A37046:301
The law unsealed
The law unsealed: or, A practical exposition of the Ten Commandments With a resolution of several momentous questions and cases of conscience. By the learned, laborious, faithful servant of Jesus Christ, Mr. James Durham, late minister of the Gospel at Glasgow.
Glasgow: printed by Robert Sanders, 1676
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.
3. It may appear by the Heathens own confession, and the shifts they used, when they were charged with the worshipping the works of their hands, as 1. They used to say they worshipped but the Numen or god which was in them, and which invisibly after their dedication of them (and not before) dwelt in them; yea, some of them would say, they neither worshipped that Image, or any Devil, but by a bodily sign they beheld what they should worship. 3. When Christians further urged them, that what was signified by their Images was not the true God, but a creature, as by Neptune, the Sea▪ by Vulcan, the Fire, &c. They replied it was not those bodies which they worshipped, but the gods which governed them. So Augustine, Psalm 113. nobis 115. concerning the Idols of the Gentiles, and Augustine de Civitat. Dei lib. 7. cap. 5. where he showeth that Varro giveth that reason, why the gods where rather portrayed in mans picture (though they were invisible) because, saith he, mans Soul is a spirit and cometh nearest them, and the body is the vessel of the Soul, and therefore is used to represent it. See Ch•ysost. 1. Eph. Hom. 18. Andrews on 2. Command. August. in Psalm 96. (nobis) 97.
3. It may appear by the Heathens own confession, and the shifts they used, when they were charged with the worshipping the works of their hands, as 1. They used to say they worshipped but the Numen or god which was in them, and which invisibly after their dedication of them (and not before) dwelt in them; yea, some of them would say, they neither worshipped that Image, or any Devil, but by a bodily sign they beheld what they should worship. 3. When Christians further urged them, that what was signified by their Images was not the true God, but a creature, as by Neptune, the Sea▪ by Vulcan, the Fire, &c. They replyed it was not those bodies which they worshipped, but the gods which governed them. So Augustine, Psalm 113. nobis 115. concerning the Idols of the Gentils, and Augustine de Civitat. Dei lib. 7. cap. 5. where he sheweth that Varro giveth that reason, why the gods where rather pourtrayed in mans picture (though they were invisible) because, saith he, mans Soul is a spirit and cometh nearest them, and the body is the vessel of the Soul, and therefore is used to represent it. See Chysost. 1. Eph. Hom. 18. Andrews on 2. Command. August. in