Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	truth_n	worship_n	worship_v	19,034	5	9.4594	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59894	A short summary of the principal controversies between the Church of England, and the church of Rome being a vindication of several Protestant doctrines, in answer to a late pamphlet intituled, Protestancy destitute of Scripture-proofs.	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1687 (1687)	Wing S3365; ESTC R22233	88,436	166

Brazen Serpent which Moses set up in the Wilderness which was neither a God nor the Image of any God neither of the Lord Iehovah nor of any Heathen God and was not at first set up to be worshipped but only to be looked on by those who were stung with fiery Serpents and was preserved as a kind of holy Relique as a lasting memorial of that deliverance God wrought for them by it But when the Children of Israel burnt Incense to it though they could intend to Worship no other God in it but the Lord Iehovah who gave it that miraculous Power and could Worship it only as a memorative Sign of God's mighty Power yet Hezekiah destroyed it with the other Instruments of Idolatry 2 Kings 18. 4. And yet I think I could make a much better Apologie for the Worship of the Brazen Serpent than of the Cross. For that was a Type of Christ crucified a Type of God's own appointment a miraculous and wonder-working Type which I should think should as much deserve to be worshipped as the Picture or Image of the Tree whereon our Saviour died For if a memorative Sign of Christ deserve such Divine Honours let them give me a reason if they can why the Type of a cruoified Saviour ought not as much to be worshipped by the Iews in those days as the Figure of Christ's Cross now Thus the Protestants argue against the worship of Images from the Second Commandment and from the Reasons and Authorities of the Old Testament and as for the New Testament they can find no alteration made in this Law there we are commanded indeed to keep our selves from Idols but the Gospel has given us no new notion of Idolatry and therefore they reasonably conclude that what was Idolatry under the Old Testament is so under the New. And indeed they look upon the Second Commandment as a natural or moral Law and such Laws Christ neither did nor could alter no more than he could alter the Eternal Reasons of things For the Prohibition of Image-worship is founded in the Invisibility Purity Spirituality and immense Glory and Perfections of the Divine Nature which cannot be represented by matter and these Reasons are as unchangeable as God is and the Law must be as unchangeable as the Reasons of it And therefore we find these very Reasons urged by St. Paul in the times of the Gospel Forasmuch as we are the Offspring of God we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto Gold or Silver or Stone graven by Art or man's device Acts 17. 29. Not as if the Heathens fancied that their Gods were like the Images they worshipped for this is not only denied by their Philosophers but the very Nature of the thing shows it for they worshipped such kind of Images as it was impossible for them to conceive should be the likeness of any God not only the Images of Men but unpolished Stones and Trees Birds and Beasts and creeping things which they did not take to be Gods nor the proper likenesses of their Gods but symbolical Representations of them but the Apostles Argument is this That it is a ridiculous thing to make any Image of God when we cannot make any thing like him as foolish a thing as it would be to paint a Sound and that it is an affront to so glorious a Being to represent him by that which is so very unlike him and so infinitely unworthy of his Majesty and Greatness And though this Argument from the Invisibility and Spirituality of the Divine Nature does not conclude against making the Images of Christ and his Apostles who had the shape and figure of men which might be painted or carved no more than it did against many Images of Heathen Gods most of whom were no better than dead Men and Women yet it holds against the worship of any Image for God alone who is a pure and infinite Spirit is the sole Object of our religious Worship and to worship God by an Image is to reproach his Nature and to debase him as low as matter and to worship that which can be painted is to worship a false Object for Christ as God and so only he is the Object of our Worship cannot be painted and to worship any material Image though it be not made for the Supreme God is yet a Reproach to the Divine Nature as it signifies that something which is divine and a fit Object of our Adorations may be represented by material Images and Pictures But the Protestants consider farther that if the Worship of Images was forbid by the Law of Moses it must needs be much more contrary to the Gospel of our Saviour which has less to do with Matter and Sense than the Law had Our Saviour tells us That God is a Spirit and those who worship him must worship him in Spirit and in Truth in opposition to the external and typical and figurative Worship of the Law and if this typical Worship which was allowed when the Worship of Images was forbid be now abrogated as less pure and spiritual they think it very strange that the Worship of Images which is the most gross and material and unmanly Worship that can be invented shall be allowed under the spiritual state of the Gospel And there is one Argument to this purpose which I would desire our Author seriously to consider viz. That there is no material Temple in the Christian Church much less Statues and Images for the understanding of which we must consider what notions the Heathens had of their Temples what notion the Iews had of it and that there is no such Temple in the Christian Church As for the Heathens their Temples were the Houses of their Gods where they dwelt and were confined and shut up by some Magical Spells and Charms as the Images of their Gods were fastned there that they might be always present to attend the Sacrifices and Worship of their Votaries For they did not believe that their Gods were omnipresent and therefore they confined their presence to Temples and Images that they might know where to find them Their Temples were the places where they kept the Statues and Images of their Gods to whom such Temples were dedicated and where they believed such Gods dwelt according to that of Menander 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That a just and righteous God must tarry at home to defend those who placed him there This Origen gives an account of in his third and seventh Book against Celsus and the thing is so known that I need not prove it a Temple and an Image in the Heathen Theology were inseparably united an Image to represent their God a Temple as a House for him to dwell in and where they might be sure to find him Under the Jewish Law God so far condescended to the weakness of that People as to a have visible Presence among them first in the Tabernacle and then in the