naturally lead men to thefe low thoughts of God; and ART. which is a very unreasonable thing in all thofe who do not XXII. think fo of him. It is contrary to the nature and perfections of God: few men can think God is like to those images, therefore that is a very good argument against all worshipping of them. And we may upon very fure grounds fay, that the Athenians had fuch elevated notions both of God and of their images, that whatsoever was a good argument againft image-worship among them, will hold good against all image-worfhip whatsoever. But as St. Paul ftayed long enough at Athens to understand their opinions well, and that no doubt he learned their doctrine very particularly from his convert Dionyfius, fo at his coming to Corinth from thence, when he had learned from Aquila and Prifcilla the ftate of the Church in Rome, and no doubt had learned among other things that the Romans admired the Greeks, and made them their patterns; he in the beginning of his Epiftle to them, having ftill deep impreffions upon his fpirit of what he had feen and known at Athens, arraigns the whole Greek philofophy; and efpecially thofe among them who profeffed themfelves wife, but became fools; who Rom. i. 20 though they knew God, yet glorified him not as God, nor were to the end. thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, fo that their foolish beart was darkened. They had high fpeculations of the unity and fimplicity of the Divine Effence; but they set themselves to find fuch excufes for the idolatry of the vulgar, that they not only continued to comply with them in the groffeft of all their practices, but they studied more laboured defences for them, than the ruder multitudes could ever have fallen upon. They knew the true God; for God had fhewed to them that which might be known of bim: but they held the truth in unrighteousness, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and four-footed beafts, and to creeping things: which feems to be a defcription of hieroglyphic figures, the most excufable of all thofe images by which they reprefented the Deity. This St. Paul makes to be the original of all the corruption. and immorality that was fpread over the Gentile world, which came in, partly as the natural confequence of idolatry, of its debafing the ideas of God, and wounding true religion and virtue in its fource and firft feeds, and partly as an effect of the juft judgments of God upon those who thus difhonoured him, that was to a very monftrous degree spread over both Greece and Rome. Of these St. Paul gives us fome very enormous inftances, with a catalogue ART. catalogue of the vices that fprang from thofe vitiated principles. These two paffages, the one of St. Paul's preaching, and the other of his writing, being both applied to those who had the fineft fpeculations among the Heathen, do evidently demonftrate how contrary the Christian doctrine is to the worshipping of images of all forts, how fpeciously foever that may be disguised. a If these things wanted an explanation, we find it given us very fully in all the writings of the Fathers during their difputes with the Heathens. They do not only charge them with the falfe notions that they had of God, the many Deities they worshipped, the abfurd legends that they had concerning them; but in particular they dwell long upon this of the worshipping God in or by an image, with arguments taken both from the pure and fpiritual nature of God, and from the plain revelation he made of his will in this matter. Upon this argument many long citations might be gathered from Juftin Martyr, from Clemens of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, Minutius Felix, Lactantius, Eufebius, Ambrofe, and St. Auftin. Their reafonings are fo clear and fo full, that nothing can be more evident, than that they condemned all the ufe of images in the worthip of God and yet both Celfus, Porphyry, Maximus Tyrius, and Julian, told them very plainly, that they did not believe that the Godhead was like their images, or was fhut up within them; they only used them as helps to their imagination and apprehenfion, that from thence they might form fuitable thoughts of the Deity. This did not fatisfy the Fathers, who infifted on it to the laft, that all fuch images as were made the objects of worship were idols; fo that if in any one thing we have a very full account of the fenfe of the whole Church for the firft four centuries, it is in this matter. They do not speak of it now and then only by the way, as in a digreffion; in which the heat of argument, or of rhetoric, may be apt to carry men too far: they fet themselves to treat of this argument very nicely; and they were engaged in it with philofophers, who were as good at fubtleties and diftinctions as other men. This was one of the main parts of the controverfy; fo if in any head whatfoever, they writ Juft. Mart. Apol. 2. Clem. Alex. Strom. I. i. 5. Protr. Orig. cont. Cell. 1. ii. 3, 5, 7. Tertull. Apol. Cypr. de Idol. Vanitate. Arnob. lib. v. Minut. Felix Oct. Eufeb. Præp. Evang. 1. iii. Laftan. 1. ii. c. 2. Ambrof. Refp. ad Sym. Auguft. de Civitate Dei, 1. vii. c. 5. Orig. con. Celf. 1. vii. Eufeb. Præp. Ev. 1. iii. c. 7. Max. Tyr. diff. 38. Jul. Frag. Ep. Eufeb. Præp. Evang. 1. iv. c. 1. exactly XXII. exactly upon those subjects. They attacked the established ART. religion of the Roman empire; and this was not to be done with clamour, nor could they offer at it in a plain contradiction to fuch principles as are confiftent with the Chriftian religion, if the doctrine of the Roman Church is true. Here then we have not only the Scripture but tradition fully of our fide. 7. Some pretended Chriftians, it is true, did very early worship images; but thofe were the Gnoftics, held in deteftation by all the orthodox. Irenæus, Epiphanius, Iren. 1. i. and St. Auftin tell us, that they worshipped the images of c. 24. Epiph. Chrift, together with Pythagoras, Plato, and Ariftotle: Hæref. 27. nor are they only blamed for worshipping the images of Auguft.de Chrift, together with thefe of the philofophers; but they Hæref. cap. are particularly blamed for having feveral forts of images, and worshipping these as the Heathens did; and that among thefe there was an image of Chrift, which they pretended to have had from Pilate. Befides thefe corrupters of Christianity, there were no others among the Chriftians of the first ages that worshipped images. This was fo well known to the Heathens, that they bring this, aniong other things, as a reproach against the Chriftians, that they had no images: which the first apologists are so far from denying, that they answered them, that it was impoffible for him who knew God, to worship images. But as human nature is inclined to visible objects of worship, fo it feenis fome began to paint the walls of their Churches with pictures, or at least moved for it. In the beginning of the fourth century this was condemned by the Council of Eliberis, Can. 36. It plenfes us to have no pictures in Churches, left that which is worshipped should be painted upon the walls. Towards the end of that century, we have an account given us by Epiphanius, of his indig- Epiph. Ep. nation occafioned by a picture that he faw upon a veil at Hierof. Anablatha. He did not much confider whofe picture it was, whether a picture of Chrift, or of fome Saint; he pofitively affirms it was against the authority of the Scriptures, and the Chriftian religion, and therefore he tore it, but fupplied that Church with another veil. It seems, private perfons had statues of Christ and the Apostles; which Eufebius cenfures, where he reports it as a remnant of bea- Eufeb. thenifm. It is plain enough from fome paffages in St. Auftin, Hift. Eccl. that he knew of no images in Churches in the beginning Aug. in of the fifth century. It is true, they began to be brought Pfal. cxiii. before that time into fome of the Churches of Pontus and de Moribus Cappadocia, which was done very probably to draw the Heathens, by this piece of conformity to them, to like the ad Joan. 1. vii. c. 18. Eccl. Cath. c. 34. XXII. AN EXPOSITION OF ART. the Chriftian worship the better. For that humour began to work, and appeared in many inftances of other kinds as well as in this. It was not poffible that people could fee pictures in their Churches long, without paying fome marks of refpect to them, which grew in a little time to the downright worship of them. A famous inftance we have of this in the fixth century: Serenus, Bishop of Marseilles, finding that he could not reftrain his people from the worship of images, broke them in pieces; upon Greg. Epift. Pope Gregory writ to him, blaming him indeed for breakwhich 1. ix. Ep.9.ing the images, but commending him for not allowing them to be worshipped: this he profecutes in a variety of very plain expreffions; It is one thing to worship an image, and another thing to learn by it, what is to be worshipped: he fays they were fet up not to be worshipped, but to inftruct the ignorant, and cites our Saviour's words, Thou fhalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only halt thou Serve, to prove that it was not lawful to worship the work of men's hands. We fee by a fragment cited in the second Nicene Council, that both Jews and Gentiles took advantages from the worship of images, to reproach the Christians foon after that time. The Jews were fcandalized at their worshipping images, as being expressly against the command of God. The Gentiles had alfo by it great advantages of turning back upon the Chriftians all that had been written against their images in the former ages. At last, in the beginning of the eighth century, the famous controverfy about the having or breaking of images grew hot. The Churches of Italy were fo fet on the worshipping of them, that Pope Gregory the Second gives this for the reafon of their rebelling against the Emperor, because of his oppofition to images. And here in little more than an hundred years the fee of Rome changed its doctrine, Pope Gregory the Second being as pofitive for the worshipping them, as the first of that name had been against it. Violent contentions arose upon this head. The breakers of images were charged with Judaifm, Samaritanifm, and Manicheifm; and the worshippers of them were charged with Gentilism and Idolatry. One General Council at Conftantinople, confifting of about three hundred and thirty-eight Bishops, condemned the This is owned by all the hiftorians of that age, Anaftafius, Zonaras, Cedrenus, Glycas, Theophanes, Sigebert, Otho, Frif. Urfpergenfis, Sigonius, Rubens, and Ciaconius. worshipping XXII. worshipping them as idolatrous: but another at Nice, ART. of three hundred and fifty Bishops, though others fay there were only three hundred, afferted the worship of them. Yet as foon as this was known in the West, how active foever the fee of Rome was for eftablishing their worship, a Council of about three hundred Bishops met at Francfurt, under Charles the Great, which condemned the Nicene Council, together with the worship of images. The Gallican Church infifted long upon this matter; books were published in the name of Charles the Great against them. A Council held at Paris under his fon did alfo condemn image-worship as contrary to the honour that is due to God only, and to the commands that he has given us in Scripture. The Nicene Council was rejected here in England, as our hiftorians tell us, because it afferted the adoration of images, which the Church of God abbors. Agobard, Bishop of Lyons, and Claud of Turin, writ against it; the former writ with great vehemence the learned men of that communion do now acknowledge, that what he writ was according to the fenfe of the Gallican Church in that age: and even Jonas of Orleans, who ftudied to moderate the matter, and to reconcile the Gallican Bifhops to the fee of Rome, yet does himself declare against the worship of images. 6, 7. We are not concerned to examine how it came that all this vigorous oppofition to image-worship went off fo foon. It is enough to us, that it was once made fo refolutely; let those who think it fo incredible a thing, that Churches should depart from their received traditions, anfwer this as they can. As for the methods then ufed, and the ar- Acta Con. guments that were then brought to infufe this doctrine Nic. 2. into the world, he who will read the history and acts of Action 4, 5, the Nicene Council, will find enough to incline him to a very bad opinion, both of the men and of their doctrine; though he were ever so much inclined to think well of them. After all, though that Council laid the founda- Aquin. tion of image-worship, yet the Church of Rome has made To. 1. great improvements in it fince. Thofe of Nice expreffed quæft. 25. a deteftation of an image made to reprefent the Deity ; feet. 2. they go no higher than the images of Christ and the Saints; whereas fince that time the Deity and the Trinity have been represented by images and pictures; and that not only by connivance, but by authority in the Church of Rome. Bellarmine, Suarez, and others, prove the ⚫ Bellarm. de Imag. 1. ii. c. 8. Suarez. M. 3. Yfambert de Mift. Incarn. ad difput. 54. |