Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	aaron_n	act_n	sacrifice_n	31	3	6.2340	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61540	A discourse concerning the idolatry practised in the Church of Rome and the danger of salvation in the communion of it in an answer to some papers of a revolted Protestant : wherein a particular account is given of the fanaticism and divisions of that church / by Edward Stilingfleet.	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1671 (1671)	Wing S5577; ESTC R28180	300,770	620

painted and he ought not to be worshipped in any Image but what he hath prescribed us to worship which is Christ that adoration is external or internal that both of them are called Religion by which we are bound eternally to God and only to him from whence it follows that neither Angels nor Saints are to be worshipped by any religious worship for this is the Law of Adoration that no creature no phantasm of God in our minds no work of mens hands ought to be worshipped for if Gods creatures are not to be worshipped much less ours such as Images of God Angels and Saints are Neither is it enough to say that they do not worship the Image but the thing represented for the object terminates the worship and it is a deceit of the Devil under the pretence of honouring the Saints to bring mens minds to Idols and from the true God to carnal things that Images are to be used only for shew and memory and not at all for Religion that God alone is to be worshipped with all Religious worship whether called Latria or Doulia or what name soever and for the casting away all superstition that no Images be painted in Churches no Statues erected nor accounted holy that the true God may be worshipped alone for ever This is the abstract of his Doctrine delivered by Massonus whose other Writings shew he was far from being partial towards the Reformation And the Book it self is lately published by Baluzius again where any one may easily satisfie himself concerning fidelity But Baluzius very honestly tells us some have suspected this Book not to be very Catholick and therefore it was censured by Baronius and the Spanish Index yet he ingenuously confesseth he saith no more than the whole Gallican Church believed in that Age. What that was I have already shewed This I have the larger insisted upon to shew that it is no new thing for us to plead for all Religious worship being appropriated to God and that the command against Image-worship was no Ceremonial Law respecting meerly the Iews but that the reason of it doth extend to all Ages and Nations and especially to us who live under the Gospel From all which it follows that it was not meerly the Heathen Idolatry which was forbidden by God nor barely to prevent their falling to that by degrees but the giving to himself such a worship which he judges so unworthy of him § 10. 3. From those who were best able to understand the meaning of it We can imagine none so competent a Judge of the meaning of a Law as the giver of it and what he afterwards declares to be the sense of this Law The first occasion given for knowing the meaning of the Law concerning Images was not long after the making of it when upon Moses his absence they compelled Aaron to make them a Golden Calf Exod. 32. 4. Here was an Image made contrary to the Law as is on all sides acknowledged but the question is Whether by this the Israelites did fall into the Heathen Idolatry or only worship the true God under that Symbol of his presence That they did not herein fall back to the Heathen Idolatry I thus prove 1. From the occasion of it which was not upon the least pretence of Infidelity as to the true God or that they had now better reason given them for the worship of other Gods besides him but all they say was that Moses had been so long absent they knew not what was become of him and therefore they say to Aaron make us Gods or a God as in Nehem. 9. 18. to go before us We cannot imagine the people so sottish to desire Aaron to make them a God in the proper sense as though they could believe the Calf newly made to have been the God which before it was made brought them out of the Land of Aegypt as they say afterwards v. 4. but it must be understood as the symbol of that God which did bring them from thence the controversie then lyes here Whether they thought the Aegyptian Gods delivered them out of Aegypt while they forsook all their own worshippers to preserve those who were so great enemies to them that their very way of worship was an abomination to all the Aegyptians Exod 8. 26. and whether they could think the Gods of Aegypt had wrought all the Miracles for them in their deliverance and after it Whether they appeared not long before on Mount Sinai and delivered the Law to them Or whether it were not the true God they meant who had made that the Preface to his Laws I am the God that brought thee out of the Land of Aegypt to whom they intended still to give honour but the only question was concerning the symbol of his presence that was to go before them For which we are to consider that immediately before Moses his going up into the Mount the last promise God made to them was that he would send his Angel before them Exod. 23. 20 23. which is elsewhere called his presence Exod. 33. 14. Moreover they understood that there should be some extraordinary symbol of this presence but what it was they could not tell for Moses was then gone into the Mount to learn but he not being heard of in forty dayes they took it for granted he was not to be heard of more therefore they fall upon devising among themselves what was the fittest symbol for the presence of God going before them and herein the greatest number being possessed with the prejudices of their education in Aegypt where golden Bulls were the symbols of their chief God Osiris they pitch upon that and force Aaron to a complyance with them in it 2. There is no intimation given in the whole story that they fell into the Heathen Idolatry for when afterwards they fell into it the particular names of the Gods are mentioned as Baal-peor Moloch Remphan Numb 25. 3. Acts 7. 43. But here on the contrary Aaron expresly proclaims a Feast to the Lord Exod. 32. 5. and the people accordingly met and offered their accustomed offerings v. 6. whereas if it had been the Aegyptian Idolatry their common Sacrifices were abominations they must not have sacrificed Sheep and Oxen as they were wont to do And that it was not the Idolatry of other Nations who worshipped the Host of Heaven is plain from St. Stephens words Acts 7. 41 42. And they made a Calf in those dayes and offered Sacrifice unto Idols and rejoyced in the works of their own hands then God turned and gave them up to worship the Host of Heaven Whereby it is both observable that the Idolatry of the Calf was distinct from the other Heathen Idolatry this being a punishment of the other and withal though the Calf was intended by them to be only a symbol of Gods presence yet being directly against Gods Command and having divine worship given it it is by S. Stephen called an Idol

Angels it seems very strange he should use the name generally given to good and alwayes indifferent to both Origen expresly denies any offering up of Prayers to them to be practised by Christians or reasonable to be done and produces this very place of the Apostle against it The Council of Laodicea we see by Theodoret is very severe against all who Worship Angels and charges them with Idolatry in so doing if they had only meant the Heathen Idolaters as Baronius contends yet by that it appears that the Heathens were condemned for Worshipping those whom they believed to be good spirits but these are only shifts to escape by and such which would not have come into the mind of any man if he did not first fear the force of that Canon against the practice of the Roman Church For why the Heathen Idolatry should at that time be called secret or hidden as it is in that Canon is not easie to be thought upon but very easily intelligible according to Theodorets interpretation because of the clandestine meetings of those who worshipped Angels and therein separated themselves from the Christian Churches St. Austin discourses purposely on this subject as is intimated before whether God or the Blessed Spirits are willing we should perform any sacred offices or Sacrifices to them or consecrate our selves or any thing of ours to them by any religious rites which he denies For this saith he is the worship proper to the Deity called by him in one word Latria which he thinks more proper to express divine worship as distinct from the honour and service we give to men which is plainly his meaning there than any one word Greek or Latine besides And this word he saith is proper to the Deity as such because he elsewhere tells us the difference between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is this that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Service of God properly as God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the service of God as Lord. § 12. I know very well by what arts all these testimonies are endeavoured to be evaded viz. by saying That these are intended against the Gentiles Idolatry who Worshipped those Spirits as Gods and offered Sacrifices to them but this cannot hold as to the Doctrine or practice of the Roman Church who deny them to be Gods and assert that the Worship by Sacrifice is proper only to God but such devices as these are can never satisfie an impartial mind For 1. They do expresly deny that invocation or prayer is to be made to them for so Origen and Theodoret speak expresly that men are not to pray to Angels and any one that reads St. Austin will find that he makes solemn invocation to be as proper to God as Sacrifice is 2. On what account should it be unlawful to Sacrifice to Saints or Angels if it be lawful to invocate them may not one be relative and transient as well as the other nay the Heathen in St. Austin argued very well that Sacrifices being meer external things might more properly belong to the Inferiour Deities but the more invisible the Deity was the more invisible the Sacrifices were to be and the greater and better the Deity the Sacrifice was to be still proportionable and can any man in his senses think that a meer outward Sacrifice is more acceptable to God than the devotion of our heart is and wherein can we better express that to God than in offering up our prayers to him so that in all reason the duty of prayer ought to be reserved as more proper to God than any external sacrifice and those who did appropriate Sacrifice to God did comprehend prayer as the most spiritual and acceptable part of it So St. Austin speaking of the Sacrifice due to God makes our heart the Altar and Christ our Priest and our Prayers and Praises to be offered up to God by a fervent charity and any work which is therefore done that thereby we may be united to God in a holy Communion with him in order to our happiness to be a true Sacrifice and let any man judge whether this description do not so naturally agree to prayer as if it had been only intended for it Besides it is observable that sacrifices of old were solemn rites of supplication and calling upon the name of the Lord where Altars were erected is the main thing spoken of thence the Temple though the place of sacrifice is called the house of Prayer and where God slights sacrifices he requires prayer as much more acceptable to him It seems then very strange that sacrifice alone as distinguished from prayer should be that Latria that is proper to God 3. Upon the same account that the Heathen did give divine honour to their inferiour Deities those in the Roman Church do so to Angels and Saints For the Heathens made a difference in their sacrifices to the supreme God and their inferiour Deities and their Heroes so that if the putting any difference in the way of religious Worship doth excuse the one it must do the other also Did the Heathen use solemn Ceremonies of making any capable of divine worship so does the Roman Church Did they set up their Images in publick places of worship and there kneel before them and invocate those represented by them so does the Roman Church Did they consecrate Temples and erect Altars to them and keep Festivals and burn Incense before them so does the Roman Church Lastly did they offer up Sacrifices in those Temples to the Honour of their lesser Deities and Heroes so does the Roman Church For Bellarmin reckoning up the honours belonging to Canonized Saints besides those before mentioned reckons up this as one that the Sacrifices of the Eucharist and of lauds and prayers are publickly offered to God for their honour I would fain understand what the sacrificing to one for the honour of another means To offer Sacrifice to one for another is an intelligible thing but to Sacrifice to one for the honour of another is a thing beyond my reach if that sacrifice does not belong to him for whose honour it is offered and if the sacrifice do belong to him I wonder at the scrupulosity of those who dare not say they Sacrifice to him as well For what is sacrificing to God but sacrificing to his honour or doing such an act of Religion with a design to honour God by it but when men offer a Sacrifice but not to honour God by it but the B. Virgin or any Saints or Angels how can that Sacrifice belong to any other but those whose honour is designed by it It being then the opinion and practice of the Roman Church that Sacrifices are to be offered for the honour of Saints or Angels it is evident they have reserved no part of divine worship peculiar to God himself any more than the Heathen did 4. There can be