THE WORSHIP OF IMAGES. 455
for there is, by the institution of God himself, a sacramental rela- tion between the water in baptism and the blood of Christ; and yet I do not know that you plead that the water is to be worshipped. And thus is it as to your wooden cross: you put two sticks across, and worship them; you take them asunder, and burn them. It is the very instance of your Nicene council, for so they repeat the words of Leontius, and approve them, act. 4: "Ew; i^h san au/j^m'rrsdrifj.iva ra 8vcij ^vXa Tov dravpou TpoSKuvu rh rvTov dice Xpiffrhv rov sv aurw ffraupc/)- O'svra, s'rav Bs diaipsOojGiv Jg dWrjXuv pm-roi aura zai xaraxaicy — " Whilst the two sticks of the cross are put together or compacted, I adore that figure for Christ's sake, who suffered thereon; but when they are separated, I cast them away and burn them." A pretty course, whereby a man may keep a sacred fire, and worship all his wood- pile before he burns it ! And all this you are beholding unto your imagination for.
We have done with your exceptions and pleas ; and I dare leave it to the conscience and judgment of any man fearing God, and not captivated under the power of prejudices and a vain conversation received by tradition from his fathers, whether your pretences are sufficient to warrant us to break in upon those many and severe in- terdictions of God, lying expressly in the letter against this usage and practice, and so ajoprehended in their intention by the whole primi- tive church. In the command itself, we are forbidden to make to ourselves, — that is, in reference unto the worship of God treated of in that precept, — not only ???, yXoffroc, " sculptile," a "graven image," but also '"'^1^^"''?, irav oijjoiu!Jja, "any kind of likeness" of any thing in heaven, earth, or sea; so as that a man should ^'l^]3l^'''^^ 'xposKunTv, " bow down," adore, or venerate them, or '^'^^V, douXsusiv, "serve them" with any sacred veneration. And the natural equity of this precept was understood by the wisest of the heathen; for not only doth Tacitus witness that the ancient Germans had no images of their gods, but it is known that Nuina Pompilius, the Roman Solon, ad- mitted not the use of them. Seneca decries them, Epist. 33; and Macrobius denies that antiquity made any image to the most high God. What Silius, Persius, and Statins observed to the same pur- pose, I have showed elsewhere. And from this principle Paul pleads with the Athenians that the rh QsTov was not to be represented with images of gold and silver or carved stones. Neither doth God leave us under this interdiction as proceeding from his sovereign authority, but frequently also shows the reasonableness of his will by asserting the incomprehensibility of his nature, and minding us that, in the great manifestation of his glory unto the people, they saw no man- ner of likeness or similitude; which should have been showed unto them had he been by any sensible means or matter to be represented.
456 A VINDICATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
And yet, sir, all this will not deter you from making images, and various pictures of God himself and the blessed Trinity. Indeed, you say you do not do it to represent the essence and nature of the invisible God, but only some divine manifestations of his excellency or 2)resence ; so that those images are only metaphorical. But you venture too boldly on the commands of God with your cobweb dis- tinctions; nor do you difference yourselves hereby from the more sober heathen, who openly professed that in their many names and images of God they had no design to teach a multiplication of the divine essence, but only to represent the various properties and ex- cellencies of that one Deity which they adored, as Lactantius will inform you. Neither, I fear, do you consider aright, or sufficiently esteem, the scandal that by this means you cast before the Jews and Turks, who abhor the worship of God amongst you upon the account of your images ; and Christians also kept from participating in their " sacra" by this means. Lampridius tells us, in the Life of Alexander Severus, that Hadrian the emperor erected temples in sundry cities without images in them, until he was forbidden by the soothsayers, affirming that this was the only way to make all men become Chris- tians ; as though the weight of the controversy between Christians and Pagans had turned on this hinge, whether God were to be wor- shipped in images or no ? As for other images and pictures, which may as to a civil use be made, which you set up in your churches to be adored and venerated, is not your doctrine and practice a mere sdsXodpy}ffxiia, " a will-worship," condemned by the apostle. Col. ii. 23, — a worship destitute of institution, promise, command, or any ground of acceptance with God; a worship wherein you do what is right in your own eyes, like the people in the wilderness, and not that only which is commanded you, which God complains of and reproves, Deut. xii. 8, 28? And, besides, you are conversant in a will-worship of a most dangerous importance, wherein you ascribe the honour that is due unto God alone unto that which by nature is not God ; which is downright idolatry. I know how you turn and wind yourselves into various forms, and multiply unintelligible distinctions to extri- cate yourselves out of the snare that you wilfully cast yourselves into : but you all agree well enough in this, if your Nicene and Trent councils, your Baronius, Vasquez, Suarez, and other great masters of your " sacra" may be believed, that they are to be adored and wor- shipped,— that is, with adoration religious ; which, whatever you may talk of its modes, or distinguish about its kind, is to give the honour due to God alone unto stocks and stones. And the best security you have to free you from the hoiTible guilt of idolatry lies in the pre- tended conjunction and religious relation that is between the image and its prototype ; which is plainly imaginary and fictitious. And