6 2 The Perfan ofChrift the great 1\!preftntati·ve dared. In the A_[fumption of our Nature into Perfonal Vnion with himfelf, and our Cognation unto God thereby, with the Uni~n which Believers obtain with him thereon, being one in · the Father and the Son, as the Father is in the Son, ancl the Son in the Father, Joh. r 7· 20,2 r. there is the neare£1: ap– proach ofthe Divine Being unto us, that the nature of things is capable o£ Both thefe Ends were defigned in thofe Re– prefentations of God, which were .of Humane Invention. But in both ofthem they utterly failed. For infread ofrepre– fenting any of theGlorious Properties of the Nature of God, -– they debafed it, difhonoured it, and filled the minds of men with ·vile Conceptiorts of it. And infread of_bringing God nea– rer unto them, they put themfelves at an infinite .moral di– ftancefrom him. But mydefign is the Confirmation of our AfTertions from the Scripture. . Col. r. 1 5'· He is the Image of the ln·vifible God. This Title or Property ofln·vijible, the Apofrle here gives unto . God, to fhew what need there was ofan Image or Repreftn– tation of him unto us, as well as of one in whom he would declare the Counfels of his Will. · For he intends not only the a~/'olute lnvifi6ility ofhis Ej[ence; but his being unknown · . , unto us in himfel£ Wherefore as was before obferved, man– kind was generally prone to make vi}ible Reprefentations of this lnvifrble God, that in them they might contemplate on him, and have him pn:Jent with them as they foolifhly ima– gined. _U11to the Craft of Satan abufing this Inclination ofmankind, /d()latry owes its Original and Progrefs in the World. Howbeit necefTary it was that this ln·vifible God fhould be . {o reprefented unto us by fome Image of him, as that we might know him, an that therein he mightbewor– ihiped according u~to his ow~mind an~Will. ~ut t?ismL:il: be ofhis own contnvance, an Effefr ofh1s own mfimte WIf– dom. Hence as he abfolutely rejecteth all Images aud Reprefentations
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