fhall enter into Controversy with us, concerning our Belief and Practice.

Perhaps it may, at first Sight, look somewhat too fevere to fay, as I did in fay, as I did in my Letter viâ Bom-. bay, That I did not forewarn you against marrying with one of the Romifh Religion; because I should have thought it as necessary to have forewarned you against marrying a few, or a Mahometan. But yet, upon Reflection, it will be found not too harfh: Since, if the religious Reason that God himfelf gave the Children of Ifrael against mixed Marriages, viz. That they might not be a Snare unto them, was good, the fame will hold against all mixed Marriages that are equally dangerous, under the Chriftian, no less than under the Mofaical, Difpenfation. But the Danger is the fame, if the Sin to be avoided be the fame, as I fhall by and bye fhew you it is. The pru dential Reasons will likewife hold good as much in this Cafe as in the other, That the Unity of the Family may not be diffolved by the Heads of it taking different Ways in the Worship of God; and that the Want of good Example may be no Encouragement to Prophanation or Contempt of Religion, in thofe committed to their Care; befides the avoiding the continual Difagreements amongst themselves, that are likely to refult therefrom. Nor can what St. Paul recommends to the Corinthians, who were, at that Time, married with Unbelievers (whether Jews or Gentiles) be a Juftification for fuch mixed Marriages now, viz. (i) That the Husband was not to (i) 1 Cor. vii. 10, 11, 12, 13.

put away his Wife, nor the Wife to leave her Hufband, where the one of them happened to be called to Chriftianity, and the other not; because the Chriftian Religion, at its first Inftitution, found the World mostly in a married State; and therefore the diffolving fuch Marriages as were already folemnifed, would have been to make the Gospel the Occafion of Confufion, inftead of Peace: Befides, as he adds, it was not impoffible, but the believing Perfon might be the Means of winning over the unbelieving; which, though a good Reafon for continuing together when once married (as it might be a happy Refult from an unhappy Circumftance) yet can hardly be thought fuch for coming together in thefe latter Ages.

I alfo charged the Popish Religion with having only the Name of Chriftian to diftinguish it from Paganifm. In Support of which Affertion, I will endeavour to fix Idolatry upon it, by fhewing you, that the Church of Rome is really guilty of that Sin, notwithstanding it acknowledges the Trinity of Perfons in the Unity of the Godhead.

The Sin of Idolatry may be committed either by giving, without the Permiffion of God, or contrary to his Commands, Divine Honour or Worship to any vifible Image, or Representation of the Deity, believing the fame to be God; which is the formal fetting up an Idol in the Place of the true God; or, by believing that the Deity refides, or is prefent in, or with, fuch Image, Symbol, or Representation, and therefore using the fame as an Object or Help to re

prefent

of him after a falfe and forbidden Manner: Or elfe, by putting our Trust and Confidence in any vifible or invifible Being, relying thereon, or praying thereto, as poffeffed of fome fupernatural Power for procuring us fome Good, or preferving us from fome Evil; and therefore paying it that Honour which belongs to God, either spiritually, by the inward Reverence of our Minds; or materially, by fuch outward Actions of our Body; at fuch Time as we are performing our religious Services, as are, by the common Use or Customs of all Nations, understood and taken to be the Acts of Worship proper to be given to God; which is giving to a Creature the uncommunicated Honour of God.

Now, though the Romanists may not be guilty of the first Kind of Idolatry, the worshipping the Image they fall down before, as believing it to be very God; yet, if they are guilty of the latter, the worshipping him after a falfe or forbidden Manner; or the giving to a Creature, whether visible or invifible, the Honour that is due to God, and uncommunicated by him; they are certainly guilty of Idolatry.

The former is fo grofs a Notion, that we can hardly imagine even the Heathens themselves to have been guilty of it: I fay hardly, because I believe it is poffible there may be, or have been, fome of them brutish enough to think a Stock or a Stone, or fome animated Creature, to be a God, as well as thofe Jews, whofe Stupidity the Prophet Ifaiah (k) reprefents as trusting in, or (k) Ifaiah xliv. 17.

wor

worshipping their graven Images, and praying to them to deliver them, as being their God. Or as the Egyptians, who efteemed the animated Creatures Sheep and Oxen to be Gods, as may be gathered from the Answer of Mofes, when Pharach told him, they need not go out of the Land of Egypt, but might facrifice to God where they were; to which he replies, That that must not be, for they must facrifice fuch Creatures to God, as were esteemed themselves to be Gods by the Egyptians, in whofe Sight (1) fuch Sacrifices would be fo great a Scandal, and fuch an Abomination, as would provoke them to ftone them.

But the latter was the most generally practifed, both by Heathens and Jews, viz. the worshipping the true God after a falfe or forbidden Manner; or by giving divine Honours and Reverence to any created, whether heavenly or earthly Being; and praying to, and relying on, fuch for Safety and Protection. That the Heathens did fo, is allowed by all Persons that have inquired into the Nature of their Worship; many of whose most celebrated Writers allowed of, and pleaded for, the Invifibility of God, though they worshipped him by an Image in the Form of a Man, because they thought Man the moft exquifite Piece of Workmanship in this lower World, and confequently the most worthy to reprefent the Deity to their Minds: And thofe of them that worshipped the Sun, did it upon the Notion that the Sun was that vifible Deity,

(1) Exod. viii. 25, 26.

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by which the great God, who was invifible, ruled the World: Thofe likewife who worshipped Jupiter as the Chief of their Gods, could not worship his Images, which they knew were very numerous, and fet up in almost an innumerable Number of Places, out of a Perfuafion that each of those individual Images was that very God; but only as Reprefentations to which his Deity was adjoined, though they supposed his principal Refidence to be in Heaven, as may be gathered from most of their poetical Writings. And the Emperor Julian the Apoftate, who was the Son of the firft Chriftian Emperor, Conftantine the Great, when after his Father's Death he apoftatized from Chriftianity to Heathenifm, fays in Excufe, or by way of Apology for his, and other Heathens worshipping Images, That they worfhipped Images, not because they thought them to be very Gods, but that by them, as Symbols or Reprefentations, they might worship the Gods.

The Idolatry of the Jews was also of this Sort; of which I will give you fome Instances. The Worship of the golden Calf may be brought as an Example of this Kind of Idolatry; for David fays (m), that they turned their Glory into the Similitude of a Calf that eateth Hay; that is, they worshipped God, who was the peculiar Glory of the Children of Ifrael, by the Similitude of a Calf: For that this Image was only defigned by them as a Symbol or Representation of God, may be gathered from the Story of it in Exodus, where the Children of Ifrael defired

(m) Pfalm cvi. 20.

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