Selected quad for the lemma: saint_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
saint_n	altar_n	prayer_n	throne_n	1,329	5	9.2496	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59899	A vindication of both parts of the Preservative against popery in an answer to the cavils of Lewis Sabran, Jesuit / by William Sherlock ...	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1688 (1688)	Wing S3370; ESTC R21011	87,156	120

knee As I observed before that how dear soever the Saints are to God they are but his Creatures and if Soveraign Princes will not receive their greatest Favourites into their Throne much less will God. This is another of his Misrepresentations that I say the Papists by their worshipping Saints Angels and the Virgin Mary put them in the Throne of God but this I do not say but only that God will not take any of his Creatures into his Throne But yet if giving Religious Worship placed the Heathen Deities in God's Throne I would gladly be satisfied why the Worship of Saints and Angels should not be thought to do the same I am sure to worship Saints in the same Temple and at the same Altar and with the same humble Prostrations and in the very same Prayers that we worship God looks very like placing a Favourite on the same Throne with his Prince but yet this is not the dispute whether they do so or not but whether it be not so like it that it is unreasonable to think that Christ who came to root out all Idolatry will allow or command it Another kind of Idolatry the Heathens were fond of was the Worship of Images and Pictures whereby they represented their Gods as visibly present with them For they wanted some material representations of their Gods in which they might as it were see them present and offer up their Petitions to them and court them with some visible and sensible honours To cure this kind of Idolatry under the Law though God forbad the Worship of Images yet he appoints them to erect a Tabernacle or Temple where he would dwell among them and place the Symbols of his Presence the Mercy-seat and the Cherubims covering the Mercy-seat which was a symbolical Representation of God's Throne in Heaven where he is surrounded with Angels as the Holy of Holies itself was the Figure of Heaven Thus under the Law to give them assurance of his presence with them though they could not see him he had a peculiar Place for Worship and peculiar Symbols of his Presence but no Images to represent his Person or to be the Objects of Worship And here I took notice of that Pretence of the Church of Rome for Image-Worship that the Cherubims were worshipped by the Iews and particularly answered the Arguments of the late Bishop of Oxford to prove it and it had been worthy of the Jesuite to have made some reply to this but he was wiser than to meddle with it among other things the Bishop had urged David's Exhortation to the People to Honour the Ark Bow down to or worship his Foot-stool for it or he is holy 99 Psalm to prove that the Iews worshipped the Cherubims this I said was very strange when he himself four Pages before had told us that the Ark was God's Foot-stool and the Cherubims his Throne now suppose David had exhorted the people to Worship the Ark which as he says is God's Foot-stool how does this prove that they must Worship the Cherubims which are God's Throne this he calls a misrepresentation and so it is indeed and a very gross one too but it is his own for he represents this as my Argument against the Worship of the Cherubims that they were commanded indeed to Worship the Ark which was God's Foot-stool but not the Cherubims which were his Throne whereas I never granted that by the Foot-stool of God was meant the Ark but all that I said was that if the Ark as the Bishop affirmed was meant by God's Foot-stool and the Cherubims were his Throne then though there had been such a Command to 〈…〉 God 's Foot-stool this could not prove the worship of the ●●erubims which in his Divinity were not the Foot-stool but the Throne of God. This he could not be ignorant of because I expresly proved that by the Foot-stool of God could not be meant the Ark for the Ark was in the Holy of Holies which was a figure of Heaven and neither the Heaven nor any thing in it but the Earth is in Scripture called God's Foot-stool as the Psalmist expresly applies it to Zion and the Holy Hill. And this I observed is a sufficient confutation of his Exposition of the words to bow down to or worship his Foot-stool for Mount Zion or the Holy Hill was not the Object of Worship nor Symbol of God's Presence but there God was present and that was reason enough to worship him at his Foot-stool and at his Holy Hill as our English Translation reads it I added Suppose the Jews were to direct their Worship towards the Mercy-seat which was covered by the Cherubims where God had promised to be present how are the Cherubims concerned in this Worship the Worship was paid only to God though directed to God as peculiarly present in that place which is no more than to lift up our eyes and hands to Heaven where the Throne of God is when we pray to him but he adds the very Image for example of Christ crucified is the Object of the Worship of Papists which is certainly true but he should have given my own words The Bishop had said that bowing to or towards any thing was the same thing this I granted if they bowed to or towards any thing as the Object of Worship and therefore had the Iews either bowed to or towards the Cherubims as the Objects of their Worship as the Papists bow to or towards their Images they had been equally guilty of Idolatry and the breach of the Second Commandment but when bowing to signifies bowing to an Object of Worship and bowing towards signifies bowing to this Object of Worship only towards such a place where he is peculiarly present this makes a vast difference And this he calls a Misrepresentation that I say Papists bow to their Images as Objects of Worship but this has been so often proved upon them in the several Answers to the Representer and M. de Meaux and his Vindicator that it would be as foolish in me to prove it again as it is impudent in him to deny it But I observed farther that in the Gospel God has provided a more effectual remedy against Image-Worship in the Incarnation of his Son. Mankind have been always fond of some visible Deity and because God cannot be seen they have gratified their superstition by making some visible Images and Representations of an invisible God Now to take them off from mean corporeal Images and Representations which are both a dishonour to the Divine Nature and debase the Minds of Men God has given us a visible Image of himself has clothed his own Eternal Son with Humane Nature who is the brightness of his Father's Glory and the express Image of his Person Now when God has given us a visible Image of himself his eternal and incarnate Son whom we may worship and adore can we think he will allow us to worship material and sensible Images of Wood and Stone