be true to what purpose is it to talk of praying to her to pray for us for why may not I go directly to the Fountain of Mercy Grace and Pardon what needless trouble were it to pray her to pray for that which is in her on hands to bestow In another prayer following that are these expressions to the Blessed Virgin Bow down thine ears O Mother of pity and mercy unto my poor prayers and be to me wretched sinner a pitious helper in all things And presently after to our Lady and S. Iohn together O ye two Heavenly Gemms Mary and John O two divine Lamps ever shining before God! drive away with your blessed beams the dark clouds of my sins To you I most wretched sinner commend this day my Body and Soul that in every hour and moment inwardly and outwardly ye would vouchsafe to be my sure keepers and pitiful Intercessors to God for me Here we have intercession again but that is not all nor the main thing for Custody is more than intercession and that is first begged and then intercession So that if ever any prayers were made to creatures for those things which God alone can give these were and so as to imply our dependence on them for the obtaining of them These may suffice for a taste of their present and allowed devotions among them here at home in Books of daily use And now I beseech T. G. to tell me what there is in the Doctrine of the Church of Rome which makes it necessary for me to put so forced a sense upon all these expressions that they do mean no more than praying to the Blessed Virgin to pray for them As Lilly's Grammar will not explain the sense so no Rhetorick I ever saw will make me understand the Figure How often have we been railed at for understanding words in a figurative sense which cannot be literally understood without overthrowing the plainest evidence of sense and reason and which by the customary modes of speaking among all Nations attributing the thing signified to the sign and by other places of Scripture and Fathers we prove ought to be no otherwise understood But here is a strange figure invented against the plain and natural sense of the words for by praying to bestow must be understood only praying to pray and that when those titles are at the same time given which suppose it in their power to give and when there is no imaginable necessity from any doctrine of their Church to put this sense upon those words For what article of their Creed what decree of their Church what doctrine of their Divines doth it contradict for any man to pray directly to the Virgin Mary for the destruction of heresies support under troubles Grace to withstand temptations and reception to Glory And what can we beg for more from God himself Yet I challenge T. G. to shew which of all these such prayers are repugnant to and if to none of them why should not the words be understood as they properly signifie nay it were easie to shew that such prayers are very agreeable not only to the doctrine of the Council of Trent but of their most eminent Divines both before and after it But this were to go beyond the bounds of this general Discourse which is designed only to state the Nature of Divine Worship between us and them Yet I cannot but take notice of the way T. G. saith the people are instructed by to make this to be the sense of praying to give i. e. praying to pray 1. He saith the common doctrine of Christianity by which they are taught that God alone is the giver of all good things and doth not the same common doctrine of Christianity teach men to pray to him alone for what he only can give and not to use such bold and absurd figures in prayer whose plain sense is contrary to this common doctrine of Christianity But I wonder that T. G. should think this an effectual way to make them understand the prayers in this sense when himself hath shewed them the way to reconcile this common doctrine to their practice and the form of the words For may not giving be distinguished as well as worship It is true God alone is the Original Giver of all good things and this is a Soveraign way of giving peculiar to God but there is an inferiour and subordinate way of giving by a power derived from God and this is all say they we attribute to the Saints and how now doth the common doctrine of Christianity teach people more effectually that God alone is the Giver of all things than that God alone is to be worshipped I am sure the Scripture saith one as often and in as plain terms as it can do the other But 2. He saith their Sermons Catechisms and Explications both by word and writing do it suppose some persons do it I ask by what Authority their Church having never declared against an inferiour way of giving in the Saints and having expresly owned the making recourse to them for their help and assistance as well as their prayers I desire T. G. in good earnest to tell me what makes him so concerned to have all the prayers understood in that sense of praying to the Saints to pray for them against the express sense of the words Is there any harm in the other sense or not if there be no harm why may they not be so understood without so much
Idolaters in all Ages was that by the help of Images they did represent the object of their worship as present to them so as thereby to be put more in mind of him and to excite their reverence and Devotion but S. Paul tells the Athenians there was no need of any such representations of Gods presence for he is not far from every one of us for in him we live and move and have our beings and that man who will not find God in those admirable effects of his Power Wisdom and Goodness we carry continually about us will hardly find him in the senseless representations of Wood and Stone and he that will not stand in awe of him as he governs the World will hardly fear him when he is set forth in shape of a man although he have a Thunderbolt in his hand 4. From the disparity between God and Images v. 29. For as much then as we are the offspring of God we ought not to think that the Godhead is like to gold or silver or stone graven by art or mans device Upon which words Lorinus a Iesuit makes this paraphrase forasmuch as the Athenians following their own Poets do confess that we are the living Image of God they ought to think that material Idols made by the art of men which fall far short of the perfection of Nature are infinitely distant from the Divine Power by which we obtain a dignity far above these material things and since we cannot express this Image of God in us by any lines much less can we the Divine Original so that it is the grossest ignorance to affirm that God can dwell or be included or worshipped in or by their Altars or Images for so delubra must be understood by him if he speaks pertinently for although sometime it signifies a Temple with more Images than one yet Servius withal saith it signifies a wooden Image and so Festus understands it which things I am forced to explain to prevent cavilling for otherwise T. G. would have complained of my perverting the sense of Authors as he hath done very unjustly as will appear in this Chapter But Lorinus after having brought the several places of Scripture against making any Image of God thinks to salve all by saying they are to be understood of such Images as represent him to the life as though it were possible for any to do it or such which they worshipped for Gods which the Heathens utterly denyed that they did Cornelius à Lapide after several vain attempts to make out the force of the Apostles argument at last concludes this to be it that since our Soul according to which we are the offspring of God cannot be painted or represented in gold silver or stone being incorporeal and spiritual much less can the Divinity be painted or represented by them being a pure Spirit and the fountain of Spirits Estius agrees that this is the force of the Apostles argument from whence he saith he doth not infer that we ought not to think gold silver or stone to be God although he might have done it but to little purpose because saith he he spake to the Athenians among whom were many Philosophers learned and wise men who did not with the Vulgar think their Images to be Gods although they worshipped them together with them but they believed their Gods to be represented by them as by their Images If he speaks of the Epicureans there is some ground for it for what Deity they acknowledged they supposed to be as-if-coporeal and of humane shape but he is much mistaken that doth not account them rather Atheists than Idolaters and as to the other Athenian Philosophers I shall make it appear to be a gross mistake to suppose that they thought their Gods to be of humane shape but of that hereafter The thing I now insist upon is that the Apostle's shewing the disparity between God and Images is not meerly to drive out the opinion of Anthropomorphitism but from hence to shew farther the folly of Idolatry for if Images fall so much short of the infinite perfections of God there can be but this plea left that they are like to him and therefore we may worship God by them for the sake of their resemblance of him now this the Apostle shews to be as vain and idle a pretence as any of the rest there being no manner of resemblance between the workmanship of gold silver and stone and an Infinite and Spiritual Being 5. From the necessity of repentance and the consideration of a future judgement v. 30 31. If all the Apostle had aimed at was only to rectifie an erroneous conceit of the Athenians about the Divinity being like to their Images he had taken away the force of his exhortation to repentance from the consideration of a judgement to come because such an erroneous conceit may possess men of innocent minds and free from Idolatry as it was the case of the Monks in Aegypt of whom Epiphanius and S. Austin speak and whom Epiphanius supposeth to have been very harmless men saving only their separation from the Church nay he doth not seem to apprehend any dangerous consequence of their opinion which we need not wonder at if that which Nicephorus saith be true viz. that Epiphanius was an Anthropomorphite himself And yet Epiphanius is well known to have been as great an enemy to Image-worship and all kind of Idolatry as any Person that lived in his Age. The same is observable of Tertullian and Lactantius whereof the one attributed corporeity to God and the other shape and figure as our Adversaries confess and yet both these were vehement disputers against the Heathen Idolatry From whence we see that there is no necessary connexion between this opinion and the practice of Idolatry or the worship of Images and yet there is altogether as good reason why God should be worshipped by an Image on that supposition as why Christ should be by a Crucifix since his Incarnation which is T. G's great argument on all occasions But those who supposed God to be like to men might yet think it unreasonable to worship God by the work of mens hands and if arbitrary representation be a sufficient ground of worship then natural would be much more so and consequently it would be more reasonable for men to worship one another than to worship Images and all the same distinctions and pleasant evasions would serve for one as well as they do for the other I desire now to know of T. G. whether the Athenians were to blame only for this erroneous conceit of theirs in thinking the Divinity to be like their Images If this were all their fault 1. I dare undertake to prove that many among them were wholly innocent viz. those who followed the Schools of Plato and Zeno besides those of the people who took their Images for Symbols of the Divinity 2. S. Paul takes very needless pains
detests that opinion and calls the Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without any corporeal figure or shape and therefore he proposes the objection of a Christian against him how it could then be proper to make any corporeal Images of them Why to that saith Iulian I answer the Images of the Gods are placed by our Ancestors as Signs and Symbols of their presence not that we should believe them to be Gods but that we should worship the Gods by giving Reverence to them For we living in the body ought to give them a worship suitable to our corporeal state 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but they are incorporeal So that Iulian did not look on Images as the proper likenesses of the Gods but as ancient and venerable Symbols of their presence in which he saith all Nations of the world were agreed and in all Ages Wherein he lashes too far but that is at least but a venial sin to stretch a little for the sake of so good a Cause And Iulian was not singular in this opinion of his of the fitness of corporeal Images although the Gods were not like them for Varro was of the same mind who gives this account of the first design of making the Images of the Gods like to men Quorum qui simulachra specie hominis fecerunt hoc videri secutos quod mortalium animus qui est in corpore humano simillimus est immortalis animi c. that the soul of man was most like the Deity and men made Images like to their Bodies just as if a Wine-vessel were put in the Temple of Bacchus to represent him intending thereby to represent first the Wine which should be in the Vessel and by the Wine him that is the God of Wine so saith he by Images of mens shape they signified the Soul contained within the body and by the Soul they represented God as of the same nature viz. the Soul of the World Porphyrie such another good Catholick as Iulian was in this point of the worship of Images doth not in the least suppose any similitude between the Shape of a Man and the Nature of God but he gives this account of representing the Gods in Figures like to men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They made the Gods like to men because the Divinity is a rational Being and withall he saith that many were wont to represent him by a black stone to shew that he is invisible Dio Chrysostome at large debates the case about Images in his Olympick Oration wherein he first shews that all men have a natural apprehension of one supreme God the Father of all things that this God was represented by the Statue made by Phidias of Jupiter Olympius for so he said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before whom we now are and then describes him to be the King Ruler and Father of all both Gods and men this Image he calls the most blessed the most excellent the most beautiful the most beloved Image of God He saith there are four wayes of coming to the knowledge of God By nature by the instructions of the Poets by the Laws and by Images but neither Poets nor Law-givers nor Artificers were the best Interpreters of the Deity but only the Philosophers who both understood and explained the Divine Nature most truly and perfectly After this he supposes Phidias to be called to account for making such an Image of God as unworthy of him when Iphitus Lycurgus and the old Eleans made none at all of him as being out of the power of man to express his nature to this Phidias replies that no man can express mind and understanding by figures or colours and therefore they are forced to fly to that in which the soul inhabits and from thence they attribute the seat of Wisdom and Reason to God having nothing better to represent him by and by that means joyning power and art together they endeavour by something which may be seen and painted to represent that which is invisible and inexpressible But it may be said we had better then have no Image or representation of him at all no saith he for mankind doth not love to worship God at a distance but to come near and feel him and with assurance to sacrifice to him and crown him Like Children newly weaned from their Parents who put out their hands towards them in their dreams as if they were still present so do men out of the sense of Gods goodness and their relation to him love to have him represented as present with them and so to converse with him thence have come all the representations of God among the barbarous Nations in Mountains and Trees and Stones But if the quarrel be that I have given a humane shape to him for that saith he the Poets are much more to blame who began those things especially Homer who compared Agamemnon to God in his head and eyes but for my statue no man that is not mad would compare it to a mortal man much less to the perfection of the Deity and so Dio proceeds with a great deal of eloquence to shew how the representation of God by his Image was more decent and becoming God than that which the Poets had made of him and how he had endeavoured by the utmost of his skill to represent the perfections of the Divine Nature in the admirable workmanship of his Statue as to his power Greatness and Good Will to Mankind and concludes all with saying that as to his workmanship he thinks he hath gone beyond all others but yet no workmanship can be compared to the God that made the whole World Thus we see from the Testimony of these very considerable Authors the Wiser Heathens had no such foolish Imagination as T. G. supposes them to be possessed with viz. that the Images of the Deity which they worshipped were the proper likenesses of him and if T. G's Light of Nature and Common sense do sufficiently decide this Controversie it is very plain on which side the ballance inclines viz. towards Paganism against Christianity Macrobius saith that anciently they made no Image at all of the Supreme God as being above any representation but they made Images of the inferiour Gods although they were formarum talium prorsus alieni in nothing like to them The former Clause in Macrobius must be understood of the most ancient times before the Age of Phidias as appears by the foregoing passages and yet Porphyrie saith that the Aegyptians were wont to represent the Creator whom they called Cneph in the figure of a man of a dark blew Colour holding a girdle and a Scepter in his hand out of whole mouth came an Egg by which they represented the world as his production Not much unlike to this is the Image of the Creator in the Temple of Meaco in Iapan which is all over black with a Scepter in his hand and they likewise represent the world
by an Image since Images are intended to represent the absent but God is every where present But if there ought to be any Image of God which he calls simulachrum Dei and surely doth not signifie an Idol in T. G's sense and I hope here he will not charge me with want of fidelity in translating it Image it ought to be living and sensible because God lives for ever therefore that cannot be the Image of God that is made by the Work of mens hands but Man himself who gives all the art and beauty to them which they have but poor silly men as they are they do not consider that if their Images had sense and motion they would worship the Men that made them and brought them into such a curious figure out of rude and unpolished matter Who can be so foolish to imagine there can be any thing of God in that Image in which there is nothing of man but the meer shadow But their minds have the deepest tincture of folly for those who have sense worship things that have none they who think themselves wise things that are uncapable of Reason they that live things that cannot stir and they that came from heaven things that are made of earth What is this saith he but to invert the order of Nature to adore that which we tread upon Worship him that lives if ye would live for he must dye that gives up his Soul to things that are dead And after he hath fully shewn his Rhetorick in exposing the folly of worshipping Images he concludes very severely quare nonest dubium quin Religio nulla sit ubicunque simulachrum est Wherefore there can be no true Religion where there is the worship of Images no although it be simulachrum Dei the worship of God by an Image for his reason holds against all Religion saith he is a divine thing and whatever is divine is heavenly but whatever is in Images is earthy and therefore there can be no Religion in the worship of Images What sport do Tertullian Minucius and Arnobius make with the Images which were consecrated to divine worship from the meanness of the matter they are made of the pains and art that is used to bring them into their shape the casualties of fire and rottenness and defilements they are subject to and many other Topicks on purpose to represent the ridiculousness of worshipping such things or God by them O saith Arnobius that I could but enter into the bowels of an Image and lay before you all the worthy materials they are made up of that I could but dissect before you a Jupiter Olympius and Capitolinus Yet these were dedicated to the worship of the Supreme God Would men ever have been such Fools to have exposed themselves rather than such Images to laughter and scorn if they had used any such themselves or thought them capable of relative divine worship How easily would a Heathen of common understanding have stopt the mouths of these powerful Orators with saying but a few such words to any one of them Fair and soft good Sir while you declaim so much against our Images think of your own what if our Iupiter Olympius or Capitolinus be made of Ivory or Brass or Marble what if the Artificer hath taken so much pains about them what if they are exposed to Weather and Birds and Fire and a thousand casualties are not the Images of S. Peter and S. Paul or the several Madonna 's of such and such Oratories liable to the very same accusations If ours are unfit for worship are not yours so too if we be ridiculous are not you so and so much the more because you laugh at others for what you do your selves So that we must either think the first Christians prodigious Fools or they must utterly condemn all Images for Religious Worship and not meerly the Heathens on considerations peculiar to them And that we may not think this a meer heat of Eloquence in these men we find the same thing asserted by the most grave and sober Writers of the Christian Church when they had to deal not with the rabble but their most understanding Adversaries We have no material Images at all saith Clemens Alexandrinus we have only one intellectual Image who is the only true God We worship but one Image which is of the Invisible and Omnipotent God saith S. Hierome No Image of God ought to be worshipped but that which is what he is neither is that to be worshiped in his stead but together with him saith S. Augustin Where it is observable that the reason of worship given to this Eternal Image of God is not communicable to any Image made of him as to his humane Nature for it cannot be said of the humane nature it self that it is God much less of any Image or representation of it Therefore let T. G. judge whether the worshipping Christ by an Image be not equally condemned by the Fathers with the worship of God by an Image but of that hereafter Eusebius answering Porphyrie about the Image of God saith What agreement is there between the Image of a man and the Divine understanding I think it hath very little to a mans mind since that is incorporeal simple indivisible the other quite contrary and only a dull representation of a mans shape The only resemblance of God lies in the soul which cannot be expressed in Colours or Figures and if that cannot which is infinitely short of the Divine Nature what madness is it to make the Image of a man to represent the Figure and form of God For the Divine Nature must be conceived with a clear and pure understanding free from all corruptible matter but that Image of God in the likeness of man contains only the Image of a mortal man and that not of all of him but of the worst part only without the least shadow of Life or Soul How then can the God over all and the Mind which framed the World be the same that is represented in Brass or Ivory S. Augustin relating the saying of Varro about representing God by the Image of a mans body which contains his Soul which resembles God saith that herein he lost that prudence and sobriety he discovered in saying that those who first brought in Images among the Romans abated their Reverence to the Deity and added to their errour and that the Gods were more purely worshipped without Images wherein saith S. Augustin he came very near to the Truth And if he durst speak openly against so ancient an errour he would say that one God ought to be worshipped and that without an Image the folly of Images being apt to bring the Deity into contempt Is it possible to condemn the worship of God by an Image in more express words than S. Austin here does 2. Because the worship of God by Images is repugnant to his Will Clemens Alexandrinus mentions the
expresly to the contrary Had it not become him either to have answered these Testimonies or not to have asserted that which these Testimonies most fully and clearly denied But he is content to take them upon my word I thank him for his kindness in it But doth he take them as true or false If as true then the Heathens did not worship their Images as Gods which he yet saith they did if he took them as false when I quoted them as true the kindness was very extraordinary and ought to be acknowledged If he had produced the Testimonies of Bellarmin Vasquez Suarez Valentia and others to shew that the Papists do not take their Images for Gods and I should say I took the Testimonies upon his word and yet asserted the direct contrary to them without so much as the least answering to what they said would not any indifferent Reader account me either impudent or ridiculous Yet this is exactly the case of T. G. for he saith several times in this Chapter that the Heathens did worship their Images as Gods whereas those Testimonies say as plainly as words can express it that they did not and yet these Testimonies he takes upon my word i. e. in common construction he believes them to be true and yet the matter contained in them to be false which is an admirable piece of T. G.'s art and ingenuity But to add yet more to his kindness at the same time he takes these Testimonies on my word he will let the Reader see what credit he is to give to my citing of Authors But why then will he take any upon my word if I have so little credit with him Herein he shews himself either very weak if he will take my word when he thinks I deserve no credit or very malicious if he knows I deserve credit and yet goes about to blast it as much as in him lyes But wherein is it I have exposed my reputation so much in the two Testimonies he hath fastned his Talons upon The first is that of Arnobius wherein I say the Heathens deny that they ever thought their Images to be Gods or to have any Divinity in them but what only comes from their consecration to such an Use. That which he charges me with is that by cogging in the word Divinity in the singular number I would represent it to the Reader as though the wiser Heathens intended to worship the true Divinity by those Images whereas all that they say in Arnobius is that they did not look on their Images as Gods per se of themselves but they worshipped the Gods which by dedication were made to dwell in them i.e. saith he by Magical Incantation by which the Souls of Wicked men were evocated and as it were tied to dwell in those Images as S. Austin relateth l. 8. de Civ Dei c. 23. 26. Hereupon he charges me very severely with soul dealing in putting Divinity in the singular number when the Infernal Spirits were meant by it as if they intended to worship the true God by these Images when they declared they worshipped false Gods by them A very heavy charge to which I shall give a distinct answer 1. To that of translating Divinity in the singular number T. G. may if he please take it upon my word or if not let him search the place once more that I translated these very words of Arnobius Nihil Numinis in esse simulachris that the Images have no Divinity in them and if these words be not in that very place and but two lines before those quoted by him Erras laberis c. I will venture my credit in citing Authors upon T. G.'s ingenuity but if they be there as most certainly they are what doth such a man deserve for so notorious fair dealing 2. My design was not to represent by this means that the Heathens only intended to worship the true God by Images but that the worship of Images was unlawful although men did not take the Images themselves for Gods so I said in the very beginning of those quotations that I would prove that the Heathens did look on their Images as Symbols or representations of that Being to which they gave divine worship Do I say of the True God Are not the words so general on purpose to imply that whatever Being they worshipped they looked on the Images as symbols or representations of it And after to prevent all such cavils I purposely added I do not ask whether they were mistaken as to the objects of their worship But what can a man do to prevent the cavils of a disingenuous Sophister 3. As to what he saith that what they plead in Arnobius is only that their Images were not Gods per se of themselves but by virtue of the Spirits dwelling in them I answer that T. G. charges the Heathen Idolaters with worshipping the Images themselves and saith that I deal very disingenuously in affirming that the Wiser Heathens did not worship the Images themselves Now what could be more pertinent to my purpose than to produce those very words of Arnobius You erre and are mistaken O T. G. in what you affirm for we do not think the matter of Brass Silver and Gold to be Gods or adorable Deities per se of themselves Whereby we see T. G's own words as he renders them out of Arnobius do sufficiently vindicate me and contradict him He saith they did worship the Images themselves and they say they did not What doth he mean else when he saith in other places that the Heathens worshipped their Images as Gods what is this but to take the Images themselves for Gods For he never once supposes it unlawful to worship Images on the account of a Divine Spirit being present in the Images supposing that spirit of it self to deserve adoration as suppose upon consecration of an Image of the B. Virgin she should manifest her self in and by that Image in speaking or moving or working miracles doth T. G. think it the more unlawful to worship such an Image no certainly but that men ought to shew more devotion towards it Therefore T. G. could not condemn the Heathens for the worshipping the Images supposing good Spirits did dwell in them Setting aside then the dispute about the nature of the Spirits all that he could imagine the Fathers had to condemn in those that worshipped Images was that they worshipped the Images themselves for Gods which the Heathens in Arnobius deny and which was the thing I produced that Testimony to prove Bellarmin whom my Adversary follows saith that the Heathens did take the Images themselves for Gods for which he gives some very substantial Reasons 1. Because their Priests told them so 2. Because almost all the world believed it This one would think were enough to justifie the belief of it having the Authority of their Teachers and Consent of Nations for it 3. The motion speech and oracles
such an answer for then all the folly and madness in making the grossest Images of God doth not lye in the Images themselves but in the imagination of the Persons that make them Is it not as great in those that worship them with such an imagination if it be then whatever the Design of the makers was if they be apt to beget such imaginations in those who see and worship them they are in that respect as unlawful as T. G. supposes any Images of God among the Heathens to have been 4. What doth T. G. mean when he makes those Images unlawful which represent the Divinity in it self and not those which represent God as he appeared Can the meer essence of any thing be represented by an Image Is it possible to represent any being otherwise than as it appears But it may be T. G. hath found out the way of painting Essences if he hath he deserves to have the Patent for it not only for himself but for his Heirs and Executors For he allows it to be the peculiar priviledge of an infinite Being that it cannot be represented as it is in it self then all other things may be represented as they are in themselves in opposition to the manner of their appearance or else the distinction signifies nothing Petrus Thyraeus a man highly commended by Possevin for for his explication of this matter saith the meaning is that an Image doth not represent the Nature but the Person that is visible for saith he when we see the Image of a man we do not say we see a Reasonable Creature but a Man Very well and so in the Image of the Deity we do not see the Divine Nature but the Divine Person or in such a way as he became visible The Invisible Nature of God cannot be represented in an Image and can the invisible Nature of Man Therefore saith he it is no injury to God to be painted by an Image no more upon these principles than to a man Bellarmin proves the lawfulness of making Images of God because man is said to be the Image of God and he may be painted therefore the Image of God may be too for that which is the Image of the Image is likewise the Image of the Exemplar those which agree in a third agreeing among themselves To this some answer'd that man was not the Image of God as to his body but as to his soul which could not be painted but Bellarmin takes off this answer by saying that then a man could not not be painted for he is not a man in regard of his outward lineaments but in regard of his substance and especially his Soul but notwithstanding the soul cannot be painted yet a man may truly and properly be said to be painted because the Figure and colours of an Image do represent the whole man otherwise saith he a thing painted could never seem to be the true Thing as Zeuxis his grapes did which deceived the birds Therefore according to Bellarmines reasoning that which represents a Being according to outward appearance although it have an invisible Nature yet is a true and real representation and represents it as it is in it self and as far as it is possible for an Image to represent any thing Wherein then lyes the difference between making the Picture of a man and the Image of God If it be said that the Image of God is very short imperfect and obscure is not the same thing to be said of the Picture of a man which can only represent his outward Features without any description of his inward substance or soul If it be farther said that there is a real resemblance between a Picture of a man and his outward lineaments but there is none between God and the Image of a man then I ask what Bellarmins argument doth signifie towards the proving the lawfulness of making an Image of God For if God may be painted because man may who is the Image of God for the Image of the Image is the Image of the Exemplar then it follows that Man is the Image of God as he may be painted and so God and man must agree in that common thing which is a capacity of being represented which cannot be supposed without as real a resemblance between God and his Image as between a Man and his Picture But T. G. tells us that they abhorr the very thoughts of making any such likeness of God and all that the Council of Trent allows is only making representations of some apparition or action of God in a way proportionable to our Humane Conception I answer 1. It is no great sign of their abhorring the thoughts of any such likeness of God to see such arguments made use of to prove the lawfulness of making Images of God which do imply it 2. Those Images of God which are the most used and allowed in the Roman Church have been thought by Wise men of their own Church to imply such a Likeness Molanus and Thyraeus mention four sorts of Images of the Trinity that have been used in the Roman Church 1. That of an old man for God the Father and of Christ in humane nature and of the Holy Ghost in the Form of a Dove 2. That of three Persons of equal Age and Stature 3. That of an Image of the Bl. Virgin in the belly of which was represented the Holy Trinity this Ioh. Gerson saith he saw in the Carmelites Church and saith there were others like it and Molanus saith he had seen such a one himself among the Carthusians 4. That of one Head with three faces or one body and three Heads which Molanus saith is much more common than the other and is wont to be set before the Office of the Holy Trinity these two latter those Authors do not allow because the former of them tends to a dangerous errour viz. that the whole Trinity was incarnate of the B. Virgin and the latter Molanus saith was an invention of the Devil it seems then there was one invention of the Devil at least to be seen in the Masse-Book for saith he the Devil once appeared with three Heads to a Monk telling him he was the Trinity But the two former they allow and defend Waldensis saith Molanus with a great deal of learning defends that of the three Persons from the appearance of the Three to Abraham and Thyraeus justifieth the first and the most common from the Authority of the Church the Consent of Fathers and the H. Scriptures And yet Pope Iohn 22. as Aventinus relates it condemned some to the Fire as Anthropomorphites and enemies to Religion for making the very same representation of the Trinity which he defends being only of God as an old man and of the Son as a young man and of the Holy Ghost under the picture of a Dove Ysambertus takes notice of this story but he saith they were such Images as were according to