A Just Defense of Hearing the Sermons, Chapter 7 · Section 2
Sect. 2. All Will-worship of God is not Idolatry.
Arg. 1. Th…se that worship the true God in any other way than he hath said he will be worshipped in, and is prescribed by him, are Idolaters: But the present Ministers of England worsh…p the true God in another way than he hath said he will be worshipped it, and is prescribed by him: Therefore▪ The ma…or (or first Proposition) is evident from this single Consideration: To wo…ship the true God through false mediums is Idolatry; such as so wo…ship him are Idolaters; (This must be so, or else there is little or no Idolatry in the world, nor ever was. The Athenians (and other Gentiles) worshipped the true God, for they worsh…pped him whom Paul declared to them, even that God, that made the world, Acts 17.23, 24. Yet none doubts but they were Idolaters, which they cannot be charged with upon any other account, than their worshipping the true God through false mediums:) But to worship God in any other way than what is of his own prescription, is to worship him through a false medium: Therefore so to worship him is Idolatry, and they that so worship him are Idolaters.
Answ. If by [any other way] be meant of any creature, as the medium or representative of God, as the golden calf, or brazen serpent, I yield the major to be true, and deny the minor: But if he meant by [any other way] any sort of worship, such as was the worship of God by washing of hands according to the tradition of the Elders, Mark 7.3, 4. I deny both major and minor. And to his proof of the major I answer:
Though the worshipping of the true God through such traditions of men, which he seems to call false mediums, be not Idolatry; there is and hath been too much Idolatry in the world, Paganish, and Jewish, and Popish, and is yet at this day; and in the Athenian worshipping of the true God, Acts 17.23, 24. there was Idolatry, in that they worshipped this unknown God by an Image, worshipping the Image as the representative of God, which may be gathered from v. 16. where the City of Athens is said to be foreign, that is, wholly given to Idolatry, as we translate it, but more rightly, full of idols; which is thus expressed by Dr. Owen in his third Book of his Theologumena, c. 13. The streets of the City were called Pagi, because to every of their Deities some Stone (that is, a Pillar consecrated to this or that Idol) was erected. Thence to signifie s…me part of the City the use of the word was first drawn. The same was done at Athens as was done at Jerusalem, Jerem. 2.13. For according in the number of thy Cities, so are thy Gods O Judah, and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem, ye have made Altars to that shame, Altars to burn incense to Baal. And from the expression of an Altar, v 23. which among the Gentiles had an Image near it, and the word foreign, which Dr. Hammond in his Annot. on v. 16. saith, was not their Worsh…ps, or their Altars, but their Idols, that is, their Deities themselves, for so the word is used, Wisd. 14.20. And, on 2 Thes. 2 4. alledgeth Theophylact as interpreting foreign, Acts 17.23. by their Idols; and from the word foreign. v. 22 applyed to this worship, is collected, that the unknown God was as a Daemor, to whom they erected an Image or Pillar, which they conceived their Deity present at, which is rendred, a standing Image, in our translation, or an Image of stone, to which they did bow down, forbidden Levit. 26.13. of which Ainsworth in his Annot. there, may be seen. So that upon this account the Athenians may be charged with Idolatry, in that they, in bowing down to, or worshipping the unknown God, did direct it to the Idol or Pillar which did represent him, unto which also an Altar was dedicated. But its added,