IT may possibly appear to some not a little sur­prizing, that a Church which makes no scruple of practising what is Idolatrous, should yet be so very unwilling to lie under the imputation of it: There is nothing in all our Disputes with those of the other Communion, which they would be thought so highly to resent as this; the very mention of it has seem'd to Scandalize them; and if heat and confidence could have born us down, they had long since effectually deliver'd themselves from all suspicion of it.

It is not my business to enquire into the Reasons of this Proceeding, and which, when duly consider'd, will be found to have nothing in it, but what is exceeding natural. Men are always more forward to do ill things, than to avow them, or to own them under their proper names: Idolatry (as our Author says) is a scan­dalous Charge. By his leave, the Charge is not always [Page 2]scandalous, though the Crime be ever so, and the Charge reputed scandalous by them who are charged with it. Though a Church that does countenance the Commission of it, may by subtile Arguments and bold Denials keep up its Reputation well enough amongst those who are resolv'd at any rate to believe her, yet 'twere impossible she should long support her Interest, should she freely avow the doing of it.

But of all the Methods that have been made use of to put a stop to this Charge, there has been none so surprizing as what this Author has here found out; and could he but have made it good, I am perswaded there would not have been any more effectual. He represents it as inconsistent not only with the Prin­ciples of Charity towards our Neighbour, Page 71, &c. but even of Loyalty towards our Prince; and makes the very men­tion of it to be little less than a setting up of the Stan­dard against Monarchy. Page 74. And yet he is not so unac­quainted with the Principles and Dispositions of those of the Church of England, as not to know, that next to our sollicitude for the Honour of God, there are no two things in the World, we value our selves more up­on, than that Character we have so justly obtained, of teaching the best Measures both of Duty to our King, and of Love, and Kindness, and Charity towards One A­nother.

I must therefore, before I proceed to vindicate our Notion of Idolatry, first say somewhat to remove this great prejudice that has been offer'd against it; And this I shall do,

• I. By considering upon what weak Grounds this Au­thor has undertaken to insinuate these Crimes a­gainst us.
• [Page 3]II. By shewing what horrible Consequences would follow from it, should what he pretends indeed be true.

1. Of the weak Grounds upon which he has under­taken to insinuate such things against us.

Now all that he has to say for this odious Charge, if taken out of his turbulent and declamatory Stile, is but this: ‘That Idolatry is a Sin very heighnous to God, Page 71, 72, 73. and which he therefore, under the Law, commanded to be punished with Death.’ This is the sum of what he has dilated upon in three whole Pages; and a­gainst this I have many things to except. For,

1. What if Idolatry be a damnable Sin, may we not therefore say, without uncharitableness, that those are guilty of it, whom we effectually prove to be so? Must we therefore become mens Enemies because we tell them the Truth? I am sure a very little Charity would have taught him to have made a better Conclusion; nor can I imagine what greater instance of my Affection, I could shew my best Friend, if I saw him in such a course as I thought would render him eternally mise­rable, than to tell him freely of the danger of his Sin, and press him with the best Reasons I had to perswade him to forsake it.

It may be he will say, he does not deny but that we may charge men with great Sins, provided that they be truly guilty of them: But yet that the heighnous­ness of this Crime should make us careful not to do it, but upon very good grounds; for to this purpose I find he sometimes expresses himself: ‘So black a Crime as this (says he) is not Lightly to be charg­ed on any Party of Christians.’ Page 73. And again, ‘Be­fore [Page 4]so bloudy an Indictment be preferred against the greatest Party of Christendom, Page 73. the nature of the thing ought to be very well understood.’ And if this be all hemeans, we readily acknowledge the reasonablness of it: but then he ought not to fly out into such Tragical common places against us for charging the Church of Rome with Idolatry; but to come close to the Point, and shew that we have not sufficient grounds for what we do. Page 70, 71. If those whom we accuse of this Crime, be indeed innocent of it, whether God had commanded Idolaters to be Stoned under the Law or not, we could not justifie our charging of them with it: but if our Arguments do prove them guilty, the heinousness of the Sin, and the danger of it, may be a good motive to dispose them seri­ously to weigh our Allegations, but I am sure it can lay no obligation upon us not to impute to it them.

2. Page 71. As to the other insinuation, that God command­ed Idolaters under the Law to be put to Death: And for proof of which, we have two long passages tran­scribed out of Exodus and Deuteronomy; What would he infer from it? would he prove to us, that therefore they ought to be put to Death by us under the Gospel too? does he look upon these Precepts as Obligatory to us now? If so, I dare be bold to say, he has done more in one single Page, to stir up the People against the Romanists and their Images, Page 72, 73. than all those popular Divines he so complains of, in all the Books they have ever written upon this Subject. And yet this must be his Meaning, if it has any Meaning at all. For to exa­mine this matter a little more closely: God (he says) commanded the Israelites in Deut. 13.6. If thy bro­ther, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend which is as thine own [Page 5]soul, entice thee secretly, saying. Let us go and serve o­ther gods, &c. Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hear­ken unto him, neither shall thine eye pity him; But thou shalt surely kill him: thine hand shall be first upon him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones that he die. Now either he looks upon this Precept as still in force, and would hereby insinuate to the People, that it is their Duty, if they think the Romanists guilty of Idolatry, utterly to destroy them; and this is certainly one of the most Seditious, as well as one of the most false Suggestions in the World: or if he does not believe this Command obligatory to us now, nor would insinuate any such thing by the repetition of it, what impertinence must it be to say that we cannot in Charity charge the Church of Rome with Idolatry, because God command­ed heretofore under the Law that all those that were guilty of it should be put to Death.

But though these kind of Precepts do not oblige us now, yet may not such a Charge be apt to stir up the deluded Rabble to think so; Page 72. and so upon occasion en­courage them to destroy the Roman Catholicks and their Images, as the Israelites were commanded to destroy the Canaanites and their Idols? Answer, Yes; pro­vided there were but a few such Orators as himself a­mong them, to fill their heads with such Notions as these, and never tell them the impertinence of them. For instance: That these were onely the Political Laws of the Jews, and therefore can no more warrant us now to do any violence to our Neighbour, upon any such pretence, than because the Jews were com­manded to do no work upon the Sabbath day, Numb. 15.32, &c. we may therefore lawfully Stone any one that we see gather­ing [Page 6]a few Sticks upon it. But if the Question be, Whe­ther the Charge of Idolatry, as it is managed by us a­gainst the Church of Rome, may not be apt to cause a­ny such mischief? I say, it is not; and that for these Reasons: For,

1. Let him examin all our Books of Controversie, and see if he can find any of these old Laws produced, much less insisted upon, and inforced by us, to mis­lead the People into any such desperate Mistakes: On the contrary, we take all occasions to declare to them, that no pretences of this kind can warrant us so much as to withdraw our Affection from those who differ from us: Mat. 5.43, &c. That the Jews indeed esteem'd themselves allowed to hate their Enemies; that is, those who were not of the same Religion with themselves, but Wor­shipped other Gods; and more especially those Cana­anites, Page 72. whom we are told it pleased God to destroy from off the face of the earth for their Idolatry: but that our Saviour Christ has utterly forbid us to make any such distinction: Verse 44. I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you. We set before them the Examples of the Primitive Christians; with what Charity they behaved themselves towards the Gentiles among whom they lived; with what an humble Obedience they submitted themselves to their Idolatrous Emperours, Tertul. Apol. and underwent the most cruel Persecutions for their Religion's sake, even when they had power sufficient to have asserted their Faith, and to have destroyed both the Idolaters and their Idols together. And by these Maxims we exhort them to walk; and according to these it is that we both now do, and I am perswaded shall always behave ourselves [Page 7]with all Christian Charity towards those of the Roman Communion, notwithstanding we both believe them to be guilty of Idolatry, and charge them accordingly. But

2. We do not only tell them, that those kind of Laws are now no longer in force, and that therefore we may not by vertue of them presume to run into any violence against our Brethren: but we teach them moreover, (what yet more shews the impertinent Malice of this Suggestion) that they never were intended, even un­der the Jewish State, to be in force against such Idola­ters as they of the Church of Rome are. It is manifest to every one that has impartially considered the Noti­on of Idolatry, in the Old Testament, that there were two very different kinds of it: 1. One whereby they to­tally Apostatized from the Law, to Worship other Gods than the GOD of Israel; as when 'tis said that they fell off to Worship strange Gods; i. e. they renounced the Religion established by the Law of Moses, and took in another Religion, with all the Ceremonies and Sacri­fices belonging to it, as the Aegyptian, Canaanitish, or Chaldaean: And such as these were concluded under the Sentence of the Law before mentioned. 2. But then another sort of Idolatry there was, in which they still pretended to adhere to the Law of Moses, and Worship the God of Israel, but yet after an Idolatrous manner, as when Jeroboam set up the two Calves in Dan and Bethel; parallel to which, is that Idolatry with which we charge those of the other Communion at this day. Now in this Case, though we find the Prophets severely exclaiming against their new Altars, yet we do not meet with any inforcement of this Precept for putting such Idolat [...]rs to Death, or that they are a­ny [Page 8]where charged as guilty of it upon this Account.

In short, he that would know how innocent this Charge is, of any of those ill Consequences that are here brought against it, need onely look back to the State of the Church in the days of Constantine: there he will find our Primitive Fathers, freely accusing the Arrians of Idolatry, and sometimes warm enough too in their Disputes against them; but yet I believe all the Re­cords of those times, will not furnish this Author with so much as one instance of any Bishop that ever put the Emperour in mind of this Law against them; or so much as insinuated to him, that he might warrantly destroy them out of his Dominions for their Idolatry. And sure our behaviour towards those of the Church of Rome, has not been so different from what theirs was against the Arrians, that any such violence should be fear'd from us now, as was never so much as urged by the hottest Opposers of Idolatry in those days.

But 2dly, If there be then no good Grounds for such Insinuations as these, which he has here offer'd onely to render our Charge of Idolatry odious, I am sure there is cause enough upon other accounts, to make them just­ly be detested by all good Men.

For 1. Not to say any thing of the sad Consequences that may arise from hence, should such insinuations as these ever be able to gain so much credit with his Sa­cred Majesty, as to make him entertain that ill Opinion of Ʋs and our Religion, as we should justly deserve, were we such as we are here represented to be: Can a­ny thing be more desperate, than to impeach at once the whole Body of a Great and Orthodox Church, of holding Principles so inhumane, Page 73. ‘As to out do the ve­ry Cannibals themselves; and for which they have [Page 9]no other Grounds than the (rude and rash As­sertions of some popular Divines, that have no other measure of Truth or Zeal, but Hatred to Popery. In short, of maintaining Fanatick Pretences, and such as have ever been set up as the Standard a­gainst Monarchy.’ What is this but, in other words, to say, that all the Orders and Degrees of Men a­mongst us, that have ever been concern'd in charging the Church of Rome with Idolatry, our Princes and our Nobles, the Houses of Parliament and Convocati­on, as many as concurred either to the Approving or Subscribing the Book of Homilies, or to the Establishing or the obeying of the Laws made in the last Reign, not to say any thing of those Learned Men who have from time to time written expresly on this Subject, were all in plain terms neither better nor worse than a Pack of Ʋnlearned, Cruel, Barbarous, Cannibal, Fanatical, Antimonarchical Villains.

Certainly, a man had need have either a very good Cause, or a very hard Forehead, that can have the con­fidence to pronounce such a Sentence as this, and of which I will only say, in his own words, Pag. 73. ‘That how inconsistent soever Idolatry may be with Salvation, I fear so uncharitable a Calumny can be of no less dam­nable consequence.’ But however,

2. To allow this great Author to take any Liberty he pleases with us: What shall we say as to the Primi­tive Christians, whose Examples we follow, by whose Principles we manage this whole Controversie, and with whom therefore we must either stand or fall. Were all they a parcel of Seditious Fellows too? It cannot be de­ny'd, but that those Holy Men very freely charged the Gentiles first, and then the Heretical Christians, the Ar­rians, [Page 10]and others, with Idolatry. And the Passages of those Writers, Justin Martyr, Origen, Clemens Alexan­drinus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Athanasius, Greg. Nazian­zen, Epiphanius, Theodoret, and others, have been too often alledged, to need a Repetition here. And which ought not to be forgot, at the time that they did this, their Emperours were themselves of that very Religi­on which they so Accused. Now then, according to this Learned Gentleman, all these Holy Bishops and Martyrs were even as bad as we; and Antiquity has been so sottish as to celebrate the Praises, and recom­mend to us the Examples of a long Series of Factious Fanaticks, who for their Rudeness to their Emperours, and Cannibal uncharitable Censures of their Brethren, justly deserv'd all the Torments and Persecutions that they underwent. But,

3. Because those that pretend the highest regard to the Authority of the Fathers, can yet easily except against it, when they are pressed with it, what will this Author say to that of the Apostles? It cannot reasonably be doubted but that St. Paul very well understood the true nature of Charity, who so often and earnestly recommended it to his Disciples; and that he was no Friend to any Seditious, Anti-monarchical Principles, I believe his 13th Chapter to the Romans, will sufficiently demonstrate. Yet behold this very St. Paul charging the Emperours Religion as Idolatrous, exhorting all men to forsake it as such; and going up and down in all parts, preaching where-ever he came against it, on this account. And I desire this Gentle­man to consider with himself what he can say in de­fence of this Holy Apostle, that shall not vindicate us too.

So that now then upon the whole it appears, that out of an over-eager desire to Traduce us, this judi­cious Author has in his Heat exposed all the Christians of the first three hundred years, the Catholicks of the following Centuries, nay the blessed Apostles themselves, besides the whole Body of the Reform'd Religion in this and the last Age, as the worst of Monsters, and such as deserve to be esteem'd any thing, rather than Chri­stians.

Let those, whose Cause he has so unfortunately un­dertaken, consider this; and I am perswaded they will begin to grow asham'd of their Advocate. And how unjust soever they may esteem our Charge of Idolatry, yet they will not say, it is such as cannot be main­tain'd against them, without inspiring us at the same time with all the horrible impulses of Cruelty and Bar­barity against themselves, and of Faction and Rebellion against the Government; which some men would insi­nuate.

As for our selves, we earnestly beseech all those of the Church of Rome, against whom we at any time ad­vance this Imputation, that they will as candidly consi­der our Arguments, as we can truly profess they are charitably proposed by Us; and whether they shall remain satisfied or not, that there is Reason in our Charge, yet to give us so much Credit with them at least, as to believe that we think there is; and shall be heartily glad to be convinced that we were mistaken in our Opinion.

I Will now take it for granted, that under the shel­ter of so great an Authority as I have shewn to be equally concern'd with us, in all the scandalous impu­tations that can be raised against our charging those of the Church of Rome with Idolatry, I may venture to search a little more particularly into the nature of it, without being thought either a Cannibal or a Fa­natick, Pag. 73, 74. or to have any design of setting up a Standard against the Monarchy, for my so doing; especially con­sidering that I resolve not to encounter any Church or Party of men in the World on this occasion, but meer­ly to shew that this Man's Notion of Idolatry, though set off with such assurance as few Writers have ever equalled, is yet, after all, so far from being supported either by Scripture or Antiquity, that it is indeed utterly repugnant to both. And therefore that the Church of Rome is only Vindicated by him from the Charge of an Idolatry that no man ever produced against her, [Page 13]but for such Idolatry as we accuse her of, she may still fall under the weight of that, for any thing that has here been offer'd to the contrary.

According to this Author, Idolatry is neither more nor less than this: The Worship of the heavenly Bodies, the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars, or any other Visible and Corporeal Deity, as the Supream God, so as to exclude all Sense and Apprehension of a Spiritual and Invisible Godhead.

From whence it follows, that to make a Man an Ido­later, these three things are required.

1. That he cast off all Sense and Apprehension of a Spiritual and Invisible Godhead.

2. That he believes there is no other Supream God than either the Sun, Moon, or Stars, or some other the like Visible and Corporeal parts of the World.

3. That in pursuance of this Apprehension, he wor­ships these Visible and Corporeal Deities as the Su­pream God.

Now to exclude all Sense and Apprehension of a Spiri­tual and Invisible Godhead, and to believe no other Su­pream God, but some Visible and Corporeal part of the World, in opposition to a Spiritual and Invisible God­head, is, I think, to be an Atheist, though here is much ado to describe him. For to believe none but a Visible God, in opposition to an Invisible One, and to believe none but a Corporeal God, in opposition to a Spiritual God, is to believe no God at all; unless a man can sup­pose a Supream God, without Understanding, or any Perfection whatsoever of a Spiritual and Invisible Na­ture.

By consequence, for a man with these Apprehensions to worship this God which he has made to himself, is not well capable of any other construction, than that he takes some pains, and goes a little way about to ex­pose all Religion and Worship to Contempt.

I would be very glad to understand our Author's Notion of Idolatry; and therefore if it were possible, I should be content that his Idolater should not be an Atheist for a while, that we might see what else we can make of him. For a man to take nothing else for the Supream God, but a certain Visible Being, from which he shuts out all Apprehension of a Spiritual and Invisible Godhead, is certainly to be a downright A­theist, though his Atheism might have been described in fewer words. And yet on the other side, to wor­ship something in good earnest as the Supream God, seems to imply that a man is not an Atheist: For an Atheist is one that does not so much as believe that there is a Supream God. But he surely believes a God, who worships any thing for the Supream God, whatever that be which he so worships.

Now if Thomas Aquinas were here, it would strange­ly perplex him to clear this matter. I do not mean to make good sense of the words, for that I take to be impossible, but to tell us by the words, what the Au­thor's drift should be. For they make up a Nonsense so very stiff, that it will not bend one way or the o­ther. And if I must understand something by every word that he says, I can have no more Notion of his Idolatry than I have of nothing. And if he had said, Idolatry is neither more nor less than Nothing, I had been as much edified as I am now. Unless he would give us to understand, that Idolatry is meer specula­tive [Page 15]Madness, which no body that has common sense and understanding, can possibly be guilty of.

For all that part of the World that either is or ought to be out of Bethlehem and the like Hospitals, do by the Supream God, understand something at least, that is not only able to help or to hinder, but knows also when to do one and t'other, and is willing to do accordingly. And therefore to worship any thing as the Supream God, and at the same time to exclude all Sense and Ap­prehension of a Spiritual and Invisible Godhead, is to wor­ship a thing because I am sure it knows something, while I take care to be as sure at the same time, that it knows nothing at all. I can compare this to no­thing, as I have already intimated, but to some extra­ordinary instance of Madness. For instance: If I should ever see a man fall down upon his Knees, and seem in good earnest to ask Blessing of a Post, and to call it Fa­ther, I should presently think of this Author's Idola­ter: for his Idolater is rather more than less mad than he that fancies a Post to be his Father. For men in their Wits, have at least as high an Opinion of what they take to be their Supream God, as they have of their Parents: And therefore to worship that as the Supream God, which no less wants the Perfections of a Spiritual and Invisible Nature, than a Post does, is a Misfortune that cannot light upon any Body but a Mad man.

So that our Author's Idolater is a man whom ei­ther all the World must acknowledge to be out of his Wits, or if you put him into his Wits, he is a meer Atheist; though I am confident he would not have described himself so wittily, as this Author has de­scribed him.

This Notion of Idolatry is to me so monstrous a No­tion, that I am apt to look again and again into the Book, to see if the words be there in which he has de­liver'd it. But when at last I find that they are un­doubtedly there, I am taken with a new fear, that the Author did not mean what he says; and therefore that I do not understand his meaning, though I under­stand the meaning of his words.

In such a Case as this, I have nothing to do, but to take another Notion of Idolatry; which though it be not the true and only Notion of it, has yet plain sense, and comes as near to his, as a Notion that has Sense can come to one that has none. And it is this: That I­dolatry is the Worship of the Sun, Moon, or Stars, or a­ny other Visible and Corporeal Deity, as the Supream God, not so as to exclude all Sense and Apprehension of a Spiritual and Invisible Godhead; but so as to suppose that as they are Visible Beings, so they have Invisible Natures too, and some Spiritual Perfections, which are indeed proper to the true God.

Now this Notion of Idolatry is, in one part of it, quite contrary to our Author's. For they who worship any Visible Deity as the Supream God, with this per­swasion, that it has indeed Spiritual and Invisible Per­fections, do not thereby exclude all Sense and Apprehen­sion of a Spiritual and Invisible Godhead; because they have the Sense of such a Godhead in the Notion of that very thing which they worship. But though this is not the Idolatry which his Book speaks of, yet, as I said, 'tis the likest to it that I can think of. And if he does not mean what his Book says, 'tis a hunder'd to one but he means this.

But if I should be mistaken, 'tis no great matter; [Page 17]for if I can but shew that this is not the only Notion of Idolatry, it follows out of hand, that the Notion of his Book cannot possibly be so neither: So that one way or other I am sure to reach him, whether he and his Book have one meaning or two.

1. According to this Notion then, those who re­tain the sense and apprehension of a Spiritual and Invi­sible Godhead, though they do worship the Heavenly Bodies, the Sun, Moon, and Stars, but this only as In­ferior and Subordinate Deities, cannot be Idolaters. And therefore if the Gentiles, the Aegyptians, for in­stance, or the Chaldaeans, did believe One Supream God, and worshipped the Sun, Moon, and Stars, upon the account of those Caelestial Spirits they suppo­sed to reside in them, this worship was not Idola­trous.

In like manner, those Gentiles that worshipped any Corporeal Deity, or any thing Visible or Invisible be­sides the Supreme God, if they believed all the while that it was not the Supreme God, and did not wor­ship it as such, they I say could not be Idolaters. And therefore I think if the Gentiles were Idolaters in worshipping any of their Deities, it must be be­cause they had no knowledge of the true God. So that either St. Paul or this Author was out in the true and only Notion of Idolatry. For though St. Paul accused the Gentiles of Idolatry, yet he confessed, that they knew God. For (says he) Though they knew God yet they glorified him not as God. Rom. 1.

2. If we do but interpret the Cautions of the New Testament against Idolatry, by our Author's Notion of Idolatry, they will be Paraphrased so as I believe they never were done before his time, and I suppose [Page 18]will never be after it. For instance; When St. Paul said to the Corinthian Christians, My dearly Beloved, flee from Idolatry; this was as much as if he had said, ‘My dearly Beloved, Idolatry being neither more nor less than the Worship of the Heavenly Bodies, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, or any Other Visible or Corporeal Deity as the Supreme God, I intreat and carnestly require you to Flee from Idolatry. And therefore though I do not bid you worship the Hea­venly Bodies, or their Images upon Earth, yet I strictly charge you, not to worship them as the Su­preme God, or as if there were not an Invisible God above them All; if ever you should find it conve­nient to worship the Sun or Moon, or Stars, or any Representation of them here below.’

This would be an Admirable Paraphrase, and which I doubt not but our Author would be able to make good against all those that neither do, nor can, nor ought to understand these things. But whether our Nobility and Men of Quality are willing to come into this Number I think I need not say.

3. But because to Created Beings he afterwards adds Mortal Ones, of which more hereafter, I sup­pose he means Reasonable Beings, let us see how things will go upon these new Terms. ‘Dearly Be­loved, if ever you should worship Saturn or Ju­piter, or such like men who died long since, still remember that they were once Visible and Mortal Men, and have a care not to worship them as the Su­preme God.’

I mention here only dead Heathens, there being yet no Christian Hero's in St. Paul's time to whom any such worship was given, nor for some Ages [Page 19]after. Now I think this will pass as little as the Other with Men that ought and do understand. For besides the barbarous Stuff which this Notion makes the Apostle to speak, it presses a meer Mon­ster upon us; That the Apostle supposes it utterly impossible for a Christian that does not at once re­nounce his whole Faith and Profession, to be guilty of Idolatry. St. Paul certainly was a very deep man in hiding his purpose, if by intreating the Chri­stians to Flee from Idolatry, he meant no other thing than that they should not take and worship the Sun, or the Moon, or some dead man, as the Su­preme God. And our Author is as deep a Man in finding out this hidden purpose of the Apostle, which till He arose no man was ever so happy as to do.

But indeed with all his Rhetorick he will never make himself and the Apostle of One mind in this matter. For thus St. Paul goes on: ‘Ye cannot drink the Cup of the Lord and the Cup of Devils; Ye cannot be Partakers of the Lord's Table, and of the Table of Devils. Do we provoke the Lord to Jealousie?’ Are we stronger than He? Now if they who partake in Idolatrous Sacrifices are Idolaters, and if Idolaters have no Sense of a Supreme God, above the pretended Deities to whom they offer, they will not I conceive care one Jot whether they partake of the Lord's Table or not, nor be concerned about the Lord's Jealousie at all. And yet St. Paul plainly supposes, that if Christians should be guilty of Idolatry, they would yet probably be concern'd about God's Jealousie, and desire to partake of the Lord's Table.

Thus when the same Apostle wrote to the very same Persons not to keep Company, no nor so much as to eat with One called a Brother, if he were a For­nicator, or Covetous, or an IDOLATER, or a Rai­ler, or a Drunkard. I cannot but wonder what an Idolater has to do in this Company, if this Author's Idolater, and St. Paul's Idolater were the same Idolater. For whatsoever the Fornicator, or Covetous, or Railer, or Drunkard, might pretend for a Title to Brotherhood; I am yet certain, that he is fallen even from all right to that Name, who worships the Sun (for instance) as the Supreme God, and so renounces God the Maker of the World, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. St. Paul speaks of his Idolater as One within the Church, and One of those wicked Persons that were to be cast out of the Civil as well as the Religious Com­munion of it. But if there be no Idolater besides this Author's Idolater, who has renounced the Maker of Heaven and Earth, and lost all Apprehension of him, he has prevented the Apostle's direction, and is out of the Church by his own Act.

4. These things do, I confess, give me a great Prejudice against this Author's true and only Notion of Idolatry. And there is one thing which I be­lieve will make him less fond of it himself, when he comes to consider it; and that is, that his No­tion does by no means suit with the Sense of that Church, to which he designed a good Turn in all this. It is very well known how the Fathers of Trent, to Vindicate their Worship of Images from being Parallel to what the Gentiles heretofore paid [Page 21]to theirs, did, among other Differences, lay down this for one: ‘That they do not believe any Divi­nity or Vertue to be in them, for which they ought to be Worshipped.’ For to believe this, their Catechism tells us, is to make the Images become Idols, and by consequence, the Worship of them to be Idolatry. Now if it be Idolatry to worship Images with such an Opinion, then it cannot be the only Notion of Ido­latry to worship the Sun, Moon, or Stars, or any Corporeal Deity, as the Supream God, or their Images as the Images of a pretended Supreme God: For without a­ny thing of all this, one may believe Divinity and Virtue to be in Images, and worship them upon that account.

For Example: The Heathens had a mighty O­pinion of Aesculapius after his Death, that in his Temples, and by his Images, he could cure Diseases. Let us suppose now a Person to fall down and worship one of these Images, in hopes of some Divine Vir­tue coming thence. Were this Worship Idolatry, or not? If it were not, then was the Council of Trent to blame, to make this an instance of the Gentiles Idolatry; if it were, then in the opinion of the Ro­man Church, the account of Idolatry which this Au­thor has given, cannot be the only Notion of it: For this was neither the Worshipping of any Corpo­real Deity, as the Supream God, nor of any Corporeal Image of the Supream God.

Lastly, In all the Accounts which the Missionaries of the Church of Rome have given us of the Hea­then Nations where they have come, we find them generally acknowledging a Supream, Spiritual, and Invisible Godhead. And that if they worship the Sun, [Page 22]Moon, or Stars, it is not that they esteem them to be meer Visible and Corporeal Deities, much less think them to be the Supream God, so as to exclude all sense and apprehension of a Spiritual and Invisible God above them; but they worship them either as inferiour Deities, to whom God has committed the Government of the World under him; or they look upon God to be the Soul of the World, and that therefore the parts of it deserve Honour upon that account: or finally, they esteem God to be of so great Perfection and Excellency, that He is above their service, and that therefore they ought to pay their External Adoration to somewhat below him. Now I shall leave it to this Author to consider up­on what grounds, according to his True and Only Notion of Idolatry, he will charge these men with this Guilt; or if out of his great Charity he shall think fit generously to acquit them of it, I will then send him to some of his Friends of the Roman Communion for better Instruction.

These and many other Reasons, that I might add, occur to me upon the very first view only, to make me suspect his Hypothesis. But now when I exa­mine it more particularly, I find it yet more gross and unreasonable. The sum of what he offers for it, is an Historical Deduction of the State of Idola­try in the Old Testament, compar'd with the Ac­counts that are given of the Idolatry of the Ancient, especially the Eastern Nations, Pag. 99, 100. ‘Who acknowledged no other Deities, but the Stars, among whom the Sun was Supream; in opposition to which false Principle, Rabbi Maimon says, God enacted the Law of Moses. And according to this Law, it ap­pears, [Page 23]That Idolatry is giving the Worship of the Supream God to any Created, Pag. 80, 81.Corporeal, or Visible Deity, or any thing that can be represented by an I­mage, which nothing but Corporeal Beings can; and to suppose such a Being the Supream Deity, in the only true and proper Idolatry.’

In opposition to which positive Conelusion, I will content my self at present to say, that there is not one word of truth in it; for that neither was the Religion of the Eastern Nations, such as he pretends, nor the Nature of Idolatry under the Law, what he represents it to have been. And to the end I may plainly clear this whole matter, I will distinctly shew three things.

First, That the Idolatry of those Nations whom he mentions, the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Persians, Ara­bians, &c. did not consist in Worshipping the Sun, Moon, and Stars, as the Supream God; So as to exclude all sense and apprehension of a Spiritual and Invisible Godhead. Nor therefore,

Secondly, Was this the only Idolatry forbidden to the Jews by the Law. But

Thirdly, That as the Jews retaining both the appre­hension and worship of the God of Israel, were yet guilty of Idolatry for worshipping him after a gentile manner, so may Christians be now.

And therefore that the Church of Rome may justly be charged by us as Idolatrous, though we do not pretend in any wise to say either that she worships the Sun, Moon, and Stars, or any other Visible and Corporeal Deity as the Supream God; or that she has [Page 24]lost all Apprehension of a Spiritual and Invisible God­head.

And thus having established the true Notion of Ido­latry, I shall last of all consider such Objections as may be necessary to be replied to for the clearing of it; and so leave the particular Charges to be made good by those who shall have occasion so to do.

THis is the Fundamental mistake of our Author concerning his Notion of Idolatry; and which being overthrown, his whole Hypothesis built upon it, must fall together with it. P. 80. For thus it is that he ar­gues: ‘God designed by his Law, to preserve the Jews from falling into the Idolatry of the Nations round about them: Against this, P. 102. we find not only all its Pre­cepts, but even the Rights and Ceremonies of it, to have been directed. But the Idolatry of those Nations was no other than the Worship of the Sun, P. 97, 100.Moon and Stars, or of some the like Visible and Corporeal Dei­ties, so as to exclude all Sense and Apprehension of a Spiritual and Invisible Godhead. And therefore this must be the true and only Notion of it in the Old Testament.’

I shall hereafter more fully shew the weakness of this Proof, when I come to demonstrate, That there were two sorts of Idolatry mention'd in those Holy Scriptures extreamly different the one from the other. And therefore that tho this were the true Notion of Ido­latry in one respect, yet it would not follow that it was the only Notion, by reason of the other. And this I shall do in the next Chapter. My business at present is to shew, That what he has thus Confidently laid down, is so far from being the only Notion of Idolatry, that it is indeed no Notion of it at all; for that those very Heathens whom he insists upon for his Warrant in this matter, were not guilty of such an Idolatry as he pretends they were.

We have already seen his Definition of Idolatry, P. 74. that it is neither more nor less than this: ‘The Worship of the Heavenly Bodies, the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars, or any other Visible and Corporeal Deity, as the Supreme God, so as to exclude all Sense and Apprehen­sion of a Spiritual and Invisible Godhead.’ Ibid. This he pre­tends is the only Scripture Notion of it. ‘And thus (he says) all Learned Men of all Nations, P. 99.all Reli­gions, ever understood the old Notion of Idolatry, till this last Age, when Folly and Passion cast it at any thing that peevish Men were angry with. So Rabbi­Mamion, the most Learned and Judicious of the Jew­ish Doctors Discourses at large, That the Ancient Ido­latry was nothing but the Religion of the Eastern Na­tions, P. 100. who acknowledg no other Deities but the Stars, among whom the Sun was Supreme.’ And then he immediately subjoyns, ‘That the Ancient Heathens worshipped only the Stars, Ibid.without any Notion of He­roes or Daemons: So Diodorus Siculus says of the [Page 27] Egyptians; Herodotus of the Persians and Chaldeans; Strabo and Justin, of the Arabians, P. 101. and Caesar of the Germans. He confesses indeed, That there was ano­ther sort of Idolatry introduced afterward, the Wor­ship of Men and Women; but this he takes to have been much more Modern, and a meer Invention of the vain and lying Greeks; but that whensoever it came in, it was grafted upon the old Stock, of giving the Worship of the Supreme God, not only to created, but to mortal Beings.’ So this Author. To which I Reply.

I. That as to this latter sort of Idolatry, seeing he has declin'd the Consideration of it, as being of too young a date to found the Scripture Notion of Idolatry upon it, I shall not insist upon it; tho I am by no means satisfied, either in his account of its Antiquity, or that it was a meer Invention of the vain and lying Greeks. For

1. It has been the Opinion of very Learned Men, that this kind of Idolatry was practised in Egypt soon after the Flood. And that the most Ancient Osiris, See Vossius de Idol. l. 1. c. 27. was no other than Mitzraim, the Son of Cham, whom they worshipped together with his Father, and from whom the whole Country is in Scripture called by his Name. In the cv. Psalm 23. it is expresly stiled, the Land of Cham: And Plutarch informs us, Plutarch de Iside & Ofiri­de. that in the Sacred Rites of Isis, they call it [...], very probably upon the same Account. And that which makes this the more likely is, that in the Division of the World among the Sons of Noah, Gen. x. Arabia fell to the Lot of Cham; and in that Chush his eldest Son fixed himself, from whence the Country is called, the Land [Page 28]of Cush, in 2 Kings xix. 9. And then it may easily be conceiv'd that his second Son Mitzraim, should go into the next adjoyning Country, the Land of Egypt. Now if this be so, then it follows, not only that this sort of Idolatry was much more Ancient than is pre­tended; but that being practised in Egypt before the Children of Israels going down thither; it may be reasonably enough allow'd a sufficient Antiquity for us to derive something from it of the Notion of Idola­try, with reference to the times under debate. But,

2dly, As to the very Apis its self, the chief Deity of the Egyptians, and whom our Author contends to have been the Sun; P. 89. it is not improbable, but that they meant no other than the Patriarch Joseph by it; and whom they Honour'd with Divine Honours, upon the Account of his wonderful Preservation of them in the seven years Famine, Jul. Firm. p. 17, 18. Gen. xli. Thus Julius Firmicus expresly Interprets it, and what is more, adds, that this was according to the manner of their Country: ‘The Egyp­tians (says he) after his Death, according to the ap­pointment of their Country, built Temples to Him. And again,’ This Man is worshipt in Egypt, he is adored, &c. Ruffin. l. 2. Hist. Eccles. c. 23. To him Ruffinus agrees; and St. Augustin, or whoever else was the Author of that Book under his Name, De Mirabilibus Scripturae, informs us, ‘That the Egyptians upon this account, set up the Symbol of an Ox over the Sepulchre of Joseph, in Memory of their Deliverance.’ Suidas in voce [...]. Cl. Alex. [...]. 1. Thus Suidas interprets their Serapis; who as Clemens Alexandrinus (out of Ari­steas) tells us, was the same with Apis; and both Suidas, Ruffinus, and Julius Firmicus, add, that his Statue was set up with a Bushel upon his Head, to denote the Plenty of Corn which he provided for them. [Page 29]And in the very Scripture it self, Joseph is either call'd, or at least compar'd to an Ox, Deut. xxxiii. 17. And some of the Rabbins have given this account of the very Calves of Jeroboam, that they were the Symbols of Joseph, set up by him in Honour of his Ancestors, from a part of whose Tribe, viz. that of Ephraim, he was himself descended.

Here it were an easie matter to multiply Proofs upon this occasion, to shew that the Idolatry of Consecrating Heroes into Gods, and Worshipping them as such, is by no means of so fresh a date, as this Author would have it thought to be. For what he adds, Page 101. That when­soever ‘it came in, it was grafted upon the Old Stock of giving the Worship of the Supreme God, not only to Created, but to Mortal Beings:’

I answer, 1. That this is evidently contrary to all the accounts we have of their Worship; and accord­ing to which it appears, that the Heathens paid no other Worship to their Divi, or deified Men, than what the Church of Rome at this day does to her Saints; but as carefully distinguish'd between the Adoration of the Supreme God, and these Heroes, as the other do be­tween Him, and those Blessed Men that Reign together with Him, as their Language tells us.

2. Whenever this Idolatry came in, 'tis evident that the very nature of it utterly overthrows his Only No­tion of Idolatry before laid down; unless he supposes that they thought their Heroes, whom whilst they li­ved they knew to be but men, born into the World after the common order of Nature, and even dying after the same manner as all others, became after Death the Supreme God that made Heaven and Earth; and believed all this so firmly, as not only to give the Wor­ship [Page 30]of the Supreme God to them, but to exclude all Sense and Apprehension of any God above them. For so (he says) a man must do, before he can be guilty of Idolatry.

Now if this be his Opinion, I would then ask this Learned Antiquary one small Question: Seeing the Num­ber of their Heroes was very great, whom the same Persons at the same time worshipped; Did they be­lieve every one of these to be the Supreme God that made Heaven and Earth, and give the highest Divine Honour accordingly unto every one of them as such? That they did this, no man of Sense will either say or believe; and yet if they did not, the true and only Notion of Idolatry is at an end; for which ever of their Heroes they believed to be the Supreme God, and Worshipped as such, they must have Adored the rest only as Inferior Deities, and with an Honour suitable to their Apprehensions of them.

Either therefore he must quit his true and only No­tion of Idolatry, which he tells us is neither more nor less than, Page 74. ‘The Worship of the Heavenly Bodies, the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars, or any other Visible and Corporeal Deity, as the Supreme God, so as to exclude all Sense and Apprehension of a Spiritual and invisible Godhead;’ or he must give us some assurance that the Egyptians (for instance) worshipping of Joseph under the Symbol of an Ox, did believe him to be the Supreme Deity, so as to exclude all sense and apprehension of any Superior Godhead, and did worship him accordingly; that is, that those men were so sot­tish as to think that a man who had lived and died a­mongst them, was the Great God that framed the world▪ and all things in it, many Ages before himself had any Being. But

[Page 31]II. To come to the Other, and (as he supposes) the more Ancient Idolatry, and in his Notion of which, I affirm him to have been utterly mistaken: And here I must observe, that it is not at all doubted, but that these Heathens did Worship the Sun, Moon, and Stars; that which I pretend is, that this Author is very much out in the Account which he gives of their Worship of them.

1. He affirms, Page 74. That they worshipped these Hea­venly Bodies as Visible and Corporeal Deities, so as to exclude all sense and apprehension of a Spiritual and In­visible Godhead: Whereas on the contrary, they be­lieved these very Bodies themselves to be animated by Celestial Spirits who resided in them, and rendred them thereby proper Objects of their Adoration.

2. That they worshipped these Visible and Corpo­real Deities, as the Supreme God; Ibid. whereas they con­stantly acknowledged a First and Invisible Godhead, superior to them.

3. That they worshipp'd no other Gods but these, Page 97, 100. and amongst these the Sun as supreme; when on the contrary it is certain, even from the very Authors that himself produces, that they worshipp'd other Dei­ties, both Heroes and Daemons, of which this Man yet pretends with so much assurance, that they had no Notion.

And all these are not only gross Errors for an Au­thor who writes with such Confidence as if he would be thought to have been initiated into all the Religi­ons of which he discourses, but such as utterly ruin all that he has to say to support his true and only Notion of Idolatry. But I must examine these Points more particularly. And

[Page 32]1. ‘That these Nations did not worship the Hea­venly Bodies as Visible and Corporeal Deities, so as to exclude all sense and apprehension of a Spiritual and invisible Godhead.’

This is an Assertion not only so monstrously absurd in its self, but so contrary to all the Accounts we have from Antiquity, of the Theology of those Nations to which he refers us, that I must once more confess, that I never lay under a greater Temptation to disbe­lieve my own Senses, or to suspect my understanding of plain words than now: On the one hand, I am sure our Author here defines Idolatry to be, ‘The Worship of the Heavenly Bodies, the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars, or some other visible and Corporeal Deity, not only as the Supreme God, but so at to ex­clude all sense and apprehension of a Spiritual and In­visible Godhead:’ That is to say, that he who is an Idolater must worship them as mere Corporeal Parts of the Creation, void of all Ʋnderstanding; for so I think Visible and Corporeal Gods must be taken, when oppo­sed to all sense and apprehension of a Spiritual and In­visible Godhead. And yet on the other hand, how to reconcile such a Paradox with either the common Reason of Mankind, as I have observed before; or the clear Evidences of the Gentile World to the contrary, as I observe now, I am not able to comprehend: But let our Author take his choice; for I will here again do more than I need, rather than be thought to omit any thing that was fit to be taken notice of. If he thinks good to own this Notion, I will then offer what may serve to confute it; but if being admonished of the Absurdity of it, he shall chuse rather to wrest his words to some other meaning than they naturally bear, I [Page 33]shall only have spent some little time in confuting that, which if he does not, I am certain no body else will ever affirm.

And to begin where himself does, with the Holy Scriptures, not only the most certain, but the most Ancient History in the World.

He produces indeed a few Texts from whence it may be concluded, that the Heathens of old, did worship the Sun, Moon, and Stars; but that they wor­shipped them (according to his Notion) as Corporeal Deities, and so as to exclude all sense and apprehension of a Spiritual and Invisible Godhead; for this he has not so much as offer'd at one single Proof.

For 1. As to his first Instance, Page 77. (and which indeed is the first account we have) of Idolatry. The Scrip­ture, 'tis true, tells us that Terah, Abraham's Father, worshipped Strange Gods; but that these Gods were Corporeal Deities, and that they worshipp'd them so as to exclude all sense and apprehension of a Spiritual and Invisible Godhead, of this there is not a word: See Josh. xxiv. 2. and I shall presently shew the con­trary.

If we go on with him to the next (and as he thinks the first plain) intimation we find of Idolatry in Pa­lestine, ‘in the History of Jacob; Page 78. after his Conversa­tion with the Shechemites, Gen. 35. where upon his departure from that City by God's especial Command, he builds an Altar at Bethel to God, and commands his Family to put away their [...], or strange Gods.’ Nei­ther here shall we find our Author's notion so much as insinuated, but as I will now prove, much to the con­trary. It is not to be doubted, but that these Gods were the same that they worshipped in Syria when they [Page 34]were in the house of Laban; and that therefore the Images which Jacob buried, could be no other than the Teraphim, so usual amongst them, i. e. such as Rachel stole from her Father Laban, Gen. xxxi. 30. How far from hence it might be proved that their Idolatry did not consist merely in their worshipping of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, I shall not now dispute: Let us sup­pose these Teraphims to have been not only made by Planetary Influences, but designed to represent the Sun, or some other Heavenly Bodies; then, I say, it follows both from the History of Laban, and from the ac­counts we have of these Idols, that they did not wor­ship the Sun as a Corporeal Deity, and by consequence that that cannot be the true Notion of their Idolatry, which is pretended to be. For,

1. As to Laban, we read Gen. xxxi. 53. that when he ratified the Covenant with Jacob, he called to witness not only the God of Abraham, but the [...], his own domestick Deity too, i. e. in our Author's opini­on, the Sun, ‘The God (says he) of Abraham, and the God of Nachor judg betwixt us:’ Now this plainly shews that Laban lookt upon his Father's God (and who was also the God of Tera before-mentioned, Josh. xxiv. 2.) not to be a mere Corporeal Deity, but as having an Intellectual Being incorporated in it, that was both capable of hearing their Oath, and of judging betwixt them, and without which he could never have called him to witness their Contract.

2. For what concerns the Teraphim, it appears from Holy Scripture, that the Chaldeans made use of them not only as symbols for Worship, but for Oracles too, and as such, were wont to consult them; it was for this, that Rachel is supposed to have stollen away her [Page 35]Father's Gods, Gen. 31. that so when he should come, and miss her husband, he might not be able to enquire of them which way to pursue after him. We read in Ezek. xxi. 21. That the King of Babylon consulted with his Teraphim, Hierom in l. 7. in Ezek. p. 212. which St. Jerome calls consulting with his Oracle, after the manner of his Country: And the Prophet Zachary x. 2. tells the People, 'That their Teraphim had spoken vanity: Now how could this pos­sibly be, had the Chaldeans worshipped only Visible and Corporeal Deities? Is not this an undeniable Evidence, that they acknowledged in the Heavenly Bodies, invi­sible Spirits to descend and influence their Teraphim, so as to make them speak?

Many are the accounts that may be given of these Idols, Vossius de I­dol. lib. 1. Selden de diis Syris Syntag. 1. c. 2. Dr. Pocock on Hosea xiii. 2. p. 725. and which have been collected with much exact­ness by those great men, Gerard Vossius, Mr. Selden, &c. But I shall content my self to subjoin the Authority of one only Person, now living, and no way inferior to any that can be produced, ‘It seems (saith he) to have been the Opinion of those Ancient Idolaters, that some spiritualities from superior Intelligences, and Hea­venly Powers, did influence such Images as they made in such Figures as they thought acceptable to them, and de­dicated to them; and therefore called such their Images themselves God, and thought them so, at least Deos Vi­carios, Inferior Deities; Mediators between them and the Superior, and did offer Sacrifice, and burnt Incense, that they might draw down and entice (as it were) those spiritual Influences to reside on those Images, that so they might declare to them, Id. on Hosea iii. 4.and do for them what they desired. And elsewhere he says, That the modern Za­bii not only pretend to succeed the old Chaldees in their Religion, but that as to their Rites about Telesms, and [Page 36]Figures, and Images, we cannot but easily believe, that they were derived to them from Ancient Times.’

And now that I mention the Zabii, I cannot but observe the wonderful acuteness of our Author in his Reflections upon them; he calls it ‘the Dream of the Zabii;’ Page 76. and he decretorily condemns all that is said by Learned Men on their behalf, merely because ‘He (a Person so acurately versed in all the Learning of the East) can find no Ancient Footsteps of any such people in the world;’ Pag. 110, 111. and that Dr. Spencer has disco­ver'd for him, ‘That the name is no older than Maho­met, who call'd them Zabii, because they lay Eastward from Arabia;’ for so the word signifies, Easterlings.

Thus this Author, and still, as becomes himself, he pronounces, Dictator-like, and is alway in the wrong; for the Question is not about the name of Zabii (which from henceforth must signifie Easterlings, tho the Learned Dr. Spencer had collected no less than five several significations of it, De Legib. Heb. l. 2. c. 1. Sect. 1. and every one supported by probable Conjectures); but about the People, or rather the Religion; and to draw this matter out of the Clouds, and shew what an Admirable Critick we have got here, it is just as if a man should undertake to prove the Britains to be a people of no Antiquity, because they are now called Welch, and that's but a Modern Name.

Now according to this true State of this Matter, Spencer ib. l. 2. c. 1. Sect. 2. it is evidently shew'd by that Learned Person I before mentioned, that the Religion of the Zabii is not only of no Modern date, but is as Ancient, or even more Ancient than Abraham. Abulfeda calls it the most An­cient Religion; Dr. Spencer ib. p. 240. and Saidus Batricides attributes the Original of the Zabii, thus consider'd, in their Man­ners, [Page 37]and Superstitions, to the time of Nachor, De Convers. Indor. l. 1. c. 4.Abraham's Grandfather. To this Subscribes the Learned and In­quisitive Hornbeck; and who thinks them to be the same with those that were anciently called Sabaei; and Abul-Pharajius, cited by Dr. Spencer, thus con­firms it, Hist. Dynast. D. 9. p. 281. ‘That which we certainly know of the Sect of the Zabii, is, that their Profession is altogether the same with the Profession of the Ancient Chaldeans.’

As for the point before us; Spencer ib. p. 237, 238. we are told that they worshipped the Host of Heaven, supposing the Stars to be animated by Divine Ʋnderstandings. Dr. Po­cock adds, ‘That they lookt upon the Planets, Not. in spec. Hist. Arab. p. 143. as Me­diators between the Supreme God, and Men; and cites Gregorius, Abulfaraeus and Sharestanius, for his War­rant; which last expresly says, Ibid. p. 146. That they worship the Bodies of the Planets, as the Habitations of the living, rational, and intellectual Substances, which they suppose to animate them.’

Now these are all plain and rational Accounts, why they should worship these Heavenly Bodies; but to talk of their worshipping the Sun, Moon and Stars, as Visible and Corporeal Deities, and that so as to ex­clude all Sense and Apprehension of a Spiritual and Invisible Godhead, is to represent their Worship con­trary not only to Truth, but to common Sense and Reason too. But when Men are resolved to advance such Notions, as this Author does, they must have Proofs of the same kind. And this for the Chalde­ans.

As to the Egyptians, Jamblicus informs us, Jamblic. de Myster. Sect. 37. That they worshipped indeed the Sun, Moon and Stars, as Visible Gods; but such as were compounded of Soul and Body, and they esteem'd those Planets to be Seats [Page 38]only of those Coelestial Spirits that were to take care of human Affairs.

It was a nice Question put by Porphyry, Id. Sect. 1. c. 17. to an Egyp­tian Priest, ‘How the Sun, Moon and Stars could be Gods, seeing the Gods are incorporeal?’

Jamblicus answers, ‘That the incorporeal Gods assume those Bodies, by which they become Visible.’ And Sy­rianus asserts, Syrian. in Me­taphys. l. 12. The Coelestial Animals (as he calls them) ‘to be the Images of the Maker of the World, and to communicate Sense to it.’

But it may be said, That these were Philosophers, and endeavour'd to make the best of their Idolatry. I answer, Jambl. de My­ster. Sect. c. 1. That Jamblicus declares, he delivers nothing but according to the old Egyptian Books: And he de­livers it for the true Egyptian Theology; That there was one Supreme God above all; Cap. 2. next him the Demiur­gus; the third Principle he calls [...], and some think the Sun is meant by it, as the immediate Go­vernor of the World. If so, there is great Reason why the Sun should be worshipped under the Names of Moloch and Baal, as being King and Lord of this infe­rior World. And thus neither did the Egyptians wor­ship these Heavenly Bodies, so as to exclude all Sense of a Spiritual and Invisible Godhead.

If from both these Nations we pass finally to the Persians, Gol. not. in Alferg. p. 20, 21.Jac. Golius will give us the very same Ac­count of them, viz. That the Ancient Persians did worship Coelestial Spirits, as having a particular presi­dency over the material part of the World.

And now, after so many plain Testimonies in this matter, were it yet needful to look into any other Countries, we should find the Case to be every where the same. Pliny l. 2. c. 6. Pliny pleads much for the Divinity of the [Page 39] Sun; but do's he believe it to be a Visible and Corpo­real Deity, so as to exclude any Invisible and Spiritual Godhead? No, on the contrary, he calls it the Spirit and Mind of the World. He attributes Sense and Un­derstanding to it; and affirms from Homer, That it sees and hears all. And indeed this is so often insist­ed upon by that Poet, Eustath. in Homer, Odyss. T. p. 1871. In Iliad. [...] p. 414. that Eustathius from thence ob­serves, that the Sun was to be consider'd not only as a Luminary of the Heavens, but as a [...], a Spirit cloathed with such an illustrious Body. And in another place he takes notice of the decency of Ho­mer, That he calls the heavenly Powers to be Witnesses of Oaths, and particularly the Sun.

So little Truth is there in this first of our Authors Pretence, 'That the Ancients did Worship the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars, as Visible and Coporeal Deities, so as to exclude all Sense and Apprehension of a Spiritual and Invisible Godhead. Let us see

2dly, P. 97. Whether they who worshipp'd these Pla­nets, look'd upon them as the Supreme Deities, so as not to acknowledg any Divinity above them.

And here it must be confess'd, Mor. Nevoch. l. 3. c. 29. he has at least an appearance of Truth. For, as for the Chaldeans, Mai­monides tells us of the Ancient Zabii, That they had no other Gods but the Stars; and that among them, [Page 40]they look'd upon the Sun as Supreme. Hornbeck de Convers. Ind. l. 1. c. 4. Pocock Not. in Spec. Hist. Ar. p. 139. From whence our Learned Pocock seems to think it not far from the Truth, to say, that possibly they derived their very Name of Zabii; Saba in the Hebrew, signifying an Host, as if one should say, [...], Worshippers of the Host of Heaven.

The same is the Account which Sanchoniathon, men­tioned both by Eusebius and St. Cyril, Euseb. Praep. Evan. l. 1. c. 9. p. 30. Cyril. contr. Jul. l. 6. p. 205. c. gives of the Phaenicians, ‘That they worshipped the Sun, Moon and Stars, as the only immortal Gods, among which the Sun was chief, called by them Beth-Samen, Lord of Hea­ven.’ And for the Persians, Herodotus tells us, That the Sun was their only God: Herodot. l. 1. [...]; to which Strabo and Trogus, Strabo l. 11. Trogus apud Justinum l. 1. vid. Voss. de Joel. l. 2. c. 9. in Justin, assent. And Hesychius, tho he rejects this, yet acknowledges him to be the first or supreme God amongst them [...] (says he) [...]. All which seems to be confirm'd by those Ancient Inscriptions collected by Gruterus and others, Apud Voss. loc. cit. vid. Hornb. de Con. Ind. p. 19. Elmen­horst. in Ar­nob. p. 27, &c.

from all which it may be thought to follow, that (as this Author here tells us) the Gods which those Ancient Heathens worshipped, P. 97. were nothing but the Heavenly Bodies, or the Sun as the supreme Deity.

But yet if we enquire more exactly into these things, we shall find their Worship to have been much other­wise than what at first sight it appears to be; for to begin with those I last named, the Persians; and than whom none have been more famed for Adoring the Sun: De Iside & Osiride. Plutarch tells us that they had a Notion of a [Page 41] Deity whom they call'd Oromasdes, superior to him, and the Account of whom (derived to them from Zoroaster) he thus delivers to us. They believed that there were two contrary Principles, the one Good, the other Evil. The former of these they called Oromas­des, whom they also look'd upon as the [...], or Creator, as Agathias informs us; the other Arimanius. Between these two, they placed their Mithras, or the Sun, who was esteem'd by them, as much Inferior to Oromasdes, as Superior to Arimanius. To this Oro­masdes, they ascribed the Creation of the Stars, and of the Good Gods, thus Plutarch: Photius Cod. 81. But Photius carries it yet a little further in his Account of a Book writ­ten by Theodorus, Bishop of Movestia, concerning the Persian Rites, he says, That they believed the first Principle of all, to be [...], and that he begat the other two, which with some little difference, he calls Ormisdas and Satan.

But not to insist upon these Accounts: Jac. Golius Not. in Alferg. p. 20. We are told by a Learned Man in his Notes upon Alferganus, that the Persians gave the Names of their Gods to their Months and Days, according to the Ancient Religion of the Persians and Magi, whereby they did believe their Gods to preside over them; it being a Principle amongst them, as well as among all other Nations of the East, that the things of this lower World are administred by Angels. The Spirit over the Sun, they called Mihr­gian, from Mitro the Sun. But above all those, they believed there was one Supreme God.

Eubulus, Porphyr. de antro Nym­pharum. who wrote the History of Mithras (which was extant in St. Jeromes time) hath given a particular Account of the Cave which Zoroaster made in honour of another and superior Mithras, the Father and Maker [Page 42]of the World. Even Herodotus himself, whom this Au­thor so confidently produces for his Warrant (but cites no particular passage of him) distinguishes their Jupi­ter from the Sun, Herod. Clio [...]n. 131. p. 56. and says, by it they understood the whole Heaven in which the Sun is fixt; and sacrificed to him distinctly from the other. Strabo l. 15. p. 503. And so does Strabo, another of his Authors: Xenophon often mentions a [...], as a Deity superior to the Sun; especially, where speaking of Cyrus being admonished in a Dream of his approaching Death, See Dr. Cud­worth. l. 1. c. 4. he tell us, that he sacrificed to his Country Jupiter first, and then to the Sun: And Plutarch brings in Darius in like manner addressing to him, [...]. Thou our Country Jupiter, or Supreme God of the Persians.

I might add here, See Dr Still. Answ. to T. G. p. 110. That the same is the Opinion of those Persees, who stick to their Ancient Religion at this day. But these have been already collected by a very Eminent Hand. I shall conclude, therefore, with the form of that Proclamation, which Cyrus gave in favour of the Jews, and by which it plainly appears that they believed the same First and Soveraign Deity with our selves, Ezra i. 2. Thus saith Cyrus King of Persia, The Lord God of Heaven hath given me all Kingdoms of the Earth, and hath charged me to build him a House at Jerusalem. And in the next Verse, he calls the same God, The Lord God of Israel. And I hope this Author will not say that was the Sun, or any other Visible and Corporeal Deity.

I have enlarged my self the more on this part of Antiquity, because the Persians, if any, must have been found to worship the Sun, as the Supreme God. I shall be very short in other Nations, and so close this Consideration.

And for what concerns the Egyptians, I have already given some Account of their Theology; and we may learn from thence, how it came to pass, that the Sun (whom none of the Heathens looked upon as absolutely the supreme and highest Being) is yet so often spoken of by them as such. See before. For as Jamblicus informs us out of the old Egyptian Books, they believ'd one Supreme God above all, next him the Demiurgus, and then [...], or the Sun; whom they esteem'd the Supreme Visible God, and as he who had the Super-intendency over the visible World. To which I will add the Authority of Prophyry, Euseb. pr. Ev. lib. 3. and that the rather for that in his Epistle to Anebo, he seems to suspect that the old Egyptians look'd no farther than the Sun, Moon and Stars. But 'tis plain that this was only a difficulty, which he puts to the Egyptian Priest; since himself owns that they repre­sented the Creator, whom they call'd Cneph, with an Egg in his Mouth, to signifie the Production of the World; and of which the Sun is but a Part.

And here I may not omit another Notion of the Egyptians, and which was not theirs only; and from whence we may again know how to understand those who seem to represent the Sun as the Supreme Deity. Porphyr. de Abst. l. 2. Sect. 34. It was a Principle in their Theology, that the Supreme God of all, is not to be worshipped by any External and Sen­sible thing, not so much as by Vocal Prayer, but only by pure Silence and Contemplation: But that Sacrifices and Hymns were to be made to Powers inferior to Him. Among these they esteemed the Sun, Moon and Stars to be the chief; from whence it was obvious enough to mistake, that because these were the highest Deities, to whom they paid any External Adoration, therefore they had no other superior to them.

And now there remains only the Chaldeans and Phoenicians, Not. in Spe­cim. Hist. A­rab. p. 143. to be consider'd; and of these, both Gre­garius Abulfarajus and Sharestanius, cited by our Learned Dr. Pecock, gives us Accounts very different from that of Maimonides before mention'd; and that Judicious and Reverend Author, justly esteems the Cre­dit of Abulfarajus, preferrable to R. Maimon's, for that he was better acquainted with their Writings, and read them in their own Language, which the other did not. And if what Sharestanius reports be true, Ibid. p. 140. That it was their Principle, that between the Supreme God and Us, there must be some Mediators; this again will furnish us with yet another Reason, why the Sun may easily have been mistaken for their Supreme Deity, because he was the principal Mediator betwixt God and them, and the Highest to which they paid any immediate External Adoration. And tho this Author is as posi­tive, as if he had all the Evidence in the World for it, [...]. 76. ‘That God made an extraordinary Discovery of him­self to Abraham, as Lord of all things, in opposition to the Idolatry of his own Country,’ by which he would imply that the Chaldeans in those days did not suppose God to be the Lord of all things; yet is it (like the rest of his Book) all Imagination, without any thing to support it. For indeed we have all the reason in the World to believe that the Chaldeans had at this time the knowledg of the one true God. 1. It appears by ma­nifest Computation, that Shem, from whom Tera and Abraham were descended, was yet living with them, and it is altogether unaccountable, either that him­self should have lost the knowledg of the one true Supreme God; or that if he retain'd it, all the rest of his Family should have been utterly ignorant of it. [Page 45]2. It is indeed said in Holy Scripture, Josh. xxiv. v. 2. that they worshipped strange Gods; but it is not said that they either worshipped them as the Supreme God, or had utterly lost all sense and apprehension of any such spiritual and invisible Godhead. 3. In all the History of God's calling Abraham out of Ʋr of the Chaldees, we do not find any thing to make us believe that God was pleased to make the discovery of himself to him, as Lord of all things, in opposition to the Idolatry of his Family. 4. It is hard to suppose, that when all the barbarous Nations, as we have seen, preserv'd the Notion of the True, Supreme God, only these Chal­deans should lose it; it was but on the other side the River, that we find the knowledg of God preserv'd in the Land of Canaan. And lastly, we do certainly know, that but two Generations after Laban, tho he did wor­ship (as it is said of Tera) [...], strange Gods too, yet he retain'd with them a very good sense and apprehension of the Supreme God, as is plain from Gen. xxxi. where the God of Abraham is found to ap­pear to him, v. 29. And again v. 53. he ratifies his Co­venant with his Son Jacoh, swearing by the God of Abraham, as well as by the strange God, the God of Nahor.

To conclude; Macrobius, Macrob. Sa­turnal. than whom none could have taken more pains to shew the universal Worship of the Sun, was yet so far from thinking that it exclu­ded all sense and apprehension of a Supreme God, that he plainly says in the beginning, that he intended to treat only of the Dij qui sub Coelo sunt, the lower sort of Worldly Gods; and in his Commentary upon the Dream of Scipio, he plainly acknowledges a higher Divinity, whom he calls the Prima Causa, & Omnipo­tentissimus [Page 46]Deus; The First Cause, and most Almighty God.

I shall close all with a passage of Plutarch, which will at once shew both that the Heathens had a know­ledg of the Supreme God amongst them, Plutarch de I­side & Osiride. and that it was He whom they all every where Adored as such, however differing in their Manners and Ceremonies from one another: ‘No inanimate thing can be a God to men; but they who bestow upon us a continual supply of what is sufficient for us, have therefore been esteemed Gods by us; which Gods are not different among diffe­rent Nations, as if the Barbarians and Greeks, the Southern and Northern People had not the same God; but as the Sun, and Moon, and Heaven, and Earth, and Sea, are common to all, but are called differently by different men; so tho there be but ONE WORD, or REASON, ordering all those things, and but ONE PROVIDENCE dispensing all things, and the Inferior Powers which are appointed over all, having had several Names and Honours from several Persons, and by the Laws of several Countries, have been every where wor­shipp'd throughout the whole World.’

I pass on finally to enquire,

3. Whether these Ancient Idolaters, P. 97, 100. as is pre­tended, did so Worship these Heavenly Bodies, as to Worship nothing besides, and in particular so as to exclude all Notion of Heroes and Daemons.

This indeed is an Assertion worthy our Author, who as he has hitherto advanced nothing but Paradoxes, so he resolves he will not now alter his Character by re­presenting Antiquity truly at the last.

I have already shewn in opposition to this suggesti­on, how the Egyptians had their Divi, or Canonized men presently after the Flood; and that we have some reason to believe their principal Deities, viz. Apis and Osyris, to have been such; I will now add, that the first Dynasties of Manetho, of Gods and Demi-Gods upon Earth, confirms this, and to which the old Egyptian Chronicon in Syncellus adds yet more force. St. Cyril tells us from Sanchoniathon, that not only the most Ancient Greeks, but especially the Phoeniceans and Egyptians, from whom this Superstition was deri­ved to all others (tho our Author, ever in the wrong, P. 101. Cyrillus Alex. contra Julian, l. 6. p. 205. C.D. will have the Greeks to be the Inventors of it) esteem­ed those the greatest Gods, [...] who had either found out some things useful for the life of man, or otherwise deser­ved well of their Country. [...]. And looking upon them as their Benefactors and Causes of great good to them, they worshipped them as Gods, and prepared Temples for that purpose, and consecrated Pil­lars and other Ensigns of Honour to their Memory. And as the Holy Father from the same Author goes on, These they greatly worshipped, and the Phoenicians especially, dedicated Festivals unto them.

But it was not enough for our Author merely to advance a most false Conclusion concerning these Gen­tiles, unless he also chuse an Evidence for it that speaks the direct contrary to his Assertion: For thus it became him to keep up a just decorum between his Principles and his Proofs, that so we may be satisfied, that he values Truth alike in both.

‘This (says he) is attested by all Historians, Page 100. viz. That the old Heathen Nations worshipped only the Stars, without any Notion of Heroes and Demons.’ And the very first he instances, in is Diodorus Siculus for the Egyptians.

But this is perfectly to astonish us, and too plainly shews that some mens assurance is without bounds, as well as without reason: For what? Does Diodorus Siculus say that the Egyptians worshipp'd only the Stars, without any Notion of Heroes and Demons? This is worse than to write History out of an Invisible Manuscript; 'tis indeed to write History directly con­trary to the Visible Records out of which he pretends to have taken it: For let this Author look into Diodo­rus Siculus, whom I would willingly hope he has never yet read, Diodorus Si­culus Ed. Ha­nov. G. L. An. 1604. and there he will find him in his First Book, so far from what he pretends, that on the contrary, he expresly distinguishes between two sorts of Gods among the Egyptians, and discourses of them in Order: And first of the Celestial Gods, p. 10. two of which he says the Egyptians first of all had, [...], the Sun and the Moon: Having discoursed of these, he thus formally concludes his Account, Page 12. 'And this the Egyptians say concerning their Celestial Gods, and such as had an Eternal Generation.

And then goes on immediately on the other sort, Ibid. which this Author pretends Diodorus Siculus denies them to have had ANY NOTION OF: [...]. But be­sides these (the Sun and Moon, &c.) they say there are other Terrestrial Gods, Mortals indeed by Nature, but for their Wisdom and Prudence, and the benefits [Page 49]they did to mankind, endued with Immortality; of which kind (says he) were some of the Kings of Egypt. In the next page he places amongst these, P. 13. our Author's Friends, Isis and Osiris, whose Hi­story he relates: And finally, to raise his ill choice to the highest Evidence, having given a long relation of these kind of Deities, P. 101: he concludes as directly against our Author's other Assertion, ‘That this kind of Idola­try was the Invention of the vain and lying Greeks,’ as if he had been retain'd on our side, Diod. Siculus p. 20, 21. by shewing ex­presly how they derived this kind of Idolatry from the Egyptians, by the means of Orpheus, who had been initiated in the Egyptian Rites; and then gives us this universal Conclusion, p. 21. [...]. That the Egyptians do in general say, that the Grecians have appropriated to themselves the most eminent of their Heroes and Gods, as well as of their Colonies.

So much would it have been for our Author's Repu­tation, if Diodorus Siculus too, had been an Invisible Manuscript.

2. The next Author he produces, is Herodotus, who, he says, affirms the same of the Persians and Chaldeans, that they worshipped only the Stars, without any Notion of Heroes and Demons; but concerning the former part of his Assertion, I have already shewn, that they did not worship only the Stars, but acknow­ledged a Supreme Deity above them; and for the lat­ter, the very same Herodotus who says this of the Persians, in his first Book, Page 100, 101. does directly contradict his Conclusion, ‘That this was the sense of all the old Heathen Nations, but especially that the worshipping of [Page 50]Men and Women, was the Invention of the vain and lying Greeks,’ in the very next, where he tells us that they derived their Twelve Gods from the Egyptians, Herodotus, l. 2. c. 4. p. 91. who were the first Inventors of this Idolatry.

3. The same (he says) in the next place is affirm­ed by Strabo and Justin, of the Arabians: Had he been pleased to produce some passages from these Au­thors wherein they do say, ‘That the Arabians wor­ship only the Stars, without any Notion of Heroes and Demons,’ we should have had less cause to suspect his Assertion; Strabo l. 16. p. 539. Strabo indeed says that the Arabians worship the Sun, but that either He or Justin have ever affirmed what this Author pretends, I am yet to learn; in the mean time this I am sure, that other Authors have given us a very contrary account of them. Lucan l. 9. v. 517. Lucan tells us, that their only God was Jupi­ter Ammon, whom that Learned Critick, Gerard Vossi­us does not without reason suppose to have been Cham, whose Eldest Son Chus, as I have before shewn, first planted himself there. Arrian in his History of Alexander's Expedition, Arrian de Ex­ped. Alep. l. 7. p. 486. says that they had two Gods, [...], or the Heaven, and [...], or Bacchus; and that 'twas this encouraged that great Conqueror to in­vade them, that he might make himself a Third God amongst them; and this may be well enough con­sistent with the other Account, if what some Learned Men suppose, be allow'd; that these were their own proper Gods, whereas Jupiter Hammon, was rather the Deity of the Ammonites, among whom his Oracle stood, and to whom they only sent Ambassadors to consult upon occasion, it not appearing that the Ara­bians had any Temple for him in their own Country: So that here too our Author is mistaken, for that the [Page 51] Arabians had other Gods than the Stars, Vossius de 1. dol. l. 1. c. 26. and were not without all Notion of Heroes and Doemons.

4. His Fourth Instance is in the Ancient Germans, Caes. Com. l. 6. and of them I confess Caesar does say what he pretends, but then it is to be observ'd, that in the very same place, he utterly overthrows all the use this Author can be supposed to make of it, viz. to shew, ‘That all the old Heathen Nations worshipped only the Stars, without any Notion of Heroes or Demons;’ seeing in the very same place, he says of the Ancient Gauls, that they worshipp'd such kind of Gods as he denies any of the Heathen did, and that with a Superstition so like that of some of his Acquaintance, that I can­not forbear taking notice of it: ‘The Gauls, says he, are very superstitious, and therefore if they fall into any dangerous distemper, or are concerned in War, or in any other danger, they straightway sacrifice, &c. For this purpose they have their particular Gods; Mercury to prosper them in their Journeys, or help them in their Traffick; Apollo to cure them in their sickness; Mi­nerva to find out any Artificial Works; Mars for War, &c.’ And this our Author could not but know, since in the very Passage to which he refers, he op­poses the Germans to them; the Germans (says he) differ much from this custom (viz.) of the Gauls, which he had just before recounted; for they esteem them only for Gods whom they see, and by whom they are manifestly help'd, the Sun, Vulcan, and the Moon.

But I have yet more to except against this instance; for however Cesar came to be so misinformed, the An­cient Germans had other Gods, Hist. l. 6. Cap. 64. even such as this Au­thor denies to all the Ancient Idolaters. Tacitus men­tions [Page 52] Mars as the chief God of the Tencteri, Cap. 9. a Nation bordering upon the Rhine; and in his Book de Moribus Germanerum, he speaks of Hercules as another of their Deities. That they also Worshipped Mercury, we learn from the same Author, whom in their Lan­guage they called Gota, or Wota, as Gotefridus Viter­biensis in his Chronicon observes, Vos. de Idol. l. 1. p. 240. from whence also he supposes, that their word Got, signifying God, is deri­ved; tho in this, other Learned Men dissent from him.

And lastly, De Moribus Germ. c. 2. the same Tacitus mentions yet another God more Ancient than all these, the first Founder of their Country, Tuisto, whom they worshipped, with his Son Manus; and these, some think, were no other than Gomar, and his Son Thogorma or Aschenar, by whom Germany was peopled after the Flood, tho Vossi­us rather supposes them yet of a greater Antiquity, believing Tuisto to be Adam, and Manus, to whom also Tacitus assigns three Sons, Noah, by whom the World was again established after the Flood.

4. And this may suffice for his particular Au­thorities. His next are universal; for he says Euse­bius in his Book de preparatione Evangelica, Page 100.has shewn this to be the sense of all the Old Heathen Na­tions, as may be seen in his Collections of their several Opinions, where he proves, ‘That the Ancient Heathens only worshipped the Stars, without any Notion of He­roes or Demons.’

Good God! What can be done with such a Man as this? Eusebius has proved that all the Ancient Heathens worshipped only the Stars, without any Notion of Heroes and Demons, which was a mere In­vention of the vain and lying Greeks: And yet has this [Page 53]very Eusebius quoted Diodorus Siculus, Euseb. praep. Evan. l. 2 c. 1. for his account of the Egvptian Theology. He distinguishes with him their Gods into Coelestial and Terrestrial: Of the first, he Treats in his first. Book from that Author; of the second in his next. The very Title of his Chapter is, Lib. 1. c. 7. Lib. 2. c. 1. p. 45. An Epitome of the Egyptian Theology, and how it passed from them to the Greeks. In the beginning of it, he speaks how ‘their Gods, who had been mortal Men, were for their Benefits they did to Mankind, and for their Wisdom, made immortal Deities.’ Pag. 45, 46, 47, 48. He exemplifies this in a large account of their Mythology; and then con­cludes expresly with his Author, [...]. That the Greeks had appropriated to themselves, the principal Hero's, and Gods of the Egyptians. And yet this is the Author that has shewn at large, P. 100. how all theold Heathen Nations worshipp'd only Stars, without any Notion of Hero's and Daemons.

His other Author is Macrobius, who he says, has proved it of all the Ancient Idolaters, that they wor­shipped the Sun as the Supreme Deity. He should have added to make good his Conclusion, P. 100. and that so as to exclude all Notions of Hero's and Daemons. But this Macrobius never undertook to do: And I have before shewn, that in the very Book of his Sa­turnals, here mention'd, He was so far from shewing that they worshipp'd the Sun as the (absolutely) Supreme Deity, that in the beginning of his Discourse, he expresly restrains it to the Dii duntaxat qui sub Coelo sunt, or Sub-Coelestial Deities: And in his Com­ment upon Scipio's Dream, he acknowledges above the Sun and Heaven, many other Gods; viz. 1. An Eternal Psythe, the Creator both of the Heaven, and the [Page 54] Sun. 2dly, A perfect Mind or Intellect, and (as he calls him) Omnipotentissimus Deus, the most Omnipotent of all Gods.

5. He has two Authors whom he produces; our own Learned Selden, in his Book De Diis Syris, and Gerard Vossius, in nothing inferior to him, who have proved ‘all the Idols mention'd in Scripture, to have been so many Appellations of the Sun, whom the An­cient Idolaters believed to have been the Supreme God, and Creator of the World, (and therefore of himself too, for he is part of it) as Baal, Baal-Peor, Bel, Molech, Baal-Zebub, and Mythras;’ tho I doubt this last was taken from some Invisible Manuscript of the Bible, for I do not remember that I have ever met with it in any of the Editions that are extant of those sacred Volumes.

But to let this pass too; Did Mr. Selden then, and Gerard Vossius in good Truth, undertake to shew, that all the Ancient Idolaters worshipp'd the Sun as the Supreme God, so as to exclude all Notion of Dae­mons and Hero's?

1st, Mr. Selden gives only a Critical Account of the Syrian Deities; and in several of them shews, that others at least have believed them to be somewhat else than the Sun.

2dly, Gerard Vossius is so far from favouring this Man's pretences, that on the contrary 'tis he, who has spent his whole first Book of Idolatry, to give an Ac­count of the Ancient Hero's, that were consecrated by the Gentiles into Gods; 'Tis he that interprets the Egyptians Osyris to be Mitzraim; the Beel of the Chaldeans to be Nimrod; the Tuisco of the Ger­mans, Gomer, or perhaps Adam. In short, he shews [Page 55]this sort of Idolatry to have been introduced a­mong the Heathens the very Age after the Flood, even before God called Abraham from Ʋz of the Chal­dees.

And thus have I consider'd this Author's Pretences to Antiquity; and I think I may say, there is nothing but Falseness and Vision, in all his Notions and Authorities. Upon the whole, I shall beg leave very briefly, to Conclude as to the Nature of Idolatry.

I. That seeing all these Ancient Idolaters, did ac­knowledg one Supreme, Invisible and Spiritual Godhead, their Idolatry did not consist in worshipping the Hea­venly Bodies, so as to exclude all Sense and Appehen­sion of any such thing.

II. That seeing they believed the Sun and other Heavenly Bodies, to be the Vehicles only of imma­terial and spiritual Substances, who had the Superin­tendency over the Affairs of this lower World, and were to be applied to as Mediators between God and Them; their Idolatry did not consist in worshipping any Visible or Corporeal Deities, as the Supreme God, so as to exclude all Sense and Apprehension of a Spiri­tual and Invisible Godhead, Superior to their Deities. By Consequence,

III. That either this, which our Author here lays down, is not (as he pretends) the true and only No­tion of Idolatry; or if it be, none of those Ancient Na­tions were Idolaters.

IV. Tho I dare not presume to establish true and only Notions in this Case; yet from what has been said, I think we may reasonably Conclude their Ido­latry, to have consisted especially in these two things; [Page 56]Either, 1st, That they worshipp'd the true God by Corporeal and Visible Symbols; or that 2dly, together with the true God, they worshipp'd other inferior Deities; whether Intelligences, (which they supposed to reside in the Heavenly Bodies) or Daemons. And that by consequence,

To Worship the Supreme God in any Corporeal Representation or Image whatsoever; or to pay Di­vine Worship to any Created Being, whether Spirit or separate Soul; either as having the Power over this inferior World to Administer things in it, or as Mediators between the Supreme God and Ʋs; this is, if not the only, yet at least a true Notion of Ido­latry.

THis was the next point I proposed to examine, and our Author thus delivers his Opinion of it. ‘That according to the Law, Page 80.Idolatry is giving the worship of the Supreme God to any created, corporeal, or visible deity, or any thing that can be represented by an image, which nothing but corporeal Beings can, Pag. 81. and to suppose such a Being the Supreme Deity.’

This indeed is Great and Magisterial, and would almost dispose a man to think, that there should cer­tainly be at least something of Truth, where there is so very much confidence. But we have had [Page 58]already sufficient reason to suspect him, where he seems least to suspect himself. Here I cannot but wonder that a person of his Character should send abroad such Notions into the world for the Dictates of Holy Scrip­ture, as are evidently contrary to the Tenor of it; unless he thought our Nobility and Gentry as little acquainted with that Book, as some of their Guides are said to have thought it fit they should be.

To make a man an Idolater according to the Idea this Author has given of it, two things are requi­red, which I much question whether they ever yet concurred in any considerable number of men in the world, viz.

• 1. That he give the worship of the Supreme God to some Created, Corporeal, and Visible part of the Universe.
• 2dly, That he give this worship to it as esteeming such a Being to be the Supreme God.

I will not be so rude as to enquire by what Rules of Discourse he infers all this from the Second Command­ment, that because God there forbids the Israelites to make any ‘Graven Image, the likeness of any thing that is in Heaven above, or in the Earth beneath or in the water under the Earth; to bow down be­fore it and worship it;’ therefore, this Image must be the similitude of some visible and Corporeal deity; and that Deity be supposed to be the Supreme God, and be worshiped as such. He that can infer this from the Second Commandment, would doe well to tell us how he does it. But not to be importunate here. If this be the true and onely Idolatry, according to the Law, I would desire to know;

First, Seeing the Law was deliver'd by the Mini­stry of Angels, and these were no visible and Corpo­real deities; what if the Jews had paid Divine Ado­ration to them? would this have been Idolatry ac­cording to the Law? If it would, I should be glad to know what part of his definition it is that makes it to be so?

Secondly, I have before shewn that the ancient Heathens, the Egyptians, Chaldeans, &c. though they worshiped indeed the Sun, Moon and Stars; yet they neither believed them to be the Supreme God nor the Image of the Supreme God; [...] that they were onely visible, and Corporeal deities: They look'd upon them as the vehicles of Celestial Spirits, which dwelt in them; and as such they pay'd their Adoration to them. Now then was this Idolatry by the Law, or was it not? If it were not, how came the Israelites to be charged with Idolatry (according to this Author's own prin­ciples) for joyning with them in this Service? If it were, how will this agree with his true and onely Notion of Idolatry? Seeing they worship'd these Hea­venly bodies neither as the Supreme God, nor so as to exclude all sense and apprehension of a spiritual and in­visible deity. But,

Thirdly, To come to the Holy Scripture it self we read 1 Kings 11. that Soloman in his old age turned away his Heart, —Vers. 4. Collat. cum Jos. 24.2. Pag. 93. and worshiped [...] other Gods, viz. Ashtoreth, and Milcom, and Chemosh, and Moloch, i. e. according to this Learned Man's Notion, the Sun, and Moon, and I suppose he will not deny that herein he committed Idolatry. But now can any one believe that Solomon who had been so well instructed in the knowledge of the Lord [Page 60]God of Israel; 1 Kings 3.5.—9.2. he to whom God had twice himself appeared; and whom he had endu'd with wisedom above all the men upon the Earth; finally who had not so long since built him a magnificent Tem­ple at Jerusalem; where the Service of the true God was continued, even whilst he worshiped the Gods of his Wives. Can any one, I say, be so stupid as to believe that this Solomon gave the worship of the Supreme God to the Sun and Moon, as sup­posing them to be the Supreme deities, and that he did not onely not worship but likewise not so much as believe the onely supreme God? And yet this we must say, if we will allow this Author to have given us the true and onely notion of Idolatry.

Besides it is certain that whilst he was engaged in his Idolatrous worship, God did not utterly for­sake him, but admonished him of it and threatned him with the loss of his Kingdom for serving strange Gods, which is inducement enough to conclude that he had still an apprehension of the True God. If Solomon did immediately upon this admonition give over his Impious worship, it shewed evidently that he retained the knowledge of that God who had twice appeared to him. For to suppose that he had quite lost all sense and apprehension of him just when he fell to Idolatry, and just recovered some sense of him upon this admonition, and that all the while between, he believed his visible and Cor­poreal deities, or some one of them to be the Supreme God, and had no sense of him who is truely so, is to make Solomon almost such a man as I before shewed our Author's Idolater to be according to the meaning of his words: I am [Page 61]sure it is not to make him one of the wisest men that ever was in the World. But supposing that Solomon went on for some time after this to worship his strange Gods, yet he must now at least have recovered some Sense of the true God, it being this admonition in all likelyhood, that sooner or later brought him to Re­pentance: And then our Author's Principles do from that time that he was admonish'd, acquit Solomon of all Idolatry, though he went on to serve the Gods of his Wives.

It is a shame to run this matter any farther, and I make no doubt but that I have all men of Sense whe­ther of ours, or of the Roman Church with me in this matter against our Author. But that I may not seem onely to destroy his Idea, without fixing any other in the room of it; I now proceed to observe, That we find two sorts of Idolatry mention'd in the Old Testament; and (such is the misfortune of this posi­tive man,) both of them utterly destructive of his true and onely Notion of it, viz.

• I. The worshiping of the true God, by a material Symbol or Representation.
• II. The worshiping of other Gods, than the God of Israel, and that whether it be so as,
• 1. Utterly to forsake the true God, and serve others onely, Or
• 2. To worship other Gods together with Him.

And of this I shall desire no better proof, than those very instances which this Author so much in­sists upon, for the establishing of his Notion, viz. those of the Golden Calf, and of the Calves of Dan and Bethel. That the Children of Israel did commit Idolatry in the worship of these is on all hands agreed; And yet that both these were designed as Symbols of the true God, and not of any visible or Corporeal de­ities, will I think appear evident, almost to a de­monstration, from these following reflexions.

1st. That it is altogether incredible that the ‘Is­raelites in either of those Cases, could so soon have forgotten the true God, as to give divine worship to visible and Corporeal Beings, as supposing them to be the supreme Deity.’

If we consider their Circumstances when they wor­shiped the Golden Calf, Exod. 32. It was but a very few days since God had made a very great discovery of Himself to them at Mount Horeb, when he gave them the Law, and asserted Himself to be the Jeho­vah, their God which had brought them up out of the Land of Egypt, Exod. 20.1.

And in the Case of Jeroboam's Calves, the know­ledge of God in which they had been bred up; a continued publick Service of Him at Jerusalem; the Feasts and Sacrifices, and other Ceremonies which they observed in Obedience to his Command, the very Seal of his Covenant which they carried about them in their Flesh, not to say any thing of that Temple which Solomon had so lately built unto him; all these must certainly have made too deep an Im­pression upon their minds, to permit them so sud­dainly to fall away into such an utter forgetfulness of [Page 63]him, as to worship visible and corporeal deities as the supreme God, so as to exclude all sense and appre­hension of him who really is the supreme God. Such an Ignorance as this is hardly to be found, even a­mong those Infidels that have never had any revela­lation of the true God at all made to them: But that Men who had once been instructed in the knowledge and worship of him, should so suddenly fall off from both, as they must here have done according to this Author's true and onely Notion of their Idolatry, this I think is as incredible, as the notion it self, which he would prove by the supposition of it. But,

2dly. That the people did not fall into any ‘such Apostafie, but design'd in those Calves to worship the God of Israel, is evident from the Characters given of that deity whom they served by them.’

For as to the Golden Calf, we read Exod. 32.4. that when it was set up they cry'd out, ‘This is thy God O Israel, which brought thee up out of the Land of Egypt, and Aaron built an Altar before it, and made proclamation and said, to Morrow is a Feast to the Jehovah or the Lord.’

And so Jeroboam in the very same manner, having set up his Calves in Dan and Bethel, 1 Kin. 12.28. ‘It is too much for you (said he to the people) to go to Jerusalem; Behold thy God O Israel, which brought thee up out of the Land of Egypt.’ Now may I desire this Learned Author to tell us. 1. Where in Holy Scripture do's he find the name JEHOVAH, or the LORD attributed to any other but the true God? Or if we should suppose the people to be Igno­rant in this Case, yet could Aaron the High-priest be so forgetfull, as not to remember that this was that [Page 64] peculiar name which God assumed to himself, Exod. 6.3. and of which our Author himself takes notice, p. 80.81. 2. Whom should they then, and Jerobo­am mean after by the Jehovah that had brought them up out of the Land of Egypt, but him who at the delive­ry of the Law, appropriated this Character to himself, Ex. 20.1. and who was under that Title worshiped by the Jews at Jerusalem where his Temple stood, and whither all the Tribes were wont to go up to worship him. It is too much for you to go up to Jeru­salem. Behold thy God, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the Land of Egypt.

3. Had Jeroboam hereby designed to set up a new God amongst them, how came it to pass that He used no Arguments with them at all as to that mat­ter, but merely remonstrated to them the trouble of going up to Jerusalem to worship? Never sure were people easier persuaded out of their religion than the ten Tribes, if our Author thinks, that the di­stance of place made him chuse rather to return to the Idolatry of Egypt, than to be at so much pains to worship the true God.

3dly. But all this will farther appear, in that it is altogether incredible that the Egyptian Gods should be the God that delivered the Israelites out of the hand of Egypt; and sent all those Plagues upon their own servants. But especially that thick darkness under which they lay for three days, seems to be a very odd Effect for the Sun to have wrought. But to quit such Suppositions; Two things there are by which it undoubtedly appears that the Israelites in these Cases, could not have design'd any return to the Egyptian Idolatry. For,

[Page 65]1. As to the Golden-Calf, it is said that they offer'd burnt offerings, and brought Peace offerings unto it. And Jeroboam sacrificed unto the Calves which he had made and Consecrated Priests with a bullock and seven rams to their Service.

Now all this was most agreeable to what God re­quired in his Service: but so utterly repugnant to the Superstition of the Egyptians that our Author himself confesses God commanded their beasts to be offer'd in Sacrifice to him, in contempt of the Sa­credness in which they were held by those Idolaters. He tells us ‘That to offer a young Ram was the grea­test affront that could be put upon the Egyptians, who held a Ram not onely in religious esteem, but the most sacred of all their Holy Animals. And particularly upon the account of the sacred­ness of these Animals, the Egyptians (says he) NEVER OFFER'D any of their Species in Sacrifice. In so much that when Pharaoh bid Moses go sacrifice to the Lord in the Land of Egypt, Exod. 8.26.Moses answers that they durst not doe it, because it would be an Abomination to the Egyptians, so that they would stone them: that is, it would be a pro­phaneness and open affront to the Religion of the Egyptians if they should offer in Sacrifice those very Animals that the Egyptians had consecrated to the Honour of their Gods. And for the same reason the Israelites were also commanded to Sa­crifice young-Bullocks, as well as Rams; for that next to a Ram the Bullock was the most Sacred of all the Holy Animals.’

Our Author is very large on this Argument; but I think what I have here offer'd, is little less [Page 66]than a demonstration against him as to this point; that the Jews in the Worship of their Calves did not return to the Idolatry of Egypt, seeing they offer'd such Sacrifices before them as by his own confession were an open affront to the Religion of the Egyptians.

2dly. It is evident from Holy Scripture, that the Idolatry of these Calves was a distinct Idolatry from that of worshipping the Heavenly Bodies; and accor­ding to the Estimate which God himself put upon it, much less heinous. And this we find in both the in­stances before mention'd. For as to the Golden Calf, Stephen says Acts 7.41, 42. ‘That they made a Calf in those days, and osser'd Sacrifice to the Idol, and rejoyced in the work of their hands; THEN God gave them up to worship the Host of Hea­ven.’ Now here must be a manifest difference al­low'd between these two, seeing the one is represen­ted as the punishment of the other, and what a ridicu­lous paraphrase would it make of these words, to suppose that they Adored the Sun in both; viz. ‘That for worshiping the Sun, under the Symbol of the Golden Calf, God gave them up to worship the Sun under the name of Moloch.’

As for Jeroboam's Calves, we find this also distin­guish'd from that of worshiping the Heavenly Host. For thus the Idolatry of Ahab was aggravated a­gainst him; 1 Kings 16.31. That ‘as if it had been a small thing for Him to walk in the Sins of Jeroboam the Son of Nebat; He went and served Baal, and worshipped Him.’ Now if the Idolatry of the Golden Calves was the worship of the Sun too, (as this Author would have it,) then this passage concerning Ahab must be expounded in this [Page 67]manner; ‘That as if it had been a small thing for him to worship the Sun under the Calves, He even proceeded to such a height of Impiety; as to wor­ship the Sun under the name of Baal.’ But 4thly, and to conclude this Point; That under the Calves they worshiped the true God, is evident from the whole Course of the History of the ten Tribes, and of the State of Religion under them. We find God as well revealing himself to these as to the other two. His Prophets came amongst them, and though they of­ten inveigh'd against their Altars, yet never charged them as deserters of the God of Israel.

Nay, in many Cases we find those who worshiped the Golden Calves, yet accepted by God as zealous in his Service. I shall instead of many, offer onely one Example, that of Jehu. 2 Kings 10.16. who as he was expresly design'd by God to be King over Israel, so he there bids Jehonadab, ‘come and see his Zeal for the LORD.’ Now the zeal he there meant was in destroying of Baal out of Israel. This he most Effectually did, as may be seen at large in that Chapter; and for the doing of it, had the Throne confirm'd by God to his Posterity for four Generati­ons. I shall therefore make bold to conclude, that Jehu was no worshipper of Baal or the Sun, but of the God of Israel, whose Service he promoted, and for whom Elijah not long before had appeared in opposition to this very Baal, 1 Kings 18.21. How long (says he) Halt ye between two opinions, if the Lord be God follow him; 2 Kings 10.29, 31.but if BAAL then follow him. And yet Jehu still worship'd the Golden Calves that were in Bethel, and that were in Dan; He observed not to walk in the Law of the LORD [Page 68]God of Isral with ALL HIS HEART, seeing he departed not from the Sin of Jeroboam which made Israel to Sin.

I conclude upon the whole, that that cannot be the true and ONELT Notion of Idolatry which this Author pretends, viz. ‘The giving the worship of the Supreme God to some Created Corporeal or visible Deity,’ as supposing it to be the Supreme deity, since (as we have now seen) to worship even the true God, under the worship of some Corporeal Symbol or representation, as the Israelites did in these Calves, is in the account of the Holy Scrip­ture to commit Idolatry. I go on,

2dly. To shew: That to worship any other God, besides the God of Israel, whether it be so as to for­sake the true God, or but onely to joyn the worship of any other with him; This is also according to the sense of Holy Scripture, to commit Idolatry.

Now this will appear from the Examples of this kind of Idolatry, that occur in those Sacred Writings; I shall mention onely an Instance or two in either kind. And, ‘1st. That to give divine worship to any other than to the God of Israel, though they do not worship that Being as the Supreme deity, but on the Contrary worship the true God together with it, is according to the Censure of the Holy Scripture Idolatry.’

This was the Case of Solomon in some of the last years of his Life, for however, at the persuasion of his Wives; he neglected very much the Service of [Page 69]the true God, yet we do not find that he utterly for­sook either the Worship or the Acknowledgment of him. On the Contrary, the Holy Scripture plainly enough insinuates, that he still served the God of Is­rael, and his fault was, that he did not serve him onely, but worshiped Moloch, and Chemosh and Ashtoreth, and Milcom together with him. For thus speaking of his Idolatry it says, 1 Kings 11.4. That his heart was not perfect, with the Lord his God: and again ver. 6. That he went not fully af­ter the Lord as did David his Father, i.e. He did not wholly give up himself to serve the Lord, and him ONELT as his Father had done.

Another, and a more notable Instance of this we meet with in 2 Kings 18. Where the King of As­syria having led the ten Tribes into Captivity, and planted some of his own Subjects in their Countrey, we read ver. 24. ver. 25. that God sent ‘Lions amongst them to destroy them,’ because they neglected to worship him. Upon this the King of Assyria ordered one of the Priests of Bethel to go up and teach them, ver. 27. ‘the manner of the God of the Land; then one of the Priests whom they had carried away from Samaria, 28. came and dwelt in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear or serve the Lord. Hombeit every man made Gods of his own, and so they seared the Lord and served their own Gods and their Graven Ima­ges.’

Such was the State of these Samaritans, and their practice will furnish us with two very usefull Re­marks upon this Occasion. For 1. Since these Sa­maritans were punished for not worshiping the God of the Countrey, i.e. of the God whom the Israelites [Page 70]were wont to worship; it follows that the God of the Israelites was not the same with the God of the Sama­ritans: And therefore since these are supposed to have worshipped the Sun, it follows that the Israelites did not worship the Sun; but some other and him the true God.

2dly. That these Samaritans at the same time that they committed Idolatry in serving their own Gods, did also both know and fear the true God, and there­fore their Idolatry could not consist in giving the worship of the Supreme God, to their created and visible Deities, as supposing them so to be. But their Sin was that they gave divine worship to their own false Gods, after they had been instructed in the wor­ship of the true, and joyned both the one and the o­ther in their Religious Service. But, ‘2dly. As it was therefore thought to be Idola­try, to worship any other being together with God, so must it much more have been esteemed so, to forsake the true God, and worship any other Corporeal and visible Dei­ty.’

An Instance of this we seem to have in Ahab, 1 Kings 16.30. who seduced by Jezabel his Wife, did evil in the sight of the Lord, above all that were before him, and what this was we find in the next verse, viz. That not con­tent with the Idolatry of Jeroboam, in worship­ing God after an Idolatrous manner, he utterly for­sook him and served Baal, and built a Temple and an Altar for him.

Now that Ahab had utterly laid aside the Service of the true God, 1 Kings 18.4. seems evident upon two accounts, 1st. Of the Great persecution that he suffered his Wife [Page 71]to make of the Prophets of the LORD, 2 Kings 18.4. When as Obadiah tells Elijah, he hid them in Caves from her fury. 2dly. From the miserable State of the Kingdom, in that time as we find Elijah re­porting it even to God himself, 1 Kings 19.14. ‘The Children of Israel, says he, have forsaken thy Covenant, thrown down thy Altars, and slain thy Prophets with the Sword, and I even I onely am left, and they seek my Life to take it away.’

Indeed it is not to be doubted, but that the Idolatry of this time was very deplorable. But now whereindid it consist? Did Ahab worship Baal or the Sun as a Corporeal Deity, so as to exclude all Sense and appre­hension of a Superiour, Spiritual and Invisible God­head? This is not credible, seeing throughout his whole Reign we find him corresponding upon all occasions with the Prophets of the LORD, and there­fore sure he could not be without some Sense and ap­prehension of him.

And what I have now shewn in the Example of Ahab I will yet farther confirm in another, that will perhaps be liable to less exception, and that is the in­stance of Manasse King of Judah. This King not content to forsake the God of his Fathers set up his Idolatry in the very Temple of the Lord; but yet neither had he lost all sense and apprehension of a spiritual and Invisible Godhead. He had been bred up by his Father in the knowledge of the true God, 2 Chr. 33.10. the Prophets of the LORD still continued to put him in mind of his danger, and no sooner did he feel the punishment of his Rebellion, but he re­turned to his God, ver. 12. ‘When he was in afflicti­on he besought the Lord his God, and humbled him­self [Page 72]greatly before the God of his Fathers.’

And thus have I taken a short View of the se­veral sorts of Idolatry which occur in the Old Testa­ment, and from thence it appears, that this sin is consistent not onely with the acknowledgment but even with the worship of the true Supreme Deity, and therefore that it is a very false account, which this Author has here given us of it, viz. ‘That Idola­try is neither more nor less than the Worship of the heavenly bodies, Pag. 74. the Sun, Moon and Stars or any other visible and Corporeal Deity as the SƲPREME God; Pag. 80, 81. or as he elsewhere defines it, that Idolatry is the giving the worship of the Supreme God to any Created, Corporeal or Visible Deity, and to suppose such a Being the Supreme Deity is the ONELY,’ TRƲE and PROPER IDOLATRY.

But before I quit this point it may not be amiss to observe yet one instance more of Idolatry, (I am sure generally supposed at least to be so) and which I cannot tell whether it may properly be reduced to any of the foregoing kinds, and it is that of the Brazen-Serpent to which the Children of Israel burnt Incense in Hezekiah's time, as we may see 2 Kings 18.4. This pious King observing their su­perstition caused it to be broke into pieces, and we find this recorded among the Rest of his Enterprizes, for Rooting Idolatry out of his Country. ‘He Removed the High places and brake the Images, and cut down the Groves, and brake in pieces the Brazen-Serpent, that Moses had made: for unto those days the Children of Israel did burn Incense to it,’ and he called it Nehushtan.

I do not believe that even this Author himself will have the confidence to say that this was an Image of either the Sun, Moon or Stars, or of any other Visible and Corporeal Deity, or that the people Worshiped it as supposing it to be the Supreme God, so as to exclude all sense and apprehension of a spiri­tual and Invisible Godhead, and yet the learned men on both sides confess, that here was Idolatry com­mitted, though it may be the people were far from thinking that they did so, and then it will remain ‘that to give any appropriate Acts of divine Wor­ship to any Creature, whatever sense men have of the thing to which they give them, or their In­tension be in so doing, is nevertheless esteemed by God to be Idolatry.’

SInce I first began the examination of this Book, I have been under some temptations to doubt whether the Author of it really designed to serve the interest of those of the Church of Rome in the writing of it, or by a seeming defence of their Ido­latry, intended onely to shew how little he could say in their behalf, and to give us an occasion by Answering his Arguments to convince the World upon what just Grounds we advance that Charge against them.

It does indeed a little startle me when I consider how base a thing it is, and unbecoming the Cha­racter of a Christian, to put on onely an appearance of Zeal in behalf of a Party, to whom it must be confess'd he has been highly Obliged, and whom therefore if he could not serve, yet at least he ought not to have betray'd. But then it seems to be some­thing worse, I do not now say for a Christian, but for a Bishop that has not yet quitted either the Re­venues or the Communion of the Church of England, nor retracted the subscription he once made of this very charge of Idolatry against those for whom he would now be thought to plead; to revile that Church which nourishes him, and whose Opinions we must [Page 75]suppose him to hold, till we see him as formally re­nounce them, as ever he once subscribed to them. And if on the one hand he seems to shew a great deal of bitterness against us in his Expressions, yet on the other, it must be confessed his Arguments are so extremely civil as not to carry so much as the appearance of Reason in them. And few of the Romanists have ever undertaken this cause, that have not said a great deal more in their own defence, than this Amphibious Advocate has offer'd for them.

But whether this Author designed to expose them or us or himself onely, as I am not much concern'd to know, so neither will I undertake to determine. This is plain, that had he meant to ridicule the Church of Rome never so much, he could not have taken a more effectual way of doing it. And whe­ther our Nobility do, or can, Pag. 9. or ought to understand Transubstantiation or no, yet I am sure men of much meaner capacities than those Honourable Personages for the most part are, will be able to discern the truth of this remark. And that he must indeed have thought them not onely uncapable of judging of Abstruse propositions, Ibid. but even destitute of Com­mon sense and reason, if he hoped to impose such discourse as this upon them for Arguing.

Now to make this appear, I shall need onely de­sire the Reader to observe with me these two things:

I. That the position he undertakes to defend is, that the notion of Idolatry in holy Scripture is nei­ther MORE nor LESS than this. Pag. 74. ‘The worship of the Heavenly bodies, the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars, or any other visible and Corporeal Deity, as the [Page 76]Supreme God, so as to exclude all sense and apprehen­sion of a spiritual and invisible Godhead.’

II. That to prove this, it is not sufficient to shew, that this is Idolatry, or that the Jews did sometimes fall into it: But it must be shewn that they never committed any other Idolatry; and particularly that this was the Idolatry of the Golden-Calf, and of the Calves of Dan, and Bethel. For though the worship of the Heavenly Bodies, (as the Author represents it) were one sort of Idolatry, yet if the Scripture has charged the Jews with this Guilt for any other worship, wherein they did not adore the Sun, Moon and Stars, or any other visible and Corporeal Deity as the Supreme God, it will then follow that this, which is alledged, Pag. 80, 81. cannot be the ONELY Notion of Idolatry, Page 74. and it must be false to assert, that Idola­try according to the word of God is neither MORE nor LESS than this.

Now from these two remarks onely, it will pre­sently appear what slender pretences some men will take up with to run out into the most excessive cla­mours against those whom they oppose. For, 1st. As to what he so largely insists upon, as if there were something very important at the bottom of it, viz. Pag. 83. That the Jews were a people prone to Idolatry, and that the design of God throughout the whole Law, was to preserve them from it, though it be a great truth, yet it is certainly in this place a great imper­tinence. Seeing neither do we deny this, nor can he make any use of it, in establishing his true and onely notion of Idolatry. For I hope he did not in­tend to argue thus, The Jews were very prone to Ido­latry, and God intended his Law to restrain them [Page 77]from it; Therefore Idolatry is neither more nor less, than the worship of the Heavenly bodies, the Sun, Moon and Stars, as the Supreme Deity.

2dly. It will from hence appear, that all those pas­sages of Holy Scripture, where God charges the Jews with worshiping other Gods, with serving the Hoast of Heaven, &c. conclude nothing, seeing it is confessed that they did fall into this Idolatry too; but that does not hinder but that they may have fallen into some other besides; and we are assured that so they did; nay, that they were suffered by God to fall into this, as a punishment for having committed the other, so St. Stephen expresly tells us, Acts 7.41, 42. They made a Calf in those days, and offered Sacrifice to the Idol, and rejoyced in the work of their hands. THEN God gave them up to worship the Hoast of Heaven.

Nor is it any more to the purpose, 3dly, Pag. 99. to prove that the Scripture says, that to worship the Sun and Moon is Idolatry; unless he could find out some Text where it adds, that they who worshiped the Sun and Moon, worshiped them as visible and Corporeal Dei­ties with the Honor due to the Supreme God; and so as to exclude all sense and apprehension of a spiri­tual and invisible Godhead, and that this is the true and onely Idolatry. But now this which was the onely point in question, he has prudently forgot, and whilst he lives will never be able to prove it.

In short if there be any thing more than noise and shew in what he has said, it must be in his Account of the two points before consider'd. viz. The Golden-Calf and the Calves of Dan and of Bethel: For as for the Brazen-Serpent and the honor paid to that, he is as silent as if there had been no such thing in his Bible.

For the former of these, the Golden-Calf, he ex­patiates very much, but sure never were Words put together with less pertinence than here. The thing to be proved is, Pag. 84. 85, &c. that the Jews intended by this Calf to worship the Egyptian Apis or Serapis or Osyris, that is, the Sun as the Supreme Deity.

But how does he go about to prove this. First, He learnedly shews that the Apis whom the Egyp­tians worshiped was not the King of the Argives, nor Son to Jupiter. And this I think may be foreign enough to what we are seeking, which is the design of the Jews in setting up the Golden-Calf. Secondly. He assures us 'tis much more propable that the Greeks borrowed the very word Apis from the Egyptians. Pag. 87. And thereupon he takes occasion to make a Learned reflexion upon our Translation of Jer. 46.15. which it may be was one of the passages for which he has been wont to censure our version with as little Mo­desty as Ʋnderstanding. For to say no more of it than this, if we have rendred this Verse amiss we have erred not onely with all the Learned Versions the Syriack, the Chaldee Paraphrase, and even the Vulgar Latin it self, but with the Original Hebrew too; and in all which there is this onely Difference, that what they call Valiant in one Number, we ren­der Valiant Men in the other. And all this is still as impertinent to the Point in hand, as any thing can well be imagined to be.

And yet from this, Thirdly, He boldly infers, ‘That the Calf must have been the Symbol of some Egyptian Idol, Ibid. and that the people thinking them­selves betray'd or deserted by Moses after fourty days absence forced Aaron to restore to them the Symbols [Page 79]of their old Gods to go before them, instead of this new God that seemed to have deserted them.’ And this indeed is pertinent, but it has another terrible defect, viz. that it wants proof. In short the onely reason he has to offer for what he says, is this; That all their other worship seems to have been forced and constrained, but this is free and voluntary: And that there could be no other Ground of that great joy they shew'd on this occasion, but that they were restored to the Exercise of their former Religion. And to this I have many things to reply.

First, That this is at best but a plausible presump­tion, and such as if compared with the reasons I have alledged to the contrary, will not be thought to de­serve the name of an Argument. For,

Secondly, Whereas this Author (always positive, Pag. 88. if that might pass for proof) says, that there could be no other ground of this joy than that they were restored to the worship of their old Gods; I would fain know how he comes to be assured of this? I am confident were it fit to establish a Principle of this moment upon the sandy Foundation of our own Con­jectures, one might be able to find out other reasons for it. For why might they not have had just cause of rejoycing to behold a Symbol of their own God set up amongst them, as well as if it had been a figure of an Egyptian Idol? what if despairing of Moses's re­turn to them, as they design'd this Symbol to supply his place, to direct them in their journey, and to be an Oracle at which they might continually enquire God's pleasure, so they testified some transports of joy upon the erecting of it? Nay but,

Thirdly, What if we should say that we cannot discern any such extraordinary joy, more than what the Solemnity of a Feast Dedicated to the JEHOVAH for the setting up of a visible Symbol of his presence amongst them might very well warrant? The case in short was this; Moses delay'd to come down from the Mount, the people were impatient to continue on their Journey towards the Promised Land; but how to learn God's pleasure they knew not, and for this purpose they cryed unto Aaron, that he would make them a God to go before them; such as very probably they had seen in Egypt, and which might serve instead of an Oracle unto them. This Aaron makes, and for the Dedication of it appoints a Feast unto the Lord, and offers such Sacrifices as God indeed required, but which this Author himself confesses were an Abomination to the Egyptians: And upon the occasion of this Feast it was that it is said, They rejoyced in the works of their hands. Acts 7.41. And again, The people sate down to eat and drink and rose up to play, 1 Cor. 10.7. And what this joy was we find particularly expressed, Exod. 32:19. They were singing, and dancing before the Calf. Now all this was very natural on such an occasion; and what ever sin they committed in it, yet I cannot see any ne­cessity there is to conclude that there could be no other ground for such a joy than their returning to the Idols of Egypt. And the Arguments I have before given clearly shew that whatever its was, it could not be that, seeing that the whole Solemnity was consecra­ted to the JEHOVAH, and performed in a manner utterly inconsistent with the Egyptian Idolatry.

As for the Calves of Dan and Bethel, our Author has (if possible) yet less to say against their being the Symbols of the God of Israel, Pag. 93. than he had in the for­mer Case. He produces onely the Learned Visorius to prove that Monceius was mistaken in imagining that Jeroboam set up these Calves in imitation of Solo­mon's Cherubim. But now this is not our question, whether the Calves were made in imitation of the Cherubim, but whether the God of Israel, or the Gods of Egypt were worshiped by the Ten Tribes at Dan and Bethel? And yet without saying one pertinent word, he concludes, with as good Assurance as if he had made a demonstration of it; ‘So that it is plain that these Calves were set up by him as Idols, or Symbols of a new or separate Religion from the Tribe of Judah.’

One thing indeed there is that may seem to deserve an Answer, and that is, why the people for three whole years did not comply with him, if he kept up the old Religion that had been established under Da­vid and Solomon? But now this is a gross Mistake in a person that would be thought so Learned in the Scrip­tures. The people did comply very readily with Je­roboam, and were far from refusing for any such time as is pretended. And that passage to which this Au­thor must, I suppose, refer 2 Chron. 11.17. is spoken not of the Israelites, but of the Kingdom of Judah; namely, that for three-years they walked in the way of David and Solomon.

And now let any reasonable man consider what a pitifull Vindication is this, to support so much Cla­mour and confidence? And how must all men of sense, even in the Roman Communion despise such tri­fling [Page 82]after what they have seen their own Dr. Godden perform upon this very subject? The truth is we ought to give that Learned Man his due. He has said what was to be said to excuse his Church from Idolatry; and his performance shews that he wanted nothing but a better Cause to have acquitted himself to every one's satisfaction. But he had a hard Mi­stress to serve, and he was not unsensible of it. But for this new Advocate his Arguments are as much short of the Doctor's, as his assurance is greater. There the D. of Paul's found something worthy his consideration, but here is nothing but a great noise, and a great deal of Anger and Scorn, without any just oc­casion, though in such a Case the Cause ought to be very plain. In short, I cannot imagine any other effect this Discourse can possibly have than to raise the Credit of Dr. Godden's; and after whom it is indeed a bold undertaking for another to engage: for could this Point have been defended, he was the Person that of any other seems to have been the most likely to have done it. But he too has fail'd, and because his performance was good, considering the matter of it, the worth of the man argues the badness of the Cause, and the impossibility of defending it.

I Am now come to the last point to be conside­red, and it is indeed so necessarily consequent up­on the foregoing, that if what I have before said concerning the Notion of Idolatry under the Old-Testa­ment be allowed, this cannot be denied: viz. That as the Jews retaining both the Apprehension and wor­ship of the truely Supreme God, were nevertheless guilty of Idolatry, for worshiping him after a Gentile manner, so may Christians be now, and therefore that the Church of Rome may justly be charged by us as Idolatrous, though we do not pretend in any wise to say either that she worships the Sun, Moon, and Stars, or any other visible and Corporeal Deity as the Supreme God, or that she has lost all Apprehension of a Spiritual and invisible Godhead.

I shall not much enlarge my self upon the proof of a Consequence, both in it self very plain, and which this Author is so far from denying, that his whole Book is built upon the Supposal that he makes of the truth of it; It is indeed the onely thing wherein he seems to have any reason, nor can any thing be more [Page 84]just than for the understanding what Idolatry is to search the Holy Scriptures, and see what is there de­clared to be so.

As for the New-Testament, we find the Apostles earnest indeed in their Cautions against Idolatry, but we do not see that they any where defined the Nature of it; They spake as to men who understood these things, and were acquainted with the Notion of Idolatry, and needed onely to be warn'd against fal­ling into it. They give not the least intimation that it was not the same then, it had ever been esteemed before, or that Christians were to think any other­wise of it, than the Jews had been wont to do under their Law. All we can conclude from their Exhor­tations to the Christians to avoid it is, that Christians were capable of falling into it, and by consequence that Men who have not lost all Sense and Apprehen­sions of a Supreme, Spiritual and Invisible Godhead may for all that become Idolaters.

So that to know what the Scripture Notion of Idolatry is, we must with this Author search into the History of the Old Testament, and from thence I have shewn two Cases wherein Men may without exclu­ding either the Sense or Worship of the true God, yet justly be charged with this Crime. I. By worship­ing the true God, by any Corporeal Image or represen­tation. II. By giving divine Worship to any other besides God, though they do not onely retain the No­tion, but even the Adoration too of the true God to­gether with it.

It were an easie matter to enlarge upon both these points here in the Application of them, but my de­sign now is not to accuse any particular Church of this [Page 85] Guilt, but onely to shew in General what Idolatry it self is, and that the Church of Rome though it both knows and worships the true God yet may do it in such amanner, and give such worship to other beings, as justly to deserve the censure which has been brought against her, for any thing this Author has said to clear her of it.

Indeed as to the former of these ways whereby I pretend a Man may be guilty of Idolatry, viz. By worshiping God by any Corporeal Image or Representa­tion, he has offer'd somewhat in prejudice of it. pag. 125. 127. For did not God himself command two Cherubims to be made, and used in his worship? and were not these Sa­cred Images set up in the place of worship, and does not this shew that God was so far from forbidding the use of Images in his Service, that he would not be worship­ed without them?

But, to this I answer that God did indeed com­mand two Cherubims to be made and placed at the two ends of the Mercy Seat; But that they were put there for any use to be made of them in his Service, or for any other purpose than to over-shadow the Mercy Seat, from whence God had promised to de­liver his Oracles unto them, this we utterly de­ny.

Hence we find that when God had directed Moses how to make this Throne of his glory, Exod. 25.22. he commanded him, To put the Mercy Seat a­bove upon the Ark of the Testimony, and there (says he) I will meet thee, and I will commune with thee from above the Mercy Seat from between the two Che­rubims which are upon the Ark, and in the VIIth. of Numbers ver. 89. It is said, That when Moses went [Page 86]into the Tabernacle of the Congregation to speak with God, he heard the Voice of one speaking to him, from off the Mercy Seat, from between the two Cheru­bims. Now here we may plainly see what the Object of Divine Worship was, not the Cherubim but the Invisible Majesty which spake from between them, and communed with Moses. The Mercy Seat it self was but the place where God had promised to meet them; The Cherubim were the Ornament, and cove­ring of that, But neither the one nor the other of these were the Object of Divine Worship, or Figures or Si­militudes of that God who alone was adored there.

And this the Learned Men of the Church of Rome confess no less than we, Aquinas 12. Q. 102. Art. 4. ad 6. Aquinas having objected a­gainst the Second Commandment, That the Cherubim were put in the Tabernacle and in the Temple: An­swers that they were neither put there as representa­tions of God, nor for any Worship to be paid to them. And explaining the Ark and all that belong'd to it as a Mystery, he says, That the Holy of Holies repre­sented Heaven; The Ark was the Foot stool of the Divine Majesty; But that because God was Incompre­hensible to any Creature, propter hoc nulla Similitudo ejus ponebatur, therefore was there no Similitude of him placed there the better to denote his Invisibility. As for the Cherubim he says they represented the mul­titude of Angels attending upon his Throne; and there was therefore more than One, that all worship might be excluded from them, to whom it had been commanded that they should worship onely one GOD. So far was Aquinas from thinking — that these Ima­ges were any Representations of God, or that any wor­ship was to be paid to them, and the same has been [Page 87]confessed by others of no less note of that Church, Vasquez Lorinus, Azorius and even by his own Vi­sorius, whom he has before alledged, but is not plea­sed to take notice of on this occasion.

But here our Author supposes he has something to boast of. For if we may believe him our own great Defender of this charge has given up the Cause as to this matter, and confessed that it was lawfull to wor­ship TOWARDS an Image, pag. 130. but not to give wor­ship to one. This is I fear a wilfull perverting of that Learned man's words. The Question was about the Jews Adoration towards the Ark, and the holy of Holies. His Answer is this; That they onely directed their worship towards the place, where God had promi­sed to be signally present among them, which (says he) signifies no more to the worship of Images, than lifting up our Eyes to Heaven doth when we pray, because God is more especially present there. What is there in all this to allow it to be lawfull to give worship TO­WARDS an Image, but not to it? Nay he plainly deni'd that there were any Images for worship there, or any worship directed towards them. But there was a Symbol of God's immediate presence as on his Throne between the Cherubim, and this appointed by God himself, and thither the people directed their worship, and I desire this Author, if he can, to tell me what there was more in this, than there is in directing our worship towards Heaven when we pray. And whe­ther according to his true and onely Notion of Idola­try, he may not as well say that we worship Apis or Baal or Moloch, i. e. The Sun, Moon, and Stars, in this, as that the Jews worship'd the Cherubim by that?

Nor is there any more Sincerity in what he calls his Second reply, and in which he represents him as allowing that the Cherubim might be Adored once a year by the high Priest, but not exposed to the people to worship. For in that very place he denies the Che­rubim to have been any representations of God, But says that his Throne was between them on the Mercy Seat; and adds in plain words, That they were never intended for objects of worship. And yet this Author insults and triumphs upon this, in a very glorious manner, as if the Cause had been gained by it. Had that Learned Man said that the high Priest adored the Cherubims once a year, then indeed there might have been some Colour forthose sweet Expressions of shame­less shifts and pretences. But this he utterly deny'd; and he might as well have made him confess it to be law­full to worship Images, though he disputed against it, and have brought him in allowing that 'twas no Ido­latry so to do, as to represent him confessing that the high Priest adored the Cherubim once every year. But what defence can there be against such Adversaries, as will make men confess what they reject, and affirm what they deny; and yet when they have done, dare to appeal both to God and the World for their Sincerity?

And now from what has been said, I will venture to conclude in behalf of our Church, and of those Lear­ned men of our Communion, who have been concern'd in this Controversie, that the Notion of Idolatry which both the one Teaches, and the others have Defended, is after all this Author's Clamours against it neither new nor unlearned, nor Fanatical, nor Anticatholick, nor Antichristian, nor any of those ill things he pre­tends; [Page 89]but the truly Ancient, Learned, and Catholick Notion of it. The Notion which God in his Holy Word has Established; Which the Jews received; The Apostles taught, and the Christian Church till these latter days, that mens interest prompted them to seek out to themselves new Inventions, constantly maintained. It was by this Notion that St. Paul cen­sured the Worship of the Golden Calf as Idolatrous, and condemned the Gentile World of the same crime, Rom. 1.21, 23. That though they knew God, yet they did not Glorify him as God, but changed the glory of the incorruptible God, into an Image made like unto Corruptible Man, and to Birds, and fourfooted Beasts and creeping things.

This was the Notion that made our fore-runners in the Faith, chuse rather to suffer Martyrdom than to give Religious worship to any Creature whatsoever. And whatever this Author thinks of those Primitive Saints, I am consident he will find but very few be­sides, that will believe they Sacrificed their Lives to their Folly and Passion, and died onely to defend a mistaken Notion of Idolatry.

It was this Notion upon which the Ancient Fathers condemned the Arians of Idolatry; They did not believe Christ, to be either the Sun or Moon, or any other visible or Corporeal Deity, or the Image, of the Supreme and invisible Godhead. They believed him to be the most Divine and excellent Being after God, onely they denied that he was Coëternal and Coëqual with the Father; and yet those Holy, Orthodox Fa­thers censur'd them as Idolaters, because suppo­sing him to be a Creature they worshiped him as a God.

And upon the very same Notion it is that the Re­formed Churches have ever looked upon the worship of Images and Saints in the Church of Rome, as deser­ving the very same censure; And I cannot but won­der that this Author should charge the Invention of this Notion upon a person now living, which he must needs have known both our Church and the Writers of it have constantly asserted, before any of this Ge­neration ever saw the light.

I should now add somewhat in Answer to those bit­ter reflexions he has made upon the same Reverend Per­son, whom he seems to have resolved at any rate to run down: But though the Charge be severe, yet is it so inartificially laid, as plainly shews there was no Achitophel in the Contrivance; And I will onely say that whoso shall consider the little Credit he had in those days, to which this Author refers, with them whom himself looks upon as the Contrivers and Ma­nagers of that Plot which he would be thought to lay to his Charge, will soon discover a great deal of ill will utterly ruined, for want of a little skill in the management of it.

But we ought not to wonder, if he who in the beginning of his Discourse flew out into such violence against all the Abettors of this Charge as a company of Fanatick, Anti-monarchal Villains has in the Close thought fit to fix some particular marks of his Dis­pleasuere, upon the last and most Learned Assertor of it. This was the least he could do to make amends for the misfortune of a approving and Licensing that very Book which was written in Defence of this Charge. And it is well for us all that there are some [Page 91]men in the World, who as Ʋlpian tells us can do no injury, Sive pulsent five concivium dicant.

How far this Author may be reckoned in the number of these I shall leave the final result of his Judgement in this case to satisfie the world, viz. That Idolatry made the Plot, and the Plot made Idolatry, and the same persons made both. For whether this can be the result of any man's Judgment that is well in his Head, I shall leave it to those who have no Distempers there to determine.

But he has delivered himself, as he will answer for his Integrity to God and the World. To this Judgment I now leave him: And though I fear it be too late to provide against the sentence of the Last, yet I heartily pray he may consider what he has done, and how he will stand in Judgment be­fore the other.