The temple A sermon preached at Pauls Cross the fifth of August. 1624. By…The temple A sermon preached at Pauls Crosse the fifth of August. 1624. By…

I intend no polemical discourse of this point, by examining their Arguments: that business is fitter for the School, then the Pulpit. And, O God, that either School or Pulpit in Christendom should be troubled about it! that any man should dare to make that a question, which the Lord hath so plainly and punctually forbidden! Beside the Iniquity, how grievous is the absurdity? How is a body without a spirit, like to a spirit without a body? A visible picture, like an invisible nature? How would the King take it in scorn, to have his picture made like a Weasel or a Hedgehog? And yet the difference betwixt the greatest Monarch, and the least Emmet, is nothing to the distance betwixt a finite & an infinite. If they allege with the Anthropomorphites, that ⟨p. 21⟩the Scripture attributes to God hands, and feet, and eyes: why therefore may they not represent him in the same forms? But we say, the Scripture also speaks of his covering us with the shadow of his wings; why therefore do they not paint him like a Bird with feathers? If they say, that he appeared to Daniel in this form, because he is there called the Ancient of days: we answer, that Gods Commandments, and not his apparitions, be rules to us: by the former we shall be judged, and not by the latter. It is mad Religion, to neglect what he bids us do, and to imitate what he hath done: as if we should despise his Laws, and go about to counterfeit his thunder. God is too infinite for the comprehension of our souls, why should we then labour to bring him into the narrow compass of boards & stones? Certainly, that should not be Imaged, which cannot be Imagined. But Christ was a man, why may not his Image be made? Some answer, that no man can make an Image of Christ, without leaving out the chief part of him, which is his Divinity. It was the Godhead united to the manhood, that makes him Christ: sure this cannot be painted. But why should we make Christs Image without Christs warrant? The Lord hath forbidden the making of any Image, whether of things in heaven, where Christ ⟨p. 22⟩is; or of things on earth, where Christ was; to worship them. Now till God revoke that precept, what can authorise this practice?

I intend no polemicall discourse of this poynt, by examining their Arguments: that businesse is fitter for the Schoole, then the Pulpit. And, O God, that either Schoole or Pulpit in Christendome should be troubled about it! that any man should dare to make that a question, which the Lord hath so plainely and punctually forbidden! Beside the Iniquity, how grieuous is the absurdity? How is a body without a spirit, like to a spirit without a body? A visible picture, like an inuisible nature? How would the King take it in scorne, to haue his picture made like a Wesell or a Hedgehog? And yet the difference betwixt the greatest Monarch, and the least Emmet, is nothing to the distance betwixt a finite & an infinite. If they alledge with the Anthropomorphites, that