CHAPTER XX.

_The nature of idolatry.—Satan’s design to corrupt the worship of God.—The evidences thereof, with the reasons of such endeavours.—His general design of withdrawing the hearts of men from God to his service.—The proof that this is his design.—Upon whom he prevails.—That professions and confidences are no evidences to the contrary.—His deceit of propounding sin as a small matter.—The evidences of that method, and the reason thereof._

Thus have I considered the temptation as blasphemous. I proceed next to consider it as idolatrous. The words ἐὰν πεσὼν προσκυνήσῃς, if thou wilt fall down and worship, do give us the true notion of idolatry. The word which we call _worship_ comes from κύω, which signifies to kiss, or from κυὼν, which signifies a dog, both being to the same purpose, and signifying any action of reverence by which we signify the respect of our minds. To kiss the hand, or to fawn as a dog, are gestures which express the honour we would give, and being applied to divine worship before, or with respect unto, an undue object, is idolatry; and as such doth Christ reject it in his answer, ‘Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.’ We worship God, when in ways and actions commanded or prescribed, we testify our belief and resentment of his incommunicable attributes. It is idolatry when either we use the same actions of prescribed worship to that which is not God, or when we testify our respects to the true God in an undue way of our own devising. Here might I take occasion to shew the vanity of the popish subterfuges; their distinction of _latria_ and _dulia_ is, as Dr [Henry] More observes, hereby overthrown.[462] Satan doth not here set himself up as the omnipotent God, for he acknowledgeth one superior to himself, in that he confesseth that the power he had of the kingdoms of the world was given to him, Luke iv. 6, and therefore not the _latria_ but the _dulia_ is required of him; and yet this, Christ denies him as being idolatry, in that no religious worship—for that must needs be the sense of his answer—is due to any but God alone. Their other distinction of worshipping an idol, saint, angel, cross, &c., and before such a creature, is also hereby crushed, as is commonly observed:[463] for what the evangelist Matthew expresseth by προσκυνήσῃς μοι, Luke calls ἐνώπιόν μου, before me; so that the Scripture makes no difference betwixt these two, shewing it to be idolatry to use religious worship to that which is not God, or before it. But these things I shall not prosecute; keeping therefore to my design, I shall observe,

_Obs._ 7. _That it is one of Satan’s great designs to corrupt the worship of God._ That this is so will appear,

(1.) First, _If we consider what varieties of worship hath been in the world_. God gave a fixed and stable law, and yet this so little prevailed, that men were upon new inventions presently. I shall not need to reckon up the almost numberless varieties of this kind among the heathen. The instance is plain enough in those that professed the name of the true God; they were still changing for new fashions in religion, borrowing patterns from their neighbours, so that if there were but a new altar at Damascus, or a new idol in any strange city, they must presently have the like, till, as the prophet tells them, ‘according to their cities so were their gods,’ [Jer. ii. 28.] He that will call to mind that the husbandman did first ‘sow good seed in his field,’ and that there is such variety of tares and false worship, notwithstanding the plain and positive command of God, fixing and determining his worship, must needs conclude that an enemy, Satan, hath done it.

(2.) Secondly, _If we call to mind how in all ages there hath been a constancy in this inconstant variety_. We hear of it among the heathens. We read enough of it among the Jews, and when they were out of the humour of more shameful idolatries, they yet corrupted the worship of God by their traditions; and of these they were so fond, that they caused the law of God itself to give place to them, and made it void by them. The times of the gospel were not free. Though Christ came to seek such worshippers as should ‘worship him in spirit and in truth,’ yet before the apostles’ deaths, while yet they were persuading to the contrary, there arose up some that corrupted the worship, by leading the people back again to the Jewish ceremonies, and others laboured to bring in ‘worshipping of angels,’ and at last to ‘eat things offered to idols,’ with greater defilements. Since the apostles’ days the same design hath been carried on in the churches. Rome hath patched together a great deal of Jewish and heathenish ceremonies; and when the man of sin shall be revealed, yet a higher flood of such abominations is to be expected. Who hath wrought all this, but Satan? This is still the same design, and though the work be not in all parts like itself, yet the whole of it evidenceth the working of the same spirit in all.

(3.) Thirdly, _Let us observe how early this began_. We cannot say but that in the days of Adam, who doubtless had received particular commands from God, in which he would not fail to instruct his children, they were seeking to themselves ‘many inventions,’ Gen. iv. 26. At the birth of Enos, as some conjecture, there were such defilements brought into use in worship, that Seth had respect to it when he called his son Enos, _Sorrowful_, as lamenting that profanation which was then begun in ‘calling upon the name of the Lord,’ for so do many interpret that passage, which in our English we read thus, ‘Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.’ The word in the original is הוחל, which signifieth both to _profane_ and to _begin_, and may be as properly translated, then ‘profaned they in calling upon the name of the Lord.’ And there are several reasons that move learned men[464] to fix upon this translation. As (1.) That it is not probable that men began then to call upon God, or publicly to do so, as some would interpret, and not before, as the present English would imply. (2.) That age was noted as corrupt, and therefore it is noted as a rarity that Enoch walked with God. (3.) The Rabbins generally translate חלל to _profane_; but if we should grant the present English, ‘Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord,’ it would imply that the worship practised by Adam and Abel had been corrupted, and now it was restored again and reformed; which will make the corruption of worship to be yet more early. And after that we read of corruption crept into the family of Seth, as well as now in the family of Cain, Gen. vi. 2; so that the worship of God stood not long in its honour, though Adam and Seth were alive to instruct them; which shews that it was a rebellious departure from the way, fomented and brought on by the malignant spirit Satan.

(4.) Fourthly, But to make all sure, _the Scripture lays all these kinds of corruption of worship at Satan’s door_. The defilements of worship taught in Thyatira, by Jezebel, are called ‘the depth of Satan,’ Rev. ii. 24; the corruptions introduced by antichrist, are from ‘the workings of Satan,’ 2 Thes. ii. 9. What was promoted by false apostles to that purpose, they had it from their great teacher Satan, who ‘transforms himself for such ends into an angel of light,’ 2 Cor.