Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	world_n	worship_n	writing_n	13	3	7.9064	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45420	Of idolatry	Hammond, Henry, 1605-1660.	1646 (1646)	Wing H555A; ESTC R40543	38,623	40

give him occasion of observing that the word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} idol though it signifie an image or sculpture or representation sometimes yet it signifies somewhat else besides that particularly these two things 1. the Heathen Gods under the notion of false together with the Temples wherein they were worshiped 2. The same again and their worships under the notions of filthy unclean and abominable Which two notions of the word that we may proceed a step further we shall now look on as they were in order to worship and that will open to us some entrance to a view of idolatry or the worship of idols what it is 14 For the former the worshiping of false Gods and images I shall give you a brief narration of it out of the soberest of the Jewish writers Maimonides l. 1. de Idololatria The first rise of Idolatry is saith he to be referred to the dayes of Enosh when men taking notice how God had created the Starres and Sphears for the government of the world and by placing them in so eminent a state seemed to mak them partakers of his honour and used them as his Ministers and Officers resolved it their duty to laud and extoll and honour them and taught others that this was the will of God that we should magnifie and worship those whom he had preferred and dignified as a King would have his Ministers honoured and that that is the honouring of God Vpon this foundation saith he they began to build Temples to the Starres to sacrifice to them bow themselves before them that by so doing they might obtain Gods favour and this was the ground of Idolatry not that they thought there was no God but the Starres but that they thought this worship performed to them to be the will of God In processe of time false Prophets arose pretending messages from God and directions for the worshiping of such or such a Starre nay for the sacrificing to all the host of them building them Temples making pictures of them that might be adored by women children and all others and to that purpose they invented certain figures affirming them to be revealed to them by prophesie to be the images of such Starres Thereupon men began to make images in Temples under trees on the top of hills and all men to meet and worship them resolving and proclaiming that from those images all good and evil did proceed and therefore in all reason they were to be feared and worshiped the Priests promising all increase and prosperity as the reward of this worship and prescribing of rules for the performance of it After these other impostours rose that affirmed such a Starre or Sphear or Angel to have spoken to them and prescribed their way and manner of worship in summe it was generally spread over the world that images were to be worshiped each by a peculiar manner of sacrifice and adoration and the name of God was quite lost out of the mouth and minds of all men so farre as not to be acknowledged by them but all sorts of people worshiped nothing but images of wood and stone built temples on purpose for them adored and sware by their name and even the Priests and wise men among them thought that there was no other God but those starres c. for whose sakes these images were made As for the great God of this world no mortall knew him save onely Henoch Methusalah Noah Sem and Heber and so it continued till Abraham was born the pillar of the world Thus much Maimon and much more by way of story and observation And what is thus by him observed of the heathens is by others deduced as clearly for the idolizing of Kings and great persons {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} men admired by their flatterers saith Chrysostome which besides the testimony of Wisd. 14. 17. and Aristotle Met. 1. where he shews how admiration of great men and benefactours hath been the great principle of idolatry or men-worship is every where observable in the story of the Romane Cesars no man dying without an {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or being made a God and then constantly the setting up of their statues in their Temples following as an attendant of it 15 Many Stages you see in this accursed progresse of idol-worship before they came to images and that last so prodigious a pitch such a dishonouring of the deity that the Psalmist could not say any thing more reprochfull of the makers of them and trusters in them then that they were {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} like or equall to their Gods 16 To this purpose there are three notable passages which I shall but mention and leave to be viewd at large the one Isai. 44. 13. to the twentieth verse and the other Wisd. 13. 11. and so to the end of that Chapter the third in the Epistle of Jeremy shewing the ridiculous progresse of a knotty piece of wood into a solemne deity and the irrationall senselessenesse of that worship even in the judgement of Heathens themselves witnesse Heraclitus {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} praying to inanimate things is like talking to houses And yet this madnesse the constant disease of those that had set up any other deitie but that of the onely true God of heaven that ever adored any creature {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Rom. 1. not onely more as we render it but besides or except the Creatour There being no stay for those that became thus vain to worship any thing but God no stop in their tumbling as Maimon phrases it to that deep gulf of impietie the worship of the most inanimate mean creatures in the world 17 The truth is Maximus Tyrius gives a more favourable ingenious account of this matter {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} That as letters were invented for the expressing of words that so by the help of writing the weaknesse of mens memories might be repaired so the images of the Gods were provided to help the infirmities of men in which they may lay up the names of their Gods {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and the famous things that are worth remembring of them and in brief to help them to celebrate their Gods as they ought as so many {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} help and manuductions for remembrance and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} signes and tokens of their honouring them Trophees as it were of their Noble acts to perpetuate the memory of them So that although as he acknowledges God be invisible to eyes yet in respect of our infirmity and again of the nature of Lovers to love to behold their pictures whom they love it will not be amisse to use any thing that may thus bring us in mind of God and all this with a caution that nothing be terminated in the picture but the love and remembrance and everything bestowed upon