A14239:43
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.
But admit they did not account the Image it self to be God, (will the Papist further say;) yet were those images set up to represent either things that had no being, or devils, or false gods; and in that respect were Idols: whereas we erect Images only to the honour of the true God, and of his servants the Saints and Angels. To this I might oppose that answer of the Heathen to the Christians: eWe do not worship evil spirits: such as you call Angels, those do we also worship, the powers of the great God, and the Ministers of the great God. and put them in mind of S. Augustine's reply: fI would you did worship them; you should easily learn of them not to worship them. But I will grant unto them, that many of the Idolatrous Jews & Heathens Images were such as they say they were: yet I deny that all of them were such, and confidently ⟨p. 33⟩do avouch, that Idolatry is committed by yielding adoration to an Image of the true God himself. For proof whereof (omitting the Idols of gMicah, and hJeroboam, which were erected to the memory of Jehovah the God of Israel; as also the Athenians superstitious worship of the *Unknown God, Act. 17.23. if, as the common use of Idolaters was, they added an Image to their Altar:) I will content my self with these two places of Scripture; the one whereof concerneth the Jews, the other the Heathen. That which toucheth the Heathen, is in the first Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans: where the Apostle having said, that God had showed unto them that which might be known of him; and that the invisible things of him, that is, his eternal power and God-head, was manifested unto them by the creation of the world, and the contemplation of the creatures: he addeth presently, that God was sorely displeased with them, and therefore gave them up unto vile affections, because they changed the glory of that uncorruptible God, into an Image made like to corruptible men, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Whereby it is evident, that the Idolatry condemned in the wisest of the Heathen, was the adoring of the invisible God, whom they acknowledged to be the Creator of all things, in visible Images fashioned to the similitude of men and beasts.