The sum of this argument is this: since there is an express law against the worship of any other being besides the supreme God, the Lord Jehovah, which never was expressly repealed, whatever plausible reasons may be urged for the worship of saints and angels, they cannot justify us in acting contrary to an express law of God.

IN WHICH

A DISCOURSE

CONCERNING

THE NATURE OF IDOLATRY:

THE CHARGE OF IDOLATRY IS MADE GOOD AGAINST THOSE OF THE CHURCH OF ROME.

THE PREFACE.

WERE we to judge of the merits of a book merely by the good opinion which the author seems to have of it, we might reasonably believe that the Discourse concerning the Nature of Idolatry, which I am about to consider, was not only set forth in defence of a truly infallible Church, but that the author of it thought himself delivering nothing but oracles all the while he was composing of it.

If his reasons had borne proportion to the nature of his attempt, we should easily have forgiven him, or rather we should have thanked him, no less than the gentlemen of the Roman communion would have done in such a case. He does indeed treat men with contempt, whom all the world knows to be above his contempt; nor can I believe him to be so singular as not to know it himself; but yet had he reasoned well, we had yielded to him; for an overbearing spirit in an adversary neither makes us to submit to a bad argument, nor to resist a good one.

It seemed something strange, that that author should think to trample upon us now, for pretending that the Church of Rome has defined transubstantiation as it is understood by us ; and that she has established an idolatrous worship in her communion for not only the greatest persons of the Reformed religion have brought this charge against her, but to the truth of it himself has subscribed in his time. But it was much more amazing to find so new a confidence supported by argu

:

ments so weak, that it is not without reason that some of the Roman communion are said to complain "that they have been betrayed, rather than defended by him."

How unsuccessfully he has managed his design of expounding transubstantiation, has been shewn in a late Discourse, proving transubstantiation to be the peculiar doctrine of the Church of Rome, and in the Preface to the Examination of the New Articles of the Roman Creed by Catholic Tradition. If I make it appear that he has miscarried as much in the point of idolatry, his theological part will then be considered; and for the rest, we do not by any means presume to meddle with it.

As for the subject which I have undertaken, one would have thought that a man who resolved to despise all that had ever written upon it, and not according to his opinion, should have taken care, if not to produce something that could not be answered, yet at least not to offer any thing that had been already confuted.

But on the contrary, this author, after all his noise, has for the most part been only an humble transcriber of the old exploded pretences; and which I may truly say, were much more strongly, as well as more modestly urged by Dr. Godden against his learned adversary. And when I consider how much more roughly this author uses him, than that doctor did, I am apt to think it might in some measure proceed from the sense he had, that Dr. St. in discovering the sophistry of his old antagonist, had beforehand confuted whatever this new one could find out again to revive the controversy.

And for this, I shall leave the following Discourse to be my evidence; and of which I shall say no more here, than that in his own phrase, p. 135, “I have delivered my judgment, as I will answer for my integrity to God and the world." But now there is another thing, which I ought not in this place to pass by. It has been insinuated by this hot reasoner, as no small crime in us, that we charge the Church of Rome with idolatry: "Not only (says he, p. 72, 73) because of the falseness of the calumny, but the barbarous consequence that may follow upon it, to incite and warrant the rabble, whenever opportunity favours, to destroy the Roman Catholics and their images, as the Israelites were commanded to destroy the Canaanites and their idols." And in p. 73, 74, he tells us, "that this charge of idolatry has ever been set up as the standard against monarchy."

There are many more passages of the like kind, in which he exercises his gift of eloquence: for I dare say he never learnt it, unless he has in his time studied to imitate a tempest; for I know not what other original he could propound to himself. This style is the fittest in the world to his purpose, and will perhaps be a copy for the future to them that intend to speak neither according to charity nor truth, which are ever best heard in a calm.

But however, if this too were for the declaration of his judgment, we will no more complain of the violence of his expressions, than we do of the force of his arguments: only I would beg leave to say, that he should have been sure he could discharge the Church of Rome of that guilt, before he had fixed a mark of calumny upon the whole body of the Reformed, who accuse them of it: lest when men examine his proofs, and find them defective, they be tempted to retort the censure, especially considering with what freedom and violence he has been pleased to lay it upon us.

But now for his great fear that this should incite the rabble to any violence against those of the other communion, I dare venture to say, there is not the least reason to be at all apprehensive of it. He knows very well, how free the Christians of the first three centuries were in laying the very same charge against the Gentile world; and yet we do not find that they ever shewed themselves either the less obedient to their emperors, or less charitable to their neighbours, upon the account of it. And though I am verily persuaded that the Romanists, in the invocation of saints, and in the worship of images and relics and of the host, are guilty of idolatry; yet I thank God, I am not conscious to myself of one disloyal thought to my king, or of the least uncharitableness towards any of my countrymen, who differ from me in these particulars.

And what I can thus truly profess in my own behalf, I doubt not but I may do for all others the true and genuine members of the Church of England; and who, by being such, must, I am sure, by principle, be both obedient subjects and charitable Christians. As for this author, he has made as broad a sign that he intends to leave us, by insinuating that the charge of idolatry ought to be followed with blows, as by his concern not to have idolatry charged upon the Church of Rome. We who do protest against certain practices as idolatrous, do also protest against violating either loyalty or charity, upon the account of religion. This author, it seems,

likes us neither upon one account, nor the other; or this at least is to be said, that he has been thus long of our communion, and has not all this while understood what we teach concerning a Christian's duty to his neighbour.

Did we indeed profess that of idolatry, which some others do of heresy, that it is a sufficient ground for the excommunicating of a king, and absolving his subjects of their allegiance; had we ever been caught, not in Otesian conspiracies, but in real plots against our sovereign upon this account, there might then have been just cause for such an insinuation. But whilst our principles are so loyal, that we have even been laughed at for our asserting them, and that too by some of those who would now be thought so zealous for their prince's safety; it was a very unreasonable apprehension, to think that the charge of idolatry (and that too begun in the time of a prince, of whom it was misprision of treason but to say that he was guilty of it) should in the bottom have been the design against the monarchy, which we have so often declared, and in the very person of our present king have shewn, we think ourselves obliged to support, whatever his religion be who is to sit upon

the throne.

And for what concerns our brethren of the Roman communion, it is well known, that we are not of those who destroy men for conscience-sake. We have never been infamous either for Parisian massacres, or military conversions. They are others who have ruined at once both the churches and the servants of the living God, out of zeal for their religion. We have indeed taken care to remove the idols out of our Israel; but for the worshippers of them, if they have suffered any thing, it has not been for their idolatry, but for that which shews there is something else more dangerous to the English monarchy than this charge.

The truth is, when I consider how heinous a suggestion this is, and what little foundation there is, either from our principles or our practices, to support it, I am under some temptation to reply to this author, as an ancient Father once did to a heathen, who accused them of such cruelties and filthiness in their ceremonies, as none but themselves were capable of committing: "Nemo hoc potest credere, nisi qui possit audere."*

And this I hope may serve for my excuse, if I have at this time appeared in defence of a charge, in which every true

*Minut. Felix. Oct. p. 34.