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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63003	An explication of the Decalogue or Ten Commandments, with reference to the catechism of the Church of England to which are premised by way of introduction several general discourses concerning God's both natural and positive laws / by Gabriel Towerson ...	Towerson, Gabriel, 1635?-1697.; Towerson, Gabriel, 1635?-1697. Introduction to the explication of the following commandments.	1676 (1676)	Wing T1970; ESTC R21684	636,461	560

of Deuteronomy as well as Exodus All which put together will make the Observation of Grotius to be a meer Nicety and consequently that all kind of Images as well as of all sorts of Things are forbidden by this Commandment 3. From that first and second Assertion therefore pass we to a third answerable to a nice distinction devised by the Papists to wit That we are to understand such Images forbidden as pretend to represent the Essence or Person not the Properties of the Divine Nature But beside that the Essence of any thing cannot be depicted because it cannot be seen but by some proper Representment which makes that Distinction perfectly groundless beside that secondly it cannot be thought they intend any other than the Representation of the Persons of the Godhead who describe the Father in the shape of an Old Man and have a peculiar Picture to represent the Trinity there is as great a disproportion between the Properties of God and an Image as there is between that and the Divine Nature For as the Properties of God are not different at all from his Essence but onely in our manner of conception so all those Properties of his are Spiritual and Infinite and therefore not to be debas'd by Material and Finite Representations 4. Lastly Whereas it is said by the Papists That they intend not those Images they make of God as perfect immediate and proper Representations of the Divine Nature but imperfect mediate and metaphorical ones upon which account they hope to avoid the Charge of offending against this Commandment I shall oppose in the fourth place That such imperfect Images are as well forbidden as any other For beside that the Law makes no such Distinction but forbids all Images and all Similitudes and must therefore be thought to proscribe those imperfect ones unless the Law had otherwise provided it s descending to forbid not onely the making the Images of any thing in heaven or earth but particularly in Deuteronomy the making the Images of beasts and fowls and creeping things sheweth the former Distinction to be perfectly vain and groundless For though it may be thought that some of the Heathen deem'd a Humane Shape to be no improper Representation of the Divine Majesty yet who can think them so vain as to conceive a Beast or a Creeping thing to be a perfect Resemblance of their Gods However it be most certain it is the Jews could not be so foolish as to think the God that brought them out of the Land of Egypt to be like unto a calf that eateth hay which notwithstanding we find they not onely represented God under such an Image but were charg'd by the Psalmist with changing the Glory of God into such a Similitude and by St. Paul with Idolatry for holding a Feast to it So vain are the Imaginations of the Defenders of Images as well as of the Makers of them and will prove alike deceitful when the Judge of all the World shall call both the one and the other to an account I have done with that part of the Prohibition which concerneth the making an Image of God and asserted the unlawfulness thereof It remains onely to make it so much the more advantageous that I address this following Exhortation to the Protestant wherein he will find himself more immediately concern'd That inasmuch as the Prohibition of Images is grounded upon the disproportion that is between God and all Corporeal Beings he who pretendeth for that reason to disapprove of all Corporeal Representations would in like manner remove from his thoughts all Corporeal Conceptions of him That he would not think God like Bodies to be confin'd to a certain Place and neither to know nor act any thing beyond his own Heaven That he would not think his arm like that of ours to be shortned that it cannot save nor his ear so dull of hearing that he cannot hear the softest whispers That he would not think his Eyes like those of ours to be blinded by the darkness of the Night or impos'd upon by those specious Outsides by which his own are apt to be deceiv'd in fine That when for the help of his dull Apprehensions he conceiveth of Him under Bodily Representations he remember that He is above them and separate those Corporeal Phantasms again by thinking him to be a Spirit of infinite Purity and Perfection Otherwise though in another way he falleth into that Crime which he condemneth and sets up the same Images of God in his Imagination which the Heathen heretofore and the Idolatrous Christians now set up to him in their Temples PART III. Of the unlawfulness of making an Image with a design to worship it where moreover is shewn out of Tertullian the unlawfulness of making any such to be worshipped by others The second Part of the Negative Precept propos'd wherein is shewn the unlawfulness of worshipping an Image whether of God or of Christ or of his Saints The Allegation of the Romanists That they worship not the Image of God but God in and by it shewn to be both untrue and insufficient The former because there are not a few who defend the Worshipping of the Image it self yea with a Divine Worship and because the Common sort terminate their Worship there The latter because first the Heathen themselves generally were not guilty of any other Idolatry where another Objection of the Papists is propos'd and answered The like evidenc'd secondly from the Idolatry of the Israelites in Aaron's and Jeroboam's Calves which is shewn to have been no other than the Worshipping of the True God in and by them The Objections against the foregoing Argument considered and Answered A farther Argument against the Worshipping of God by an Image drawn from Natures Law where again some Objections are propos'd and answered Of the Images of Christ and his Saints Whether or no and in what cases they may be tolerated as also what Honour may be given to them That all Divine Adoration of them is unlawful yea that all such is so which onely bordereth on it HAVING shewn in the foregoing Discourse that we are not to make an Image with a design to represent the Divine Majesty proceed we now to shew 2. That neither are we to make any Image at all with a design to bow down to it or serve it which I have said to be the second Part of the first Prohibition in this Commandment Now that so we are not is competently evident from the Commandment it self but much more abundantly from an Explication of it in Leviticus For as after the Prohibition of making any graven Image c. it is immediately added Thou shalt not bow down to them nor serve them so the Prophet Moses who was certainly the best Interpreter of his own Law doth more plainly and expresly declare it Lev. 26.1 For ye shall not saith he make you any idol or graven image neither rear you up a standing image neither shall ye set up any

Case is no less plain as to the Duty of Prayer which is one of the most proper Acts of Divine Worship St. Luke not onely telling us of a Place built for Prayer but of certain of the Jewish Women also resorting to it on the Sabbath-day and St. Paul taking occasion from thence to open his Doctrine to them Acts 16.13 Which Passage is the more to be noted because where there were no Synagogues yet they had their Places * Grot. in Act. 16.13 of Prayer which shews they look'd upon that as one of the more especial Parts of God's Worship and such as ought not to be neglected though the Reading of the Law and the Prophets should 4. Again As Prayer was a Part of the Business of the Sabbath so also Praise and Thanksgiving even by the Directions of God himself For as we find it to have been the Office of the Levites to stand every Morning and Evening to thank and particularly * See the Septuag Version of that place and Thorndike of Rel. Assem c. 7. p. 219 c. upon the Sabbath-days 1 Chron. 23.30 so the Title of 92 Psalm proclaims it to have been made for the Sabbath-day as you may see if you please to peruse it And indeed well may we think Praising God a part of the Business of the Sabbath when the Sabbath it self was instituted in remembrance of the Creation and therein both of their own Being and the Means which that furnish'd for their Support Such were the Offices by which the Jewish Sabbath was to be sanctified and not unlike it is probable was their way of Sanctification of it in private But because we have not the like Evidence for it we will leave Men to their own Conjectures and pass to the Sanctification of the Christian one for my more orderly Explication whereof I will consider it 1. As to the Publick And 2. Then as to more Private Concerns 1. And first of all if the Question be concerning the Sanctification of it in Publick for which both the one and the other Sabbath were chiefly separated so we shall find the Reading of the Scriptures to have had a place in it as well as in the Jewish one It is true indeed if we look no farther than those slender Narrations which the New Testament gives us of the Lord's-day Service we shall not be able to discover any thing which may warrant us to affirm that the Reading of the Scriptures had any place in it But as that is not much to be wondred at when we see so little there concerning the Observation of it at all so there want not Reasons to believe however there be no express mention of it that the Reading of the Scriptures had a part in it even then For as it is not easie to suppose especially when there were so many newly converted Jews that they would lightly depart from the Custom of the Synagogue where the Scriptures were constantly read so it is probable they did not because there was the like necessity of Reading them that there had been in the Jewish Synagogues For though since Printing came in use the Scriptures are become more common yet anciently they were in few Persons hands and consequently if they had not been read in Publick the generality of Christians would not have had Knowledge enough of them to have guided them in their Opinions and Actions Since therefore it was but necessary they should be read it is but reasonable to conclude they were especially when we know our Saviour to have exhorted to the search of them and St. Paul to represent them as able to make a man wise unto salvation But it is not onely Probability we have to ground our selves upon as to the Scriptures being made a part of the Lord's-day Service For though as I said there be no mention of Reading them upon that Day yet there is mention of Reading them in their Assemblies which that Day was set apart for the holding of For thus Col. 4.16 we find St. Paul giving in charge that when that Epistle of his had been read amongst them they should cause it to be read also in the Church of the Laodiceans and in like manner read that from Laodicea themselves And thus too though with much more earnestness he gives a Charge to the Thessalonians that that Epistle of his should be read unto all the holy Brethren 1 Thess 5.27 But because Customs like Rivers are beheld with the greatest advantage at some distance from the Springs from whence they flow from the Practice of the Church in the Apostles Times pass we to those that immediately succeeded where we shall find clearer Expresses of it For thus it is the Affirmation of Justin Martyr * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apol. 2. pag. 98. one of the Ancientest Writers the Church hath That upon the day call'd Sunday there was an Assembly of all that abode in the Cities and the adjacent Countries where the Commentaries of the Apostles or the Writings of the Prophets were read so far as Time and other Duties would give leave Agreeable hereunto is that of Tertullian in Chap. 39. of his Apologetick where speaking of the Business of Christian Assemblies which is principally to be understood of those of the Lord's-day because the Chief he hath these Words ‖ Coimus ad literarum divinarum commemorationem siquid praesentium temporum qualitas aut praemonere cogit aut recognoscere We come together to the repeating of the Divine Scriptures according as the condition of the present Times enforceth either to forewarn or look back In like manner the same Tertullian † De Animâ cap. 9. Jam vero prout Scripturae leguntur aut Psalmi canuntur aut Adlocutiones proferuntur aut Petitiones delegantur ita inde materiae Visionibus subministrantur speaking of a certain Virgin who had Revelations during the Solemn Service of the Lord's-day affirms That the matter of her Visions was ministred as the Scriptures were read or Psalms sung or Exhortations produc'd or Prayers preferr'd Which shews the Reading of the Scripture to have been a part of the Publick Service and particularly of the Day of the Christian Sabbath Now though what hath been said be sufficient to shew the Reading of the Scriptures to be a part of the Publick Service and as such to be diligently attended to yet because some have rejected it as of none or of little Edification and others as more proper for the Closet than the Church I will before I proceed obviate each of these Opinions and shew the groundlesness thereof For be it first that the main Design of the Scriptures is to teach us how to live and particularly in reference to God upon which account the Reading of them may seem rather a Means to instruct us in than any Part of the Worship of God yet if it be with a regard to the Author of them so we shall find both