Sermons upon Deuteronomy

Again, what is to be said of the reasons that are alleged through the whole holy scripture? served they but only for a time? or rather ought they not to stand fast for ever?¹ Behold, Isaiah upbraideth the Jews, that they had disfigured the majesty of God. And why? To whom have ye likened me, saith he? The complaint that God maketh is this: doth wood or stone resemble me? As for them, they be but dead & corruptible things. Doth it not well appear then, that dishonour and wrong is offered to my being, when men go about after that sort to represent me under such shapes? ⟨p. 135⟩Now is God changed since that time? Is he not the same that he was? Then if he had no likeness to wood and stone in old time: neither is he like them now. And therefore it followeth that this neither ought to be nor can be restrained to any one time, but must continue, for ever: Furthermore whereas the Papists allege, that Gods restraining of idolatry so straitly, was because the Jews were so much inclined to superstition: I would with all my hart §10that it were in their power to amend men and to draw them from their error. But what? The world sees it is all one still. For if ever the Jews were fleshed in their foolish vanities: the world is never a whit amended now, but rather become worse. As soon as men do think upon God, by and by they will needs have somewhat that resembleth their own kind, and thereupon they fall to making of images. And when they once have any thing to gaze at, they §20cling to that, and their devotion is tied to it, so as they never go about to lift up their hearts to heaven, to worship God and to call upon him. We see this with our eyes. What a beastliness then is it to say, that only the Jews were forbidden to worship images, that it is lawful for us nowadays to do it? Yea, but we see how the new testament also doth speak of it. For the reasons as well of Moses as of the prophets which we have touched already,² are §30alleged by Saint Paul,³