The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?
— Ecclesiastes 1:1-3
They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
— Exodus 32:8
For the wicked boasteth of his heart’s desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the LORD abhorreth.
— Psalm 10:3
And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not.
— Leviticus 10:1
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
— Exodus 20:4
And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
— Hebrews 6:5-6
The False Glory of External Prosperity, by John Owen. The following contains Section Thirteen of his work, “The Chamber of Imagery in the Church of Rome Laid Open; OR, An Antidote Against Popery.
If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.— 1 PET. 2:3
Sect. XIII. One thing more, amongst many others of the same sort, may be mentioned. It is a notion of truth, which derives from the light of nature, that those who approach unto God in divine worship should be careful that they be pure and clean, without any offensive defilements.
This the heathens themselves give testimony unto, and God confirmed it in the institutions of the law. But what are these defilements and pollutions which make us unmeet to approach unto the presence of God—how and by what means we may be purified and cleansed from them—the gospel alone declares. And it doth, in opposition unto all other ways and means of it, plainly reveal, that it is by the sprinkling of the blood of Christ upon our consciences, so to purge them from dead works, that we may serve the living God. See Heb. 9:14, 10:19–22. But this is a thing mysterious: nothing but spiritual light and saving faith can direct us herein. Men, destitute of them, could never attain an experience of purification in this way. Wherefore they retained the notion of truth itself, but made an image of it for their use, with a neglect of the thing itself. And this was the most ludicrous that could be imagined; namely, the sprinkling of themselves and others with that they call holy water when they go into the places of sacred worship; which yet also they borrowed from the Pagans. So stupid and sottish are the minds of men, so dark and ignorant of heavenly things, that they have suffered their souls to be deceived and rained by such vain, superstitious trifles!
This discourse hath already proceeded unto a greater length than was at first intended; and would be so much more, should we look into all parts of this Chamber of Imagery, and expose to view all the abominations in it. I shall therefore put a close unto it, in one or two instances, wherein the Church of Rome doth boast itself as retaining the truth and power of the gospel in a peculiar manner, whereas in very deed they have destroyed them, and set up corrupt images of their own in their stead.
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