(Vespers) Calvin's Institutes - I.10-12

1. Chapter 10 – Scripture sets the True God Alone Over Against All the Gods of the Heathen
   1. Calvin lays out several Scriptural passages that speak to the attributes of God
      
   2.  “Let the reader observe that the Scripture, in order to direct us to the true God, distinctly excludes and rejects all the gods of the heathen, because religion was universally adulterated in almost every age.”
2. Chapter 11 – It is Unlawful to Attribute a Visible Form to God & Whoever Sets Up Idols Revolts Against the True God
   1. First, Calvin refutes those who ascribe a visible form to God.
      
   2. Second, Calvin discusses the origins of idols and the adoration of them by Papists.
      
   3. Finally, Calvin discusses the use and abuse of images.
      
3. Chapter 12 – How God is to Be Distinguished from Idols that Perfect Honor May Be Given to Him Alone
   1. Nothing belonging to God’s divinity should be transferred to anything else.
   2. God alone is to be worshiped and rightly worshiped. Here, Calvin appeals to God’s attribute of jealousy. God is a jealous God and will not allow His people to give worship to another which is due to Him alone.
      
   3. The so-called “worship” of Catholic saints detracts from God’s glory as outright idolatry.
      1. “The distinction of what is called dulia and latria was invented for the very purpose of permitting divine honors to be paid to angels and dead men with apparent impunity. For it is plain that the worship which Papists pay to saints differs in no respect from the worship of God: for this worship is paid without distinction; only when they are pressed they have recourse to the evasion, that what belongs to God is kept unimpaired, because they leave him latria.”
   4. Galatians 4:8: “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved [dulia] to those that by nature are not gods.”
   5. “Thus, if we wish to have one God, we should remember that we must not pluck away even a particle of His glory and that He must retain what is His own.”
   6. Regulative Principle of Worship: “He has been pleased to prescribe in his Law what is lawful and right, and thus astrict men to a certain rule, lest any should allow themselves to devise a worship of their own.”