Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n
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A30335
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A discourse concerning transubstantiation and idolatry being an answer to the Bishop of Oxford's plea relating to those two points.
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Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing B5775; ESTC R23015
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24,041
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38
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our Actions the doing any thing which imports or is understood to import it is likewise Idolatry tho of a lower degree of Guilt so likewise the imagining that the true God is no other than as an Idol represents him to be is the highest degree of the other species of Idolatry but the conceiving him as having a Body in which his Eternal Mind dwells or fancying that any strange Virtue from him dwells in any Body to such a degree as to make that Body the proper Object of Worship unless he has assured us that he is really united to that Body and dwells in it which was the case of the Cloud of Glory under the Old Testament and much more of the humane Nature of Christ under the New this is likewise Idolatry for in all these it is plain that the true Ideas of God and the Principles of Religion are corrupted 8. There are two Principles in the Nature of Man that make him very apt to fall into Idolatry either inward or outward The first is the weakness of most Peoples Minds which are so sunk into gross Phantasms and sensible Objects that they are scarce capable to raise their Thoughts to pure and spiritual Ideas and therefore they are apt either to forget Religion quite or to entertain it by Objects that are visible and sensible the other is that Mens Appetites and Passions being for the most part too strong for them and these not being reconcileable to the true Ideas of a pure and spiritual Essence they are easily dispos'd to embrace such notions of God as may live more peaceably with their Vices and so they hope by a Profusion of Expence and Honour or of Fury and Rage which they employ in the Worship of an imaginary Deity to purchase their Pardons and to compensate for their other Crimes if not to authorise them These two Principles that are so rooted in our frail and corrupt Natures being wrought on by the Craft and Authority of ambitious and covetous Men who are never wanting in all Ages and Nations have brought forth all that Idolatry that has appear'd in so many different Shapes up and down the World and has been diversified according to the various Tempers Accidents and Constitutions of the several Nations and Ages of the World. 9. I now come to examine the Beginnings of Idolatry as they are represented to us in the Scripture in which it will appear that our Author's account of it shews him guilty either of great Ignorance or of that which is worse he pretends that the first plain Intimation that we have of it in Palestine is when Iacob after his Conversation with the Schechemites commanded his Family to put away their strange Gods whereas we have an earlier and more particular account of those strange Gods in the same Book of Genesis Chap. 31. where when Iacob fled away from Laban it is said ver 19. that Rachel stole her Father's Images or Teraphim and these are afterwards call'd by Laban his Gods ver 30. and these very Images are called by Ioshua 24. v. 2. Strange Gods so that the strange Gods from which Iacob cleansed his Family Gen. 35. 2. were no other than the Teraphim so that in the Teraphim we are to seek for the true Original of Idolatry and for the sense of the Phrase of other Gods or strange Gods which is indeed the true Key to this whole matter These were little Statues such as the Dii laris or Penates were afterwards among the Romans or the Pagods now in the East in which it was believed that there was such a Divine Virtue shut up that the Idolaters expected Protection from them and as all People in all times are apt to trust to Charms so those who pretended to chain down the Divine Influences to those Images had here a great occasion given them to deceive the World of this sort was the Palladium of Troy and the Ancille of Rome and this gave the rise to all the Cheats of Tolesmes and Talismans that came afterwards these were of different Figures and since our Author confesses p. 124. that Cherubim and Teraphim are sometimes used promiscuously for one another it is probable that the Figure of both was the same and since it is plain from Ezekiel that the Cherubim resembled a Calf compare Ezek. 1. 10. with chap. 10. 14. where what is called in the first the Face of an Ox is called in the other the Face of a Cherub from hence it is probable that the Teraphim or at least some of them were of the same Figure In these it was also believed that there were different degrees of Charms Some were believed stronger than others so that probably Pharaoh thought that Moses and Aaron had a Teraphim of greater Virtue than his Magicians had which is the clearest account that I know of his hardening his Heart against so many Miracles and this also seems to be the first occasion of the Phrase of the Gods of the several Nations and of some being stronger than other that is the Teraphim of the one were believed to have a higher degree of Enchantment in them than the others had This then leads us to the right Notion of Aaron's Golden Calf and of the terms of graved and carved Images in the second Commandment and even of the other Gods in the first Commandment for we have seen that both in the stile of Moses and Ioshua the Images were those Teraphim which they also called strange Gods when the Israelites thought that Moses had forsaken them they came to Aaron desiring him to make them God's that is Teraphims yet they prescribed no form to him but left that wholly to him and so the Dream of their Fondness of the Egyptian Idolatry vanishes for it was Aaron's choice that made it a Calf perhaps he had seen the Divine Glory as a Cloud between the Cherubims when he went up into the Mountain Exod. 24. 9 10. for a Pattern being shewed to Moses of the Tabernacle that he was to make it is probable Aaron saw that likewise and this might dispose him to give them a Seraphim in that figure this is also the most probable account both of the Calves of Dan and Bethel set up by Ieroboam and also of the Israelites worshipping the Ephod that Gideon made Iud. 8. 27. of the Idolatry of Micah and the Danites who robbed him Iud. 17. 18. and of the Israelites offering Incense to the Brazen Serpent 2 Kings 18. 4. which seemed to have all the Solemnities of a Teraphim in it so that it is plain the greatest part of the Idolatry under the Old Testament was the Worship of the Teraphim 10. But to compleat this Argument with relation to the present Point it is no less plain that the true Jehovah was worshipped in those Teraphim To begin with the first it is clear that Laban in the Covenant he made with Iacob appeals not only to the God of Abraham Gen. 31. 53. but likewise