Quest. CXV. Is it ever unlawful to use the known symbols and badges of idolatry?
Answ. 1. Ordinarily it is unlawful, as being the thing forbidden in the second commandment. For he that useth them, 1. Is corporally idolatrous, whatever his secret thoughts may be. 2. And he is interpretatively an idolater, and actually persuadeth others to be so.
2. But yet though no man may ever use such symbols of idolatry formaliter, qua tales, as such; yet materially he may use them in some cases.
As, 1. When an idolater will take an ordinance of God, and an appointed duty, and turn it into a symbol of his idolatry (as in the foregoing instance of the Mahometans). We may not therefore forsake that duty; but we must do it in such a manner, as may sufficiently disclaim the idolater’s use of it. As if any idolaters will make a symbol of some Scripture texts, or of the Lord’s day, or of the sacramental bread and wine, &c. we must not therefore disuse them.
2. When a thing indifferent is made an idolatrous symbol or badge, though I must not use it as idolaters do, yet if any act of Divine Providence make it become necessary as a moral duty, I may be obliged to use it, disclaiming the idolater’s manner and end: and then it will be known that I use it not as their symbol. As if a man, by famine or a swoon, were dying in an idol’s temple, I might give him meat and drink there to save his life, though such as was a badge of their idolatry, while I disclaim their ends and use. The reason is, 1. Because at such a time it is a natural duty, and therefore may not be omitted for fear of scandal, or seeming sin, which at that time is no sin. 2. Because Christ hath taught us in the instance of himself and his disciples, that positive commands give place to natural, cæteris paribus. And that the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath; and that we must learn what this meaneth, “I will have mercy and not sacrifice.” And if we must break the rest of the sabbath for the life, yea, the feeding of an ox or ass, much more of a man: and the positives of the second commandment must be regulated as the positives of the fourth. 3. And the scandal in such a case may be avoided, by declaring that I do disclaim their use and ends.
In a country where kneeling or being uncovered to the prince is a civil, honouring custom, if the prince should be a Caligula, and command the subjects to worship him and his image as a god, and make bowing, kneeling, or being uncovered the badge or symbol of it; here I would ordinarily avoid even that which before was a duty, because it was but by accident a duty, and now interpreted a heinous sin. But in case that the life of any man lay on it, or that the scandal on religion for my denying civil honour to the prince, would be greater and of more perilous consequence, than the scandal of seeming idolatry, I would perform that civil honour which I did before, and which God enjoineth me to perform to my prince. But I would avoid the scandal, by open protesting (seasonably) against the idolatry.
Mark ix. 13; xii. 7; ii. 17.