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 7. Of the Usefulness of this Argument of Gods Shechinah.

THis Argument of Gods Shechinah may be many ways useful, if Intelligent persons draw such inferences from it as it offereth to their judgment. I will hint at some of them; for to insist on any unless it be those which concern the worship of Angels or Ima∣ges, is beyond my scope.

And first of all by due attention to the premisses, an Anthropomorphite may blush at his rude conceit about the humane figure of the Divine substance, whose spi∣ritual and immense amplitude is incapable of any natu∣ral figure or colour; though God by his Logos using the ministry of inferiour creatures, hath condescended to a visible Shechinah.

Hence, secondly, those people who run into the o∣ther extream, the Spiritualists and abstractive Fami∣lists, may be induced to own the distinct substance of God, and the visible person of Christ; and not to subtilize the Deity and its Persons, and all its appear∣ances into a meer notion, or into some quality, act, or habit of mans spirit; or to bow down to God no otherwise then as he is the pretended light or love in their own breasts.

Thirdly, If this consideration had entered with so∣briety into the minds of those German Anabaptists a 1.1, who with zeal contended that the very essence or sub∣stance of the Father was seen in the Son; and the very substance of the Spirit in the Dove; their disputati∣ons would have been brought to a speedy issue, or rather, they would never have been begun. They

would have known how to have distinguished betwixt the invisible God, and the visible face or Shechinah, not as the very shape, but as the emblem and significative Presence of the Divinity.

Fourthly, For want of some such notion as this, many other men of fanatick heads (such as were most of the Hereticks who introduced novelty and tumult into the Church about the Persons of the Trinity and nature of Christ) have plunged themselves into unin∣telligible conceits. Of this number were the Basilidians, who call'd the body of the Dove the Deacon; and the Valentinians, who stil'd it the spirit of cogitation, which descended on the flesh of the Logos; thereby darkning the understanding with phrases. If they had apprehended the Logos in his Praeexistence or Incarna∣tion, as the Shechinah of God, and would have ex∣pressed that notion without phantastical or amusing terms, they might have instructed others, and seen the truth also better themselves when they had clothed it in fit and becoming words.

Fifthly, This notion may not be unuseful for the unfolding the Scriptures, which speak of the Praeexist∣ence of Christ before he was God-man; and explain them naturally, and not with such force and torture as they are exposed to in the So•…•…inian Comments. He that saith Abraham saw the Shechinah of the Praeexisting Lo∣gos, and thence inferreth that Christ was before that Patriarck, speaketh plain sense. But he that says Christ was not till more than 2000 years after Abrahams death, yet that he was before him, because he was before Abraham was Abraham, or before all Nations were bles∣sed in his seed, the Gentiles not being yet called; such a one speaks like a Sophist, not an honest Interpreter; and forgets that Christs answer (before Abraham was, I am) follows upon this Interrogatory of the Jews,

Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?

Sixthly, This notion may further shew the error of those Semi-Socinians, such as Vorstius and his Disciples, who confound the Immensity of the God-head, and the visible Glory of the Shechinah, which God hath pleased as it were to circumscribe. They will allow this King of the world no further room for his Immense substance than that which his especial Presence irradi∣ates in his particular Palace a 1.2. Which conceit though in part it be accommodable to the Shechinah; yet is it a presumptuous limitation of the great God, when it is applied to his substance which Heaven and Earth toge∣ther cannot contain.

Furthermore, it is from hence in part, that we see and pity the blindness of some of the modern Jews b 1.3, who notwithstanding they are the professed enemies of Divine Statues and Images, and have reason enough to believe that the Ark of God hath dwelt among us in a body of flesh, and now shineth in the Heavens; do yet hope (some say) for an especial presence of God by furnishing with a Chest and Roll of their Law, the places of their Religious Assemblies.

Again, by considering with St. Chrysostome the Tem∣ple of Solomon as a Type, not only of the sensible but also of the invisible world; and by considering further the Shechinah and Ark of God more especially in the Holiest of all than in the Sanctuary and more exterior Courts and spaces; we may illustrate that very useful and most probable notion of the degrees of Glory, and of the several Mansions prepared for several Estates in the Kingdom of Glory; where notwithstanding every part will be so far, though inequally, filled with lu∣ster, that all may be said with open face to behold the Glory of God, and not those only next the Coelestial

Ark or Throne in the most holy place.

But these things (as I said) are beyond my scope; though appertinencies to my Argument; and there∣fore I will no further pursue them, but proceed to those uses of the notion which lye more directly in the way of my design. The first of them concerneth the worship of Angels, the second of Images.

Notes

• a 1.1

  Ap. Cloppen∣burg. Gangren. Anab. p. 281, 282.
• a 1.2

  See Vorst. de De•…•…. Disp. 3. p. 22. & Not. ad Disp. 3. p. 215, &c. & Elucid. Pseudo-Ans. c. 3. p 458. D. ubi habitat Deus? M. quam∣vis ubique po∣tentialiter, ta∣men in Intelle∣ctuaii Coelo substantialiter:
• b 1.3

  See Mr. Mede's Works, p. 438.