Proofs | Search | Previous | Contents | Next

A. No; it only forbids us to make any resemblance's for the sake of representing or worshipping God.

A. Because there is no resemblance between him who is an eternal Spirit and incomprehensible, and a corporeal, corruptible, and lifeless figure. (Deut. iv. 15; Acts xvii. 29; Rom. i. 23.)

A. Such is my belief.

A. When we turn to a statue or image intending to pray, we prostrate ourselves before it: when we pay honour to it by the bending of our knees, or other signs, as if God were there representing himself to us.

A. True.

A. As under the former head he declared that he alone should be worshipped and served, so he now shows what is the correct form of worship, that he may call us off from all superstition, and other vicious and carnal fictions.

A. He adds the sanction that he is Jehovah our God, a strong and jealous God, who avengeth the iniquity of the fathers upon the children of them who hate him, even to the third and fourth generation.

A. He thereby intimates that he has power enough to vindicate his glory.

A. That he cannot bear an equal or associate. For as he has given himself to us out of his infinite goodness, so he would have us to be wholly his. And the chastity of our souls consists in being dedicated to him, and wholly cleaving to him, as on the other hand they are said to be polluted with idolatry, when they turn aside from him to superstition.

A. To strike the more terror into us, he not only threatens to inflict punishment on those who offend him, but that their offspring also will be cursed.