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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	father_n	scripture_n	tradition_n	2,047	5	9.1715	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65488	Eleaven choice sermons as they were delivered by that late reverend divine, Thomas Westfield ...	Westfield, Thomas, 1573-1644.	1655 (1655)	Wing W1414A; ESTC R38251	108,074	268

Land and may it be the good pleasure of God to continue this glory among us till Jesus Christ come in glory with all his Saints But brethren doth not this glory of God seeme to remove doth it not seeme to fleet a little O should God withdraw his word from us and the profession of it Should God remove the candlesticke out of his place should God withdraw this gracious presence of his in all his Ordinances then I tell you Mothers what you should name your children that are borne next Ichabod Where is glory when God is gone from you I read of some foolish Nations that were wont to fetter and chaine their gods that they might not depart from them Surely our God cannot be chained nor fettered but yet there is a way to hold him still when hee seemes to be departing I gat hold on him saith the Church and would not let him goe Cant. 3. 4. I will not let thee goe till thou blesse mee saith Jacob Genes 32. v. 26. When our blessed Lord seemed to the two men that were travelling to Emaus that hee would leave them the Scripture saith They constrained him to stay with them We may constraine our God there is a holy violence we may offer to our God by repentant teares and importunate prayers by which wee may stay our God with us still and this is as Tertullian calls it A holy violence pleasing and acceptable to God But I stand no more upon the words now I come to the thing They changed their glory that is their God How may a people change their God They may change their God two waies First when they forsake him and set up and worship some other God in his stead as the people forsook the Lord and served Baal and Ashtaroth Judges 2. 13. This is the grossest kind of Idolatry This is a breach of the first Commandement Or secondly a people may change their God when they change the truth of God into a lie when they represent and worship God in an Image when they represent God in a corporeall a visible a finite a circumscribed Majesty this is to change a God this is against the second Commandement And you must know that thus the people changed their God here at this time for wee doe not thinke that they made this calfe to be their god Their sin was bad enough let not us make it worse then it was They had cast off now all Religion and the feare of God let not us thinke they had cast off sense and reason with it Can wee imagine that this people were such calves as to think that the calf that they themselves had made yesterday was the very God that brought them out of Egyt three months before the calfe was made Never imagine that they took not this calfe to be their god What then They tooke it to be a figurative signe of their god I know they call it their god These are the gods that brought thee out of the land of Egypt Or as it is in Nehemiah chap. 9. verse 18. This is thy God O Israel that brought thee out of the land of Egypt But as this Image is called a calfe in my Text They made a calfe in Horeb though it was no calfe but the Image of a calfe So they called it their god but they did not thinke it to be their god they tooke it as an Image of their god as a figurative signe of their god therefore Aaron proclaimes To morrow is an holy day to Jehovah not to the calfe but to Jehovah whom they worshipped in the calfe I pray marke this rule that I shall give you The truth of God is turned to a lie and God is changed to the Image that is worshipped though God himselfe and none but hee be worshipped in that Image I say God is changed into that Image that is worshipped for him though the true God and none but he be worshipped in that Image Here is the reason of it The rule of Divine worship is not the will of the worshipper but it is the will of him that is worshipped Now it was never Gods will to be worshipped in an Image Take a similitude Suppose a subject a vassall should devise an honour of his owne braine to his Soveraigne to his King and hee should set up a toad and hee will have it in a glasse and come every morning and bow to that toad and being asked why hee did so hee should say O I doe it not to the toad but to the honour of my Soveraigne and Prince doe you think this Prince will like well to be resembled by a toad I tell you brethren there is a thousand times a greater disproportion between Almighty God and an Image set up for him then there is between a Prince and a toad Not to speake of that infinite inequality and distance that is between God and a mortall man there is a great distance even between a toad and an Idoll a great difference For The toad is the workmanship of God an Idoll as is an Idoll it is the workmanship of man A toad it is a living creature it hath sense and motion the Image is a senselesse block it hath neither life nor motion Therefore heare how it pleaseth the Spirit of God in Scripture to call consecrated Images hee calls them sometimes lies sometimes vanities sometimes nay oft abominations sometime Dung-hill-gods sometimes Divels You worshipped divels What divels Idols the worke of their owne hands Revel 9. 20. I pray heare how the Spirit of God in Scripture shewes his detestation of all Images in his service Hearken how hee thunders in the second Commandement Thou shalt not make to thy selfe any graven Image thou shalt not bow downe and worship it Hearken what the Prophet Esay saith Confounded be all they that worship Images Hearken what the Apostle saith in the New Testament Babes take heed of Idols 1 John c. ult v. ult I pray looke over the Bible and see if ever you finde any of Gods children except at such times as they had corrupted their waies worshipping of Images Enough out of Scripture against Images Now because wee are in this controversie to deale with such men whom the authority of Scripture doth not satisfie such unreasonable men as are not content with the authority of Scripture and because they say this stands upon tradition the worshipping of Images in the Church I pray give mee leave a little besides my custome to shew you the testimony of the Fathers the determination of Councels and the long tradition of the Church against Images Of every one a word and some few of many There is no point that a man may be so copious in as in this First for Fathers Fieri non potest c. so Origen It is not possible that a man should know God and be a suppliant to an Image There is no doubt saith Lactantius but there is no Religion where there is a worshipping

in this I beseech you bestow such a blessing upon that poore Towne and the poore Inhabitants that they may be occasioned and we for them to blesse you again and pray to God to restore that which you shall give in the riches of grace here and of glory hereafter FINIS PSAL. 106. 19 20. They made a calfe in Horeb and worshipped the molten Image c. I Began to handle these words the last Lords day There are three things in them First the Idoll a calfe or young Oxe or Bullock Secondly their sin in this calfe in three things First in making of it Then in worshipping of it And then in changing their glory into the similitude of it They made a calfe in Horeb They worshipped the molten Image They changed their glory c. The third thing is the roote of this sin the cause of it whence it grew it grew from forgetfulnesse of God and his works The God they forgat was their Saviour The works they forgat were First great works Secondly wonderfull works Thirdly terrible works They forgat God their Saviour that had done great things for them in Egypt wondrous things in the land of Ham terrible things by the Red sea Of the Idoll I have spoken and of their first work in making of it wherein I considred three circumstances First who made it Secondly where they made it Thirdly of what they made it I now go on to the second thing They worshipped the molten Image This was the end for which they would have it made and so consequently they turned the glory of God into this similitude Here was their sin which was not so much in making of it they might have made it without sinne but to make it to that end to worship it this was abominable Now because these are dangerous dayes wherein we live and there are a generation of men that will compasse Sea and Land to make a proselyte Out of my desire to stablish your hearts in the true and sincere worship of God I shall besides my custome fall upon a matter of Controversie and discusse the question betweene the Church of Rome and us about worshipping of Images There is a great dispute betweene them and us about this peoples Idolatry in worshipping this calfe We do beleeve the sin was sinfull above measure but yet they would make it somewhat worse then it was because they would not be thought to be Idolaters as these were The thing will ask a little time to discusse it more then I have to day I shall but make an entrance into it I shall tell you what order I will take in the handling of it First I will shew you That the making of an Image is not simply forbidden except it be in way of Religion to worship and to serve God by it That is the first They made it and they worshipped it A second thing I will shew is this That all application of divine honour to any Image whatsoever is Idolatry I will shew you thirdly That all Idolaters do change their God they change their glory into the similitude of that they worship I will shew you fourthly That the Church of Rome doth commit as grievous Idolatry in worshipping their Images as this people did in worshipping of this Calfe Lastly I will shew what use we are to make of the whole I say I cannot do all to day I shall but begin it but have patience till I can end it And if in the handling of these things I alledge either Fathers or Councels or Traditions of the Church or History more then I use or more then I think is fit in popular Sermons I pray beare with me and consider whom I deale with with unreasonable men such as will not be satisfied with the meere authority of holy Scripture For the first point The making of an Image is no act of Idolatry except it be by way of Religion to worship God by it that is my first proposition God doth never in the Scripture simply forbid the making of an Image He saith in the second Commandement Thou shalt not make to thy selfe any graven Image It is true but you must know that that is a Commandement of the first Table Now the first Table concernes the worship of God so you must understand it by way of relation to the worship of God Thou shalt not make an Image If you will heare God expounding his owne Law that it is thus looke in Levit. 26. 1. Ye shall make you no Idols nor graven Image neither shal ye set up any Image of stone in your land to bow downe unto it So it is not the making of the Image that is forbidden but the bowing downe to the Image we have made or the making it to that end to bow downe that is Idolatry If the making of an Image were simply and absolutely evill then surely the same Art and skill and cunning that some men have in carving and graving of Images should never be attributed to the Spirit of God as the author of it Now you shall finde what God saith I have filled Bezaleel and Aholiab with the spirit of wisdome and understanding and knowledge to work all such rare curious inventions whereof some were Images as you shall heare anon God allows the making of Images to foure uses which I shall name unto you First he allows us to make an Image for the distinction of coines The first coines almost that I can finde in all the Scriptures mentioned they were stamped with a Lamb upon them and were called for that cause Lambs You reade in Gen. 33. 19. that Jacob did purchase a field a parcell of ground of Hamor the son of Shechem and he purchased it for an hundred pieces of silver a hundred pieces of money so it is called there but the Hebrew phrase is with an hundred Lambs He bought it with money so Stephen saith But why doth he say with an hundred Lambs It was money stamped with a Lamb. So in Job ult every one of Jobs friends brought to him a piece of money our Translation reads it so but the Hebrew phrase is a Lamb a piece of money so stamped As we call that piece of gold that is stamped with an Angel an Angel so the Scripture called that piece of money that was stamped with a Lamb a Lamb. This was the ancient coine I finde Then that same shekell that we reade oft of in Scripture it had two figures upon it it had the likenesse of the pot of Manna on the one side and the likenesse of Aarons Rod on the other side Our Lord said to the Herodians Shew me a penny Whose Image hath it Caesars Our Lord disliked not to have Caesars Image upon a penny but saith he Give to Caesar that which belongeth to Caesar and to God that which is Gods God allows us Images for distinction of coins that is one Secondly God allows Images for ornament Solomon made a throne of Ivory that