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instituted by Moses in the Old, nor by Christ in the New Testament; nor
yet brought in from the Gentiles; but left amongst them, after they had
given their names to Christ. Before our Saviour preached, it was the
generall Religion of the Gentiles, to worship for Gods, those Apparences
that remain in the Brain from the impression of externall Bodies upon
the organs of their Senses, which are commonly called Ideas, Idols,
Phantasmes, Conceits, as being Representations of those externall
Bodies, which cause them, and have nothing in them of reality, no more
than there is in the things that seem to stand before us in a Dream:
And this is the reason why St. Paul says, "Wee know that an Idol is
Nothing:" Not that he thought that an Image of Metall, Stone, or Wood,
was nothing; but that the thing which they honored, or feared in
the Image, and held for a God, was a meer Figment, without place,
habitation, motion, or existence, but in the motions of the Brain.
And the worship of these with Divine Honour, is that which is in the
Scripture called Idolatry, and Rebellion against God. For God being King
of the Jews, and his Lieutenant being first Moses, and afterward the
High Priest; if the people had been permitted to worship, and pray to
Images, (which are Representations of their own Fancies,) they had
had no farther dependence on the true God, of whom there can be no
similitude; nor on his prime Ministers, Moses, and the High Priests;
but every man had governed himself according to his own appetite, to the
utter eversion of the Common-wealth, and their own destruction for want
of Union. And therefore the first Law of God was, "They should not take
for Gods, ALIENOS DEOS, that is, the Gods of other nations, but that
onely true God, who vouchsafed to commune with Moses, and by him to give
them laws and directions, for their peace, and for their salvation
from their enemies." And the second was, that "they should not make to
themselves any Image to Worship, of their own Invention." For it is the
same deposing of a King, to submit to another King, whether he be set up
by a neighbour nation, or by our selves.

Answer To Certain Seeming Texts For Images

The places of Scripture pretended to countenance the setting up of
Images, to worship them; or to set them up at all in the places where
God is worshipped, are First, two Examples; one of the Cherubins over
the Ark of God; the other of the Brazen Serpent: Secondly, some text