Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	incline_v	keep_v	lord_n	16,137	5	7.3706	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42355	Toward the vindication of the second commandment by Edm. Gurnay ...	Gurnay, Edmund, d. 1648.	1661 (1661)	Wing G2260B; ESTC R40533	26,448	84

lesse sin than it was before but rather a greater S. John pronouncing a more terrible punishment against it even the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone than the old Law in so expresse terms ever did and calling even upon Babes to beware of Idols and terming it a doctrine of Balaam to teach liberty of eating meat that was though but sacrificed unto Idols which also the Apostle charged the Gentiles for their first Lesson to abstain from Thirdly for many generations together immediately following the Apostles times the Church of God as our Homilie at large declareth would not endure so much as the sight of Images in places where Gods name used to be called upon Fourthly the founder part of the Catholick Church have alwayes esteemed the Decalogue to be of eternal force and to be rooted in the Law of Creation before any positive or Mosaical legislation was as also Gods punishing Idolatry in the old Canaanites which lived before the time of Moses Law and his promise to a thousand generations the tenth part of which time the Law of Moses was not in force may import Finally the Church of England at this day continually publisheth a Law against the worshipping of Images and in her Commination pronounceth the first and last curse against them that so do We will therefore without more ado esteem them at too weak a pass and not worthy any further to be contested against which for the succouring of Images find themselves driven to plead the abrogation of Moses Law The 4. Argument answered The fourth allegation is this That the present people of England are of better strength and judgement than to worship Images or to take any harm from such kind of things Whereunto we answer First That so also ignorance and dulness of conceit are far enough off from worshipping Images or taking any harm by them witnesse the brute Beasts it requiring oftentimes a good degree of understanding to be so much as capable of some kind of deceit Yea profaneness and irreligion will also neglect deride and spoyle Images as much as this strength and judgement witness Dionysius Rabshakeh Nero and those like Atheists For as when profane persons hear one another swear by the blood and wounds of God and are not moved thereat the cause why they are not moved is not any strength of religion but only their sympathizing with one another in profanenesse and irreligion So likewise if any proceed not so far as to do reverence unto such kind of Images as represent the wounds and passions of God there is no necessity to think them so specially strong in religion it being no more than incredulity also and irreligion may withhold them from Secondly as ignorance profanenesse and irreligion so also carnal policy and affectation will make a shew of this kind of strength witnesse those Manichees in the time of Augustine which out of this carnal policy to win the Pagans unto their side against the sound Christians simulabant se favere simulacris and made a shew as if they could well enough endure Images As also witness those Corinthians in the time of Paul which out of an affectation to be thought strong men would needs make nothing of it to be present at those Idol-festivals Thirdly admit it were out of some degree of sound strength indeed that our people at this day are so far from worshipping Images yet must this strength needs be general Shall we suppose that there are not any weak ones or little ones amongst us Or shall the weakest of our times be supposed wiser and stronger than the wisest or strongest in former times Those antient Chaldeans Egyptians Persians Grecians and Romans from whom we have received our principal arts and sciences yea the very people of God unto their wisest Solomon yea at this present day the Papists whose abilities in all kind of faculties arts and sciences languages antiquities subtilties and policies who doth not acknowledge have not all these fallen by Images And must all these for strength of brain and ripenesse of judgement needs come short of our little ones and very vulgar For what though the truth be never so abundantly preached amongst us is every child as ready to hear a preacher as to gape and gaze at a picture Admit also that preachers should at all times so abound and withall find so little to do as to never leave calling upon men to beware of those blocks which they wittingly cast in their own way Fourthly the Scripture we know judgeth covetousnesse to be a worshipping of Images and the mere coveting of Images is a kind of covetousnesse no doubt And are there none amongst us which are culpable of that kind of covetousness Fifthly admit that none of our people be observed to do any perceivable worship unto Images no more doth the covetous man do any perceivable worship unto his money but useth it as familiarly as any thing in his House And yet the Scripture maketh him an Idolater Finally if none of our people may be supposed to be so foolish or so weak as to worship Images why do our Laws so peremptorily and continually forbid them so to do Thou shalt not bowe down to them nor worship them saith our Law and Lord incline our hearts to keep this Law answereth the people and yet none of our people must be supposed so foolish as to break such a Law Surely superfluous must the Law needs be and most frivolous the Suffrage of the people or most presumptuous the Suppose We conclude therefore that as the Suppose is not easie to be granted That our people are so far from worshipping Images so also were it granted it would not thereupon follow that therefore our people are of such special strength and judgement it being no more than ignorance profanenesse and irreligion carnal policy and affectation have brought men unto The 5. Argument answered The next allegation is this That admit sometime some of our people do let fall some glance of honour unto an Image yet if it be but a Civil kinde of honour and not the Divine dulia and not latria no just exception can be taken thereat Against which position we thus demonstrate That which is properly due to the Creatour may not be given to any kinde of creature much less unto the Image of any creature but only by vertue of the Creatours express appointment But all kinde of honour glory and praise of what degree or kinde soever is due only to the Creatour Therefore no kind of honour glory or praise of what degree or kind soever may be given unto any kind of creature much less unto the Image of any kinde of Creature but only by vertue of the Creatours express appointment But never did the Creatour appoint any jote or scrat or scruple of honour to be done unto Images Therefore must not any the least jote or scrat or scruple of honour be done unto

that the first setters forth of Gods by Images did not onely increase errour but also take away all fear of religion whereof Austine giveth this fair reason Quia facilè dii possunt in stoliditate similacrorum contemni i.e. Because the stolidity of Images made men think accordingly of their Gods Moreover there is no kind of false God so hard to be dispossessed and cast out of the heart of Man as these Image-gods For whereas all men are at the first in the state of Childhood and ignorance and Children and ignorant Persons are most easily taken up with these Image-Gods it so commeth to passe that they take up the first and deepest rooms in the hearts of men and so must needs be most hard to remove and cast up again Again there is no kind of false God that doth more strongly resist the entertainment of the true God than these Image-gods which may well be another special cause of the true Gods indignation against them For the true God being altogether invisible and taking up his mansion onely in the heart and these Image-gods being nothing but visible and having no abidance but in the outward eye it must needs be that such as have once been taken up with them will very hardly be brought to brook and put confidence in the invisible God And though at length they be brought to acknowledge that the true God is altogether invisible yet will it be a hard matter for them to put up a Prayer to that invisible God but these old wonted Images will obstruct and infect the same It being a good reason which Austine giveth why the Heathens did rather direct their Prayers unto the Images of the Sunne or Sea than unto the real Sunne or Sea it self because saith he they might think it more likely that the things which carry the similitudes of men as those Images of the Sun and Sea called Phoebus and Neptunus did should hear their Prayers than such kind of things as had no similitude but either of an Orb as the Sun hath or of a wavie and undeterminate nature as the Sea hath Finally when men will not stick to give incredible summes of mony for Images as sometime twenty talents of gold sometime thirtie fortie fiftie sixty eightie and an hundred for an Image hath not the Lord great reason to be Jealous of Images For what more likely to become an Idol than that which men esteem at an unreasonable rate and that also notwithstanding the Lord hath pronounced of it that it is profitable for nothing But to conclude for it would be an endlesse piece of work to heap up all the probabilities that offer themselves for this purpose That which one of the Fathers affirmed of his times when he saith Tanta homines imaginum cupiditas tenet ut jam viliora ducantur illa quae vera sunt i. e. So greatly are men enamoured upon Images as that now-a-dayes the more true and real things are the more vile and base they are esteemed what age hath not found it true in their particular times As if the sonnes of men had a desire to compare with their Maker and to finde more excellencie in their own works than in his Surely may we not say the true and real Servants and Saints of God were not more esteemed and respected when they lived than their Images have been And no doubt it will easily be granted that when poor Lazarus himself would not be suffered to peep in at the doors the picture of Lazarus shall be advanced in the parlour Last of all Not only the Heathens in their times but also the very people of God in their times have they not continually doted upon and run a Whoring after Images Yea and that also as well in the time of the Gospel as in the time of the Law For what else meant those tumults wars and bloodsheds in the time of the Eastern Empire about the setting up and pulling down of Images as our Homily at large declareth And even in these last times at least as far as the bounds of Rome extend hath extremity of zeal been wanting unto the cause of Images For We must adore saith one of their Doctours not onely before an Image but also the Image it self And another of them thus The same honour which is due to the Trinity do I attribute unto an Image and who so doth not likewise him I accurse And their most Classical Doctour thus The Images of Christ and the Saints are to be reverenced not onely as they are Samples but also per se propriè properly and by themselves even so far as that the veneration may settle and determine it self upon the Image non solum ut vicem gerat exemplaris And whoever among the Heathen did more thoroughly rivet and imp the soul of man into an Image toward the making it most perfect in Idolatry But enough no doubt hath been said to make it probable and more than probable we are loath to make it that the Jealousie of God is more strongly set against Images than against any inveiglement which the soul of man is apt to be beguiled withall whatsoever And therefore to judge us frivolous idle precise fantastical iconoclastical c. for being cautelous against Images or for our resolving to admit of no reasons in their behalf but such only as shall be substantial and demonstrative is a judgement we are perswaded that pleaseth not God And therefore we wi●● proceed and persist in our intentions and not give over till we have acquainted the world with our exceptions against the rest of the allegations The 3. Argument answered The next whereof is this That now in the time of the Gospel the Church of God is at more liberty for the use of Images than it was in the time of the Law Whereunto we answer First That the time of the Law being the special time for types shadowes figures and similitudes which all were a kind of Images the argument should rather follow on the contrary and conclude That Images do rather lose than gain any liberty by vertue of that Laws exspiration For it being the determination of God to divide his Church into a state of minority and a state of maturity and the state of minority being that which was under the discipline of Moses Law the Lord di● think it good to set forth that state of minority in such kind of attires and liabiliments as might best agree and suit with the fansie of minority which when the time of gravity and maturity should come should thereupon be put off and laid aside even no otherwise than as the blooms of our trees fall away upon the putting forth of the fruit Secondly when the time of the old Law began first to exspire we do not find that the primitive Church did take any more liberty for the use of Images than it did before or that Idolatry was esteemed a