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A41594 A discourse of the use of images in relation to the Church of England and the Church of Rome in vindication of Nubes testium against a pamphlet entitled The antiquity of the Protestant religion concerning images, directed against some leaves of that collection. Gother, John, d. 1704. 1687 (1687) Wing G1328; ESTC R15744 20,616 40

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A DISCOURSE OF THE Use of Images In Relation to the Church of England AND THE Church of Rome In Vindication of NUBES TESTIUM Against a Pamphlet Entitled The Antiquity of the Protestant Religion concerning Images directed against some Leaves of that Collection Publisht with Allowance LONDON Printed by Henry Hills Printer to the King 's Most Excellent Majesty for His Houshold and Chappel 1687. A Discourse of the Use of Images In relation to the Church of England and the Church of Rome In Vindication of NUBES TESTIUM THE Factious and Unchristian Temper of our Age has so unhappily spread it self thro' all Ranks of Men that even those whose business ought to be the Advancement of Piety have not escap'd it 's malignant Influence And this they evidence too clearly to the world whilst They shew themselves so industrious in multiplying the number of many needless Contentions in the Church instead of endeavouring to lessen and abate them This is the Misfortune of him who undertakes to assert the Antiquity of the Protestant Religion concerning Images in Answer to a Dozen Leaves of Nubes Testium Who because he is a Profess'd and Virulent Enemy to Catholics seems resolv'd to contradict and Ridicule in a strain of Drollery more becoming the Stage than his Coat every thing they Believe and Teach tho' it be the very Doctrin of his own Church And like a Blind Combatant strikes at all before him without distinction of Friend and Enemy with a Have at all At this Game plays this Undertaker whose only care being to write an Answer in FULL Answers and Condemns even those Practices as are allow'd and approv'd by his own Church and in this new Method of Controversie spends the greatest part of his Twelve-penny Pamphlet So that tho' he pretends to be a Son of the Church of England yet whosoever considers how often he strikes that Church in the Face must needs question the Legitimation and necessarily conclude that 't is Uncertain What Church he is of whilst the only thing Certain is That he is No Papist This whole matter as to his needless multiplying of Controversies and opposing the Doctrin and Practice of the Church of England as well as that of the Church of Rome I 'll shew briefly in declaring what the Church of Rome and England teach concerning 1. The Historical Use of Sacred Images 2. The Commemorative Use of Images 3. The Respect and Honor due to Images In all which if it be made appear that the Two Churches agree there will need but little more to prove This Answerer a Trisler whilst he so laboriously sets himself against both and at the end of all says nothing to the purpose 1. As to the Historical Vse of Images 't is the Profess'd Doctrin and Practice of the Church of Rome to have the Pictures and Images of Holy Things and Passages both in Houses and Churches for the instruction of the Ignorant in the knowledge of the History of both the Old and New Testament that so they may be acquainted with those Sacred Persons of Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles and be inform'd of the Wonderful Works wrought by God in Mans Creation and Redemption This appears in the Council of Trent Sess 25 and in the Catechism ad Parochos part 3. de Invoc Sanc. par 40. Both which agree that Holy Pictures and Images are made to inform the People of the History of Holy Writ and that for this end they are set up in Churches and other Places This same Historical Vse of Holy Images is conform likewise to the Doctrin and Practice of the Church of England as is evident in Mr. Montagu's Appeal to Caesar who declaring the Church of England's Own Proper True and Antient Tenets Ep. Ded. to the King such as be without any doubt or question Legitimate and Genuine such as she will both acknowledge and maintain for her own in this Book Authoris'd and Publish'd by Express order of King James and Charles l. and approv'd as containing nothing in it but what was agreeable to the Doctrin and Discipline establish'd in the Church of England Ib. says expresly c. 20. that Images were improv'd unto an Historical Vse in St. Gregory 's time and then adds Had the Church of Rome gon no farther in Practice or Precept than that which St. Gregory recommends our Church says he I suppose for so our Doctrin is would not blame them nor have departed from them about that Point And agen chap. 23. Doth the English Church condemn the Historical or Civil use of Images It do's not says he in Practice all the World knows that nor yet in Precept or Doctrin that I know And at the end of the same Chapter he says Images may be had and made ut Ornatui sint ut Memoriae ut Historiae For Ornament for Commemoration and for History and that they may be made for such Ends No Law of God forbiddeth says our Gamaliel pa. 203. ad Apol. Bel. From whose words in a Book so Authentic and approv'd by Two Kings Heads of the Church 't is beyond question that the Historical Vse of Images is agreeable to the Doctrin and Practice of the Church of England And this do's most Evidently appear to any that will but put his head into any Church of this Communion where presently Moyses and Aaron shew themselves to the Beholder and let him know the concern they had in Those Commandements which they there guard betwixt them This may be seen with great advantage in the Church at the Savoy where besides these Two Saints of the Jewish Law the Four Evangelists have their place in full proportion between the side Windows with St. Peter and St. Stephen and the Twelve Apostles in twelve Niches on the Front of the Gallery But above all the New Church in St. James's in the Fields commends this Practice in a Rare Piece of Workmanship where the hand of the Artist has set forth to the Life upon the Font the History of Original Sin and it's Cure in the Water of Baptism Adam and Eve stand beneath Confessing the guilt of that Sin for which Infants are brought thither to be cleans'd Round the Bason is seen Christ under the hand of the Baptist in Jordan authorising the Institution of that Salutary Laver And over it is an Angel as it were descending to move the Waters and to signifie that the efficacy of that Sacrament is from above Then if you turn towards the Altar in one Figure is represented the Institution of the Blessed Sacrament at the Last Supper The very same which is over the Altar at his Majesties Chappel at Whitehal and for the very same intent viz. A Pellican feeding her Young ones with her Blood to signifie what Christ gives to the Faithful his Children in the Sacrament that he feeds them with his Blood. Much more may be seen in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches of this kind not only in relation to the Old but New Testament even
satisfied the word Image-worship will do the work without much need of longer Proofs and therefore waving all such kind of Controversial Drudgery he falls to the Historical part in which from the different account of Historians the disagreement in Time and Place and other Circumstances he easily fills all with Confusion and Uncertainty A tedious work he makes about the second Council of Nice and sets it out in such abusive Language with so much contempt and scorn that he seems at his writing this Character to have come fresh from a Billings-gate Lecture Hear how he attacks that Venerable Synod They were a Pack of Greeks says he pa. 38. that were neither the wisest nor the honestest Men in the World. Then having undervalued the Proofs of that Council as Senseless and Ridiculous he adds pa. 39. Now you may judge whether these were not rare Greek Wits Yet we might forgive their want of Brains if they had been Men of Integrity but they were dishonest too In this manner do's he complement this great Synod with the Honorable Titles of Fools and Knaves Certainly he must be a wise Man in his own conceit who makes so bold with three hundred and fifty Fathers besides the Popes Legates and the Vicars of the Oriental Patriarchs But I leave him in this Buffoonry wishing him only much joy of his Admirable Talent in this kind The Chief thing he urges against this Council is their establishing as he pretends Superstitious Errors the Worship or Adoration of Images such as our Author judges to be nothing else than Idolatry in this doing altogether like himself who quarrels with every thing but how unlike the more Learned and Moderate Divines of his own Church who vindicate this Council from all such imputations Mr. Thorndike freely confessing that he must maintain as unquestionable that the Council of Nice injoyns no Idolatry Epil 3. pa. 363. And Dr. Field affirming that the Nicence Fathers mean nothing else by Adoration of Images but embracing kissing and reverently using of them and like to the Honor we do the Books of Holy Scripture Of the Church l. 3. c. 36. Thus do these Eminent Men deliver their Sense of this Council and it's Doctrin which our Author has thought fit to render so Ridiculous to the World. He catches at Words and without Examining or Understanding them makes Idolatry and Superstition of the most Orthodox and Christian Doctrin And this I look upon the occasion of his letting flie so furiously at this Venerable Synod and of all his Rallery against it But I proceed to consider his other Arguments The principal thing he insists on and which runs thro' his whole Pamphlet is that we cannot make it appear even as a thing probable that Images were so much as set up in Churches in the Primitive Times and upon this Practice now so common in the Church of Rome he presses her with the Guilt of Innovation An Excellent Argument well becoming a Leader of the People But this is the Motive of Reforming And do not some other Reformers upon the same grounds prove the use of Organs in the Divine Service to be an Innovation since it cannot be made appear even as probable that there were any such things known to the Primitive Christians of the first three or four hundred years And do not others still treading over the same steps make the use of Cathedrals and Churches of Deanries and Prebendaries an Innovation in Christianity since in the Primitive times there were no such things heard ●f After this rate some Men are pleas'd to argue and at this pace the Reformation may go on improving every day till there 's nothing of Christianity left if such Principles and Reasons of some Church of England Reformers are but follow'd as Just and Convincing But these can have no authority but with some Weak and Passionate Men. Others who weigh things duely know that the Circumstances of the Primitive Christians their being under Severe Persecution their living and conversing in the middle of Pagans and Jews c. did make many things inconvenient and unseasonable at that time especially such as related to the Solemnity and Order of the Church which otherwise were Good and Apostolical This Mr. Montagu a Wise and Learned Man throughly consider'd and particularly in relation to Images which he says in the first Ages were but few or none in publick not because they were then Unlawful or contrary to the Doctrin of the Apostles but because they were inconvenient in those times of Persecution and Paganism I 'll here set down his own words to satisfie the Answerer and to let him see the difference between the Spirit of Peace and Moderation and that of Bitterness and Wrangling Thus then that Worthy Divine argues in his Appeal to Caesar c. 23. As the Ancient Fathers of the Primitive Times had very few or no Churches at all at least of Note Dignity or of Receipt because they liv'd in Times of fierce Persecution and were seldom or Few of them Stationary but compell'd subinde mutare sedes so had they very few I grant or no Pictures at all in public use amongst them not so much as for Ornament sake And the reason was because they lived continually amongst Pagans and were themselves for the most part such as had abandon'd and come over from Paganism unto Christ that were bred in brought up in inur'd to and fast setled unto Idolatry in Image-worship Therefore they spoke against them with some tartness and inveighing sort lest haply by conversing with or neighboring upon Pagans or thro' former use of being mis-led by those Pagans the Novel and tender Shoots of Christianity might receive hurt and learn to worship Idols as those Pagans did In which words this Author plainly declares that tho' there was not the public use of Images in the first Ages yet the admittance of them afterwards into Churches was no Innovation as our Answerer pretends but the practising of a thing which in all the precedent Ages had been just and lawful but not expedient for the reasons here assign'd by him Which thing the same Author has thus clearly deliver'd in the foregoing Chapter where speaking of the use of Images Before St. Gregory says he I know no such confest employment for them He was the first that gave such public approbation unto them DECLARATORILY tho' it was TRVE DOCTRIN IN IT SELF before he ever profess'd it such Can any thing be more clearly express'd Is it not evidently here acknowledg●d by a Church of England Divine that the Use of Images as approv'd and allow'd by Pope Gregory who was for giving Reverence and Respect unto them as this Author confesses in the same Chapter was a True Doctrin in it self tho' it was never professedly declar'd before this time And yet our Answerer unacquainted it seems with the Doctrin of his own Church and with the Circumstances of the Primitive Church comes here with the full Cry of Innovation