Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	saviour_n	spirit_n	worship_v	2,314	5	9.2452	5	false

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

Temple at Ierusalem but though he had his Temple yet he had no Image which the Heathen World thought essential to a Temple For though a symbolical Presence was no confinement of God nor injurious to his Majesty yet a material Image was And yet Solomon in his Prayer of Dedication took care to prevent the Heathen notion of a Temple as if Cod were confined to it for he owns his Omnipresence that he fills both Heaven and Earth only he prays that he would have a more particular regard to that place and to those Prayers which should be offered up there 1 Kings 8. 27 28 c. But will God indeed dwell on the earth Behold the Heaven and Heaven of Heavens cannot contain thee how much less this house that I have builded Yet have thou respect unto the Prayer of thy Servant and to his Supplication O Lord my God to hearken unto the cry and to the Prayer which thy Servant prayeth before thee this day That thine eyes may be open to this House night and day c. And therefore we may observe that the Temple was so contrived as to be a figure of the whole world For the Holy of Holies was a figure of Heaven into which the High Priest entered once a year Heb. 9. 24. and therefore the rest of the Temple signified this earth and the daily worship and Service of it which plainly signified to them that that God who dwelt in the Temple was not confined to that material Building but filled Heaven and Earth with his Presence though he was pleased to have a more peculiar regard to that place and to the Prayers and Sacrifices which were offered there And yet it seems that God would not so far have indulged them at that time as to confine his Worship and peculiar Presence to a certain place had it not been for the sake of some more Divine Mystery For Gods Symbolical and Figurative Presence in the Tabernacle and Temple was only a Type of the Incarnation of the Son of God of his dwelling among us in a humane Body or material Temple as St. Iohn plainly intimates 1 Iohn 14. The word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his Glory the Glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of Grace and Truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he Tabernacled among us dwelt among us as God under the Law did in the Tabernacle or Temple and Christ expresly calls his Body the Temple 2. Iohn 19. Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up which the Evangelist tells us he spake of the Temple of his Body 21. v. and he affirms himself to be greater than the Temple 12. Matth. 6. he being that in Truth of which the Temple was a Figure God dwelling among us God dwelling in human Nature For this Reason the Worship of God was confined to the Temple at Ierusalem to signifie to us that we can offer up no acceptable Worship to God but in the Name and Mediation of Christ. But now under the Gospel all these Types and Figures being accomplished in the Person of our Saviour as their Priesthood and Sacrifices so their Temple also had an end as Christ expresly tells the Woman of Samaria who disputed with him about the place of Worship whether it were the Temple at Ierusalem or Samaria Woman believe me the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this Mountain nor yet at Jerusalem Worship the Father John 4. 21. which cannot signifie that they should Worship God neither at Ierusalem nor Samaria for there were famous Churches planted by the Apostles at both these places where they Worshipped God in Spirit and in Truth but it signifies that there should be no material Temple that the Presence of God should not be confined to a certain place as then it was to the Temple which occasioned that Dispute between the Iews and Samaritanes in which Temple God was perculiarly present but wheresoever they Worshipped God in Spirit and in Truth the place should make no difference in their Acceptation as it did under the Law which is not opposed to the erecting of decent and separate places of Worship under the Gospel but only to the Notion of a Temple That this was the sense of the Primitive Christians that they had no material Temples as the Heathens had is evident from their Writings for the Heathens made this objection against them that they had no Temples nor Images which is owned and answered by Origen against Celsus lib. 8. Minutius Faelix Arnobius Lactantius The force then of the Argument is this If under the Gospel God does not allow of so much as a Temple or Symbolical Presence which he did allow of under the Law when he forbad Images much less certainly does he allow Images now which he forbad under the Law. But Protestants have another Argument to prove that the Worship of Images is forbid by the Gospel as well as by the Law and that is that the Primitive Church always understood it so as is evident from the Writings of the Ancient Fathers who condemned the Worship of Images and urged such Arguments against it in their Disputes with the Heathens as had easily been retorted upon themselves had they practised the same thing and yet this was never objected against them by their wittiest Adversaries in that Age though when Image Worship began to be introduced into the Church it was presently objected against the Christians both by Jews and Heathens and which is more than this besides all the other Arguments which they used they alleadged the Second Commandment as the Reason why they could not Worship Images which is a certain Proof that they then thought the Second Commandment was still in force But I shall not enlarge upon this because it is so well done in a late Discourse concerning the Antiquity of the Protestant Religion Part 2. concerning Images to which I refer my Reader 13. The Pope is Antichrist I answered This has been affirmed by some Protestants but is no Article of our Church and therefore we are not bound to prove it but when we have a mind to it No Man ever pretended that there is any such Proposition in Scripture as that the Pope is Antichrist but some think that the Characters of Antichrist and the Man of Sin are much more applicable to him than the Universal Headship and Infalibility To this our Author answers p. 8. Do only some Protestants and no Homily subscribed as containing a Godly and wholsom Doctrine necessary for these times Article the Fifty fifth though the Church of England owns but Thirty nine Articles affirm the Pope to be Antichrist Yet we meet with no Scripture brought to prove this Godly necessary Doctrine Now though I could tell him that every saying in an Homily has not the Authority of an Article yet I need not enter into that Dispute for I am pretty confident it is no where expresly asserted in any of