ulous powers to these pretended relics as Romanists do, is to the last degree superstitious and degrading. It is true that a little more than a century ago belief in necromancy and witchcraft was almost universal even among Protestants. But there is the greatest possible difference between superstitious beliefs prevailing for a time among the people, and those beliefs being adopted by the Church and enacted into articles of faith to bind the con- science of the people in all time. The Church of Rome is chained down by the decisions of her popes and councils pronouncing the grossest superstitions to be matters of divine revelation sanc- tioned and approved by God. She has rendered it impossible for men entitled to be called rational to believe what she teaches. The great lesson taught by the history of image-worship and the reverencing of relics, is the importance of adhering to the word of God as the only rule of our faith and practice ; receiv- ing nothing as true in religion but what the Bible teaches, and admitting nothing into divine worship which the Scriptures do not either sanction or enjoin.
Protestant Doctrine on the Subject
As the worship of images is expressly forbidden in the Scrip- tures, Protestants, as well Lutheran as Reformed, condemned their being made the objects of any religious homage. As, how- ever, their use for the purposes of instruction or ornament is not thus expressly forbidden, Luther contended that such use was allowable and even desirable. He, therefore, favoured their being retained in the Churches. The Reformed, however, on account of the great abuse which had attended their introduction, insisted that they should be excluded from all places of worship.
The Lutheran standards do not dilate on this subject. In the Apology for the Augsburg Confession it is said : " Primum quia cum alii mediatores praeter Christum quaeruntur, collocatur fiducia in alios, obruitur tota notitia Christi, idque res ostendit. Videtur initio mentio sanctorum, qualis est in veteribus orationibus, toler- abili consilio recepta esse. Postea secuta est invocatio, invoca- tionem prodigiosi et plus quam ethnici abusus secuti sunt. Ab invocatione ad imagines ventum est, has quoque colebantur, et putabatur eis inesse quaadam vis, sicut Magi vim inesse fingunt imaginibus signorum coelestium certo tempore sculptis." l
Luther was tolerant of the use of images in the churches. On this subject he says : " If the worship of images be avoided, we
1 ix. 34; Hase, Libri St/mbolici, 3d edit. Leipzig, 1846, p. 229.
804 PART m. Ch. XIX. — THE LAW.
may use them as we do the words of Scripture, ^ hich bring things before the mind and cause us to remember them." 1 " Who is so stone blind," he asks, " as not to see that if sacred events may- be described in words without sin and to the profit of the hearers, they may with the same propriety, for the benefit of the un- educated, be portrayed or sculptured, not only at home and in our houses, but in the churches." 2 In another place he says that when one reads of the passion of Christ, whether he will or not, an image of a man suspended on a cross is formed in his mind, just as certainly as his face is reflected when he looks into the water. There is no sin in having such an image in the mind ; why then should it be sinful to have it before the eyes ? 3
The Reformed went further than this. They condemned not only the worship of images, but also their introduction into places of worship, because they were unnecessary, and because they were so liable to abuse. The Second Helvetic Confession says, " Rejicimus non modo gentium idola, sed et Christianorum simulachra. Tametsi enim Christus humanam assumpserit natu- ram, non ideo tamen assumpsit, ut typum praeferret statuariis
atque pictoribus Et quando beati spiritus et divi coelites,
dum hie viverent, omnem cultum sui averterunt, et statuas op- pugnarunt, cui verisimile videatur divis coelestibus et angelis suas placere imagines, ad quas genua flectunt homines, detegunt capita, aliisque prosequuntur honoribus ? " In another paragraph of the same chapter it is said : u Idcirco approbamus Lactantii veteris, scriptoris sententiam, dicentis, Non est dubium, quin religio nulla est, ubicunque simulachrum est." *
The Heidelberg Catechism, says,6 " Is it forbidden to make any images or statues ? God cannot and ought not in any way to be depicted ; and although it is lawful to make representations of creatures, yet God forbids that they should be worshipped, or He through them. But may not images be tolerated in the churches for the instruction of the uneducated ? By no means ; for it does not become us to be wiser than God, who has willed that his Church be instructed, not by dumb images, but by the preaching of his word."
No one who has ever seen any of the masterpieces of Christian art, whether of the pencil or of the chisel, and felt how hard it
1 On Micah i. 7; Worksy edit. Walch, vol. vi. p. 2747. 2 Ibid- p. 2740.
8 Wider die himmlischen Propheten, von den Bildern und Sacrament, 65 ; Ibid. vol. xx. p. 213.
4 Confessio Helvetica Posterior, cap. iv. ; Niemeyer, CoUectio Confessionum, Leipzig, 1840, p. 472.
* Quest. 97, 98 ; Niemeyer, pp. 453. 454.