Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	aaron_n	business_n	moses_n	37	3	7.4491	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33180	To Catholiko Stillingfleeton, or, An account given to a Catholick friend, of Dr. Stillingfleets late book against the Roman Church together with a short postil upon his text, in three letters / by I. V. C.	J. V. C. (John Vincent Canes), d. 1672.	1672 (1672)	Wing C433; ESTC R21623	122,544	282

beloved memory of our crucified Lord and all his blessed followers that they incite in their hearts a thankfulness for so many their good deeds still redounding to our good and that they kindle a desire of imitating them so often as they behold those virtuous faces once Pilgrims as we now are and Believers with us even as they imitated our Lord by a strange force and courage trampling Sin and Satan under their feet And thus by Images we do reverence and honour Christ our Lord and his holy Saints with a respect and veneration due unto them each one in his place and dignity Nay one yet further good use do we guided by our Faith and Religion still make of those pious representations For being assured that our Saints in heaven do offer up their incense of prayers in behalf of their Brethren on earth we seldom cast our eyes upon their figures but desire in heart at least to reap some benefit thereby partakers of their heavenly intercession Thus we do But does Dr. Stilling fleet speak of these things or unto these things or against any of these things no not one word Nor would any custom of ours or belief or doctrine of the Church have brought in any of the contents which make up his first Chapter wherein our Image-idolatry is declared and confuted by him Wherefore laying out his charge against us in a phrase of ambiguous words industriously con●r●ved he brings in thereby all that talk of his which nothing at all concerns us a●● yet sounds a● if it did This Sir is his in●●nce●●cy Papists saith he worship God by Images the Church of Rome worships God in Images and therefore are they Idolaters This is his charge very ambiguous as all men may see and of an uncertain interpretation It sounds in a direct sence as if Catholicks had some representations of the eternal Deity either made by themselves or some other way con●●●ghed unto them by which and in which they worship God Thus chief Magicians p●●cking their finger let the blood drop in a pan of ●urning coals and when the sinoak ●rises down they fall and worship th●ir w●ck●d Familiar whose face then appears be●ore them in a Looking-glass set aforehand for that pu●pose on their Altar And some such way ●●ay the Reader conceive that we worship God in Images as they do their Familiar Demon. And again when it is said that we worship God by Images he may as well imagine that se●ting our Images a fire we offer them to God as a Burnt-offering or some other such like way worship God thereby For this is the direct and connatural meaning of the words And in this direct ●ence the Doctor proceeds and brings in thereby all the contents of that his first Chapter Papists saith he worship God by Images and in Images which is idolatry and a fond idolatry too For such a worship cannot terminate upon God because he hath forbid it For can any representation of the invi●●ble De●y be made as even the wiser Heathens have ack●●wledged An Image of God must needs be below God and unbeseeming his glory For which cause Moses forbids it S. Paul disowns it learned Christian Doctors abhorre it This was the fault of Aaron the fault of Jeroboam the fault of all the Heathens who worshipped God in their Images or Idols Thus our Doctor speaks and this is all he speaks quite besides his business and our Catholick custom For our Images are the representations of our Lord Christ born and crucified for us and of his holy Apostles and Martyrs and other his renowned followers And although we believe Christ our Lord to be God yet the Image of Christ and the Image of God are two different things as all men know This then is the reason why he words his charge against us in that manner he does with much insincerity For if he had only charged us with that which we only do namely that we make Images of Christ and his blessed Saints or that we worship and honour them thereby this would not have brought in those many materials of his long discourse nor would he have had any thing thereof to have said against us And surely we can only honour them by Images whose Images we set up for our use as 〈◊〉 men know well enough And if he will inf●●● upon another reflected act because 〈◊〉 think we do well thereby in order to God th●● 〈◊〉 therefore worship God by them 〈…〉 them this is meerly to trifle For thus w●●ay be said and that more properly 〈◊〉 ●●ly too that we worship God by the K●●● 〈◊〉 in the King or other Magistra●● 〈…〉 us by God Almighty for our go● 〈◊〉 which in that sence is most certainly true Nay we may as well be charged to worship God by and in our Bread and Butter Beef and Mutton which we eat giving God thanks thereby This I say is the Doctors inun●●●ity totally blameable in Treatises of Cont●oversies that concern Religion which exact a proper direct and plain expression And it is in vain for him to reply that we use also the representations of Father Son and Holy Ghost For we have none of these as they are in themselves but as they have appeared unto us the Holy Ghost in the form of a Dove the Son in the form of man and Father as he founds to us under that notion in our ear which are still no representations of the invisible Deity of which the Doctor speaks And he may remember too that the present Church of England which he pretends to defend allows and uses all these Images also even that of God the Father which many of our Catholick Prelates have excepted against and endeavoured to suppress however some others amongst them have thought withall that such a figure might well enough be permitted because what may be represented to the ear may in the same manner be represented to the eye also Thus much Sir of the Doctors insincerity hitherto And what pretty Sophistical tricks he uses afterward you may see in due time and place You may note only for the present that after his imagined overthrow of our Christian Images he now in his second Chapter invades our antient Sacrifice typified by Melchisedek his bread and wine which he calls the Host just according to the first method of the furious Reformation which first battered our Church-windows and then slurred down the Altar-table Host-Idolatry and Saint-Idolatry The adoration of the Host is a grand piece of Idolatry in the Roman Church Nor will it suffice them here to plead that they believe Christ to be in the Eucharist on the same divine motives they believe Christ to be God and that they may therefore worship him there for if there were a revelation of his presence there yet is there not the same command of worshipping him there as is of his person Let all the Angels of God adore and again all must honour the Son as they do

graven things were made representations and similitudes both in Heaven and Earth notwithstanding the said law as the Serpent of brass which must either be made by melting or graving pomegranates lilies and various such-like things both graven in stone and interwoven in silks Cherubins or Angels in the Propitiatory even in Moses time and afterwards more fully and plentifully in Solomon's Temple it is not rationally to be doubted but that this law of his was intended only to keep those People close and constant to their own God and to their own Religion which was inconsistent with the idols of the Nations and not for any purpose of keeping Abraham Isaac and Jacob either out of their chamber hangings or ours I know the Jews do urge this Precept of Moses very eagerly against Christians ever since Jesus Christ our Lord was rejected by them whose image and figure they cannot abide to see But we must have patience with all men § 9. Moses saith he grounded this law of his upon a reason unchangable namely that Gods infinite and incomprehensible Deity cannot be represented O profound invention This is such a law and ground of a law as was never before thought of The ground and reason of making a law must be this an impossibility of breaking it They must not make any representations of God because God cannot be represented And the same motive or reason will be equally proper for all the rest of the Commandments They must keep the seventh day of the week a holy day The reason and motive because there is not an eighth day to keep holy and sanctifie They must honour their Parents The ground and reason of this because none of the whole Camp had any Fathers or Mothers alive to dishonour They must not kill The motive and reason is because they were all shot-free and so firmly inchanted that none could hurt them They must not commit adultery The ground and reason is because there was never a Woman in the Camp which any man though provok'd with the highest lust could possibly come near or touch with a pair of tongues They must not steal The great cause thereof is that there is nothing at all in the Camp for any man to take away Thus the Doctor imagines Moses to forbid any representations of God because God cannot be represented And such another discreet Mounsieur was he who solemnly commanded his Bowyer not to make him any shafts at all of a Piggs tail and he gravely gave him the reason for it because quoth he of a piggs tail no shaft can be made Truth is Moses never thought of any such Law nor any such reason of it much less but provided for the security of the Hebrews Religion that it might remain unchangable and firm in the mids of those many Nations round about them who worshiped false Gods and idols as Moses very frequently interprets himself and all the Prophets after him Therefore saith God by Moses thou shalt have no other Gods but me thou shalt not make to thy self any figures as the Gentiles do nor worship them For I am a jealous God and will have no intermingling of devillish idolatry with my service And all the reason given by Moses is gods jealousie not induring any divine worship but his own This is the very truth and all the truth of this business which this Doctor would turn another way thereby to make Moses seem as simple a man as himself And those idols forbidden by Moses did so involve an opposition to the true God and his divine worship that People could not possibly betake themselves to one but they must leave the other Therefore did Moses forbid both other Gods besides their own one God and all idols together which was by antient Christians very rationally and wisely reckoned all one and the same Commandement whereof no less a Man then St. Austin himself is witness But the memories of Abraham Isaac and Jacob could bring no such danger with them And that is our care for we are not in danger of loosing the faith of Jesus Christ by keeping the Image of him our crucified Lord among us or forsaking the communion of Saints by retaining their portraictures before our eyes We should ipso facto renounce our Lord and all his whole Religion should we set up Moses his forbidden Idols and make it our religion to worship them as heathens did But we are heartened incouraged and confirmed in our Christian Religion by looking on the faces of so many our glorious Martyrs holy Anchorets and Hermits pious Virgins and Confessors who profest this our Religion before us bravely triumphing by the power of Christs love and divine faith over sins allurements and deaths ugliest terrours though incompassed themselves with the like passions and infirmities we are our selves invironed round about And when we are entred into a Church amongst so many of our worthy Predecessors we compose our selves more heartily to our devotion then otherwise we should do in imitation of them remembring now that we are come up to Mount Sion to the City of our living God to celestial Jerusalem and society of Angels to the Church of Primitive Christians conscript in the Heavens to God the Judge of all to the Spirits of just men perfected to Jesus the Mediator of a new Testament and to the aspersion of blood speaking better things than Abel § 10. The Heathens saith he did ill in their idol worship and yet the wiser sort among them testifie that they did not hold them to be Gods but worshipped God in them Our acute divine having now by his fine wit so clarified Moses law that it might not so much concern Idolaters as our vulgar Painters he now begins so to purifie idolaters practice too that they may seem but in the same condition with our Catholick and best Christians And who would not give his penny to hear him act and speak The heathens all in general are so excused in their idolatry Aaron in his act of apostacy and Jeroboam in his great sin that they are all and each of them no otherwise faulty then the Church of Rome in his books Thus doth Mr. Stillingfleet convert idolatrous Nations while he sits dreaming in his Closet Here he diminishes and there he exaggerates here he blacks with his Pen and there he whitens and then he cries out all is one all of the same measure all of the same colour And truly I believe the great Gyant Goliah and little David might thus be made equal if the Gyant were beheaded and cut off by the knees on one side and David on the other side set upon a high pair of stilts While Catho●icks are made to do what they do not and Heathens not to do what they do on a supposal that all this is true there can be no great difference Let us then hear him what he tells us of Heathens in general The wiser sort among them testifie quoth he that they worshiped not