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

As in the first place we may be informed,¹ How great and grievous a sin Idolatry is. No wonder if the Prophets are so severe against it,² and that it be made the chief cause of all the National calamities that come upon a Nation; for in reference to this sin doth the Scripture peculiarly speak of Gods jealousy, nothing provoketh God so much as that. Now this Idolatry is of two sorts, either first, When we set up a false God for the true; so did all the Heathens, when they worshipped the host of heaven, or their other constituted Gods. Or secondly, When the true God is worshipped, but after a false and unlawful manner. The first Commandment forbids the former Idolatry; the second, the later. God forbade the Israelites to worship him under any representation whatsoever, so that though it were the true God they worshipped, yet if not after the same manner he commanded, this was idolatry. Thus when the Israelites made a calf, they intended thereby a worship to the true God, therefore they said, To morrow shall be a feast to Jehovah, Exod. 32.5. It was Jehovah the God of Israel they intended to worship, but they would make such an Image or representation that they had seen in Egypt. And thus also in Popery, all the water of Tiber cannot wash them clean from Idolatry; for although their Learned men run to multitude of distinctions, sometimes between an Idol and an Image, whereas they differ only as Greek and Latin, [Greek or Hebrew] is maguncula, a diminutive of [Greek or Hebrew]; sometimes about Religious worship primary and secondary, as if we should say, a primary and secondary Deity, and when they have disputed all they can, they confess ignorant people commit much Idolatry, and that he must be very Metaphysical that can in his worship make such distinctions; yea they dispute, Whether it be not a dangerous and offensive Proposition, to say, Imagines sunt adorando. Take we heed then of this Idolatry, and the rather, because it's a sin all are prone unto: Consider the Jews, though immediately trained up, and instructed by God about his worship; though often and often grievously plagued for it, yet upon all temptations they would run into it again: and the Heathens, Rom. 1. even the wisest of them, were most absurd in their Idolatry: