as would have serv'd Diogenes had he known it to conclude all the Platonists in the world to be blind For thus he might argue from the Doctors Topicks The Platonists and all Philosophers affirm that for a man to see there must necessarily be some union between the Object and the Eye that is something must pass from the Eye to the Object or from the Object to the Eye But Aristotle and his Followers have at large proved that this cannot be done by emission of Rays from the Eye to the Object as the Platonists would have it but by Immission of Species from the Object to the Eye Therefore all the Platonists in the world are blind What greater Sophistry can there be than when there are different Opinions how the same thing may be done and one of them really absurd at least seemingly so to others to make him who does the thing to be guilty of all the absurdities which follow from such an Opinion Yet such is the Doctors manner of arguing in this place All Catholicks agree that an Image may be worshipped for his sake whom it represents St. Thomas and his followers will have this to be done by the same act by which the Prototype is worshipped Others who take a different way of explicating the thing look upon this as absurd and think they can prove it to be Idolatrous and Dr. St. from hence concludes Epiphanius and the Nicen Fathers because they say onely what all Catholicks agree in viz. That they worshipped the Images of Christ onely for his sake who was represented by them to be Idolaters The Reader I suppose by this time sees the fallaciousness of this kind of arguing and that the Doctor may feel it if seeing be not enough I shall press him with his own Argument in a Point which himself affirms To shew what kind of Reverence we give to holy Images and that it is not Idolatrous I instanced in Moses and Joshua's putting off their Shoes in reverence to the Ground where they stood because it was Holy To this the Doctor answers p. 105. First That for this there was an express Command but in the case of Image Worship there is as plain a Prohibition But let this pass though I have manifestly proved the contrary What I fix upon at present is his Second Answer in which he avouches abstracting from any Prohibition or Command that the special presence and appearance of God doth sanctifie a place to so high a degree that we may lawfully testifie our Reverence towards it and this Reverence so testified towards the Ground by Moses and Joshua in putting off their Shoes I suppose himself will grant was not given to the Ground for it self but meerly for His sake who appeared there present in a special manner that is for God's This supposed I subsume according to his Logick But Aquinas and his followers have at large proved that where any thing is worshipped or reverenced meerly for the sake of another it must have the same kind of reverence given it which they give to the thing which sanctifieth it by its presence for they do not onely maintain that the same reverence is to be given to the Cross on which Christ suffered because it represents him to us as crucified but also because of his presence or conjunction to it upon which account they say the King and his Garment are worshipped with the same act of Civil Worship Therefore Moses and Joshua were Idolaters for giving reverence to the Ground meerly for his sake who sanctified it with his presence The Consequence though horrible to any Christian Ear is parallel to that of the Doctor against Epiphanius and the Nicen Fathers and if it have any force against these it must have the same against those Thus is the Doctor fallen into his own Trap. Neither can he save himself by having recourse to an express command in the case because Gods special presence is given by him there as a distinct reason why reverence might lawfully be given to the Ground for his sake who was present and if it were Idolatry in it self to do so because Aquinas and his followers have at large proved that where any thing is reverenced meerly for the sake of another it must have the same kind of reverence given it which they give to the thing which sanctifieth it by its presence it follows that God commanded Moses and Joshua upon his grounds to do an act which in it self is Idolatry and this sounds no less if not more horrible to a Christian Ear than the former Let him then take his choice whether he will allow what Aquinas and his followers have at large proved for good or no. If he grant it he must show the disparity why Moses and Joshua were not as much Idolaters according to his Principles as Epiphanius and the Nicen Fathers If he deny it let him tell us with what conscience he could condemn Epiphanius and the Nicen Fathers for Idolaters upon Grounds which himself denies to be good and solid Thus much to the form of the Doctors Argument As for the distinction it self of Absolute and Relative Latria with which St. Thomas and his followers explicate their Doctrine I shall have occasion to speak of it hereafter In the mean time the Reader may pâ—ously believe that to give Relative Latria to the Image of Christ is no more Idolatry than to give Relative Regal honour to the Kings Garment is Treason § 6. The third thing he urges from his Constantinopolitan Fathers is the great Absurdity as they call it and he applauds them for it p. 80. of making an Image of Christ for Worship because Christ is God and Man therefore the Image must be of God and Man which cannot be unless the Deity be circumscribed within the created flesh or there be a confusion of both Natures after their Union both which are blasphemies condemned by the Church To this Epiphanius answers two things 1. That the Name of Christ is significative of both Natures and that an Image represents onely the Humane Nature and agrees onely in name and not in substance with the Prototype 2. That the Divine is no more circumscribed within the Humane Nature in its being represented in an Image than it was in its being laid in the Manger or nailed to the â—ross And consequently that the Objection either of circumscription of the Divine Nature or confusion of both Natures was vain and frivolous I but says the Doctor What doth this Answer signifie unless there be an equal presence or union of the Divine Nature of Christ with the Image as there was with the Humane Nature And I would gladly know what this Answer of his is to the purpose unless he think that nothing may be worshipped with relation to God unless it have as great an Union with the Person of Christ as his Humane Nature had He will not deny I hope that the special presence and appearance of God
doth sanctifie a place to so high a degree that we may lawfully testifie our reverence towards it and yet that presence or union is not equal to that of the Divine Nature of Christ with his Humane It is not onely Union but Representation also that may occasion Worship and so we see the King is worshipped by his Picture as representing him though it have not so close an union with his Soul as his Body hath But what sticks in the Doctors mind if I mistake not is how Christ God and Man can be worshipped by an Image which represents him onely according to his Humane Nature To this I have spoken already in the fifth Chapter and himself may satisfie his Reader in the point by telling him how the King who consists of Soul and Body can be worshipped by a Picture which represents him onely according to the Lineaments of his Body § 7. In the fourth place his Constantinopolitan-Fathers urge that If the Humane Nature of Christ be represented in the Image of Christ to be worshipped as separate from the Divine this would be plain Nestorianism And what says Epiphanius to this That never any man well in his wits when he saw the Picture of a man thought that the Painter by drawing him had divided his Soul from his Body that is that he had not onely drawn the man but hang'd and quarter'd him too Was ever time so fondly mispent as in proposing and refuting such pitiful kind of Sophistry as this of the Doctors Constantinopolitan-Fathers And yet He says the Good Nicen Fathers where he means by Good what he meant before by Wise not knowing what to answer deny the Conclusion and cry They Nestorians No. They lie in their Teeth Thus He. But what the Nicen Fathers answered like Good men and True was this that though the Images of Christ like other Images represent onely the external Lineaments of his Humane Nature yet when they look upon them they understand nothing but what is signified by them For example When he is represented as born of the Virgin which is I suppose what the Doctor means by the Birth of the Virgin p. 81. what they conceive in their Minds is not his Humane Nature as separated from the Divine but one Emmanuel true God and Man and therefore were far enough from bâ—ing guilty of Nestorianism in the use of Images Here the Doctor cries out Alas for them that they should ever be charged with the Worship of Images who plead for nothing now but a Help to their profound Meditations by them And may not I much better say Alas for him who if they Worshipped the same which they conceived in their Minds could not see their Worship which is an Act of the Will must be as free from Nestorianism as their Understanding But he had had nothing to reply if he had not thrust in those Words of his own to be Worshipped as separate from the Divine Nature For they are not in the Objection as it stands Recorded in the Council However they signifie little to his purpose because the Will is carried to the Prototype as it is conceived in the Understanding nor doth it give to the Image tâ—e Worship due to the Principal because the Image is not Worshipped at all for its own sake but for the Principal 's § 8. The Fifth Argument which he makes his Constantinopolitan Fathers produce is from the Institution of the Eucharist which they call Christs Image because instituted in Commemoration of him And whereas he said Do this in remembrance of Me He did as it were tell them That no other Figure or Representation under Heaven was chosen by Him as able to represent His being in the Flesh This they say was an HONOURABLE Image of his Quickning BODY made by Himself which he would not have of the shape of a Man to prevent Idolatry And as the Body of Christ was really sanctified by the Divine Nature so this Holy Image is by Adoption Deified or made Divine through sanctification of Grace This is the sense of the Argument to which Epiphanius answers that from the Fury they were possess'd with against the making of Images they were driven into another madness of calling the Eucharist an Image contrary to the Scriptures and Fathers And the Doctor knows that it is a sufficient Answer to an absurd Objection to shew that the Objector was driven to run into an Absurdity to maintain his Cause What the Constantinopolitans would have inferr'd from thence was that because Christ as They asserted made the Eucharist an Image of his Body therefore no other Image might be made or Worshipped But this They did not but left it perhaps as too hard a Task for Themselves to be undertaken by so Great an Admirer of Them and their Doctrine as my Adversary and at his Door it lies Onely he is desired to bear in mind against a fit season that the Eucharist with Them is an HONOURABLE IMAGE made by Christ Himself and therefore if he will not desert his Leaders he must give honour to it nay Divine Honour because although his Beloved Constantinopolitans call the EUCHARISTICAL BREAD an IMAGE yet they confess it in the same place to be NO FALSE IMAGE of Christs Natural Flesh but by virtue of the Priestly Consecration it is made his Divine Body § 9. In the sixth and last place he jumbles together no less than Eight Arguments or rather Bare Assertions of his Constantinopolitan Fathers all which Epiphanius denies and refutes as frivolous and false as any one may see who either considers the Objections in themselves or will take the pains to read the Answers to them at large in the sixth Action of the Council of Nice Which though my Adversary call weak and trivial yet it is no sign he thought them so when he omitted to set them down CHAP. VIII The Doctors Objection from the Council of Frankford examined and shewn to be no Advantage to his Cause § 1. AFter the matter of the Veneration due to Holy Images had been discussed and defined as you have seen in the second General Council of Nice the Doctor fearing that his Irony of that Wise Synod would not stick fast enough unless backed with a greater Authority than his own tells his Reader that it was condemned by the Council at Francford called together by Charles the Great Anno 794. He should have added By the Command of the Apostolick See as it is in Hinâ—marus but that had been an apparent disadvantage to his Cause and therefore better left out Nevertheless the fact it self he looks upon as an apparent advantage to it And thereupon he endeavours to show by many Conjectures that the Fathers at Francford did expresly reject the Council of Nice and that not out of misunderstanding its Doctrine as some rashly he saith imagine but that really they intended to condemn the Doctrine it self there defined His proofs are p. 84. Because the Acts of that Council
present in his Ascension after he was intercepted from his Disciples sight by a Cloud Was he not so present before he opened the Eyes of the two blind Men who sate by the way side Matth. 20. 30. And is he not believed by all Christians to be so present at the right hand of his Father And might none of these worship him because they could not see him If he pretend a difference in the cases because in all them he was the Object of sense either before or after but as he exists in the Sacrament he can be no Object of sense he must grant his presence there to be a matter of pure Revelation and so falls upon the other edge of his distinction that in matters of pure Revelation where the matter proposed to our Faith can be no Object of sense there firm credit is to be given to the divine Revelation and worship also suitable to his presence But to go one step further In case a thing be knowable by evidence of sense May it not also be made known by Divine Revelation And will not God's Revelation ascertain us as well if not much better than our Eyes Who saw the World rise out of nothing No less a Philosopher than Aristotle not to speak of others held it never had any beginning And yet what Christian does not believe it had more firmly upon the account of God's Revelation than if he had been present in some corner of the spatium Imaginarium and beheld the foundation of it with his Eyes Upon the whole then which way soever the Doctor turn himself unless he will maintain what he seems indeed to suppose all along in this discourse that we are to give more credit to our sense then to God's revealed word he must confess that wherever there is a Divine Revelation of Christ's presence which at present he supposes in the Sacrament there is the same if not greater Reason to believe and worship him than if he saw him as clearly as the Wise-men did in the Manger or the Thief upon the Cross And consequently that he was but too too Prodigal in granting that supposing a like Divine Revelâ—â—ion for Christ's presence in the Eucharist by Transubstantiation as for his being true God yet there would not be the same reason to worship him there as when he dwelt visibly among us All that he could devise to elude the Parallel argument I urged from the Pen of an Arrian Viz. that the Argument he brings to conclude Catholicks to be Idolaters for their adoration of Christ in the Eucharist would be of as much force from the Arrians against the adoration of him as God All I say he could devise to elude this argument with standing to the true state of the Question and supposing as he does a like divine Revelation for both was to say there was not an express command to worship him in the Eucharist which how pitiful an Evasion it is I have shewed above And yet as pitiful as it is it may serve well enough to make an unwary Reader believe he concludes all the Papists in the World Idolaters for worshipping our Lord Christ himself in the Sacrament But why it should do so when nothing less than an express Prohibition could make them Idolaters in the matter of Images I cannot imagin § 6. The Second Proof he brings to show that Supposing a like divine Revelation for Christ's being present in the Sacrament as for his being true God yet there is not the same reason of adoration is p. 112. because the One he saith gives us a sufficient reason of our Worship viz. his Divinity but the other doth not because all that He can believe then present supposing Transubstantiation is the Body of Christ and that is not the Object of our Adoration But this is altogether as weak as the former for however that be all he can believe and more than he does believe God encrease his Faith yet Catholicks believe much more viz. that together with his Body in the Eucharist are present his Soul his Person his Divinity in a word whole Christ and to his Person it is they terminate their worship as hypostatically united with his Body For as the Dr. himself saith very well p. 114. although the humane nature of Christ of it self can yield us no sufficient reason of adoration yet being considered as united to the Divine Nature that cannot hinder the same Divine Worship being given to his Person which belongs to his Divine Nature any more than the Robes of a Prince can take off from the honour due unto him To elude this Answer for now his chiefest hope consists in seeking out ways to escape instead of rejoining to it upon the supposition of Transubstantiation he falls to dispute down-right against Transubstantiation it self where he tells the Reader that this Answer of Christ's Body being hypostatically united with the Divine Nature is indeed a good argument to prove the Body of Christ cannot be there by Transubstantiation And I desire the Reader to be very attentive to the argument as it is propos'd by the Doctor for otherwise perhaps it may cost him the labour of a second reading If the Bread saith he p. 113. be converted into that Body of Christ which is hypostatically united with the Divine Nature then the Conversion is not meerly into the Body but into the Person of Christ and then Christ hath as many Bodies hypostatically united to him as there are Elements consecrated and so all the accidents of the Bread belong to that Body of Christ which is hypostatically united with the Divine Nature Therefore the Body of Christ cannot be in the Sacrament by Transubstantiation This is his argument which he calls a Good One. I am sure I may call it a sublime One and so sublime that there wants only an Adversary of the same humour with Mr. J. S.'s to set it out for a notable piece of new Mystical Divinity For I do verily believe that neither Harphius nor Rusbrochius nor the profound Mother Juliana have any thing in their writings so seemingly un intelligible and contradictory as this discourse of the Doctor 's is really such For beside the hard words of hypostatical union consecrated Elements Conversion into the Person of Christ c. which quite put down Mr. J. S.'s vulgar ones of Potentiality Actuality Actuation supervene subsume c. First He will have it to be the same Body because it is that Body which is hypostatically united with the divine nature Then he will have it not to be the same Body because Christ would have as many Bodies as there are Elements consecrated And then again it must be the same Body because all the Accidents of Bread belong to that Body which is hypostatically united with the Divine Nature But this way of refining a discourse into Mystical Divinity is proper only to confute demonstrations and the argument I have to deal with is so far from that
that none of the Idols of the Heathen were to be compared to Him in Wisdom Greatness Power c. as is manifest he does from v. 12. to the end of the Chapter it is no more to the purpose for which he alledges it viz. Therefore it is forbidden to worship God himself by bowing or kneeling before an Image than if one should say There is no comparison for Riches and Greatness between a King and a Peasant therefore it is not lawful to give honour to the King by putting off ones Hat before his Picture or the Chair of State § 7. To the other Text of Deut. 4. 15. where Moses saith Take good heed to your selves for ye saw no manner of Similitude in the day that the Lord spake to you I answer That de facto no manner of Similitude was seen at that time by the People that afterwards they might not take occasion as they were apt enough to conceive it to have been a proper Representation of the Divinity and so entertain an erroneous Conceit of God Notwithstanding if it had so pleas'd him when he gave the Law he might have appeared to the People in some visible likeness without disparagement to his Nature as it is likely he did in a glorious manner to Moses at the Second giving of the Law when he descended and stood with him on the Rock and he saw the back parts of God and bowed to the Earth and worshipped Exod. 33. 23. 34. 5 8. and as both before and after he appeared to the Patriarchs and Prophets and consequently his not appearing so de facto could not be the Reason of the Law For as Dr. St. himself confesses very ingenuously p. 63. Although God had appeared with a Similitude then yet there might have been great reason for making a Law against worshipping the Heathen Idols or fixing the intention of their Worship upon the bare Image I add Even against thinking of honouring God by an Image made by men if that were the meaning of the Law as it is not since such a Law if necessary might have been made and would have obliged although God had chosen some visible likeness to appear in at that time The words then For ye saw no manner of Similitude on the day that the Lord spake to you though cited by the Doctor without a Parenthesis to make them seem of more force were not set down by Moses as the Reason of the Law But the matter of fact was made use of by him as a Motive to induce the People to the Observance of it in a Sermon he makes Deut. 4. to press them to that duty And this Explication also the Doctor might have found in his own Bible if he had but vouchsafed to cast his Eye upon the Contents of the Chapter where the whole Discourse is entituled An Exhortation to Obedience or on the Breviate on the top of the Page where the Arguments us'd in it are call'd Perswasions to Obedience But there was the word likeness in the first Text and Similitude in the second denied of God and these were enough without considering the Context or the intent of the Writer or the Contents of the Chapters to ask Whether God by that Reason doth not declare that all Worship given to him by any visible Representation of him is extreamly dishonourable to him Now though Protestants may hold with Dr. St. that the Scripture is the most certain Rule of their Faith yet unless they wilfully shut their Eyes they cannot think the Method he takes to be the most certain way to find out its Sense But to draw to a Conclusion in this matter § 8. Let us suppose the Argument notwithstanding all that hath been said to shew its deficiency in all its parts to be good and sound and that in its largest extent viz. The Nature of God being infinite and incomprehensible cannot be represented to men but in a way that must be an infinite disparagement to it Let us grant I say this Antecedent and the Places of Scripture in the sense they are cited by him Let us grant the Consequence too he infers from them Therefore all Worship given to Him by any visible Representation of him whether Proper or Analogical is extreamly dishonourable to him Suppose I say all this to be so Will it follow from hence that Christ according to his Humanity cannot be represented but with great disparagement to Him Or that to put off our Hats when we behold the Figure of his Sacred Body as Nailed upon the Cross with intent to Worship Him must be extremly dishonourable to Him What if the Soul of Man be Invisible and cannot be represented by any Corporeal Figure or Colours Will it follow from thence that any Picture made to represent a Prince according to his External Features would be a disparagement to him and any Honour given him by means of such a Representation a Dishonour The Consequence he brings is no better in order to Christ and his Image If then his Argument do not at all concern the practise of Catholicks in making the Images of Christ and his Saints with respect to their Honour to what purpose was it to lay down for the Reason of the Law in which he will have it to be forbidden That God's Nature being Infinite and Incomprehensible could not be represented without infinite disparagement to it To what purpose was it to spend no less than three Pages as he does § 6. in citing Authours to prove that the Wiser Persons of the Heathens themselves condemned the Worship of God by Images as incongruous to a Divine Nature Was it to make his Reader believe that Catholicks allow of any Pictures as proper Representations of the Invisible Deity Let him lay his Hand upon his Heart I have told him the Churches Sense in that Point What those Wiser Persons of the Heathens meant is evident from their Words and from the Time in which they lived to be this That the Nature of God being Spiritual and Invisible it could not be represented by any thing like unto it and therefore the Worship which the People gave to their Images as Gods or like unto the Gods they worshipped was incongruous to the Divine Nature and a disparagement to the Deity And if the Germans as Tacitus reporteth de morib German c. 9. rejected Images made in the likeness of men which the Doctor conveniently leaves out because they thought them unsuitable to the Greatness of Celestial Deities for Other Figures and Symbols they had in their consecrated Groves as the same Tacitus there witnesseth and Dr. St. suppresseth it was but what the Light of Nature taught them concerning the notion of a Deity which had the mystery of God made Man been revealed to them would have taught them also that it was no disparagement to Him to be represented in the likeness of Man and to be worshipped by such an Image His other Citations I took upon his word without