QUESTION VIII. -471 QueST. VIII:What is the Worship paid to our blee'sedSavir our, who is the. Image of God? Proposition I. THERE is something in the reason and nature of man that directs and inclines him to own and worship some God, or some superior Being, from whom himself and all his enjoyments are derived, and on whom his expectations depend. II. Reason and revelation conspire to teach us that there is but one true God. III. This one true God has required expressly in his word, that he alone should be the object of our worship or religious bornage : and it is several times repeated with much solemnity in the Old 'Testament and in the New. IV. There is something in the nature of man that inclines him to reverence and respect the image of that Being which he worships : And the reason is evident ; ,because the image is sup- posed to be something more within tile reach of his senses, and therefore more suited to his bodily nature, than God who is the spiritual and unseen object of his worship : or at least, because hecan have the image sensibly present with him when he has not the original : and the image being supposed to have the likeness or resemblance of the original object of worship, it refreshes the memory and brings to mind the excellencies of the divine original. Ifwe love or honour a friend, a father, or a king,, we desire to have their pictures or images near us, we pay a sort of esteem, love and veneration to those pictures, upon the account of their likeness to the original persons : and we also pay our esteem, love and veneration to the absent original by the means or medium of these pictures. It is from this principle that the heathens in all nations, who have worshipped the sun, moon, and 'stars, or their kings, heroes and ancestors, have generally made pictures and images of them, and either reverenced and wor- shipped the images or worshipped the originals in and by those images, or both. And for this reason, in the corrupt antichris- tian state, they did not only worship the beast with seven heads and ten horns, but Mey made an image thereof andworshipped it; Rev. xiii. 14, 15. V. God has expressly forbidden men to make any image of himself :and worship it, or even to make it a medium -of- paying their, religious homage and worship to himself. The second command is most express in this matter ; and this is in general esteemed by all protestant writers to be the plain sense of that commandment: And onechief reason of the command is because Mankind is so proneby nature to worship images which they have made themselves. VI. God himself has never shown or given us any exprcas
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