now chooseth rather to represent himself a great Zelot of preserving Worship and Adoration entire to the one only God and of not communicating any of his Excellencies to the Creature He pleads much our Lord 's sole worthy Intercessions and Mediation and the necessity of performing all our Devotions out of the assurance of Faith and a Divine Command He insists much on a spiritual and refined internal service of God without any superstitious regard had to times persons places and such as is divested of external and formal Rites and Ceremonies Lastly both by some of the new Reformers within the Church and by Mahomet without it he mainly cries out against Superstition Ceremonies a multitude of Sacraments and their virtue Special Ordinations and Characters of Priesthood Will-worship Idolatry which last also is aggravated to the uttermost and extended to far greater subtilties than heretofore it was supposed to comprehend And by this new device he hath wrought so effectually on many that the memory of God's former Saints and Martyrs is almost quite obliterated and worn out among them and the Offering the Evangelical Sacrifice grown much into desuetude Holy Churches saving on the Lord's day shut up Holy Festivals no more observed Sacred Persons are seeking to credit themselves with laical and undistinct Habits sacred things grown into contempt and not enjoying so much as a negative reverence I mean freedome from contumely the Divine Worship at last so refined and purified till it is become invisible and by taking away the necessary circumstances the very substance and life thereof is perished and by disjoining the corporal and mental the interior and exterior Worship neither the one nor the other is by some at all by others so devoutly or frequently performed And all this forsooth this new Angel of Light promoteth in opposition to former Idolatry and Superstition Was not the Great False-Prophet Mahomet and the whole frame of his Religion at least one of the chiefest Conceptions of Satan's old age and Master-piece of all his Works And who so great an Enemy to Sacred Images as he or who with greater zeal throws down and declares war against all Idolatry And by him Satan instead of his former Pageantry and Puppets after that God's Messiah was sent with a most Spiritual Law and the Divine Grace to perswade men to it hath also now set up a sensual non-ceremonious facile Anti-law and a sword to compel men to it § 64 Now to be safe from all these changeable stratagems and wiles of the old Serpent sometimes assaulting us on the left hand sometimes on the right in former times by setting up Idolatry in later by exclaiming against and making shew of pulling it down I know no such security to a Christian as always to repose himself on the judgment of the Church Which Church is neither terrified with the fear of Idolatry so as to deny a due Honor to the Instruments of God's glory nor so prodigal or ignorant of the Divine Excellencies and Prerogatives as to give any part of them to any other In her honouring God's Saints or for their sakes any thing that appertains to them she knows that all such Honor finally terminates in God the sole Fountain and Donor of all that is in his Creature Honourable And his Saints now without all vanity or self-pleasing accept such Honor in conformity to God's will and because it is for his Honor that it should be given them And He is also honoured by them for bestowing such honor on them And God's Kingdome without all Jealousy remains in an Eternal Peace Amen FINIS
1.32 not to signify any supposed likeness of him which is impossible but only to present him to the mind of the beholder in the doing some action of his which is in effect to do the very same thing in a table which the word Jehovah or God would do in a Book I conceive not what charge could be laid on it at least what degree or spice of Idolatry unless I must be thought to worship the Name of God because I write or read it Thus He. And to Mr. Spencer's urging the lawfulness of representing God as he hath pleased in the former Visions to represent himself Dr. Fern Answ to Spencer p. 57. answers ' That the representations of these Visions are tolerable And if of these Visions tolerable why not also of some part of them As the Ancient of Days sitting on a Throne to represent his coming to Judgment Or the figure of a Dove to signify a peculiar presence and assistance of the Holy Ghost where nothing untrue or unwarranted by Scripture is designed the care and over-sight of which is committed to the Church Governors And these thus represented why may not the same reverence be given to such figures recommended to us by such sacred Scripture-Apparitions as is to other representations of sacred Persons our Lord or his Saints limned or drawn in the like stories and why may not those Persons of the Trinity be worshiped before such Symbolical Figures or Representations of them if our Lord Christ may before his Of which more hereafter Only provided this difference always be put that we imagine no true resemblance of the Person in the one as we do in the other and that our devotion reflect not on the similitude of the Person but of the Apparition and on the reality of some gracious operation thereof § 13 2 In none of these whether Metaphorical Representations of the Trinity or proper ones of our Lord or his Saints do Catholicks affirm or pretend any peculiar presence of the Deity of our Lord or of his Saints no Virtue either natural or accessory and derivative in any such Image for which it should be worshiped or honoured or trusted in or for which our Lord should be honoured or worshiped by it or our requests to have any more access or efficacy by or through any such Image to or upon its Exemplar or Person represented Or again the Exemplar any greater influence by or through it upon those who supplicate him before it Nor seemeth the Expression of the Council of Trent Sess 25. Per Imagines quas osculamur coram quibus caput aperimus procumbimus Christum adoramus cujus illae similitudinem gerunt to have any other meaning than this That per osculationem imaginum and apertionem capitis c. coram illis adoramus Prototypum that by or in that inferior reverence and respect we give to them we testify the Honor or Adoration we bear to him they represent to us as appears also by the words of the Council immediately preceding Non quod credatur c. sed quoniam honos qui eis exhibetur i. e. that Cult given them expresly declared inferior by the Council of Nice to whose explication the Council of Trent referrs us refertur ad Prototypa quae illae representant In which sense it is noted by Estius 3. Sent. Dist 9. § 3. that this Saying of St. Basil and some others Quod Honor Imaginis transit in Prototypum is taken both by the second Council of Nice by Pope Adrian Resp Carol. c. 8. by Damascen De Fid. Orthod 4. l. 17. c. and also is understood to be taken so and in such sense disputed against by the Caroline Books l. 3. c. 16. and not in that other sense applied to it by some Schoolmen As the Honor done to his Image or to the Chair of State redounds to the honor of the Prince yet is not the same we give to the Prince Thus then per Imagines we worship the Prototype but not as if by or thro these Images as a more advantageous or acceptable medium of our service we direct our proper worship to the Prototype as some Protestants seem willing to mistake it Or if any will have the Council to speak here not of the inferior Adoration terminated in the Image but of the supreme given to the Prototype then the Council in these words Per Imaginem Christum adoramus must be understood to use per only to signify the motive or occasion of our worship As that Saying of St. Gregory Epist 7. l. 53. long ago expresseth it Et nos quidem ante Imaginem Salvatoris non quasi ante Divinitatem prosternimur sed illum adoramus quem per Imaginem aut natum aut passum c recordamur But I say tho Catholicks may thus make the Image or rather our beholding it a medium of exciting the Remembrance and so the Love Honor Worship of the Exemplar yet they make it no medium of the foresaid worship to the Exemplar or Prototype Non quod credatur saith the Council of Trent Sess 25. inesse aliqua in its virtus propter quam sint colendae vel quod fiducia in iis sit figenda Lastly Catholicks pretend no advantage in the use of such Images either to render our Prayers or Worship more acceptable to God or his Saints or more effectual to us save so far as the frequent beholding such Representations may excite and increase our devotion affection and love and imitation of their Virtues c. and this devotion fection imitation obtain a more gracious acceptance and reward § 14 Neither have the solemn Benedictions of Images used in the Church any such design as to derive from above any special virtue into them but only as in all other benedictions of God's Creatures to implore God's blessing on them for that purpose to which they are made use of viz. Ut quoties illas Imagines sive effigies oculis corporeis intuemur toties eorum in quorum memoriam honorem adaptantur Actus sanctitatem ad imitandum memoriae oculis meditemur And Ut quicunque coram illis imaginibus talem Sanctum honorare studùerit Illius precibus obtentu a Deo gratiam in praesenti aeternam gloriam obtineat in futuro Where the reward follows the devotion of the Supplicant not any virtue of the Picture And if some Pictures or Images happen to be frequented with mens Prayers I mean to the Person represented by them more than others because some Miracles have bin done as in some holy Places more than in some others so where some Holy Pictures or Images are more than where some others yet are such Miracles no more affirmed to be done by any virtue of such Images which is by the Church declared to be none at all in any Non quod credatur inesse aliqua in iis virtus than by the virtue of such Holy Place But only from God's good pleasure a reason
simpliciter potest negari And for his Simile may not one truly say that in the honor given by him to the Royal Majesty sitting in his Robes the Robes have no share at all Vasquez as we have seen before § 37. allows to the Image only an external Note of Honor but no internal Cult at all proper or improper supreme or inferior i. e. say others allows them no honor or adoration at all which they say cannot be gone in any manner by external gestures only without any internal intention But then when they speak of an internal respect or honor given to the Image as the proper object of such respect for the Exemplar's sake not only any latria but any submissio animi tanquam excellentiori is herein desclaimed of which saith Lugo non potest esse rationalis controversia § 39 Lastly the worst that can be of such learned men who by their ascending to subtilties have the infelicity also to be misunderstood yet where is had so plain a Definition and explication of the Church Non latriam it seems unjust against this to make use of some contradictions and inconsistencies were there any such of some private Authors To them we may say as long ago Cardinal Bellarmin De Imag. 2. l. 22. c. Cur quaeso non loquimur ut Patres nostri loquuntur And if it be lawful to desert not only the expressions but opinion of St. Thomas in other points why not in this Nor from such expressions can any have the least pretence either to accuse the Roman Church of Idolatry or reject its Communion This of some School-Expressions And this in 4th place from § 16. of the Roman Church's not acknowledging any either Latria or Dulia to Images § 40 5ly Neither doth she give to them any external sign of honor which the Divine Majesty hath appropriated to his own service and worship They sacrifice not to them as all former both Heathen and Jewish Idolatry did And as for any other signs of respect given them they have bin already cleared before § 31 32. § 41 6. Lastly To clear the Roman Church from any such Doctrine or Practice about Images as renders her Cult of them Idolatry an Idolatry equal with the Heathen we may urge Mr. Thorndike's Argument set down below § 48. For that so she can be no true Church neither the whole nor any true part of the Church Catholick which if it cannot maintain any Heresy can much less Idolatry See Annotation on Dr. Stillingst p. 73. l. 13. Yet Protestants do not deny the Roman to be a true Church And should they they would destroy a legal Mission or Ordination of their own Church-Ministry or Clergy received from this Church IV. The third Head proposed being thus dispatched IV. §. 42. What Cult or Worship practised by all former Idolaters Catholicks do deny to Images I come next to shew you what they allow 1. First then they maintain a very beneficial use of the Images of our Lord or his Saints set before us when we pray and especially when subject to distraction of thoughts in Prayer that the sight thereof may serve to heighten our devotion and the better confine our meditation on the Person or sacred Story represented and hinder our Imaginations from straying abroad may serve to excite in us acts of Honor Love Affection to such Persons a grateful remembrance and imitation of them of their Heroick Vertues and valiant Sufferings a passionate representing to them the Persons I mean nor the Pictures our present condition and imploring their aid and intercessions c. From the more frequent practice of which acts occasioned by these sensible memorials of our Blessed Lord and his Saints Catholicks experience so great an advantage in raising their affections as that they are not easily by the groundless clamours of Idolatry or of the peril thereof to Christians wherein Heathens are made so subtile to be frighted out of them Nor the Church moved at all to restrain the good use that is made of and fruit received by them § 43 2ly Catholicks do maintain a certain honor reverence or veneration properly due and lawful to be given to the Images or Pictures of our Lord or his Saints and that per in or secundum se to the Image in it self and as the proper object of such Honor or Veneration 3. But 3ly this only a relative honor and not given propter se §. 44. n. 1. but such whereby out of the love and honor we owe to the Prototype we have an affection also to those things that any way appertain to it to any Relick Representation Memorial of it To understand which if it needs any further explaining we may observe with Suarez In 3. Thom. 7.25 Disp 54. § 4 5. That to or in the presence of an Image a twofold Adoration may be performed 1. Either an Adoration both internal and external the external still following the intention of the mind only to the Exemplar and none at all to the Image the Image or Picture serving only as a Motive thereto or a Remembrancer thereof of which we have spoken before § 36.2 Or an internal and external Adoration such as that we here speak of directed only to the Image not the Exemplar as its proper object tho the honor we owe to the Exemplar be the sole motive thereof so that if it be done to an Image of our Lord it proceeds originally from the honor we owe unto our Lord tho it is not that Honor Or also one and the same external gesture subservient to a double internal intention one directed to the Figure the other to the thing designed by it Now both these Worships are by the Church maintained lawful and this later in the second Nicene Council vindicated against those who tho they were no Iconoclasts but allowing the use of Images yet denied it lawful to pray or bow before to kiss or embrace or to use lights perfumes or shew any other signs of honor to them therefore these called by Epiphanius 2. Conc. Nic. Act. 6. in fin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 semi-pravi and falso veri whenas yet those very persons that denied these lawful to Images performed the like Ceremonies to the Cross the Book of the Gospels and other sacred Utensils Against these therefore it concerned the Church to vindicate such long-practiced Salutation or honorary Adoration of Images Which also was defended in that Council by the like civil Honors and Ceremonies relating to the Exemplar by Christians without scruple performed to the Emperors waxen Effigies or Statues brought into Cities for their doing homage where the Emperor could not appear and receive it in person Si enim saith a Bishop there 2. Conc. Nic. Act. 1. Regum laureata Iconas missas ad civitates vel regiones obvii adeunt populi cum Cereis Incensis non cera perfusam tabulam sed Imperatorem honorantes Quanto
such veneration of Images for some Ages in all or some part of the Church that therefore the lawfulness of such a practice is no Apostolical Tradition because all things lawful are not as to practice in all times so expedient And perhaps this might be the reason as hath bin said of the rarer use of Pictures in the first four Ages of the Church because the Christian world was not as yet so well cleansed from Heathenisme and so in later times of the veneration or use of Images not being so universal in some parts of the West as latelier converted from Heathenisme and still neighbouring upon them § 54 2. It is granted by Protestants that the use of Images in Churches was introduced in the fourth Age. Of which thus Chemnitius Exam. Conc. Trid. part 4. De Imaginibus Caepit in ipsis etiam Templis usus esse Imaginum non sane ad cultum adorationem sed partim ad historicam commonefactionem partim ornatus gratia Et caeptum hoc fuit potissimum circa An. Dom. 380. Quoting a Passage of Gregory Nyssen Orat. in Theodorurn Martyrem Et Pictor etiam artis suae stores induxit in imaginibus exprimens res Martyris praeclare gestas labores cruciatus immanes tyrannorum aspectus c. Christique certamini praesidentis humanae formae effigiem Haec pictor tanquam in libro loquente artificiose depingens Martyris certamina nobis exposuit Solet enim etiam pictura tacens in pariete loqui maximeque prodesse c. Thus Gregory See also Daille Traicte des Imag. c. 4. But for Chemnitius or him to argue those Pictures to be first made or introduced into the Church about this time because at this time spoken of or at such time as these were seen here yet not the like to have been elsewhere because not mentioned as here are both unreasonable There are indeed produced by them two Testimonies in that Age that seem very prejudicial to Images The one a Canon of Conc. Elibert c. 36. Placuit Picturas in Ecclesia esse non debere ne quod colitur aut adoratur in parietibus depingatur The other a Passage in an Epistle of St. Epiphanius to John Bishop of Jerusalem Who as he was travelling in Palestine coming to a certain Church and seeing a Picture as it were of our Saviour or some Saint painted on a Veil and a Lamp hanging before it took and tore it as holding such a thing unlawful and against Scripture to be hung up in a Church Because the place is much pressed I will set you down the Story in his own words relating to the Bishop of Jerusalem his action and sending that Church another Veil in stead of that he had torn Cum venissem ad villam quae dicitur Anablatha vidissemque ibi praeteriens lucernam ardentem interrogassem quis locus esset didicissemque esse Ecclesiam intrassem ut orarem inveni ibi velum pendens in foribus ejusdem Ecclesiae unctum atque depictum habens imaginem quasi Christi vel Sancti cujusdam non enim satis memini cujus imago fuerit Cum ergo hoc vidissem in Ecclesia Christi contra authoritatem Scripturarum hominis pendere imaginem scidi illud magis dedi consilium custodibus ejusdem loci ut pauperem mortuum eo obvolverent efferrent Illique contra murmurantes dixerunt Si scindere valuerat justum erat ut aliud daret velum atque mutaret Quod cum audissem me daturum esse pollicitus sum illico esse missurum Paululum autem morarum fuit in medio dum quaero optimum velum pro eo mittere arbitrabar enim de Cypro mihi esse mittendum Nunc autem misi quod potui reperire precor ut jubeas presbyteros ejusdem loci suscipere velum a latore quod a nobis missum est deinceps praecipere in Ecclesia Christi ejusmodi vela quae contra religionem nostram veniunt non appendi But 1st both these prove beyond that for which the objecters press them by opposing also the making or use of holy Images at least in Churches the first forbids the painting or placing of them in Churches the second tears and defaces those found there Protestants approve neither of these Let themselves then frame an Answer to them § 55 2ly For the first of these I grant there might be good ground for such a prohibition considering the times the Council being very ancient and held in Spain before that of Nice at which time a great part of the West were Heathen-Idolaters and taking the Adoratur in their sense not for any inferior Veneration but such as the Heathen gave to their Images the Prohibition was prudently made for that very reason Ne quod adoratur in parietibus depingatur or which comes to the same Ne quod in parietibus depingitur adoretur i. e. Ne putetur Deus Christianorum esse illud quod in parietibus depingitur as the Heathen God's were and lest such Pictures should there by any new Converts be adored with any such corrupt notions as formerly were their Idols To this purpose speaks Mr. Thorndike concerning both these places objected ' Granting saith he Just Weights c. 9. p. 127. that Epiphanius and the Council of Elvira did hold all Images in Churches dangerous for Idolatry of which there is appearance it is manifest that they were afterwards admitted all over And there might be jealousy of offence in having Images in Churches before Idolatry was quite rooted out of which afterwards there might be no appearance But no manner of appearance that Images in History should occasion Idolatry to those Images in them that hold them the Images of God's Creatures such as are those Images which represent histories of the Saints out of the Scriptures or other relations of unquestionable credit Thus He. 2. Next for the other of Epiphanius supposing neither that Epistle nor that Passage in it falsified it seems that he had the same jealousy with the Fathers of Elvira tho not so much cause considering his times and by some of his words that he held also the use of Images in Churches to be against Scripture in which therefore Protestants as well as Catholicks must hold him singular and not to be credited and the rather because what is urged out of other Fathers of the same age Basil Gregory Nyssen and Nazianzen allowing this use of them shews him to be heterodox herein And the Fathers of Nice Act. 6. Tom. 5. out of the same pretended Epistle of his to Theodosius the Emperor that the Iconoclasts urged for his disallowing Images extract such a Confession of his Multoties locutus sum cum comministris meis ut auferrentur Imagines receptus non sum ab eis neque audire vocem meam saltem paululum passi sunt Which Comministri say those Nicene Fathers also were such as Basil Gregory Nazianzen and Nyssen Chrysostome Ambrose Amphilochius
Having said what I think is abundantly sufficient to clear the Church's Practice in her use and veneration of Images from so heavy an imputation as indeed if the Adversaries interest would permit them to aggravate it so far doth utterly un-church it and make it a Synagogue of Satan and parallel to the Heathen Religions Now I desire those Protestants who charge the Church herewith to reflect what an heavy guilt it leaves upon themselves if such Accusation should be false and without cause and what consequences pernicious to themselves it draws along with it For 1. if it be a great fault to charge unjustly any private person with so hainous a crime as Idolatry what is it to charge the whole Catholick Church East and West with the Practice thereof now for above a thousand years and this notwithstanding our Lord 's precious Blood shed for this his Church and all his Providence over it now when all Power in heaven and earth is committed to him and notwithstanding his express Promise of protecting it for ever against the gates of hell What is it thus to call their innocent Mother a Whore for committing such spiritual Fornication and their supreme Spiritual Father Anti-Christ 2. And next What consequences doth it draw after it most mischievous to their Salvation Since after they have once fixed such an Apostacy upon their supreme Spiritual Governors and Guides and after they have thus cryed Corban they conceive themselves freed and absolved from any further Obedience they owe them And by withdrawing Obedience abandon themselves to all those errors and disorders from which this supreme Church-authority would have restrained them Nay some are so frighted herewith as they know not how to stay longer under any Church-authority at all but run away also from those Ecclesiastical Governors who have discovered this Idolatry and Anti-Christ to them and from that Church-discipline also and those Ceremonies which these judge still fit to retain as thinking they discern in all these some lineaments and resemblances of him And so by God's just judgment what aspersions these inferior Guides have laid upon the Supreme these other their Subjects have returned on them And several sober Protestants of late See Dr. Hammond who seem to have better weighed these things in labouring against these Puritan Sects to free their own Church-Government from such an imputation have also enlarged themselves so far as to release the Roman from it and have joined themselves with the Catholick Writers to remove Anti-Christ and his Seat and Kingdom quite out of the verge of Christianity § 62 Meanwhile of those Protestants who have supposed the Roman Church Anti-christian and its Head the Anti-christ and its Religion Idolatry these later more zealous Sects seem to act much more sincerely and consequentially than the other more moderate party For such Idolatry and Anti-christ once clearly discovered God forbid good Christians should so far either admit of his Laws or comply with his religious Ceremonies or maintain Communion with his Members or derive their Authority from him as the Prelatical Protestancy doth with and from the Church of Rome Would any of them correspond so far with Mahomet's Religion whom yet they account not bad enough to inherit the title of Anti-christ or charge of Idolatry as they do with the Pope's Let them then either remit such Accusation or prosecute more severely and more speedily fly from such a guilt We can never run far enough from this Grand Enemy of our Lord. For as the Apostle 2. Cor. 6.14 ' What fellowship or communion hath light with darkness what concord Christ with Belial what commerce Jerusalem with Babylon Let therefore those Zelots who are so forward to heap such an extremity of Impiety on the whole Church of God for so many Centuries before Luther or also on the whole present Church besides Luther's Followers consider well that necessary consequence thereof which some others of their own side to deter them from such a charge have observed For ' If as Mr. Thorndike Epilog 3. l. p. 357. these Practices which the Church of Rome allows and which we have handled here were necessarily Idolatries then were the Church of Rome necessarily no Church I add nor any other for many Ages before Luther or the present besides Luther for in these Practices all else agree ' The being of the Church and of Christianity presupposing the worship of one true God exclusive to any thing else And elsewhere Just Weights 2. c. p. 11. ' They that own the Church of Rome for a true Church and if it be not where was the Catholick Church before Luther must contradict themselves if they maintain such a supposition as that the Pope is Anti-christ or the Papists Idolaters Their charge is too high to be possibly true and to render her not innocent and free from their complaints they must necessarily make her less wicked Again the same Author Ibid. c. 19. p. 128. ' He that sees saith he the whole Church for the East as well as West practice these by them stiled Idolatries on the one side and only Calvin and his Followers on the other hath he not cause to fear that they who make them Idolaters without cause will themselves appear Schismaticks in the sight of God for it And therefore much more modestly he saith Epilog 3. l. p. 364. That the honor of Images which the Church's Decree maintaineth is no Idolatry And Ibid. p. 416. That the Idolatries which he grants to be possible tho not necessary indeed to be found in it are by the ignorance and carnal affections of particulars not by commands of the Church or the Laws of it And of the great danger of censuring such general Practices of the Church thus Bishop Forbes speaking of one of the supposed Idolatries Invocation of Saints De Invoc Sanct. 3. c. p. 322. Totius Ecclesiae universalem consensum spernere aut damnare res longe periculosissima est And much more in abuses only of some that which he saith is true p. 326. Non continuo propter periculum abusus aut etiam abusum quem reipsa cernimus legitimus rei usus cum scandalo totius Ecclesiae tollendus aut damnandus est § 63 Surely as the Devil gained heretofore infinite of Souls in the Old World by the Practice of Idolatry so in the New after the World's being more enlightened by the coming of our Lord and after his old gross Arts grown into general contempt and disgrace he changeth his Colours and plays another game and makes no small Harvest of Souls by driving and frighting them out of the Catholick Church and Faith and former Obedience to legal Church-Authority under the pretence now of flying from Idolatry And again So great an Envy he hath to the Honor he sees given in the Church to the sacred Humanity of our Lord in the Holy Mysteries and to his Martyrs and Saints and all that which any way appertains to them that he