The second reply of Thomas CartwrightThe second replie of Thomas Cartwright

Now this that every drunken poet, and boy, &c. can tell to be otherwise, let us see whether grave / learned / sober / and ancient divines / do not plainly confirm. Augustine (which is here alleged / to prove that the gentiles did take the very images them selves to be ¹their gods) showeth that the very vulgar / and grossest sort of ⟨p. CLXXXVII⟩Idolaters / could answer when they were rebuked of their Idolatry / and heathenish worship: that they worshipped not the visible image, but that which dwelt invisibly in it. and that they off the finer sort answered / that they neither worshipped the image, nor any spirit in the image, but by that bodily image did behold the sign off that thing, which they ought to worship. M. Calvin (answering unto the Papists objection / ²that their images are not taken for gods) saith thus. Nether were the Jews (saith he) so unwise, that they did not remember that it was God, by whose hand they were brought out off Egypt, before they made the calf: yea unto Aaron saying, that those were their gods which brought them out of Egypt, they did without staggering consent, giving thereby to understand assuredly, that they would keep still the same God for their deliverer, so that they might see him goo before them in the calf. Nether is it to be thought that the Gentiles were so blockish, that they did not understand that God was some other thing, then wood, or stone. For they changed their images oftentimes, and yet kept the same gods still in there mind: and their were many Images set up to one God, neither did they therefore according to that multitude, imagine many Goddes. Besides that daily they consecrated new Images. and yet they thought not therefore that they made new Goddes. And towards the end off that section he writeth thus: Notwithstanding both the Jews were Persuaded, that under such Images they worshipped the eternal god, the one, true lord off heaven and earth: and the Gentiles also that by them they worshipped their gods although false, yet which they imagined to have their abode in heaven. And in the beginning off the tenth section: Those which deny, that this was done in times paste, and is done in our age, lye impudently.

Nowe this that euery dronken poete, and boy, &c. can tell to be otherwise, let vs see whether graue / learned / sober / ād anciēte diuines / doo not plainely confirme. Augustine (vvhich is here alledged / to proue that the gentils did take the verie images them selues to be