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that the ceremonial law did not oblige the Gentiles, could have done.

It is surely difficult to conceive, that they who thought their law so highly violated by framing the picture of a man, or of an eagle, and would rather die than admit of them, because they held they were forbidden by their law, should either, being Christians, continue zealous to assert the obligation of that law, and yet admit the doctrine which did enjoin them both to frame and worship images; or should, continuing unbelieving Jews, never accuse the Christians of a crime so execrable in their sight, nor dissuade any Christian from complying with this great violation of their law.

§. 2. Yea farther, had this practice or tradition obtained in the days of the Apostles, or the five following ages, the Apostles and primitive Fathers would likely have endeavoured to remove this scandal from the Jews, and to return some answer to an objection so very obvious; for their prejudice against image-worship being greater than against any other thing, they had the greatest reason, upon the supposition of such a practice of the Christians, to labour to remove it. And yet we find not that St. Paul, in his Epistles, writ partly to satisfy the Jews, that circumcision was not to be imposed upon the Gentiles; and partly to warn the Gentiles not to bear the yoke of Jewish festivals and ceremonies; or in that purposely designed to teach the Jews, that the priesthood being changed, the ceremonial law must also change together with it; or that St. Peter, or St. James, in their Epistles to the dispersed Jews, take the least notice of so great a prejudice, or spend one word to reconcile the Jew to this supposed image-worship.

Justin Martyr, Origen, Tertullian, St. Cyprian, G. Nyssen, Epiphanius, St. Chrysostom, St. Austin, with many others, have writ on purpose to take off the objections of the Jews against Christianity; and in these writings they have been very diligent in taking off the scandal of the cross, and proving, that the Jewish festivals and sabbaths were abolished; and that their laws concerning circumcision and sacrifices were abrogated; but they spend not one word to shew that Christians were exempted from that precept, which forbade "the bowing down to any image, or similitude;" or to excuse that worship of them they are supposed to have practised, or to declare, as doth the second Nicene Council, that this commandment only forbade the worshipping of idols, or of images

as gods, or to give any other satisfaction to the Jews in this particular.

it;

The Apostles and Fathers do jointly labour to remove the scandal of the cross, and to convince the Jews, that it was reasonable to worship him who was crucified upon but they say nothing to remove that which was a greater scandal to them, as the confession of the Jew now mentioned doth assure us, viz. "the worship of the cross, and of an image, which was the work of their own hands." They tell the Gentiles, that no man had reason to condemn them for not observing the new moons and Jewish sabbaths, but give them not one item that they had no reason to condemn them for making and adoring images.

The whole New Testament,* which takes especial notice, that the Jews abhorred idols, gives not the least distinction betwixt an image and an idol, nor the least hint of any of those evasions and limitations, by which the Church of Rome now finds it necessary to reconcile her practice to the second commandment; nor of those expostions or retortions used in the second Nicene Council, to refute the clamours of the Jews. Which is a full conviction, that the ancient Church had no such doctrine or practice, which could make it necessary for them to fly unto these Romish shifts and subtleties.

§. 3. To conclude: the suffrage of antiquity is so very clear, the testimonies of it are so numerous, and so convincing, that they have forced many learned persons of the Church of Rome, ingenuously to confess, either that in the primitive Church they had no images, did not regard them, or that they paid no veneration to them, but rather disproved and condemned it.

"The universal Church,"+ saith Nicholaus de Clemangis, being moved by a lawful cause, viz. on the account of them who were converted from heathenism to the Christian faith, commanded that no images should be placed in churches."

"The worship of images, not only they who were not of our religion, but, as St. Jerome testifieth, almost all the ancient holy Fathers condemned for fear of idolatry," saith Polydore

Rom. ii. 22.

+ Statuit olim universa Ecclesia, ut nullæ in templis imagines ponerentur. Lib. de Nov. Celebrit. p. 151.

Quem non modo nostræ Religionis expertes, sed teste Hieron. omnes ferme veteres sancti Patres damnabant, ob metum Idololatriæ. De Invent. Rerum, 1. 6. c. 13.

Virgil; where the opposition of these holy Fathers to others, not of our religion, and the mention of Pope Gregory among them, shews the vanity of what the Jesuit Fisher saith,* “that Polydore speaks this of the Fathers of the Old Testament, not of the New."

"This surely I cannot omit," saith Giraldus, "that as the ancient Romans, so we Christians were without images in that Church which is called Primitive."+

"The bishops, in these times of persecution," saith Mendoza, "little thought of images of saints; they abstained from them for a while, lest the heathens should deride them, and should conceive that Christians worshipped them as gods." All these are witnesses against the second Nicene Council, that the practice was not apostolical, universal, and primitive.

What opinion the Fathers had of this practice, these following persons will inform you.

Petrus Crinitus saith that "Lactantius, Tertullian, and very many others, with too much boldness did affirm that it belonged not to religion to worship any image."§

"Even to the days of Jerome, who died in the fifth century, men of approved religion," saith Erasmus, "would not suffer any painted, or graven, or woven image, no not of Christ himself."

"It is certain," saith Cassander, "that when the Gospel was first preached, there was no use of images for some time among the Christians, as it is evident from Clemens of Alexandria (who flourished at the close of the second), and from Arnobius," (who flourished at the beginning of the fourth century.)

And again, "How much the ancients, in the beginning of the Church, abhorred all veneration of images, Origen alone, in his book against Celsus, shews."**

* Apud White, 242.

† Nos dico Christianos, ut aliquando Romanos, fuisse sine Imaginibus in primitiva, quæ vocatur, Ecclesia. Syntagm. 1. 1. p. 14.

Sævissimis his temporibus de Sanctorum imaginibus ne cogitârunt episcopi-abstinebant ad tempus. De Concil. Eliber. 1. 3. c. 5. [Labbe, Concil. vol. 1. p. 1230. Lut. Par. 1671.]

§ De Hon. Disciplin. 1. 9. c. 9.

Erasm. vol. 5. Symbol. Catech. p. 989.

Certum est, initio prædicati Evangelii, aliquanto tempore inter Christianos, præsertim in Ecclesiis, Imaginum usum non fuisse. Consult. cap. de Imag. p. 163. [ut supra, p. 974.]

** Quantum veteres initio Ecclesiæ ab omni veneratione Imaginum abhorruerunt, unus Origenes declarat, p. 168. [Ibid. p. 975.]

And a third time, "Truly it is manifest, from the discourse of St. Austin on the cxiiith Psalm, that in his age, the use of carved images or statues was not come into the Church."*

Lastly, he adds, that "in the days of Gregory the Great (that is, in the sixth century), this was the mind and doctrine of the Romish Church, that images should be retained, not to be adored or worshipped; but that the ignorant should by them be admonished of what was done, and be provoked to pięty. That the Roman Church did equally condemn the adoration and the breaking of images."+

"That the second Nicene Council, as far as it determined for the adoration of images, was, by the general consent of the Fathers of the Council of Frankfort, condemned and rejected, as being a determination which was repugnant not only to the holy Scriptures and the ancient tradition of the Fathers, but also to the custom of the Roman Church." And, in a word, that "it were to be wished, perhaps, that our predecessors (viz. those of the Church of Rome), had continued in that old doctrine of their ancestors;"§ to wit, that images neither should be broken nor adored.

"The corrupt custom, and false religion of the heathens," || saith Cornelius Agrippa, "hath infected our religion, and hath introduced into our Church images and idols, and many barren pompous ceremonies, none of which was found or practised among the primitive professors of Christianity."

And now, from what has been discoursed in these chapters, I infer,

Inference 1. §. 4. 1. That the Councils received by the Church of Rome, as the infallible proposers of their faith, namely, the second Nicene Council and that of Trent, have erred, and have imposed a false interpretation of that precept which doth command us "not to bow down to the similitude

* Sane ex Augustino constat, ejus ætate simulacrorum usum in Ecclesiis non fuisse, p. 195. Ibid.

+ Quæ fuerit mens et sententia Romanæ Ecclesiæ adhuc ætate Gregorii, satis ex ejus Scriptis manifestum est, viz. ideo haberi Picturas, non quidem ut colantur et adorentur, etc. p. 171. [Ibid. p. 976.] Consuetudo Romanæ Ecclesiæ pariter confractionem et adorationem improbat, p. 171.

Græca illa synodus, qua parte Imagines adorandas censebat, damnata fuit, ut quæ-consuetudini Romanæ Ecclesiæ adversarentur, p. 172. Fortasse optandum esset, ut majores nostri huc usque in prisca illa majorum suorum sententia integre perstitissent, p. 175, 179, 180, De van. Scient. cap. de Imag.

of anything in heaven or earth," and therefore they are falsely said to be infallible in matters of faith or true interpreters of holy Scripture.

And indeed, whosoever seriously will consider of those Scriptures which are produced, either by this whole Council, or by Pope Hadrian, with approbation of this Council, or offered by some members present, or contained in some of the citations produced by them for the having images in Christian churches, or for the giving adoration to them, will find them so apparently perverted and horridly impertinent, as that he will be forced to question not only the infallibility, but even the common wisdom or discretion of those men who had the confidence to use them to these purposes. For,

1. John, the pretended vicar of the three Oriental Patriarchs, saith, that Jacob* "wrestling with him, saw God face to face,' which yet can do no service to the maker, or worshipper of images, but by supposing with the old heretic, called Anthropomorphites, that God hath face or features like a man.

Leontius, bishop of Neapolis, saith, "If thou accusest me for worshipping the wood of the cross, thou must accuse Jacob for blessing wicked and idolatrous Pharaoh ;"+ which instance will be only pertinent when it is proved that Pharaoh was an image, and that blessing is an act of adoration.

Pope Gregory II. saith, that "when Moses desired to behold an image or similitude, lest he should be mistaken in the vision, he said to God, Shew me thyself manifestly, that I may see thee," but this doth not prove that Moses desired to see an image or material likeness of God, or that God shewed him any such similitude.

Germanus, bishop of Constantinople, argues for images after this manner, "In the book of Numbers, the Lord speaks to Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them make themselves fringes in the borders of their garments, and put upon the fringe of the border a ribbon of blue; and it shall be unto you for a fringe, that you may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them, Now if,"§ saith he, "the Israelites were bid to look upon these fringes, and remember his commandments; much more ought we, by the inspection of the images of holy men to view the

+ Act. 4. [Ibid.] p. 239, 240.

* Act. 4. [ut supra,] p. 200. Cum figuram vellet, aut simulacrum videre, ne forte erraret, orabat Deum dicens, Ostende mihi teipsum manifesto, ut te videam, [Ibid.] p. 11. § Act. 4. [Ibid.] p. 304.

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