Of idolatry a discourse, in which is endeavoured a declaration of, its distinction from superstition, its notion, cause, commencement, and progress, its practice charged on Gentiles, Jews, Mahometans, Gnosticks, Manichees Arians, Socinians, Romanists : as also, of the means which God hath vouchsafed towards the cure of it by the Shechinah of His Son / by Tho. Tenison ...

PART 5. Whether they worshipping one God, could be guilty of that sin.

NOW that being proved, a third Question comes to be resolved; Whether the acknowledgment of one God by the Gentiles, and their Application to him, being granted, they are yet liable to the charge of Idolatry?

In answer to this enquiry, I purpose to shew, that they are still charged; that they might be guilty not∣withstanding that concession of owning one God; and that in divers respects, that guilt was actually contract∣ed by them. They are charged with this high offence, by Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, Minucius Faelix, Origen against Celsus, S. Cyprian de vanitate Idolorum, Arnobius, Lactantius, Julius Firmicus Maternus, and

a long order of others: And to cite them in all the places which are pertinent to this matter, were to re∣peat a great part of their works. The matter is so notorious, that I will illustrate it only by a single in∣stance. Let that instance be made in Julian the Apo∣state [if he were ever a Christian, in whom the tares of Gentilism were sown so very early by Libanius; and appeared ripe so soon as ever the Glory of the Empire shone upon him]: This man hath been con∣demned by the common consent of the Christian Church in being since his time, as a manifest and infa∣mous Idolater, and a very Bigot in Heathenism; and yet he acknowledged one God, and him who is truly the Lord of Lords. He declared this to be the opi∣nion of his Sect a 1.1, That there was a common Pa∣rent and King of Men. He worshipped that Jupiter b 1.2 who is the giver of all kinds of good; who is c 1.3 the greatest and most powerful Being. He worship∣ped (though not without the intermixture of a false Religion) the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He says so much in Terms, in one place d 1.4 and upon his Oath. He says the same elsewhere e 1.5 in effect, whilst he reports the pains he took (though perfectly in vain) to raise the Temple of Jerusalem out of its ruines; and thereby, as he pretended, to erect a Mo∣nument to him, to whom it was sacred. It is true, that S. Cyril doth bring his sincerity under question f 1.6, and believes that, in his heart, he placed the God of Abraham amongst his Topical deities: Yet, for Jupiter Ithometes g 1.7 worshipped by Julian, S. Cyril grant∣eth him to be esteemed the Prince of the Gods. And why he should think that Julian believed not the God of Abraham to be the true Jehovah, I cannot readily conjecture; seeing that Emperor had perufed the Old Testament, which declares him to be the Creator and

Governour of all things, and not meerly, as the Na∣tions transplanted into Samaria, grosly imagined, The God of the Land a 1.8. If now Julian and some other Heathens entertained so worthy a notion of God, they are, so far, acquitted of that sort of Idolatry which establisheth the Polytheism of some or many eoequal Gods; but still they might be, in other re∣gards, the worshippers of Idols.

That they might be so, appeareth from the definiti∣on of Idolatry, in which it is shewed that the giving away the honour of God to another Object is a de∣gree of that crime, though it be not his supreme ho∣nour: Though we do not take the Crown of incom∣municable honour from him, and, by our fancy, place it on a creature. It appeareth again from the practice of the Jews, who are by God himself accused of Ido∣latry, even when they in part owned and worshipped him, and before they were wholly led into captivity, and mingled again among the Heathen. They had not forgotten, perfectly, the God of Israel in whose Law they read; though like Adulteresses, they shared their Love with Idols. Wherefore God Almighty required Hosea, not (as I think) in a literal sense, but ac∣cording to the way of a Prophetical Scene, to take unto him an Adulteress b 1.9; thereby personating the state betwixt himself and the Children of Israel, who, though they had not rejected him as their true and su∣preme Husband, yet they had gone a whoring after the inventions of the Gentiles, and provoked God to give them a Bill of Divorce.

Whilst I am here affirming, that a people who own one God, may yet commit Idolatry, I mean not this meerly of such who judge him to be, Nature, the Sun, or the Soul of the World, all which are finite or imaginary Objects, and by consequence, Idols, as often as they

are adored in the place of God: But I speak even of the Gentiles who own'd one true incomprehensible Creator; who with Callicratidas the Pythagorean a 1.10, acknowledged [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] one best Being, [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] and such as was the Beginning and Cause of all things. Some of these did actually commit Ido∣latry, in their worship of the Statues of God, of Demons, and of the Images of those subordinate Dei∣ties.

Notes

• a 1.1

  Julian Apost. ap. S. Cyril. A∣lex. l. 4. ad Init. p. 115.
• b 1.2

  Julian in Fragm. p. 534. Oper.
• c 1.3

  Jul. ap. Cyr. Al. l. 10. cont. Jul. p. 354.
• d 1.4

  Ap. Cyr. Al. l. 10. p. 354. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• e 1.5

  Jul. in Frag. Epist. p. 541. op.
• f 1.6

  S. Cyr. l. 10. p. 355, 356.
• g 1.7

  Id. l 4. contr. Jul. p. 128. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• a 1.8

  2 Kings 17. 26, 27.
• b 1.9

  Hosea 3. 1. 2, 3.
• a 1.10

  Callicr. ap. Stob. Serm. 83. p. 486. 20.