Now, idolatry is committed when either we set up false gods in place of the true God, or when we worship the true God in a false manner.
Quest. But now another question may be moved, Whether the papists be idolaters or not ? For we live amongst many of them ; therefore we can- not be too wary of them.
A71S. The answer is affirmative. They are idolaters, and worse in some sort than the heathen idolaters were. Only change the names of the popish saints which they in popery worship, and the names that the heathen wor- ship, and they will be all one. Now, names be no reahties.
How may this be cleared ?
First, they give the honour due to God to others, which is idolatry. The religious worship only due unto God, they give unto other things. Christ, when he said, ' Him only shalt thou serve,' Mat. iv. 10, excepted the least divine worship from the creature. The devil, we know, would have had him fall down before him ; but Christ's answer is, ' Him only .shalt thou serve ;' that is, him only shalt thou religiously prostrate thyself unto. So that religious worship is proper to God only. Now, this they give to saints ; for they pray to them, which is religious worship.
Ob). But they object, that they pray not directly to them, but to them as mediators, that they may pray to Christ for them.
Ans. 1. First, they raise tlieni above their degree, to make them mediators, and so dethrone Christ of his office of Mediator, at least join copartners with him.
2. But this is not all. They pray directly to saints to help them against several ills, as they have several saints for several evils. Whatsoever they
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say, who are not ashamed of lying to further their designs, yet their books and writings do testify the contrary.
3. Then again, they vow to saints, as in the form of their vows is seen. I vow to the Virgin Mary, &c. Now, a vow is a reHgious act. They vow to saints, and burn incense unto them, erect temples, and set apart days for their worship, and so break all the four commandments of the first table. In a good fashion, it is not unfit to remember them, that their memorial may be kept ; but we are not to worship them.
4. And, besides saints, theij have other false gods ; for their head of the church is an abominable idol, unto whom they ascribe that which is proper imto Christ, to be the head of the church, which hath no influence from him, but all from Christ, the spiritual head thereof. Therefore the apostle complaineth of such ' who hold not the head,' &c.. Col. ii. 19. Those of the Romish Church ' hold not the head,' hold not Christ, because they attri- bute that to saints and men which is proper to Christ only. They make the pope judge of all controversies, who must give authority to the word, and determine Scripture to be Scripture. What a shameful thing is this, to make him judge of the Scriptures, which must judge him at the last day. A pitiful thing it is to see ' a man of sin ' go about to judge the righteous law of God, and to determine of that which must ere long determine him unto eternal torments, without particular repentance. Yet, being spiritually drunk, this folly they are given to, that they will be judge of that which must be judge of them. Many ways they make him an idol, ascribing that to him which is proper to Christ.
5. So likewise, they make their sacraments to be idols.
For, 1, they ascribe to the water in baptism power of conferring grace.
Now, grace is God's creature only ; for all the creatures in heaven and earth cannot confer the least di'am of grace. It is a thing of God's making. Now, to raise an element to confer grace, and then to trust in it, e.v opere operato, for the confemng of it, is to make an idol of it.
2. And for the bread. None of all the heathens ever had such an abo- minable idol as the mass, a breaden god, for they worshipped living crea- tures, and there is not the worst living creature but it is better than a piece of bread ; and yet they worship that, for, by their own confession, if the intention of the priest be not to the action, there is nothing but bread. How may the minds, then, of men be tormented when they may or shall think perhaps the priest hath no such intention, and so are in danger of idolatry. For, saith the psabnist, ' their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god,' &c., Ps. xvi. 4. So certainly the sorrows and scruples of those that are idolaters shall be multiplied. They cannot but be much tormented in soul sometimes. Coster (p), himself a forward Jesuit, acknowledge th ' that if, upon the words of consecration, the bread be not turned and transubstantiated into the body of Christ, we are the most abo- minable idolaters of the world.' But we make the minor and assumption, long since proved by the late worthies of our church ■!= (</), but there is no such transubstantiating of the bread into the body of Christ. Therefore, by their own consent, they are the most abominable idolaters of the world, worse than the heathen.