Again: I told you she might fall by idolatry, and so neither by apostasy, heresy, or schism. To which you reply, " Good sir, idola- try is a mixed misdemeanour both in faith and manners. I speak of the single one of faith; and he that falls by idolatry, if he keep still some parts of Christianity entire, he falls by heresy, — by apostasy, if he keep none." I am persuaded you are the first that ever gave this description of idolatry, and the last that will do so: " It is a mixed misdemeanour in faith and manners." Manners you speak of in con- tradistinction to faith, and you so explain yourself; in which sense they relate only unto moral conversation, regulated by the second table. That idolatry hath been and is constantly attended with cor- ruption in manners, the apostle declares, Rom. i., and I willingly grant; but how in itself or in its own nature it should come to be " a mixed misdemeanour in faith and in manners," I know not: neither
APOSTASY OF THE ROMISH CHURCH. 215
can you tell me which is the fleshy, which is the fishy part of this Dagon, — what it is in it that is a misdemeanour in faith, and what in manners. According to this description of yours, an idolater should be an ill-mannered or an unmannerly heretic. But you speak of the single misdemeanour in faith ; but who gave you leave so to restrain your in- quiry? I allowed you before to except against one instance, whereby many a church hath fallen ; but if you will except idolatry and man- ners also, your endeavour to provide a shelter for your guilt is shame- ful and vain. For what you except out of your inquuy, if you confess not to have been, yet you do that it may be or might have been. And you do wisely to let your adversary know that he is to strike you only where you suppose yourself armed, but by all means must let naked parts alone ; and doubtless he must needs be very wise who will take your advice. " The church of Judah was once a pure church, in the days of David; how came she, then, to fall? by apostasy, he- resy, or schism?" I answer, if you will give me leave, she fell by ido- latry and corruption of manners ; against both which the prophets were protestants, 2 Kings xvii. 13 : '"'l'^!' '^V^^., — God protested against them by his prophets. Again: the same church reformed in the days of Ezra, Nehemiah, Zerubbabel, and Hainan riDJp •'t^*jx^ "the men of the great congregation," was a pure church. How did it fall ? not by ido- latry as formerly, but by corruption of life, unbelief, and rejecting the word of God for superstitious traditions, until it became " a den of thieves." You see, then, there are other ways of a church's falling from its pristine purity than those by you insisted on. And if you shall inquire how it may fall, you must exclude nothing out of your inquiry whereby it may do so, and whereby some churches have done so. And if you will have my thoughts in this matter, they are, that the beginning of the fall of your church and many others lay in im- belief, corruption of life, conformity to the world, and other sins that were found in the most of its members. And it is a fancy, to dream of the purity of a church in respect of its outward order, when the power and life of godliness is lost in its members ; and a wicked de- vice, to suppose a church may not be separated from Christ by unbe- lief, whilst it abides in an external profession of the doctrine of faith. Such a church, though it may liave " a name to live," yet indeed is " dead," and dead things are unclean. We speak of its purity, and acceptation thereon in the sight of God; neither will men " dead in trespasses and sins" be " terrible " unto any " as an army with ban- ners," unless they are like those in Lucilius, who,
" Ut pueri infantes credunt signa omnia ahena Vivere et esse homines ; sic isti omnia ficta Vera putant; credunt signis cor inesse ahenis;"
as Lactantius reports him. But you say, " If they fall by idolatry,
216 A VINDICATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
and yet keep any parts of Christianity, they fall by heresy." But why so? Would you had thought it incumbent on you to give a rea- son of what you say I Are idolatry and heresy the same? Tertullian, who, of all the old ecclesiastical writers, most enlargeth the bounds of idolatry, defines it to be " Omnis circa omne idolum famulatus et ser- vitus ;" — " Any worship or service performed in reference to or about any idol." I do not remember that ever I met with your definition of idolatry in any author whatever. Bellarmine seems to place it in " Creaturam seque colere ac Deum;" — " To worship the creatiire as much or equally with the Creator:" which descrij)tion of it, though it be vain and groundless (for his "sequb" is neither in the Scripture nor any approved author of old required to the constituting of the worship of any creature idolatrous), yet is not this heresy neither, but that which differs from it " toto genere." We know it to be " Cultus religiosus creaturse exhibitus," — " Any religious worship of that which by nature is not God;" and so doth your Thomas grant it to be. Gregory de Valentia, another of your great champions, contends that " tanquam Deo," "as unto God," is to be added unto the definition; as though religious worship could be given unto any thing, and not as unto God really and indeed, though not intentionally as to the worshipper. Where a man gives religious worship, there he doth, " ipso facto," assign a divine eminency, say he what he will to the contrary. Neither will his intention of not doing it "as unto God," any more free him from idolatry than an adulteress will be free by not looking on her adulterer as her husband. I confess he adds after- ward a distinction that is of great use for you, and indispensably ne- cessary for your defence, De Idol., lib. ii. cap. 7. St Peter, he tells us, insinuates some " worship of idols," — " cultum aliquem simula- chrorum," — to wit, that of the holy images, to be right or lawful, when he deterreth believers " ab illicitis idolorum cultibus," — " from the unlawful worship of idols," 1 Pet. iv. 3: 'Ads,u,iToig sIBooXoXarpslaig. This were somewhat, indeed, if all epithets were distinguishing, none aggravating or declarative. When Virgil said, " Dulcia mella premes," Geor. iv., he did not insinuate that there was any bitter honey. Nor is it allowable only for poets, to use explaining and declaring epithets; but Aristotle allows it in the best orators also, so they use not fj.a-/.po?g r} dxaipoig 95 -TrvxvoTg, "long or unseasonable ones," or the same frequently: and the use of this here by Peter is free from all those vices. When the Roman orator cried out, " 0 scelus detestandum ! " — " 0 wicked- ness to be abhorred ! " he did not intend to insinuate that there was a wickedness not to be abhon'ed, or to be approved. But if it will fol- low hence that your church is guilty only" of lawful idolatry, I shall not much contend about it; yet I must tell you, that as the poor woman, when the physicians in her sickness told her still that what