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more to be said in so plain a case.

We end this with the

words of the civil and canon law. Justinian the emperor made a law in these words; "We will and command, that all bishops and priests celebrate the sacred oblation, and the prayers thereunto added in holy baptism, not in a low voice, but with a loud and clear voice, which may be heard by the faithful people;" that is, be understood, for so it follows, "that thereby the minds of the hearers may be raised up with greater devotion to set forth the praises of the Lord God; for so the apostle teacheth in the first to the Corinthians ." It is true, that this law was rased out of the Latin versions of Justinian. fraud and design was too palpable, but it prevailed nothing; for it is acknowledged by Cassander and Bellarmine, and is in the Greek copies of Holoanders.

The

The canon law is also most express, from an authority of no less than a pope and a general council, as themselves esteem ; Innocent III, in the great council of Lateran, above MCC years after Christ, in these wordsh: "Because in most parts within the same city and diocese, the people of divers tongues are mixed together, having under one and the same faith divers ceremonies and rites, we straitly charge and command, that the bishops of such cities and dioceses provide men fit, who may celebrate Divine service according to the diversity of ceremonies and languages, and administer the sacraments of the church, instructing them both by word and by example."

Now if the words of the apostle, and the practice of the primitive church, the sayings of the Fathers, and the confessions of wise men amongst themselves; if the consent of nations, and the piety of our forefathers; if right reason, and the necessity of the thing; if the needs of the ignorant, and the very inseparable conditions of holy prayers; if the laws of princes, and the laws of the church, which do require all our prayers to be said by them that understand what they say; if all these cannot prevail with the church of Rome to do so much good to the people's souls, as to consent they should understand what in particular they are to ask of God, certainly there is a great pertinacy of opinion, and but a little charity to those precious souls, for whom Christ died, and for whom they must give account.

Indeed the old Toscan rites, and the soothsayings of the Salian priests, Via sacerdotibus suis intellecta, sed quæ mutari vetat 8 De Missa 1. 2. c. 13. sect. ad Novellam.

f Novel. 123.

h Cap. 9.

religio1, were scarce understood by their priests themselves, but their religion forbad to change them. Thus anciently did the Osseni heretics, of whom Epiphanius tells, and the Heracleonitæ, of whom S. Austink gives account; they taught to pray with obscure words; and some others in Clemens Alexandrinus supposed, that words spoken in a barbarous or unknown tongue, dvvarwrépas, are more powerful. The Jews also in their synagogues at this day read Hebrew, which the people but rarely understand; and the Turks in their mosques read Arabic, of which the people know nothing. But Christians never did so, till they of Rome resolved to refuse to do benefit to the souls of the people in this instance, or to bring them from intolerable ignorance.

SECTION VIII.

Worship of images. What they call "giving them due honour." This worship first brought in by heretics. Opposed by the first Fathers. Epiphanius his zeal against it. Forbidden by the council of Eliberis. First decreed by the second council of Nice. Condemned by the synod of Frankford convened by Charles the Great, under whose name a book was published against that Nicene synod, and the worship of images. Against which the primitive Christians were so prejudiced, that they would not allow images to be made.

THE church of Rome hath to very bad purposes introduced and imposed upon Christendom the worship and veneration of images, kissing them, pulling off their hats, kneeling, falling down and praying before them, which they call, "giving them due honour and veneration." What external honour and veneration that is which they call "due," is expressed by the instances now reckoned, which the council of Trent in their decree enumerate and establish. What the inward honour and worship is, which they intend to them, is intimated in the same decree. By the images they worship Christ and his saints; and therefore by these images they pass that honour to Christ and his saints which is their due: that is, as their doctors explain it, latria, or divine worship to God and Christ; hyperdulia, or more than service, to the blessed Virgin Mary; and service, or dulia, to other canonized persons. So that upon the whole, the case is this. whatever worship they give to God, and Christ and his saints,

i Quintil. 1. 1.

k Verb. Osseni. cap. 6. ad Quod vult Deum.

they give it first to the image, and from the image they pass it unto Christ and Christ's servants. And therefore we need not to inquire what actions they suppose to be fit or due. For whatsoever is due to God, to Christ or his saints, that worship they give to their respective images: all the same in external semblance and ministry; as appears in all their great churches, and public actions, and processions, and temples, and festivals, and endowments, and censings, and pilgrimages, and prayers, and vows made to them.

Now besides that these things are so like idolatry, that they can no way be reasonably excused (of which we shall in the next chapter give some account): besides that they are too like the religion of the heathens, and so plainly and frequently forbidden in the Old Testament, and are so infinitely unlike the simple and wise, the natural and holy, the pure and the spiritual religion of the Gospel: besides that they are so infinite a scandal to the Jews and Turks, and reproach Christianity itself amongst all strangers that live in their communion, and observe their rites: besides that they cannot pretend to be lawful, but with the laborious artifices of many metaphysical notions and distinctions, which the people who most need them do least understand; and that therefore the people worship them without these distinctions, and directly put confidence in them; and that it is impossible that ignorant persons, who in all Christian countries make up the biggest number, should do otherwise, when otherwise they cannot understand it; and besides that the thing itself, with or without distinctions, is a superstitious and forbidden, an unlawful and unnatural worship of God, who will not be worshipped by an image; we say, that besides all this, this whole doctrine and practice is an innovation in the Christian church, not practised, not endured in the primitive ages; but expressly condemned by them: and this is our present undertaking to evince.

The first notice we find of images brought into Christian religion was by Simon Magus: indeed that was very ancient, but very heretical and abominable: but that he brought some in to be worshipped, we find in Theodoret and S. Austin"; S. Irenæus tells, that the Gnostics or Carpocratians did make images, and said, that the form of Christ, as he was in the flesh,

0

1 Chap. 2. sect. 12.

m Lib. 1. Hæret. Fabul.

n De Hæres.

m

o Lib. 1. cap. 23. vide etiam Epiphan. t. 2. lib. 1. Hæres. 27. et S. August. de Hæres.

was made by Pilate; and these images they worshipped, as did the gentiles: these things they did; but against these things the Christians did zealously and piously declare: "We have no image in the world," said S. Clemens of Alexandria P: "it is apparently forbidden to us to exercise that deceitful art for it is written, Thou shalt not make any similitude of any thing in heaven above," &c. And Origen wrote a just treatise against Celsus; in which he not only affirms, that Christians did not make or use images in religion, but that they ought not, and were by God forbidden to do so. To the same purpose also Lactantius discourses to the emperor, and confutes the pretences and little answers of the heathen in that manner, that he leaves no pretence for Christians under another cover, to introduce the like abomination.

We are not ignorant, that those who were converted from gentilism, and those who loved to imitate the customs of the Roman princes and people, did soon introduce the historical use of images, and according to the manner of the world, did think it honourable to depict or make images of those whom they had in great esteem; and that this being done by an esteem, relying on religion, did by the weakness of men, and the importunity of the tempter, quickly pass into inconvenience and superstition; yet even in the time of Julian the emperor, S. Cyril denies, that the Christians did give veneration and worship to the image, even of the cross itself, which was one of the earliest temptations; and S. Epiphanius (it is a known story) tells, that when in the village of Bethel he saw a cloth picture, as it were of Christ, or some saint in the church, against the authority of scripture;" he cut it in pieces, and advised that some poor man should be buried in it affirming that such "pictures are against religion, and unworthy of the church of Christ." The epistle was translated into Latin by S. Hierom; by which we may guess at his opinion in the question.

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The council of Eliberis is very ancient, and of great fame; in which it is expressly forbidden, that what is worshipped should be depicted on the walls; and that therefore pictures ought not to be in churches s. S. Austin, complaining that he knew of

P Lib. 6. Strom. et in Parænetico.

q Lib. 7 et 8. cont. Cels.

r Epist. ad Joh. Hieros.

s Can. 36. Placuit picturas in ecclesia esse non debere, ne quod colitur aut ado

ratur in parietibus depingatur.

t De Morib. Eccles. 1. 1. c. 34. Idem de Fide et Symbolo, c. 7. et contr. Adimant. cap. 13.

many in the church who were worshippers of pictures, calls them superstitious; and adds, that the church condemns such customs, and strives to correct them: and S. Gregory, writing to Serenus bishop of Massilia, says he would not have had him to break the pictures and images, which were there set for an historical use; but commends him for prohibiting any one to worship them, and enjoins him still to forbid it. But superstition by degrees creeping in, the worship of images was decreed in the seventh synod, or the second Nicene. But the decrees of this synod being by pope Adrian sent to Charles the Great, he convocated a synod of German and French bishops at Francford, who discussed the acts passed at Nice, and condemned them: and the acts of this synod, although they were diligently suppressed by the pope's arts, yet Eginardus, Hincmarus, Aventinus, Blondus, Adon, Aymonius and Regino, famous historians, tell us, that the bishops of Francford condemned the synod of Nice, and commanded it should not be called a general council, and published a book, under the name of the emperor, confuting that unchristian assembly; and not long since, this book and the acts of Francford were published by bishop Tillius; by which, not only the infinite fraud of the Roman doctors is discovered, but the worship of images is declared against and condemned.

A while after this, Ludovicus, the son of Charlemain, sent Claudius, a famous preacher, to Taurinum in Italy, where he preached against the worshipping of images, and wrote an excellent book to that purpose. Against this book Jonas, bishop of Orleans, after the death of Ludovicus and Claudius, did write: in which he yet durst not assert the worship of them, but confuted it out of Origen; whose words he thus cites: "Images are neither to be esteemed by inward affection, nor worshipped with outward show:" and out of Lactantius these: "Nothing is to be worshipped that is seen with mortal eyes : let us adore, let us worship nothing but the name alone of our only Parent, who is to be sought for in the regions above, not here below." And to the same purpose he also alleges excellent words out of Fulgentius and S. Hierom; and though he would have images retained, and therefore was angry at Claudius, who caused them to be taken down, yet he himself expressly affirms that they ought not to be worshipped; and withal adds, that though they kept the images in their churches for history and

v An. Dom. 764.

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