A14239:42
A sermon preached before the Commons-House [sic] of Parliament, in Saint Margarets Church at…A sermon preached before the Commos-House [sic] of Parliament, in Saint Margarets Church at…
A sermon preached before the Commons-House [sic] of Parliament, in Saint Margarets Church at Westminster, the 18. of February. 1620. By James Usher. Professor of Divinity in the University of Dublin, in IrelandA sermon preached before the Commos-House [sic] of Parliament, in Saint Margarets Church at Westminster, the 18. of February. 1620. By Iames Vssher. Professor of Diuinitie in the Vniuersitie of Dublin, in Ireland
London: printed by I.Dawson for John Bartlett, 1624London: printed by I.Dawson for Iohn Bartlett, 1624
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The Heathen, say they, held the Images themselves to be gods, which is far from our thought. Admit, some of the simpler sort of the Heathen did so: what shall we say of the Jewish Idolaters, (of whom the Apostle here speaketh) who erected the golden Calf in the Wilderness? Can we think ye they were all so senseless, as to imagine that the Calf, which they knew was not at all in rerum naturâ, and had no being at that time when they came out of Egypt, should yet be that God which brought them up out of the land of Egypt? 1And for the Heathen: did the Romans and Grecians, when they dedicated in several places an hundred Images (for example) to the honour of Jupiter, the king of all their gods, think that thereby they had made an hundred Jupiters? or when their blocks were so old, that they had need to have new placed in their stead; did they think by this change of their Images, that they made change ⟨p. 32⟩also of their gods? without question they must so have thought, if they did take the very Images themselves to be their gods: and yet the Prophet bids us consider diligently; and we shall find that the Heathen nations did not change their gods, (Jerem. 2.10, 11.) Nay, what do we meet with, more usually in the writings of the Fathers, then these answers of the Heathens for themselves? aWe worship the gods by the Images. bWe fear not them, but those to whose image they are made, and to whose names they are consecrated. cI do not worship that stone, nor that Image which is without sense. dI neither worship the Image nor a spirit in it: but by the bodily portraiture I do behold the sign of that thing which I ought to worship.
The Heathen, say they, held the Images themselues to be gods, which is far from our thought. Admit, some of the simpler sort of the Heathen did so: what shall we say of the Iewish Idolaters, (of whom the Apostle here speaketh) who erected the golden Calfe in the Wildernesse? Can wee thinke ye they were all so senselesse, as to imagine that the Calfe, which they knew was not at all in rerum naturâ, and had no being at that time when they came out of Egypt, should yet be that God which brought them vp out of the land of Egypt?