Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
reason_n	image_n	worship_n	worship_v	2,495	5	9.2639	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48737	Solomons gate, or, An entrance into the church being a familiar explanation of the grounds of religion conteined in the fowr [sic] heads of catechism, viz. the Lords prayer, the Apostles creed, the Ten commandments, the sacraments / fitted to vulgar understanding by A.L.	Littleton, Adam, 1627-1694.	1662 (1662)	Wing L2573; ESTC R34997	164,412	526

have his Maker and his God turn Idolater he bids him that dwelleth on high fall down such a fall too as would be lower then the divel 's own fall for it must be below him it must be to him Fall down and worship me Oh impudent blasphemous absurdity what divel could put such thoughts into Satan's heart such words into 's mouth that God whom all the Gods worship should himself worship For he knew very well whom he had to doe with in this encounter that he was the Son of God having been often cast out by him confessing it here with an If. And whom what wouldst thou have him worship an image an idol stocks and stones why thou canst not perswade any men that have their reason about them to doe so What is 't some Saint or Angel Thou knowst his Angels have charge of him and are bid worship him what then speak Lucifer me Oh diabolical pride oh unsufferable rudeness which a poor creature can hardly have patience to hear that God at whose name the divels tremble should be tempted by the divel to worship that divel that tempts him Me thinks one cannot read this passage without a great horrour and an agony of fear that God should suffer his onely Son God equal to the Father to be tempted by the divel to the foulest of sins Idolatry to the worst of creatures the divel What care and vigilance ought we to have what fear and jealousy How should we watch and fast and prepare our selves for spiritual conflicts and beg strength from above that our hearts may be garrison'd and kept by grace And since Christ himself was thus brought into the clutches of Satan what great reason have we to pray that we may not be led into temptation Now there is a twofold temptation one for tryal whereby God doth keep the graces of his Saints in exercise so God searches the hearts and tryes the raines of the children of men as silver is tryed in a fornace Thus Abraham's faith Iob's patience c. were tryed nay sometimes God leav's his best servants to themselves and lets them catch falls to keep them humble and to let them know that their strength is from him God tempts for tryall the divel onely tempts for sin and sometimes too God imployes the divel in his tryals to heat the fornace which he does with an intention to destroy but God orders for experiment and probation Another is for hurt when we are tempted to sin to presumption or dispair Thus God tempts no man but judicially hardens impenitent sinners that harden themselv's in their evil way and gives them up to their lusts and into the power of the divel Thus we read he harden'd Pharaoh's heart put sometimes a lying spirit into the mouth of the Prophets let Satan tempt David to carnal confidence and the pride of numbring his people and our Saviour after the divel had filled Iudas heart bid him doe what he meant to doe quickly meaning that horrid treason of betraying his Master And of this kind of sinfull temptation is this especially to be understood though it mean also the other kind of tryals BUT DELIVER US FROM EVILL This infers the contrary that since we have so many to lead us into temptation God would rather lead us out and keep us from evil then lead us into it The opposition lyes in the words Lead us not but Deliver us i.e. bring us not into temptation but when we either of our selves fall into it or are by others led into it do thou bring us out and lead us forth rescue us out of the tempter's clutches and set us at liberty for so the word properly denotes deliverance out of an evil we are already in though the preposition will very well bear this sense that God would keep us totally from it as the Church teaches us to pray as well in time of health plenty as mortality and dearth from plague pestilence and famine good Lord deliver us We are kept from evil by preventing or restraining grace we are deliver'd out of it by assisting grace God keeps us from being tempted by the restraints of his grace and providence by alarming conscience by quenching lust by denying opportunities for sin by imploying a man and filling all his time with duty For 't is the idle soul that commonly proves the tempters prey Diligence in one's calling is a good preservative against vain thoughts and checks the approach of temptation shutting the doors windows by which it should enter God delivers us out of temptation by proportioning it to our strength so that we may not faint or grow evil under it which he doth either by lessening the burthen or strengthning the shoulders by supporting and bearing us up in conflict by making our faith victorious with heavenly supplyes of grace by the aid at the charge provision of his spirit and in fine by giving us a joyfull issue out of our temptations as he did with Ioseph by making his brethrens envy an occasion of his advancement with the Israelites by a wonderful delivery from a cruel bondage with Iob making his righteousness break forth as the Sun before his setting after those dismal storms and clouds which had darkned it Thus 't is Gods usual course to heighten the rewards of his tryed servants which have fought a good fight and layes up a crown of glory for them Indeed in every temptation the tempter comes by the worst and 't is to the divel 's disadvantage for if it take 't is true 't is his hellish delight to see souls perish yet however it increases his guilt as being accessary to anothers sin and consequently must needs increase his punishment improve his torments If it meet with repulse it cannot choose but be great torment to this spightful spirit to see that he has been instrumental in raising the happiness and furthering the salvation and heightning the gloryes of the Saints every baffled temptation is a step higher into glory and if I may say it we get up to heaven on Satan's back by trampling him under our feet A Saint goes triumphant with a train of conquer'd lusts and as Samson carried away the gates of Azza breaks the gates the powers of hell to force his passage None in so high a form of glory as those who have most scarrs to shew and who have the buckler of their faith batter'd and shatter'd with temptations We are to fight under Christ's banner and he will be most blessed who shall be found likest his master and have the marks of Christ's wounds imprinted not so much upon their body as the Legend has it of St. Francis I mean by outward sufferings as upon his soul by the violent assaults of temptation St. Paul indeed sayes of himself I wear the marks of our Lord Iesus in my body it may be that which in another place we render a thorn in the flesh

to their proper only object Thou shalt believe in me and put thy trust in me and love me and love those that doe love me and hate those that hate me and what I hate with a perfect hatred Sin thou shalt rejoyce in my favour and delight thy self in me nor shalt thou take any occasion of sadness but from my displeasure and let fall thy countenance when I hide mine thou shalt meekly submit to my disposals and burn with zeal for my glory thy soul shall cleave fast unto me and thou shalt serve me faithfully all the dayes of thy life Thou shalt behave thy self alwayes as in my presence and shalt have respect to me and be afraid of doing any thing that may offend me in the deepest retirements of thy most private thoughts for all things lye open and naked before me BEFORE ME. This is added to shew God's Omnipresence as a grievous aggravation of the sin that the setting up another God though never so secretly though never so much out of the sight of men will be a down right affront to the searcher of hearts to God who sees in secret and that he will not indure the competition of any rival for he alone is the God that made Heaven and Earth and whatsoever else fond superstition has found out for the object of worship is either the work of his hands or the work of mens hands This circumstance may justly affright us into a great circumspection and wariness for the ordering our thoughts and composing our desires of setling our spirits and governing the inward man since God's all piercing eye is upon us he understands even our thoughts afar of Some Interpreters render it Beside me And this though it be not so Emphatical as the other particle yet it more plainly infers the affirmative part of the precept i.e. Thou shalt have no other Gods but thou shalt have me for thy God The Hebrew affords a pretty note from the Syntax the Verb being of a different number from the Noun that Singular and this Plural as if it would be a solecism and irregular construction to own more Gods then one since there can be but one Infinite one first cause one supream and if we should fancie a Pluralitie of Gods in a coordination the one would bound and hinder and countermand the other and if we fancie them in a subordination 't is only the highest is God the rest are no Gods There are indeed as the Apostle sayes Gods many and Lords many i.e. such as are called Gods titular Gods yet we have but one God the Father of whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Iesus Christ through whom are all things and we through him for as he said immediately before We know that an Idoll is nothing in the world and that there is no God but one If now we would but search into our selves and make inquiry into our hearts how little I fear should we find of God there How full should we see our selves of superstition prophaneness Having plac'd worse things in God's stead then any of his own creatures which was the folly of Heathenism setting up self in the Throne serving divers lusts and pleasures preferring every vanity before him making our Belly our interest our sport our sin our God Setting not his fear before our eyes nor living at all to his glory and in short being by profession indeed Christians but in conversation Atheists who know that there is a God yet glorifie him not as God so that we may justly make use here of the Churches Prayer Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this Law The second Commandement The first prescribes the object of our worship and forbids a false God This regulates the manner and way of worship and prohibits a false service of the true God And herein the confidence of the Roman-Church is to be admir'd which to defend its Idolatry fears not to commit sacriledge and casheirs this Commandement from being one of the ten thinking they make good amends by as absurdly parting the Tenth as they have audaciously remov'd this And what they say for themselves that they doe not worship the Image it self but God at or by or through the Image and that the service is transient to the Idoll and terminated upon God is no more then an ingenuous Idolater of Heathen Rome would have said seeing no man of understanding could be so blockish as to pay the civility of his devotions to a log of wood or to an Artist's phantasm and caress a dead thing but they surely meant their Adoration to the Deity represented and understood by that gross resemblance Possibly the vulgar sort lookt no farther then the Idoll it self which may I suppose without breach of Charity be thought of a great part of the Laity amongst these Christian Idolaters whose Ignorance is the mother of their Devotion who if they knew God better according to the first Commandement would not worship Images contrary to the second This Commandement hath two parts an Explication and a Reason The explication first of the object what is meant by Idoll set down in two terms Graven Image or any likeness amplified by Induction or a particular enumeration of things in Heaven above in the earth beneath or in the water under the earth which are the three great parts of the Univers wherein all things are contained by this means leaving no evasion for Idolatry no thing no place unnam'd that might be abus'd to such a purpose Secondly of the Act what the making to ones self means and that in two terms too Bowing down to them or Adoration and worship or service For so the word in the original expresses it forbidding the Dulia the lower worship as well as the Latria the higher and voiding that idle distinction of two sorts of religious worship The Reason is fetch'd from the nature of God represented here by four attributes His power for he is a strong God so the Hebrew word El signifies and so the Septuagint render it His jealousie He is a jealous God His Iustice demonstrated in his vengeance upon sinners And his mercy that he deals kindly with the righteous where he aggravates the guilt of the one and heightens the respect of the other by the title he gives them Those he stiles his enemyes and haters i.e. those which transgress his Laws especially this These his friends and lovers to wit that keep his Commandements And he is just and merciful not only to them but to their posterity after them also yet with this difference that his vengeance stops at the third or fourth generation but his kindness propagates it self to thousands THOU SHALT NOT MAKE UNTO THEE This do's not then simply forbid making Images or pictures nor condemn the Art of the graving toole and the Pencil as if carving and painting were sinfull employments Statues and Pictures may be had for