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she listens to the Roman Pontiff and his Court. The Reformed churches very properly refuse to profess communion of faith and worship with that of Rome, because they are afraid to involve or entangle themselves in the guilt of such great wickedness, lest they should bring down upon their heads the blood of so many thousands of the Saints and of the faithful Martyrs of Christ, who have borne testimony to the word of the Lord, "and have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb." (Rev. vii, 14.) For, beside the fact that such a profession would convey a sufficiently open approbation of that persecution, (especially if they did not previously deliver a protestation against it, which, however, the Roman Pontiff would never admit,) even the Papistical doctrine itself, with the assent of the people, establishes the punishment, by the secular arm, of those whom the Church of Rome accounts as heretics: So that those who, on other points, are adherents to the doctrine of Popery, if they are not zealous in their conduct against heretics, are slandered as men governed by policy, lukewarm creatures, and even receive the infamous name of Atheists. I wish all Kings, Princes, and Commonwealths, seriously to consider this,; that, on this point at least, they may protest that they have seceded from the communion of the Pontiff and of the Court of Rome. Besides, this exercise of tyranny is, in itself, equal to an evident token, that the Roman Pontiff is that wicked servant who says in his heart, "My Lord delayeth his coming," and begins to eat and drink, and to be drunken, and to beat his fellowservants. (Luke xii, 45.)

DISPUTATION XXIII,

ON IDOLATRY.

Respondent, JAPHET VIGERIUS.

I. IT ALWAYS has been, and is now, the chief design of diabolical perverseness,-that he, as the Devil, should be considered and worshipped as a Deity,-than which nothing can be more reproachful and insulting to the true God;—or that all thought and mention of a Deity being removed, pure Atheism might obtain, and, after conscience was taken away, men might be hurried along into every kind of flagitious wickedness. But since he could not effect this, on account of the notion of a Deity, and indeed of a good one, which is deeply impressed on the minds of men; and since he knew it to be the will of the true God that He should Himself alone be considered and worshipped as God, VOL. II.

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without any image; (Exod. xx, 3-5; Deut. xxxii, 17; 1 Cor. x, 20;) the Devil has been trying to persuade men to consider and worship as God some figment of their own brain or some kind of creature, or, at least, to worship the true God in an image, In former days he had great success in these his attempts; and would to God that in our times they were utterly fruitless! We might then be emboldened to enter on this discussion, merely for the purpose of knowing what Idolatry is, and the description of it which recently prevailed among Jews and Gentiles, without being solicitous to deliver any admonition or caution respecting it. But since, alas, this evil holds domination far and wide in Christendom itself, we will, by Divine aid, briefly treat upon it in these Theses, both for the purpose of knowing what it is, and of giving some cautions and dehortations against it.

II. Commencing therefore with the etymology of the word, we say, Eidwλov, An Idol, generally, signifies some representation and image, whether it be conceived only in the mind or framed by the hands, and whether it be that of a thing which never had an existence or of something which does exist. But according to Scripture usage, and that of the Sacred Writers, it signifies, 1, An image fashioned for the purpose of representing and honouring a Deity, whether true or false. 2. Every false Divinity,—whether it be the pure figment of the human brain,—or any thing existing among the creatures of God, and thus real according to its absolute essence, because it is something; but false with regard to its relative essence, because it is not a Divinity, which yet it is feigned to be, and for which it is accounted. (Exod. xx, 4; Acts vii, 41; Psalm cxv, 4-8; 1 John v, 21; 1 Cor. viii, 4; 1 Thess. i, 9; Col. iii, 5; Deut. vi, 13; [xiii, 6;] Matt. iv, 10; Deut. v, 6—9.) AaTpEUEV (ido-latry) signifies, in its general acceptation, "to render service, or worship," "to wait upon;" in Hebrew, 72": But in the Scriptures, and among Ecclesiastical Writers, it is peculiarly employed about [acts of] religious worship and service; such as these,-to render love, honour, and fear to God,-to repose hope and confidence in Him,-to invoke Him,-to give Him thanks for benefits received,-to obey his commands without exception, and to swear by his name. (Malachi i, 6; Psalm xxxvii, 3; 1, 15; Deut. vi, 13.)

III. Idolatry, therefore, according to the etymology of the word, is "service rendered to an idol;" but, with regard to fact, it is when divine worship is paid to any other than the true God; -whether that be done by an erroneous judgment of the mind, by which that is esteemed as a God which is no God ;—or it be

done solely by the performance of such worship, though he who renders it be aware that the idol is not God, and though he protest that he does not esteem it as a God, since his protestation is contrary to fact. (Isai. xlii, 8; Gal. iv, 8; Exod. xxxii, 4, 5.) In proof of this, the belly, avarice, and idolatry, are severally said to be the god of some people, and covetous men are called "idolaters." (Phil. iii, 19; Col. iii, 5; Eph. v, 5.) But so far is that opinion or knowledge (by which he does not esteem the idol as a god) from acquitting him of idolatry, who adores, invokes, and kneels to it, that [quia] from the very circumstance of his thus invoking, adoring, and kneeling to an idol, he may rather be said to esteem that as a god, which, according to his own opinion, he does not consider to be a god. (1 Cor. x, 19, 20.) This is to say to the wood, with one portion of which he has kindled the fire of his hearth and of his oven, and from another has fashioned to himself a god, "Deliver me; for thou art my god!," (Isai. xliv, 15, 17,) and to a stone, "Thou hast begotten me." (Jer. ii, 27.)

IV. Idolatry is also of two kinds: THE FIRST is, When that which is not God is accounted and worshipped as God. (Exod. XxX, 3-5.) THE SECOND is, When that which is either truly or falsely accounted for God is fashioned into a corporeal image, and is worshipped in an image, or [ad] according to an image. The former of these is prohibited in the First Commandment: "Thou shalt not have other gods," or "another god, before me,” or "beside me." The latter, in the Second Command: "Thou shalt not make unto thyself any likeness, thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them." (Exod. xx, 3-5; 1 Cor. x, 7.) From this it appears, that idolatry may also be considered in another view, and in three different ways: The FIRST Mode is, when the true God is worshipped in an image. The SECOND is, when a false god is worshipped. The THIRD, which partakes of both, is, when a false god is worshipped in an image. The First mode is [levior] of a more venial description than the Second, according to that passage," And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for Ahab to walk in the sins of Jeroboam," who had worshipped Jehovah in calves, and had taught others to do the same, "that he went and served Baal, and bowed himself down before him." (1 Kings xvi, 31.) The Third mode is the worst of all: For it consists of a double falsehoodof a feigned divinity, to whom such worship does not belong,and of an assimilated divinity, when of THE ONE to whom it is a [pretended] assimilation it is not a likeness. (Isai. xl, 19, 20;

Jer. x, 14.) Varro has observed, that, by the last of these modes, all fear of God has been taken away, and error has been added to mortals.

V. In the prohibition, that the Children of Israel should have no God except Jehovah, the Scriptures employ three words to express" another God." The First is 8: (Exod. xx, 3:) The Second, 11: And the Third, 1 (Psalm lxxxi, 9. The First signifies generally "any other god:" The Second, " a strange god:" And the Third, "a strange and foreign god." But though these words are not so opposed to each other, as not occasionally to co-incide, and to be indiscriminately used about a god that is not the TRUE ONE; yet, from a collation of them as they are used in the Scriptures, it is easy to collect, that "another god" may be conceived under a three-fold difference: For they were either invented by their first worshippers: Or they were received from their ancestors: Or they were taken from other nations. (Deut. xxxii, 16, 17.) The last of these occurs (1.) Either by some necessity, of which David complains, when he says, "They have driven me out this day from abiding in the inheritance of Jehovah, saying, Go, serve other gods." (1 Sam. xxvi, 19.)-(2.) Or by persuasion; as the heart of Solomon was inclined by his wives to worship other gods. (1 Kings xi, 4, 5.) -(3.) Or by the mere choice of the will; as Amaziah took the gods of the children of Seir, after he had come from the slaughter of the Edomites. (2 Chron. xxv, 14.) In these degrees the Scriptures present to us a difference between a greater and a less offence. For since Jeroboam is frequently accused of having made Israel to sin and of increasing the crime of idolatry; (1 Kings xii, 30; xiv, 16;) and since the Children of Israel are often said to have "provoked God to jealousy with strange gods, whom they knew not, and whom their fathers did not fear;" (Deut. xxxii, 16;) it appears that the invention or fabrication of a new god is a more grievous crime, than the adoration of "another God" whom they received from their ancestry. And since it greatly contributes to the dishonour and reproach of Jehovah, to take the gods of foreign nations as objects of worship; by which, those gods plainly seem to be preferred to Jehovah, and the religion of those nations, to the law of Jehovah ; this crime, therefore, is, of all others, by far the most grievous. (Jer. ii, 11, 13.)

VI. In the prescription of the Second Command, that nothing which is esteemed as a god be worshipped in an image, the Scriptures most solicitously guard against the possibility of the

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human mind finding out any evasion or lurking-place. For with regard to the Matter, they forbade images to be made of gold and silver, the most precious of the metals, and therefore of any metal whatever, or of wood or stone. (Exod. xx, 23; Isai. xliv, 12, 13; Jer. ii, 27.) It prohibits every Form,—whether the image represent a living creature, any thing in the Heavens, the sun, the moon, or the stars,-any thing on the earth or under the earth, a man, a quadruped, a flying creature, a fish or a serpent, or a thing that has no existence, but by the madness. and vanity of the human brain is compounded of different shapes, such as a monster, the upper parts of which are human, and the lower parts those of an ox; or one whose upper parts are those of an ox, and the lower those of a man; or one, the higher parts of which are those of a beautiful woman, and the lower those of a fish terminating in a tail.—It prohibits every mode of making them; whether they be formed by fusion, by sculpture, or by painting; (Jer. x, 3, 9, 14; Ezek. viii, 10, 11;) because it says universally, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any likeness: " And it adds a reason which excludes generally every kind of material and every method of fabrication: "For ye saw no manner of similitude, on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire. Take ye, therefore, good heed unto your souls, lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure," &c. (Deut. iv, 15-19.)

VII. But with regard to the mode of worship, and to the actions pertaining to it, scarcely any thing can be devised or invented, and can be performed to idols, (that is, both to false deities themselves, and to the images of false divinities, and to those of the true God,) which is not expressly said in the Scriptures to be hateful to God, that no one may have the least pretext for his ignorance. For the Scriptures take away all honour and service from them, whatever may be the manner in which they are performed,-whether by building temples, high places or groves, by erecting altars, and by placing images upon altars; -or by offering sacrifices, burning incense, by eating that which is offered in sacrifice to idols, by bending the knees to them, by bestowing kisses on them, and by carrying them on their shoulders. (Exod. xx, 5; 1 Kings xi, 7; xii, 31-33; 2 Kings xvii, 35; Ezek. viii, 11; Num. xxv, 2; 1 Kings xix, 18; Isai. xlv, 20; Jer. x, 5.) The Scriptures also prohibit men from placing hope and trust in idols; forbid invocation, prayers, and thanksgivings to be directed to them; and will not suffer men to fear them and to swear by them; because idols are as unable to

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