THE WORSHIP OF IMAGES. 447
wrote these things ? Did you never read your Tridentiae decrees, or the Nicene canons commended by them? is not the adoration of images asserted a hundred times expressly in it? Hath no man ahve such thoughts? Are not only Thomas and Bonaventure, but Bellar- mine, Gregory de Valentia, Baronius, Suarez, Vasquez, Azorius, with all the rest of your great champions, now utterly defeated, and have not one man left to be of their judgment? I would be glad to hear more of this matter. Speak plainly. Do you renounce all adoration and worship of images? is that the doctrine of your church? Prove it so, and I shall publicly acknowledge myself to have been a long time in a very great mistake. But it was for this cause that I gave you a little image of the doctrine and practice of your church in this matter, at the entrance of our discourse, foreseeing how you would prevaricate in our progress. Come, sir, if image-worship be such a shameful thing that you dare not avow it, deal ingenuously, and acknoAvledge the failings of your church in this matter, and labour to bring her to amendment. If you think otherwise, and, in truth, yet like it well enough, deal like a man, and dare to defend it at least as well as you can ; and more no man can look for at your hands. You mention somewhat of the different opinions of your schoolmen in this matter; which you slight. But, sir, I tell you again, that you and all your masters are agreed that images are to be adored and venerated, — that is, worshipped ; and their disputes about that honour that rests absolutely on the image, and that v/hich passeth on to the prototjqoe, with the kind of the one and the other, are such as neither themselves nor any other do understand. You tell us, indeed, " All catholic councils and practice declare such sacred figures to be expe- dient assistants to our thoughts in our divine meditations and prayers ; and that is all you know of it." But if you intend councils and practice truly catholic or primitive, you can give no instance of al- lowing so much to images as here you ascribe unto them; no, not one council can you produce to that purpose for some hundreds of years, but a constant current of testimonies for the rejection of such pretended expediencies and assistances, the first beginning of their use arising from heathens, as Eusebius declares, hb. vii. cap. 18. But if you intend your Roman Catholic councils and practice, your asser- tion is as devoid of truth as any thing you can possibly utter. What kind of assistance in devotion these your sacred figures do yield, we shall anon consider.
It is added in the " Animadversions," " That it was God who ap- pointed these cherubims to be made, and placed where they were never seen of the people : and that his special dispensation of a law constitutes no general rule ; so he commanded his people to spoil the Egyptians, though he forbid all men to steal." This was said on
418 A VIND [CATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
supposition that tliey were images, or adored, both which J showed to be false; and it is the answer given by TertulHan, when he was pleading against all making up of pictures, which we do not. Now, do you produce God's special command for the making, use, and veneration of your images, and this contest will soon be at an end. But whereas God, who commanded these cherubims to be made, hath severely interdicted the making of images, as to any use in his wor- ship unto us, what conclusion you can hence draw I see not. To this you reply in a large discourse, wherein are many things atheological. I shall briefly pass through what you say. Thus, then, you begin : " We must know, you as well as I, that God, who forbids men to steal, did not then command to steal, as you say he did, when he bade his people spoil the Egyptians under the species of a loan." "Malum omen!" You stumble at the threshold. Did I say that God " commanded men to steal?" " Porrige frontem." The words of the "Animadversions" lay before you when you wrote this, and you could not but know that you wrote that which was not true. This immorality doth not become any man, of what religion soever he be. Stealing denotes the pravity of taking that which is another man's. This God neither doth nor can command; for the taking of that which formerly belonged to another is not stealing if God command it, for the reason which yourself have stumbled on, as we shall see afterward. The Egyptians were spoiled by God's command, but the people did not steal : for his command, who is the sovereign Lord of all things, the great possessor of heaven and earth, dispensed with his law of one man's taking that which before belonged unto another, as to that particular whereunto his command extended, in reference whereunto stealing, or the pravity of that act of alienation, consists ; and so it is in other cases. It is murder for a father to slay his son ; neither can God command a man to murder his son : and yet he connnanded Abraham to slay his. To so little purpose is your following attem2:)t to prove that the Hebrews did not steal, and that God did not command them to steal; which you fancied, or rather feigned, to be asserted in the " Animadversions," that you migdit make a pretence of saying something: so that it had been much better to liave passed over this whole matter with your wonted silence, which relieves you against the things which you despair of returning a reply unto. You say, " The Hebrews might have right to those few goods they took in satisfaction for their long oppression, and it may be their own allowance was not paid them." But this right, whatever it may be pretended, was only " ad rem," a general equity, whicli they had no warrant to put in execution by any parti- cular instance; and therefore you add, secondly, "Because it is a thing of danger that any servant shoidd be allowed to right himself