CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…

As 1. All those doctrinal Opinions in Popery about visible Images and Crucifixes to represent God and Christ, what are these but even to desire Christ to be here bodily with us still: And because this cannot be, therefore we have a Crucifix, we keep some bodily representation of him; This the Papists commend as of special use to stir up devotion; Hence some of them make the same kind of worship to be given to a Crucifix as to Christ himself; Thus Christ is wholly neglected spiritually, he is not propounded as a Mediator to Faith, but as a pleasing picture to the sense; And thus also though God be a Spirit, and he would not appear to the Israelites in any similitude, that they might not make any Image of him, yet how prone were they to make similitudes of God, and is this only among Papists? Are not the common people so ignorant and superstitious as to be doting upon such visible Objects, Even as little Children love to play with Babies.

As 1. All those doctrinal Opinions in Popery about visible Images and Crucifixes to represent God and Christ, what are these but even to desire Christ to be here bodily with us still: And because this cannot be, therefore we have a Crucifix, we keep some bodily representation of him; This the Papists commend as of special use to stir up devotion; Hence some of them make the same kinde of worship to be given to a Crucifix as to Christ himself; Thus Christ is wholly neglected spiritually, he is not propounded as a Mediatour to Faith, but as a pleasing picture to the sence; And thus also though God be a Spirit, and he would not appear to the Israelites in any similitude, that they might not make any Image of him, yet how prone were they to make similitudes of God, and is this only among Papists? Are not the common people so ignorant and superstitious as to be doting upon such visible Objects, Even as little Children love to play with Babies.

2. Our proneness to know Christ after a corporal manner is seen in the ⟨p. 336⟩Doctrine of Transubstantiation, where the Papists hold the Bread and Wine to be really turned into the body and blood of Christ, that it's no longer bread or Wine but Christs body and blood; Therefore they look not up to Christ in heaven by Faith, but to Christ in the Sacrament, as if his corporal being there were all in all; Insomuch that all the affection and devotion they put forth in a Sacrament is wholly visible and carnal; They worship it as if the body of Christ were there; They set it up to be seen that all may bodily fall down and worship; Thus all is done in a corporal manner, and whereas of old it was sursum corda, now it is deorsum corda; None are more devoid of spiritual Understanding then those that are thus busied in a visible carnal way of Religion.