If we follow the tract of time from the first preaching of the gospel, we may find Satan’s footsteps all along. In the apostles’ times, when the believing Jews were tolerated necessarily till time and experience might fully convince them in their observation of the law of Moses, which was certainly given of God, and so might very easily occasion an opinion of the continuance of it, Acts xv. 1, 5, though the apostles did not at all accommodate the standing precepts of the New Testament to carry a perpetual resemblance of that opinion, neither did they still countenance that practice, but did seasonably and fully declare against it, exhorting Christians ‘to stand in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free,’ Gal. v. 1, 2, yet Satan was busy to take advantage of the present forbearances, which the Holy Ghost had directed them unto; insomuch that instead of convincing all the dissenters by that lenity, some dissenters waxed bold to persuade the Christians ‘to another gospel.’ But after their days the devil pursued this design with greater scope; for instance, in Constantine’s time, when the Gentiles flocked into the church with dirty feet and in their old rags, they were tolerated in some old customs of Gentilism, and upon a design to win them, they made bold to bend the doctrine of the gospel toward their former usages; they thought indeed it was best to wink at things, and not to bear too hard upon them at first, but that, tolerating a lesser evil, they might avoid a greater inconvenience; and withal they deemed they had done great service to the church and Christian religion, if they could any way divert the heathen from worshipping their idols. And to effect this the easilier, they seemed to cherish their customs and rites of worship, as consonant in the general to the principles of Christianity, only they excepted against the object of their worship as unlawful, so that upon the matter they did no more than change the name. The manifold inconveniences that followed this kind of dealing, they did not discover at first; but besides the infecting the simplicity of Christian religion with the dirt and dregs of paganism, which they might easily have seen, time hath since discovered that here the devil secretly laid the chief foundations of popery.
Whosoever shall impartially compare the rites, customs, usages, and garbs of popery, with those of paganism, will to his admiration find such an exact agreement and consonancy, that he must necessarily conclude that either paganism imitated popery, or popery imitated paganism; but the latter is true, and that these corruptions in religion by popery came in by a designment of conforming Christianity to heathenism, though it may be upon pious intentions at first, is no difficult thing to evince; for besides that the rites of paganism were more ancient, and so could not be borrowed from popery, which came long after, the Scripture did foretell a great defection from truth which should be in the ‘last days,’ and this under a profession of religion; and the things particularised are such as shew that the defection should carry an imitation of paganism: for no less seems to be signified by 1 Tim. iv. 1, ‘The Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;’ that is—as Mr Mede, whose interpretation I follow,[300] doth prove—doctrines concerning devils or demons: as in Heb. vi. 2, we have the phrase of ‘doctrines of baptisms,’ which must needs signify doctrines concerning baptisms; the Gentile theology of demons is the thing which Paul prophesies should be introduced into Christianity. How clearly this relates to popery may be evident to any that doth not wilfully blind himself by prejudice. Their doctrine of demons was this: they supposed two sorts of gods, supreme and inferior; the supreme they supposed did dwell in the heavenly lights, sun, moon, and stars, without change of place; these they judged were so sublime and pure, that they might not be profaned with the approach of earthly things, and that immediate approaches to them were derogatory to their sovereignty. The inferior order of gods they imagined were of a middle sort, betwixt the supreme beings and men, as participating of both. These they called mediators and agents, and supposed their business was to carry up men’s prayers to God, and to bring down blessings from God upon men. These were in Scripture called Baalim, and by the Greeks demons; to this purpose Austin and others speak.[301]
Now these demons they supposed were the souls of dead men, that had been more than ordinarily famous in their generation. Thus Ninus made an image to his father Belus after he was dead, and caused him to be worshipped. Hermes confesseth that Æsculapius, grandfather to Asclepius, and Mercury, his own grandfather, were worshipped as gods of this order. Abundance of instances I might produce to this purpose; but to go on, these demons, because to them was committed the care of terrestrial affairs, as Celsus argues against Origen, and because of the help and advantage that men might receive from them, they supposed it gratitude and duty to worship them, and this worship they performed at their images, sepulchres, and relics. To this purpose Plutarch tells us of Theseus his bones, and Plato of the θῆκαι or shrines of their demons.[302]
How evident is it that the papists in their doctrine and practice about the invocation of saints and angels, have writ after this copy, and that they are the men that have introduced this doctrine of demons, the thing itself declares without further evidence. Had the heathens their dead heroes for agents betwixt the supreme gods and men? so have the papists their dead saints to offer up their prayers. Did the heathen expect more particular aids from some of these demons in several cases than from others? so do the papists. Instead of Diana for women in labour, and Æsculapius for the diseased, they have their St Margaret and St Mary for travailing; Sebastian and Roch against the pestilence; Apollonia against the toothache; St Nicholas against tempests, &c. Did the heathen pray to these demons for their aid? so do the papists to their saints, as their breviaries, rosaries, and Lady’s psalters testify. Had the heathen their feasts, their statas ferias to their demons? so have the papists. Had they their Februalia et Proserpinilia with torches and lights? so have the papists their Candlemas with lights. Did the heathen erect images and pillars, or keep the ashes and shrines of their demons? so do the papists; the one had processions and adorations, so have the other; and a great many more things there are wherein popery keeps a correspondence with heathenism. To this purpose you may read enough in Monsieur de Croy, ‘Of the Three Conformities.’
To make it yet more clear that the corruptions in religion by popery came in by the design of suiting Christian religion to paganism, I shall in a testimony or two shew you that they professedly avouched the design. Gregory the Great writes chidingly to Serenus, bishop of Marseilles, who it seems was no forward man in this matter to this purpose,[303] ‘Thou shouldst have considered that thou didst converse chiefly with the Gentiles, to whom pictures are instead of reading, to the end that no offence be given them under colour of lawful zeal, wherewith thou art not cunningly endued.’ And in another epistle to Mellitus,[304] he adviseth, ‘That the honours and offerings which the heathens gave to their demons should be transferred to the martyrs and their relics,’ and gives this reason for it, ‘It is impossible,’ saith he, ‘to cut off all at once from stubborn minds.’[305] Eusebius also endeavours to persuade to Christianity by this argument, that the Christians’ custom of honouring the memories of the martyrs, and solemnly assembling at their sepulchres, did agree with the custom of the Gentiles of doing the like honour to their demons, and having mentioned what Hesiod speaks concerning Plato’s opinion, that their champions became demons after death, helpers and protectors of men—for which cause they were worshipped at their sepulchres as gods; he adds to this purpose, that ‘if these honours had been given to the favourites of God, and champions of true religion, it had been well enough;’ and for this shews the example and custom of Christians then to go to the tombs of martyrs, there to pray in honour of their blessed spirits. And although at first they might be more modest in honouring the martyrs than now they are, according to that of Austin, ‘These observances at the tombs of martyrs,’ saith he, ‘are only ornaments of their memories, not sacrifices to them as to gods.’[306] Yet this soon slid into greater abuse, insomuch that Lud. Vives,[307] in his notes on that chapter, blames those of his own time for worshipping saints as gods, and tells us he cannot see the difference betwixt the opinion concerning saints, as generally practised, and that of the heathens concerning their gods. I might add the positive acknowledgment of Beatus Rhenanus, Jacobus de Voragine, concerning the burning of candles to the Virgin Mary, which custom they confess was borrowed from the heathens, with a respect to the frowardness of paganism, and a design not to exasperate them, that they might gain them.
I might also shew that the mischief of this design, of accommodating truth to a compliance with different parties, hath not only shewn itself in introducing strange actions and ceremonies, but hath also discovered itself in leavening men’s judgments in reference to opinion. Calvin conjectures[308] that those confident assertions of the powers of nature were first occasioned by an over-officious willingness to reconcile the doctrine of the Scripture with the opinions of philosophy; and that men being unwilling to run the hazard of the scorn which they might meet with in contradicting the general received principles of philosophers, were willing to form the doctrine of truth relating to human ability accordingly. Abundance of instances of this kind may be given. Whence came the doctrine of purgatory, but from hence? It is but Plato’s philosophy Christianised by the Roman synagogue.[309] He divided all men into three ranks: the virtuous, who are placed by him in the Elysian fields; the desperate ungodly, these he adjudgeth to everlasting fire; and a third sort, betwixt the perfectly virtuous and the desperately wicked, he sendeth to Acheron, to be purged by punishment. All of this Eusebius makes mention of at large.[310] That the papists derived their purgatory from hence is generally affirmed by protestants—nay, not only in these cases, but in very many more, corruptions have entered into Christianity by an over-eager endeavour to make the doctrine of the Scriptures to run even with the sayings and assertions of the schools of philosophers; a thing complained of old by Tertullian, who plainly affirmed the philosophers to be the patriarchs of the heretics.[311] To which agrees that observation of Dr Owen, that those who either apologised for Christians, or refuted the objections of the heathens against Christianity, frequently cited the opinions or sentences of the philosophers, and accommodated them to their purpose, that so they might beget in their adversaries more friendly persuasions towards the Christian religion, by evidencing that the mysteries thereof were not absurd, nor dissonant from reason, seeing they might be justified by the sayings of their own philosophers. And ‘here was laid, in this design and its prosecution, (and surely it pleased its undertakers not a little,) the foundation of that evil which religion hath since groaned under, that men made bold with the tremendous mysteries of Christianity, to accommodate them unwarily to the notions of the Gentiles.’[312] And this the apostle Paul foresaw in that caution he gave, Col. ii. 8, ‘Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.’ Certainly the snare is neither unusual nor weak, where the caution is so serious. It is a thing naturally pleasing, to be the inventor of any new thing, or to make new discoveries in religion, to raise new hypotheses, or to adventure in unbeaten paths, for a reconcilement of religion to any notion or practice famous for its antiquity, or pretence to beauty and decency. Men hug themselves when they can make several things to hit right, and an exact suiting of parallels is instead of demonstration. By this foolish delight the devil makes men bold to make essays; and what doth answer their humour passeth current for undoubted truth.
[5.] He doth sometime blind the understanding, by working up the affections to such an earnest opposition to some error, that in a forward haste they cast the mind upon a contrary extreme; so that through a hasty, violent avoidance of one error, they are cast upon a contrary, and, it may be, as dangerous as that they fly from. And this the devil doth with great ease, having the plausible pretence of zeal and care to truth, wherein the affections being highly engaged, the mind in a careless confidence doth easily overshoot the truth, which commonly lies in the middle, and thinks it doth well enough if it gives the greatest contradiction to the error now to be abominated. Men in this case, having their eyes only fixed upon what they would avoid, consider not so much whither they are going, as from what they go. So that seeking, as men in a fright, to avoid the pit that is before them, they run backward into another behind them.
This is such a noted stratagem of Satan, that all men take notice of it in the general, though all men do not improve the discovery for their own particular caution. The wisest of men are often so befooled by their violent resistance of an untruth, that they readily overshoot themselves and miss the mark. The fathers, in the heat of dispute, said many things so inconveniently, that those who come after do see and lament these hasty oversights, and have no other way to salve their credit but by giving this observation in excuse for them. And it may be observed that some errors which have risen from this root at first have so strongly fixed themselves, that they have grown up to the great annoyance of the truth; while the contrary errors that did occasion them are forgotten, and their memories are perished. I shall but instance in one instead of many, and that shall be Arianism. How sadly prevalent that hath been in its time, all men know that know anything of church history. The Christian world once groaned under it. But that which gave the first occasion to Arius to fix himself in that error was the doctrine of Alexander, who, discoursing of the unity in the Trinity too nicely, seemed to justify the error of Sabellius, who had taught, as also Noetus before, that there was but one person in the Trinity, called by divers names of Father, Son, and Spirit, according to different occasions; the Trinity, according to his doctrine, being not of persons, but of names and functions. While Arius was dissatisfied with this account of the Trinity, he ran to a contrary extreme; and that he might give the highest proof of a Trinity of persons, he affirmed that Jesus Christ had a beginning, and that there was a time when he was not, &c. Thus Socrates speaks of the rise of that heresy.[313]
We might further follow the footsteps of this device, and trace it in most opinions; where we might find the humour of running to a contrary extreme hath still either set up a contrary error, or at least leavened the truth with harsh and unjustifiable expressions and explanations. The disputes betwixt faith and works have been thus occasioned and aggravated. Some speak so of faith, as if they slighted works; others so urge a necessity of works, as if they intended to make faith useless. Some talk of grace, to an utter contempt of morality; others, on the contrary, magnify morality to the annihilating of grace. Some in their practice acquiesce in the outward performance of ordinances: if they pray or receive the sacraments, though never so formally, they are at peace, supposing they have done all that is required; others observing the mistake, and knowing that God looks more to the performance of the soul and spirit than to the act of the body, upon a pretence of worshipping God in spirit, throw off the observation of his ordinances altogether. Neither is there anything that doth more generally and apparently undo us in the present dissensions, as many have complained, than men’s violent overdoing and running to contrary extremes.
[6.] Satan makes use of rewards or punishments, on the one hand to bribe, or on the other to force the affections, and they being strongly possessed, easily prevail with the understanding to give sentence accordingly. Men are soon persuaded to take that for truth which they see will be advantageous to them. Some men indeed take up with a profession of truth, which yet their hearts approve not; but the advantages they have by their profession, do silence their dissatisfactions; these are said to use the profession of truth as ‘a cloak of covetousness,’ 2 Thes. ii. 5. But others go further, and are really brought to an approbation of that doctrine or way that makes most for their profit, their minds being really corrupted by a self-seeking principle. They persuade themselves, where there is any contest about doctrines, that that doctrine is true which is gainful, and will accordingly dispute for it. Hence that expression in 1 Tim. vi. 5, ‘supposing that gain is godliness.’