A Continuation of the Second part of the ENQUIRY Into the REASONS Offered by Sa. Oxon for the Abrogating of the TEST: relating to the Idolatry of the Church of Rome.  
THe words of the Test, that belong to this point, are these, The Invocation or Adoration of the Virgin Mary, or any other Saint, and the Sacrifice of the Mass, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are Superstitious and Idolatrous: Upon which our Author fastens this Censure, that since by this the Church of Rome is charged with Idolatry, which both forfeits men's Lives here, and their Salvation hereafter, according to the express words of Scripture, it is a damnable piece of Cruelty and Uncharitableness to load them with this charge, if they are not guilty of it: and upon this he goes to clear them of it, not only in the two Articles mentioned in the Test, the Worship of Saints, and the Sacrifice of the Mass, but that his Apology might be complete, he takes in, and indeed Insists chief, on the Worship of Images, though that is not at all mentioned in the Test. He brings a great many quotations out of the Old Testament, to show the Idolatry prohibited in it, was the Worshipping the Sun, Moon and Stars, or the making an Image to resemble the Divine Essence, upon which he produces also some other Authorities: And in this consists the substance of his Plea for the Church of Rome.  
But upon all this he ought to have retracted both the Licence that himself gave some years ago, to Dr. Stillingfleets Book Of the Idolatry of the Church of Rome, and his own hasty assertion in condemning both Turk and Papist as guilty of Idolatry; the one for worshipping a lewd Impostor, and the other for Worshipping a senseless piece of matter. 
Def. of his Eccl. Pol. p. 285, 286.  It seems he is now convinced, that the latter part of this charge that falls on the Papists, was as false, as the former that falls on the Turks certainly is; for they never Worshipped Mahomet, but hold him only in high Reverence, as an Extraordinary Prophet, as the Jews do Moses. It is very like that if the Turks had taken Vienna, he would have retracted that, as he has now in effect done the other: for I believe he is in the same disposition to reconcile himself to the Mufti, and the Pope: but the Ottoman Empire is now as low as Popery is high: so he will brave the Turk still to his teeth, though he did him wrong, and will humble himself to the Papist, though he did him nothing but right: but now I take leave of the man, and will confine myself severely to the matter that is before me; And.  
I. How guilty soever the Church of Rome is of Idolatry, yet the Test does not plainly assert that: for there is as great a difference between Idolatrous and Idolatry, as there is in Law between what is Treasonable and what is Treason. The one Imports only a Worship that is conformable to Idolatry, and that has a tendency to it: whereas the other is the plain sin itself; there is also a great difference, between what is now used in that Church, and the Explanations that some of their Doctors give of that usage. We are to take the usage of the Church of Rome from her Public Offices, and her authorised practices; so that if these have a Conformity to Idolatry, and a tendency to it, than the words of the Test are justified, what sense soever some learned men among them may put on these Offices and Practices; therefore the Test may be well maintained, even though we should acknowledge that the Church of Rome was not guilty of Idolatry.  
II. If Idolatry was a Crime punishable by Death under the Old Testament, that does not at all concern us: nor does the Charge of Idolatry authorize the people to kill all Idolaters: unless our Author can prove, that we believe ourselves to be under all the Political and Judiciary Precepts of the Law of Moses: and even among the Jews the execution of that severe Law, belonged either to the Magistrate, or to some authorised and Inspired person, who as a Zealot might execute the Law, when the Magistrate was wanting to his duty. So that this was writ Invidiously, only as it seems to Inflame the Papists the more against us. But the same Calvinist Prince, that has expressed so just an aversion to the repealing the Test, has at the same time shown so merciful an Inclination towards the Ro. Catholics, that of all the Reproaches in the World, one that intended to plead for that Religion ought to have avoided the mentioning of Blood or Cruelty with the greatest care.  
III. It is true, we cannot help believing that Idolatry is a damnable sin, that shuts men out of the Kingdom of Heaven: and if every sin in which a man dies without repentance, does it, much more this, which is one of the greatest of all sins. But yet after all, there is Mercy for Sins of Ignorance, upon men's general repentance; and therefore since God alone knows the degrees of men's knowledge and of their Ignorance, and how far it is either Affected on the one hand, or Invincible on the other; we do not take upon us to enter into God's Secrets, or to Judge of the Salvation or Damnation of particular persons; nor must we be biased in our Enquiry into the nature of any sin, either by a fond regard to the state of our Ancestors, or by the due respect that we own to those who are over us in Civil matters. In this case things are what God has declared them to be: We can neither make them better nor worse than he has made them: and we are only to Judge of things, leaving persons to the merciful as well as the just and dreadful judgement of God.  
IU. All the stir that our Author keeps with the examining of the Idolatry committed by the Jews, under the Old Testament, supposing it were all true, will serve no more for acquitting the Church of Rome, than a Plea would avail a Criminal, who were arraigned of high Treason for Coining Money or for Counterfeiting the King's Seal, in which one should set forth that High Treason was the Murdering the King, or the levying war against him, and that therefore the Criminal who was guilty of neither of these two, aught to be acquitted. Idolatry as well as Treason is a Comprehensive Notion, and has many different branches: so that though the Worshipping the Host of heaven, or the Worshipping an Image as a resemblance of the Divinity, may be acknowledged to be the highest degrees of Idolatry, yet many other corruptions in the Worship of God are justly reducible ro it, and may be termed not only Idolatrous but Idolatry itself.  
V Our Saviour in his sermon on the Mount has showed us how many sins are reducible to the second Table of the Law, besides those of Murder, Adultery, etc. that are expressly named in it: and though the Jews in that time having delivered themselves entirely from the sin of Idolatry, to which their Fathers were so prone, gave him no occasion of commenting on the first and second Commandment, yet by the parity of things we may conclude, that many sins are reducible to them, besides those that are expressly named. And though we have not so complete a History of the Idolatry of the Neighbouring Nations to judea, before the Captivity, yet we do certainly know what was the Idolatry of which the Greeks and Romans were guilty when the New Testament was writ. And though the greatest part of the New Testament is written chief with relation to the Jews, whose freedom from Idolatry gave no occasion to made plainer than the matter of Fact is. We know likewise, that when the Controversy arose concerning the Godhead of Jesus Christ, Athanasius and the other Fathers, made use of the same Argument against the Arrians, who worshipped him; that they could not be excused from the sin of Idolatry, in worshipping and Invocating him, whom they believed to be only a Creature: which shows, that it was the sense of the Christians of that Age, that all Acts of Divine worship, and in particular, all Prayers that were offered up to any that was not truly and by nature God, and the Eternal God, were so many Acts of Idolatry. So that upon the whole matter, it is clear, that the worshipping the true God under a Corporeal Representation, and the worshipping or Invocating of Creatures, though in an Inferior degree, was taxed by the Apostles and by the Primitive Church as Idolatrous. When they accuse them for those Corruptions of Divine worship, they did not consider the softening excuses of more refined men, so much as the acts that were done, which to be sure do always carry the stupid Vulgar to the grossest degrees of Idolatry: and thetefore every step towards it is so severely forbid by God: since upon one step made in the public worship, the people are sure to make a great many more in their notions of things. Therefore if we should accuse the Church of Rome, for all the excesses of the past Ages, or of the more Ignorant Nations in the present Age, such as Spain and Portugal, even this might be in some degree well grounded; because the public and authorised Offices and Practices of that Church, has given the rise to all those Disorders: and even in this, we should but Copy after the Fathers, who always represent the Pagan Idolatry not as Cicero or Plutarch had done it, but according to the grossest notions and practices of the Vulgar.  
XIV. All that our Author says, concerning the Cherubims, deserves not an answer: for what use soever might be made of this, to excuse the Lutherans, for the use of Images, without worshipping them (though after all the doing such a thing upon a Divine Command, and the doing it without a Command, are two very different things,) yet it cannot belong to the worship of Images, since the Israelites paid no worship to the Cherubims. They paid indeed a Divine worship to the Cloud of Glory, which was between them, and which is often in the Old Testament called God himself, in all those expressions, in which he is said to dwell between the Cherubims. But this being a miraculous Symbols of the Divine presence, from which they had answers in all extraordinary cases, it was God himself, without any Image or Representation, that was worshipped in it. As we Christians, pay our Adorations to the Humane Nature of Christ, by virtue of that more sublime and ineffable indwelling of the Godhead in Him: in which case it is God only that we worship, in the man Christ. Even as the respect that we pay to a man terminates in his mind, though the outward expressions of it go to the body, to which the mind is united. So in that unconceivable Union between the Divine and Humane Natures in Christ, we adore the Godhead only, even when we worship the man.  
XV. The General part of this Discourse, being thus stated, the application of it to the Church of Rome, will be no hard matter. I will not insist much on the Article of Image Worship, because it is not comprehended in the Test, though our Author dwells longest on it, to let us see how carefully, but to how little purpose he had read Dr. Spencer's learned Book. But if one considers the Ceremonies and Prayers with which Images, and particularly Crosses, are to be dedicated by the Roman Pontifical, and the formal Adoration of the Cross on Good Friday, and the strange virtues that are not only believed to be in some Images by the rabble, but that are authorised not only by the Books of Devotion publicly allowed among them, but even by Papal Bulls and Indulgences, he will be forced to confess, that the old notions of the Teraphim are clearly revived among them. This could be made out in an infinite Induction of particulars, of which the Reader will find a large account in the learned Dr. Brevint's Treatise, entitled, Saul and Samuel at Endor. But I come now to the two Branches mentioned in the Test.  
XVI. One is the Sacrifice of the Mass, in which if either our Senses, that tell us, it is now Bread and Wine, or the New Testament in which it is called both Bread and the fruit of the Vine, even after the Consecration, or if the Opinion of the first seven Centuries, or if the true principles of Philosophy, concurring altogether, are strong enough, we are as certain as it is possible for us to be of any thing, that they are still according to our Authors own phrase, a senseless piece of matter. When therefore this has divine Adoration offered to it, when it is called, the good God, carried about in solemn Processions, and receives as public and as humble a Veneration, as ●●uld be offered up to the Deity itself, i● it appeared visibly: here the highest degree of Divine worship is offered up to a Creature: nor will such Worshippers, believing this to be truly the Body of Christ, save the matter, if indeed it is not so. This may no doubt go a great way to save themselves, and to bring their sin into the the class of the sins of Ignorance: but what large thoughts soever we may have of the mercies of God to their persons, we can have no Indulgence for an Act of Divine Adoration, which is directed to an Object that we are either sure is Bread, or we are sure of nothing else.  
XVII. As for the Invocation and Adoration of the B. Virgin and the Saints, I shall offer only three Classes of Instances to prove it Idolatrous. 1. In the Office of the Mass on many of the Saints days, that Sacrifice, which is no other than the Body and Blood of Christ, according to them, is offered up to the honour of the Saints, and they pray to God, to accept of it thro' the Saint's Intercession. One would think, it were enough to offer up the Sacrifices of prayers and praises to them: but here is a Sacrifice, which carries in the plain words of it, the most absurd Idolatry that is possible; which is the offering up the Creator to the honour of a Creature.  
2. In the Prayers and Hymns that are in their public Offices, there are Petitions offered up to the Saints, that in the plain sense of the words import their pardoning our sins, and changing our hearts. The daily prayer to the Virgin goes far this way: Tu nos ab host besiege, & hora mortis suscipe: Do thou protect us from our Enemy, and receive us in the hour of death. Another goes yet further: Culpas nostras ablue, ut perennis sedem gloriae, per te redempti, valeamus scandere: Wash thou away our sins, that so being redeemed by thee, we may ascend up to the mansions of glory. That to the Angels is of the same nature, Nostra diluant jam peccata praestando supernam Coeli gloriam: May they wash away our sins, and grant us the heavenly glory. I shall to this add two Addresses to two of our English Saints; the first is to St. Alban, Te nunc petimus Patrone praeco sedule, qui es nostra vera gloria, solve precum votis, servorum scelera: We implore thee, our Patron, who art our true Glory, do thou take away the crimes of thy Servants, by thy prayers. And the other relates to Thomas Becket, whom I believe, our Author will not deny to have been as great a Rebel, as either Coligny, or his Faction; and yet they pray thus to Christ, Tu per Thomae sanguinem, quem pro te effudit, fac nos Christe scandere quo Thomas ascendit. Do thou, O Christ, make us by the blood of Thomas, which he shed for thee, to ascend up whether he has ascended: and the Hymn upon him, is that Verse of the eighth Psalm, Thou hast crowned him with Glory and Honour, and has set him over all the works of thy hands. One would think, it were no bold thing to pronounce all this, and innumerable more Instances, which might be brought to the same purpose, to be Idolatrous. If we are sent by our Author to the senses that may be put on these words, I shall only say with relation to that, that the Test condemns the Devotions as they are used in the Roman Church: so this belongs to the plain sense of the words, and if it is confessed that these are Idolatrous, as ascribing to Creatures the right of pardoning sin, and of opening the Kingdom of Heaven, which are main parts of the Divine glory, than the matter of the Test is justified.  
A third sort of Instance is in the prayer that comes after the Priest has pronounced the words of Absolution, Passio Domini nostri Jesu Christi, merita B. Mariae Virgins, & omnium Sanctorum, & quicquid boni feceris, vel mali sustinueris, sint tibi in remissionem peccatorum, augmentum gratiae, & premium vitae aeternae: May the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, the merits of the B. Virgin, and all the Saints, and all the good thou hast done, or the evil that thou hast suffered, be to thee effectual, for the remission of thy sins, the increase of grace, and the reward of Eternal life. Absolution in its true and unsophisticated meaning, being the declaration made to a Penitent of the mercies of God in Christ, according to the Gospel, I would gladly know, what milder Censure is due to the mixing the merits of the Virgin and the Saints, with the Passion of Christ, in order to the obtaining this Gospel pardon, with all the effects of it, than this of our Test, that it is Idolatrous.  
I have now examined the two points, in which our Author thought fit to make an Apology for the Church of Rome, without descending to the particulars of his Plea more minutely. I have used him in this more gently than he deserves: for as I examined his Reasonings, I found all along both so much Ignorance, and such gross disingenuity, that I had some difficulty to restrain myself, from flying out on many occasions: but I resolved to pursue these two points, with the gravity of stile which the matter required, without entangling the discourse, with such unpleasant digressions, as the discovery of his Errors might have led me to. And I thought it enough to free unwary Readers from the mistakes into which his Book might lead them, without increasing the contempt belonging to the Writer, who has now enough upon him; but I pray, God grant him Repentance and a better mind.  
FINIS.