Such a fleshly way of worship, I say it is manif st, we have fancied to ourselves another god, altogether different from that God re- vealed to us in the word. Hence it was that Joshua told the peo- ple, Josh. xxiv. 19. " Ye cannot serve the Lord, for he is a jea- " lous God, and will not forgive your sins."^ q. d. You cannot serve the true God, till you have gotten right apprehensions of him : You fancy to yourselves a God made up of all mercy, as if he had no justice nor righteousness to call you to an account for your sins; and so do hut worship an idol, formed in your own imagination, instead of the true God. And if the thing he duly weighed, it will appear as well idolatry to submit to, and acknow- ledge the sovereign * authority of a creature, in appointing laws for worship, or falling down before an imaginary god, or idol, formed in our own phantasy, as to bow to, and worship a graven image, or the stock of a tree.
Now, hence you may come to see at once, both the nature of this second sort of idolatry, and also the rise and original of it ; which is nothing else but the proud and carnal heart of man, which not willing to contain itself within the limits of the word, wherein a plain, simple, and spiritual way of worship is ruled out, invents to itself new rites, ceremonies, and ways of worshipping God, more suitable and pleasing to the flesh. And hence it is, that ido- latry is in scripture reckoned a work of the flesh. Gal. v. 20. be- cause man naturally having a ]:)roud heart, and a working imagi- nation, which depending upon sense, and not elevated and recti- fied by faith, first forms to itself carnal conceptions and notions of God ; and then deviseth a way of worship suitable to those notions of him. So that as one well observes ; •(- " This is " the fountain and principle of all error, that men think that " those Avhich please them, must needs please God ; and what dis- *' pleaseth them must also displease him."" So that this brat, idolatri/, is begotten betwixt a proud, carnal heart and the devil ; who, since he cannot draw men to the former sort of idolatry, endeavours all he can to entangle and defile them with this, and that partly out of malice to God, knowing what a dear thing his worship is to him, and partly out of a design of ruining such as he can entice to it: For he knows their sorrows shall be multiplied
* Hence (even by God's own interpretation of the case) we implicitly make any one a god to us, and give him the homage due to a Deity, when we subject ourselves to his authority and institutions in the matter of religious worship. Ames. Medulla^ I. 2. petite 535.
f Er r oris hoc est principium quod ques rijhis plnccnt^ Deo eliam placere putamus : et quce nobis displicent Deo etiaiii displicent putamus.
526 AXTlPHAltMACTJM SALUBERRIMUM,
Psal. xvi. 4. and God seldom lets it escaj:>e without some remark- able stroke.
Upon the whole then, you plainly see, worship may be right as to its object, and yet idolatrous in respect of the manner ; because the assuming of a despotical power in this case, is not only a slights ing of that "j^^i^ov Baffr/ty.ov, that royal law, but as high a piece of treason against Jesus Christ, as can lightly be committed by a crea- ture. I will shut up this with two worthy and full testimonies to the truth of the point in hand. The first is Melancton * in he Com. de ceremon. human'is. His words are these, and they are grave and weighty.
Accedit et hoc, quod ejnscopi arrogant sihi potestatem condendi tra- ditiones, quam tamen non concedit els evangelium, S;c. non est leve crimen tentare Deum^ est enim non hifirmitate lah'i, sed contemptu Dei, pj^oposito ipsius verbo, quasi cum eo certare, aliud in stituendo, ocui (piAovr/.ziv, et illius sapiential nostram antefirre. ' The bishops ar- ' rogate to themselves a power of making traditions, which the gospel ' hath not given them. It is no small crime to tempt God, for ' this is not to slide by infirmity, but by contempt of God, his
* word being set before them, as it were to contend with it, by
* instituting another thing, and overcome it. This is to prefer our ^ wisdom to his.'
And a little after (having given some instances of it,) he proceeds thus :
Tales fuemnt et suntfontes cultus idolorum, Hcec sunt arcana mala, quae politica sapientia non potest judicare, sed nos in ecclesia, ea considerare debemus ; ut moniii, subjiciamus nos verbo Dei, nee nostris opinionibus regi velimus. ' Such have been, and are the foun- ' tain of the worship of idols. These are secret e\'ils, which political ' wisdom cannot judge. But we in the church ought to consider ' these things, that being warned, we may submit ourselves to the < word of God, and not be ^\illing to be ruled by our own opinions,' &:c.
To this I shall add the most worthy testimony of the right ho- nourable Lord Brook -f-.
' A bishop's wearing a surplice, cope, mitre, using the cross, ^ bowing to the altar, &c. (although they may be errors) yet all,
* or one of these make him not a Pope, or popeling, or proper ly ' antichristian ; but receiving these from tlie Pope's dictates, doing ' them, because he commands acknowledging him in commanding ' them, pressing them on others with such a despotical power,
* makes a true Pope, a real Antichrist ! Nor may our bishops ' evade by this, which I easily see will be answered, that though
* PhiL Melon, in loc com. p. 631, 632.
f Lord Brook's Treatise of Episcopacy, p. 60, 61.
ANTiriTARMACU.M SALUBEllllIMUM. 527
* Indeed they do, and command these things, yet they neither do ' tliem from the Pope'^s command, nor command them in the ' Pope's power/
* ThoLigli I should gi-ant this, which yet many wise men will ' not grant (for our bishop's first power came from the Pope ; and ' of late also wo have found letters, advice, conmiands, dictates^ ' from the Pope to some of our bishops, and that in matters of ' greatest consequence, both for the church and state :) But grant ' all this they say, yet they may be Antichristian, and so such ' (ill re) as the Pope is; though not literally Romanists, except ' they do or command in the power of Rome. This I shall be ' bold to affirm and maintain, till I see better reason that he
* (whoever he be) that commands the least tittle of doctrine or dis-
* cipline, merely e.v imperio voluntatis, in his own power and au-
* thority, without licence or warrant from scripture, or right rea-
* son, (where the scripture hath been silent) though the thing he
* so commandeth, should happen to be good in itself, yet he, in ' his so commanding, is not only tyrannical, but antichristian, ' properly antichristian, encroaching on the royal office of Christ ;
* which is truly high-treason against God, and most properly anti^