images themselves. This ancient writer candidly states in the following words what the Gentiles were accustomed to allege in their own defence.-" We do not think brass, and gold, and silver, and other materials of images to be of themselves gods, and holy powers. But in these we reverence the gods brought into these images by sacred dedication, and keeping there."

As a distinguished contemporary of Joseph Mede, who was his equal at least in abilities and extent of erudition has cited the same Father, together with Lactantius and Augustine, in order to shew the futility and utter worthlessness of the plea advanced by the Romanists to vindicate themselves from the charge of idolatry

-a plea founded upon the groundless assumption that they contemplated images in a different point of view from the Heathen, -and as the arguments of both of these eminent writers tend mutually to illustrate and confirm each other, I will here quote from Archbishop Usher, (the contemporary alluded to,) a passage immediately following the one which was adduced in the last number of this Appendix.-" The Heathen, say they," (viz. the Romanists)" held the images themselves to be gods, which is far from our thought. Admit some of the simpler sort of the Heathen did so; what shall we say of the Jewish idolaters, of whom the Apostle here speaketh, who erected the golden calf in the wilderness? Can we think that they were all so senseless as to imagine that the calf, which they knew was not at all in rerum natura, and had no being at that time when they came out of Egypt, should yet be that God which brought them out of the land of Egypt? And for the Heathen, did the Romans and Grecians, when they dedicated in several places an hundred images, for example, to the honour of Jupiter, the king of all their gods, think that thereby they had made an hundred Jupiters? or, when their blocks were so old that they had need to have new placed in their stead, did they think by this change of their images that they made change also of their gods? Without question they must so have thought, if they did take the very images themselves to be

their gods; and yet the Prophet bids us consider diligently, and we shall find that the heathen nations did not change their gods, Jerem. ii. 10, 11. Nay, what do we meet with more usually in the writings of the Fathers than these answers of the heathens for themselves? 'We worship the gods by the images.' 'We fear not them, but those to whose image they are made, and to whose names they are consecrated.' 'I do not worship that stone, nor that image which is without sense.' 'I neither worship the image nor a spirit in it; but by the bodily portraiture I do behold the sign of that thing which I ought to worship.'

"But admit they did not account the image itself to be God, will the Papist further say, yet were those images set up to represent either things that had no being, or devils, or false gods, and in that respect werę idols; whereas we erect images only to the honour of the true God, and of his servants the saints and angels. To this I might oppose that answer of the beathen to the Christians: 'We do not worship evil spirits: such as you call angels, those do we also worship, the powers of the great God, and the ministers of the great God;' and put them in mind of St. Augustine's reply: 'I would you did worship them; you should easily learn of them not to worship them.' But I will grant unto them that many of the idolatrous Jews' and heathens' images were such as they say they were; yet I deny that all of them were such, and confidently do avouch, that idolatry is committed by yielding adoration to an image of the true God himself. For proof whereof (omitting the idols of Micah and Jeroboam, which were erected to the memory of Jehovah the God of Israel, as also the Athenians' superstitious worship of the unknown God, Acts xvii. 23, if, as the common use of idolaters was, they added an image to their altar,) I will content myself with these two places of Scripture, the one whereof concerneth the Jews, the other the heathen. That which toucheth the heathen is in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, where the Apostle having said that God had shewed unto them that which might be known of him,

and that the invisible things of him, that is, his eternal power and Godhead, were manifested unto them by the creation of the world and the contemplation of the creatures; he addeth presently, that God was sorely displeased with them, and therefore gave them up unto vile affections, because they changed the glory of that uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible men, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Whereby it is evident, that the idolatry condemned in the wisest of the heathen was the adoring of the invisible God, whom they acknowledged to be the Creator of all things, in visible images fashioned to the similitude of men and beasts."Usher's Answer to a Jesuit, and other Tracts, p. 674-676.

Ch. VI. The learned Author commences this chapter with a recapitulation of the points which he had already established. This recapitulation I will give in his own words, together with the application of it which immediately follows:

And thus have ye seen the theology of dæmons.

"1. For their nature and degree, to have been supposed by the Gentiles an inferior and middle sort of Divine powers between the sovereign and heavenly gods and mortal men.

"2. Their office, to be as mediators and agents between these sovereign gods and men.

"3. Their original, to be the deified souls of worthy men after death; and some of an higher degree, which had no beginning, nor ever were imprisoned in mortal bodies.

"4. The way to worship them, to find and receive benefits from them, namely, by consecrated images and pillars, wherein to have and retain their presence at devotions to be given them. "5. To adore their relics, and to temple them.

"Now, therefore, judge impartially whether St. Paul's prophecy be not fulfilled already amongst Christians, who foretold that the time should come that they should apostatize and revive again Διδασκαλίας δαιμονίων, doctrines of dæmons ; whether the deifying and worshipping of saints and angels, whether the bowing down

to images, whether of men or other things visible, breaden idols, and crosses like new dæmon pillars, whether the adoring or templing of relics, whether these make not as lively an image of the Gentiles' theology of dæmons [Aidaokadias Saiμoviv] as possibly could be expressed; and whether these two words comprehend not the whole pith and marrow of Christian apostasy, which was to consist in spiritual fornication or idolatry, as appears by that name and denomination thereof given by S. John in his Revelation, the whore of Babylon. Is she not rightly termed the Babylonish whore, which hath revived and replanted the doctrines of dæmons first founded in the ancient Babel? And is not this now fulfilled which S. John foretels us, Apoc. xi. That the second and outmost court of the temple (which is the second state of the Christian Church) together with the holy city should be trodden down and overtrampled by the Gentiles (that is, overwhelmed with the Gentiles' idolatry) forty two months?"

He then proceeds to notice two objections which he supposes that the Romanists may make to this application. The first is,do not the scriptures always take the word daμóvov in a bad sense, as signifying the devil, or an evil spirit? The second is, -should the invocation of glorified saints, "as mediators and agents for us with God," be denounced as idolatry?

The first objection is completely answered by a critical examination of Acts xvii. 18, 22. He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods—evwv daiμoviwv, dæmon gods;-ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious, we dɛioidaıμovesεpes-too full of dæmons already. (Whitby says, "i.e. too much addicted to the worship of dæmons.”)

But the Author's comment on Rev. ix. 13, which he likewise brings forward in reply to the first objection, is of so much importance that I will insert it at large in his own words:

"In Rev. ix. 13, &c. the sixth trumpet from Euphrates brings an huge army upon the Christian world, which destroyeth a third part of men; and yet those which remained repented not of those

sins (ver. 20) for which these plagues came upon the earth, viz. that they should not worship Aauóvia and idols of gold, silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood, which can neither see, nor hear, nor walk. Is not this a comment upon the Apostle's prophecy in my text? The time which it concerns must needs fall in the last times; for it is the last trumpet save one. The place must be the Roman Empire, or Christian world; for that is the stage of all the seals and trumpets: and how could it be otherwise, seeing S. John at Patmos saw them coming from the great river Euphrates? whatsoever comes from thence, must needs fall upon the territory of the Roman Empire. To hold you no longer, the best expounders make it the Ottoman or Turkish invasion, which hath swallowed so great part of Christendom. But what people are they who in the Roman territory do in these latter times worship idols of gold, silver, brass, and stone, and wood? Are they Ethnicks? there is none such. Are they Jews? they cannot endure the sight of them. Are they Mahumetans? nay, they abhor it also. Then must they needs be Christians; and then must Christians too worship Aaiμovia; for both are spoken of the same men. But what Christians do, or ever did worship devils formerly? But dæmon-gods (alas!) they do and long have done. Here therefore Aapovov is again taken in the common and philosophical sense, or at least, which is all one, for evil spirits worshipped under the names of dæmons and deceased souls."-P. 783.

In the conclusion of the chapter he cites a remarkable passage from Epiphanius, whom he describes as "one of the most zealous of the Fathers of his time, against saint-worship, then peeping," —remarkable, not only as confirmatory of the meaning which he attaches to the term daioviov, but also of his application of the prophecy of St. Paul. It is as follows:-"That also of the Apostle is fulfilled in these, some shall apostatize from the sound doctrine, giving heed to fables and doctrines of dæmons, for" (saith he) "they shall be worshippers of dead men, as they were worshipped in Israel."