APOSTASY OF THE ROMISH CHURCH. 23o
Neither did Vigilius behave himself one jot better in his chair. The council of Pisa deposed Gregory XII. and Benedict XIII. for schis- matics and heretics. The council of Constance accused John XXIII. of abominable heresy, sess. 11. And that of Basil condemned Euge- nius as one " a fide devium et pertinacem htereticum," sess. 84; — " an erroneous person and obstinate heretic." Other instances of the like nature might be called over, manifesting that your popes have erred, and been condemned as persons en'oneous; and therein the principle of their infallibility.
I would be unwilling to tire your patience, yet, upon your reiter- ated desire, I shall present you with one instance more; and I will do it but briefly, because I must deal with you again about the same matter.
5. Your church is fallen by idolatry, as otherwise, so in that reli- gious veneration of images which she useth; whereunto you have added heresy, in teaching it for a doctrine of truth, and imposing the belief of it by your Tridentine determination on the consciences of the disciples of Christ. I know you would fain mince the matter, and spread over the corrupt doctrine of your church about it with priijMSi iSvsdivoig, " silken words," as you do the posts that they are made of with gold, when, as the prophet speaks of your predecessors in that work, j^ou lavish it out of the bag for that purpose. But to what purpose? Your first council, the second of Nice (which yet was not wholly yours neither, for it condemns Honorius, calls Tha- rasius the ecumenical patriarch, and he expounds in it the rock on vv^hich the church was built to be Christ, and not Peter) ; your last council, that of Trent; your angelical doctor, Thomas of Aquine; your great champions, Bellarmine and Baronius, Suarez, Vasquez, and the rest 01 them ; with the Catholic practice and usage of your church in all places, — declare sufficiently what is your faith, or rather misbelief, in this matter. Hence Azorius, Institut. lib. ix. cap. 6, tells us that " Constans est theologorum sententia, imaginem eodem honore et cultu coli, quo colitur id cujus est imago;" — "It is the constant judgment of divines, that tlie image is to be worshipped with the same honour and worship wherewith that is worshipped whose image it is." The Nicene coimcil, by the instigation of Pope Adrian, ana- thematizeth every one Avho doth but doubt of the adoration of images, act. 7. Tiiomas contcndeth that the cross is to be worshipped with " latria," p. 3, q. 25, a. 4; which is a word that he and you suppose to express religious worship of the highest sort. And your council of Trent, in their decree about this matter, confirmed the doctrine of that lestrical^ convention at Nice, whose frauds and impostures were
1 An epithet, yyiirrpixi;, plundering or piratical, — applied to characterize a council ■whose nets, according to Gibbon, are " a curious monument of superstition and ignor- ance, of falsehood and fully." — Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. xlix. — Ed.
236 A VINDICATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
never paralleled in the world but by itself. And do yon think that a few ambiguous flourishing words of you, an unknown person, shall make the world believe that they understand not the doctrine and practice of your church, which is proclaimed unto them by the fathers and masters of your persuasion herein, and expressed in practices under their eyes every day? Do you think it so easy for you, " Cor- nicum oculos, configere," as Cicero tells us an attorney, one Cn. Fla- vins, thought to do, in going beyond all that the great lawyers had done before him, Orat. pro Mursena, 11. We cannot yet be persuaded that you are so great an interpreter of the Roman oracles as to be- lieve you before all the sages before mentioned, to whom hundreds may be added. And what do you think of this doctrine and prac- tice of your church? Hath it been opposed, judged, and condemned, or no? The first writers of Christianity, Justin Martyr, Irengeus, Origen, Tertullian, Arnobius, Lactantius, utterly abhorred the use of all images, at least "in sacris.'' The council held at Eliberis in Spain, twelve or thirteen years before the famous assembly at Nice, positively forbid all use of pictures in churches: Can. 86, " Placuit, picturas in ecclesia esse non debere; ne quod colitur et adoratur in parietibus depingatur;" — "The council resolved that pictures ought not to be in churches ; that that which is worshipped and adored be not painted on walls." Cyprian condemns it, Epist. ad Demetriad. And so, generally, do all the fathers, as may be gathered in the piti- ful endeavours and forgeries of the second Nicene council, endea- vouring to confirm it from them. Epiphanius reckons it among the errors of the Gnostics; and himself brake an image that he found hanging in a church, Epist. ad Johan. Hierosol. Austin was of the same judgment, see Lib. de Morib. Eccles. Cathol. cap. xxxiv. Your adoration of them is expressly condemned by Gregory the Great, in an ejDistle to Serinus, lib. vii. epist. Ill, and lib. ix. epist. 9. The Greek church condemned it, in a synod at Constantinople, anno 754. And one learned man in those days undertaking its defence (and, indeed, the only man of learning that ever did so until of late), they excom- municated and cursed him. This was Damascenus; concerning whom they used those expressions, repeated in the second Nicene council: Mavaovp rw 7iazuvuu,io xal "Sappaxrjvofpovi avads/JLa' tSj uxdvoAarpri zai <paX- C(jypd(p<jO Mavaoup dvads/jycx,' ruJ rou Xpicfrou hZpiGrr] %ai s-^i^ovXuj r5jg [3affi- "kuag Ma<j(Joup ai/a^s,aa" rw rrig daZiiag didaa%dXw xat Tapip/jjrjvsur'/i TTJg ^siag ypa(prii Mav ffovp dvdC'c/xa' — " Unto Mansour,^ of an evil name, and in judgment consenting with Saracens, anathema; to Mansour, a wor-