Selected quad for the lemma: fire_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
fire_n	aaron_n	absence_n	moses_n	26	3	8.1609	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33124	An account of Dr. Still.'s late book against the Church of Rome together with a short postil upon his text.	J. V. C. (John Vincent Canes), d. 1672.	1672 (1672)	Wing C426; ESTC R18260	35,205	79

in them and if they be worshiped as Gods it is Idolatry or else there is no such thing as idolatry upon earth Aaron saith he made the golden calf not to reduce the people unto heathen idolatry but for an embleme of the good Angel who was to go before them Here is another excuse of Aaron his small fault which drove Moses his brother and Prince into a great a passion of wrath as perhaps he ever felt even so prevalent a grief and anger that it dashed in pieces the very rables of the Law he had in his hands though he was by the testimony of holy writ the mildest of men and all this it seems for an embleme And why that emb●em since they had such an emblem before in the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night which was a more significant emblem of the angel who went before them then any calf of gold could be The holy Prophets test●fie of those people and Aaron that in Moses absence this figure was melted and founded by them to be set up in place of the God who had hitherto conducted them w●th Moses now as they thought vanished out of Egypt into Arabia and to lead them on the rest of their way as their supream conduct after the manner of Egyptian Deities They made a ca●f in Horeb and adored the figure they changed their glory into the likeness of a Calf eating nay and forgot their God Psal 125. Now if they forgat their own God and slighted him and cast him from them and changed his glory into a calf and worshiped the very figure then must that sculptil or statue be now accepted for their God The like testimony gives St. Sephen Act. 7. They made saith he a calf in those dayes and offered sacrifice unto the Idol and made themselves merry in the works of their own hands What can this import but that they had now altered their religion renounced their former God and made to themselves a new one after the manner of Egypt It is pitty Mr. Stillingfleet had not been with Aaron his confidence would have pleaded for him a little more handsomly then he did for himself But the excuse perhaps being hypocritical and false would have more offended Moses then his former fault Aaron knew well enough what he had done And although he somewhat minced his fault yet would he not tell a lye I cast a little mettal into the fire saith he to Moses and there came out this calf The Doctor adds two pretty reasons why neither he nor the people could ever think of declining then to any heathen idolatry First because they had no pretence of doing so As though the very absence of Moses whom they had long expected and now thought lost were not pretence enough unto some leading men in the Camp to raise a sedition and thereby force Aaron to make them such idols as they were acquainted with in Egypt It is well enough known that by the contagion of those leading men the Camp was ever and anon in such like tumult and ready disposition to apostacy His second reason is because no intimation is made that they sell into heathen idolatry What intimation is given thereof by the Prophet and St. Stephen he takes it seems for no intimation at all When they fell saith he into heathen idolatry mention is made of their Gods as Baal Peor Moloch Remphan but here Aaron is said to make a feast to the Lord As though there were not Egyptian idols as well as Syrian and Osiris and Isis as well as Moloch and Remphan And a feast made in honour of this their new God and religion might well be said a feast to the Lord. It was a policy in Aaron thus to speak that the common people might not suddainly discern the alteration And we may easily believe that the leading men who brought him by perswasion and force unto this apostacy suggested the said stratagem first to get the people more universally on their side without commotion and then to put something into their mouths for to say to Moses if he should chance to come upon them suddainly and take them beyond expectation in the fact For that it was a meer pretence of policy is evident by this that they gave to Moses no such account of any feast made unto their antient true God and secondly because their principal Leaders had no purpose to make any for they had now forgot and put away their own true God and cast him out of their mind as holy text speaks obliti sunt Dei sui The Calves set up by Jeroboam in Dan and Bethel were only to keep the people from going up to Jerusalem and not to bring them to any idolatry of the heathens Here is another excuse for Jeroboam and his peccadillo Who would not take Mr. Stillingfleet to be a very charitable man who can cover such a multitude of sins and yet is it all no other but a secret prodigious malice against Catholicks who must bear the more and hear the worse for it Jeroboam saith he did not alter the divine worship or give any occasion of idolatry No no. He only kept the people saith he from going up to Jerusalem whither they used once a year to resort And this could be no such great matter since they had the same service the same sacrifice and adoration at home But why then is Jeroboam charged with idolatry in holy Scripture as one that had done evil above all that went before him and made h●m other gods and molten images to provoke God to anger and to cast his own God behind his back 1 Reg. 14 O ho thence we conclude saith our Doctor that an image set up for gods honour is idolatry as it is amongst papists And is not this a pretty nimble leiger demaine of a slight man First who taught him that Papists set up images for Gods honour I have learned amongst them that they are set up for our incouragement and imitation and for an honourable memory of their holy Martyrs and Apostles But what ho●our can one of those images be to God none at all I think except indirectly because God is the blessed author of all good whence the said Apostles Martyrs received their strength and grace Secondly where does this confident man find that Jeroboam set up his images for Gods honour Even no where at all His own boldness is so strong in him that he sayes what he lists without any ground or occasion at all any where either among sacred writers or prophane Thirdly whence doth he ga●her his negative word that Jeroboam acted none of the heathen idolatry nor brought the people to it Even from his own confident brain whence he has the other expresly contrary to the testimony of holy writ which speaks as it were passionatly and very emphatically of his notorious idolatry wherein he did evil above all that were before him wherein he made him other gods and molten