Now idolatry is two ways committed, in the false, hollow, and deceitful heart of man : either,
1. By attributing to the creature that which is proper to God only, in- vesting it with God's properties ; or,
2. By worshipping the true God in a false manner.
1. So that, in ihe first place, idolatry is to invest the creature icith God's properties. Go to the highest creature, Christ's human natm'e. We have some bitter spirits (Lutherans they call them) Protestants, who attribute to the human nature of Christ, that which only is proper to God, to be every where, and therefore to be in the sacrament, (c). You have some come near them, both in their opinion and in then- bitterness. They will have a nescio quomodo. Christ is there though they know not how. But this is to make Christ's human natm^e a god, to make an idol of it. So prayers to saints and angels, this makes idols of them, because it invests them with properties to know our hearts, which he must know unto whom we pray. And then, it gives unto them that which is proper to God, worship and prayer. But, we must call upon none but whom we must believe in, and we must beUeve in none but God. Therefore, worshipping of saints or angels is idolatry.
Sccondhf, idolatry is to irorship the true God in a false manner ; to fix his presence to that we should not fix it to ; to annex it to statues, images, crucifijces, the picture of the Virgin Mary and the hke. Not to run into the common place of idolatry, but to come home unto ourselves.
288 THE KETUKNING BACKSLIDER. [SeEMON IV.
Quest. Whether are the papists idolaters or not, like unto these Israelites, who say (being converted), ' Neither will we say unto the works of our hands, Ye are our gods ?'
Ans. I answer, Yes ; as gross as ever the heathens were, and worse. The very Egyptians, they worshipped none for gods but those who were alive ; as a papist himself saith (though he were an honest papist), the Egyptians worshipped living creatures, but we are worse than they ; for we worship stocks and stones, and a piece of bread in the sacrament. And to this purpose, one of their Jesuits confesseth this, and yielded the question for granted, that if there be not a transubstantiation of the bread turned into the body and blood of Christ, we are worse idolaters than these and these nations ; because we worship a piece of bread, which is a dead thing. But we assume (according to the Scriptures, the judgment of the church, and of the truth itself), the bread is not transubstantiated, at least it is a doubtful matter, for if it be not the intention of the priest, it is not. See here upon what hazard they put the souls of people !
Obj. But they have many shifts for themselves ; as, among the rest, this is one, that thei/ do not worship the linage, but God or Chiist before the image.
Ans. To which the answer is, that the fathers who wrote against the heathens meet with this pretence. The Pagans had this excuse. We wor- ship not this statue of Jupiter, but Jupiter himself. Thus they have no allegation for themselves, but the heathen had the same, which the ancient Fathers confuted. They are guilty of idolatry in both the forenamed kinds. For, first, they worship things that they should not, as appears by their invo- cation of saints, vows to them ; their temples, altars, and the like, full of their images, giving them honour due unto God. And then, they worship the true Grod in a false manner before their images. There is no kind of idolatry but they are grossly guilty of it. Whereof let this be the use.
Use 1. First of all, of thankfulness, that God hath brought us into Goshen, into a kingdom of light ; that we ai^e born in a time and place of knowledge of the true God, wherein is the true worship of the true God. It is a mat- ter that we cannot be too thankful to God for.
Quest. How shall u-e shew ourselves thankful ?
Ans. In keeping fast the true worship of God we have, and keeping out idolatry ; in reviving laws in that kind, if not making new. What if there were liberty given for men to go about the country to poison people ! Would we endure such persons, and not lay hold of them '? So in that we are freed from Jesuits who go about to poison the souls of God's people, let us shew our thankfulness for this, and shun idolatry of all sorts what- soever.
Use 2. Secondly, See from hence that there can be no toleration of that religion, no more, as was said, than to suffer and tolerate poisoners. As they said of coloquintida in their pottage, 2 Kings iv. 40, so ' there is death in the pot' of Komish religion. Therefore it were good to compel them to come in and serve the Lord their God. As it is said, good Josiah compelled those in his lime to serve the Lord, 2 Chron, xxxiv. 33, so it were good such courses were taken to reform and reclaim them. As Saint Augustine said of himself in his time, being a Donatist, he altered his judgment by force. In which case it would be with them as with children, who, when they are young, must be forced to school, but afterwards they thank them who forced them. So it is in religion, though it cannot be forced, yet such might afterwards bless God for them who brought them to