§. 1 IN this Discourse concerning the Worship or Veneration of Images I shall proceed by these steps. 1. I shall shew what Worships of Images are willingly granted by Ca­tholicks to be Idolatrous, 2. That all the so former Idolatries in this kind, Heathen, Jewish, or any other, are compre­hended in some of them. 3. That from any such Idolatry the Roman Doctrine and Practice, in their Veneration of Images, is clearly free. 4. What Worship or Veneration of Images the Roman Church allows, and contends for. 5. That this Church is no way chargeable with the Abuses happening in such Worship.

I. §. 2.I. First, then, Concerning Idolatrous Worships of Images these things are willingly granted.

1. That to Worship, or Bow to, an Image made to repre­sent a false God; tho such God imagined to be Spiritual, or Immaterial; and tho imagined not to resemble, not to ani­mate, or inhabit, or have any presence in, or to give any vir­tue to, such Image, (altho such a refined, and abstractive Heathen-worship can hardly be produced), is Idolatry: Be cause indeed the thing represented, and which they worshi [...] by, in, or before, this Image is not God, but an Idol, a Fig­ment; either Quod non est, Nothing; or, Quale non est, no such Thing as they imagine it.

§. 3 2. Granted also; That making an Image or Representation of the true God, (tho He confessed to be such as he is in all his other Attributes), and worshiping Him by, in, or before, it, if he be imagined to have any such particular form, or shape, as the Image represents [as the Anthropomorphites con­ceiv'd him to bear an humane shape; and most of the Heathen erred, as in other of God's Attributes, so in this, the not believ­ing the pure Spirituality, and Infinity of his Essence, Act. 17.29, 30. (as in the last of these do at this day the Socinians), and so were prone to make several Similitudes and Figures,] is also Idolatry; that is, a worshiping him as so something He is not, or as having some shape, figure, or members, he hath not. And is expresly forbidden by God in the Second Commandment (according to the Protestant-account) Exod. 20.4. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven thing, or any likeness that is in Heaven &c, thou shalt not how down unto them, nor serve them. Where, by serve them is understood, 1 either giving Divine Honor to any of them, and serving them as God, strange God's being prohibited just before, vers. 3. and, I am a jealous God, following presently after, ver. 5.; 2 Or giving Honor to God by any such Image, as a Similitude of God; or giving to such Image any inferior honor whatever, as to the Similitude of God; or as having any virtue in it, whereby to render our Devotions more acceptable to God. Of which Moses speak­eth, Deut. 4.15, 16, 17. Take good heed to your selves &c. for ye saw no manner of Similitude in Horeb. See also Isa. 40.18.46.5. Act. 17.29. Thus, therefore, we are so forbidden, to give God any honor by any kind of Image or Figure so de­signed: and, as not to make the Image of any other God, so neither of the true with conceiting it to have any likeness of him, or him to have any presence in it, or to communicate any Divine Virtue thereto, whereby our service may be ren­dred more acceptable to him through, or by, it. Nor was such law obligatory only to the Jews, but is so to all men for ever.

Elius, Sent. 3. Dist. 37. Contra istamprohibitionem (Decalogi) peccaur tribus modis. 1. Si ipsum Simulachrum habetur pro Deo. 2 Si Creatura per Simulachrum repraesentata colitur ut Deus. 3 Si it a habetur Simulachrum [tho in an intention of worshiping the [Page 3]true God] quasi per illud Deitas ipsa effigiaretur. Bell, de Imag. 2. l. 13. c. Qui imagnatur Deum esse ipsi Idolo similem, dum pu­tant se colere Deum verum, revera non cosunt nisi figmentum suum. Conc. Trident. Sess ult. Si aliquando historias & narrationes sa­crae Scripturae, cum id indoctae plebi expediat, exprimi & figurari contigerit, doceatur populus, non propterea Divinitatem figurari, quasi corporeis oculis conspici, vel coloribus, aut siguris exprimi possit.

§. 4 3. It is granted also; That to give [...] or Divine Wor­ship wholly, or in part, to any Image (made to represent, I say, not only the Likeness of God, but of any Apparition of God, or to any Image of our Lord Christ) as to a mediate, or immediate, Object of such Divine Worship, is flat Idolatry: Since such person must either hold such Image to be God, or such supreme Worship lawful to be given to what is not God.

Of which thus Bellarm. De Imag. 2. l. 24. c. Non licet Ima­gines colere Divinis honoribus, i. e. cultu Latriae etiamsi quis dicat, id se facere propter Deum vel Christum, non propter imagines; nam hoc ipso quod eas colit divinis honoribus convincitur eas colere propter ipsas, non propter Deum quicquid ipse verbis dicat [for none can give an interior supreme Honor to what really he holds not Su­preme.] And, —Quis diceret, se exhibere Latriam Imaginibus, quae est divina Servitus in affectu solo consistens, concederet eo ipso, se Imaginibus tanquam Diis servire, saith Vasquez, In 3. Thom. Disp. 109. c. 3. As for the Expressions of some Schoolmen how they are to be understood see below, §. 37. And hence also is conceded, That to profess the giving any Adoration, or Religi­ous Worship, as Adoration, and Religion are taken strictly and properly to signify Divine Worship, to any image of God, of our Lord, or his Saints, is Idolatry.

§. 5 4. Granted; That to give any external Sign, Ceremony, or Note of Honor that is appropriated by God to himself, to any Image whatever, tho without any intention to give any divine honor to such Image? where the ignorance is not in­vincible, is Idolatry: for this is worshiping the Creature with a Worship due only to God. And such Idolatry is it also, to communicate any Attribute or perfection of God, and conse­quently [Page 4]the honor and reverence due to it, to any Creature.

§. 6 5 Lastly, Granted, (taking Idolatry in a larger sense, so as gross and superstitious Worships in a false and prohibited manner, tho of the true God, may be stiled such? or at least, are sins highly offending God as being a service unlawful and prohibited by him), That to make the Image (not of God, but) of an Angel, or Cherub, or any other Figure; and to worship God before it, as a Symbol or his Presence; or as believing God there to have a peculiar Presence to, with, or in, it; or God to give some virtue to it, or to others by it, when such belief is a groundless figment of the Worshipers, without any Divine Promise of any such peculiar Presence; or Virtue; this also will be a species of Idolatry, tho not so gross or stupid as several of the former, and more or less ex­cusable according to the voluntary or involuntary ignorance or error of the Judgment from which it proceeds. And so, if we suppose here the best, that is pretended, or can be imagined of the Israelites worship of the Calf at Sinai, and afterward of those at Bethel; viz. That all things were fra­med like to those in the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Tabernacle, and afterward of the Temple; and then, the God of Israel only worshiped as present here between the Cherubs; wor­shiped in the same manner here, as in the Sanctuary, or Temple (tho there seems to be no truth in this supposition, that the Jews Worship was such, see §. 8, 9.) yet, as the one was a true and acceptable worship of God, so would the other have been Idolatry, and the worship of their own groundless and irrational Figment, instead of the service required from them by God; and where the error of their Judgment, being void of any Divine Promise, or Revelation concerning such peculiar Presence, was unexcusable, as also was that of Gideon, Jud. 8.27. who made an Ephod, and probably all other furniture belonging to the Divine Service, and set it up in his own City, tho without intention of introducing any strange God, or Worship, See ver. 23, and 33. the people re­turning to strange Gods (as before in Jud. 2.11.3.7.) after his death, yet it is said here, that all Israel fornicated, that is, committed Idolatry with his Ephod;) and, that it was the ruine of his house.

Of which thus St. Austine, Q. Vet. Testam. 7. l 41. q. moves this Question. Non frustra quaeritur, cum Idolum non fuerit, id est, cujusquam Dei falsi & alieni simulachrum, sed Ephud, id est, unum de Sacramentis Tabernaculi quod ad vestem Sacerdotalem pertineret, quomodo fornicationem Scriptura dicat populi ista sectantis, atque ve­nerantis. To which he answers, Ideo scilicet quod praeter Taber­naculum Dei, ubi erant ista quae ibi fieri jusserat Deus Israel, extra simile aliquid fieri fas non erat. And afterward, Ut hoc sit pecca­tum Gedeon, quodextra Dei Tabernaculum fecerit aliquid simile ubi coleretur Deus.

Not much different seems also that of Micah, Jud. 17.6. 13. and the Manicheans worshiping the Sun for Christ; or Christ in the Sun. This of several sorts and ways of Idolatry in Images freely granted.

II. Next,II. §. 7. All the Idolatrous use of Images either by the Heathens, or Jews, or any others, seems to have fallen under some of these.

1. For that of the Heathen, I think the matter out of dis­pute; who whatever respect they gave to, or conceit they had of, the Images, it is certain, that the Gods or Demons invisible, that these worshiped by, or in, them, were not the one, true, but many, and false, Gods; whilst they also grosly and stupidly (even the wisest of them) erred both in several of the Divine Attributes, and communicated also to the in­ferior false Gods those Attributes and Honors (as Sacrifice, for one) which do belong only to the Supreme. Neither can there be shewn (tho some Protestants take great pains for paralelling Heathens and Catholicks in Idolatry, to make the one in their Worship very acute and subtile, the other ex­tremely stupid and simple, as if Christianity much blinded the one, and Heathenisme much elevated the other) I say, neither can there be shewn out of the Apologies of the Wisest of the Heathen, (after Christianity had subtilized them,) either in their own Works, or those of the Fathers, any Heathen Image-Worship so refined and purified, as not to have been peccant in some of the circumstances fore mentioned; viz. either imagining some things false concerning the Image, [Page 6]or concerning the Deity they worshiped, or both. Or, if there can, it shall be granted, that such Person was no Idolater; but then, maintained also, that he was no Heathen.

§. 8 2. For the Idolatry of the Jews, whether at Sinai, or at Bethel (both which some also labour much to extenuate, so to raise the Christian's practice in their Veneration of Images &c. to equal it) yet we find the Scriptures most express in charging them with worshiping not the God of Israel, whom they are said meanwhile to have forgotten and cast behind them, but the Calves, the molten Images with Divine Honors, and Sacrifices. See, for the first, that of Sinai, the Declara­tion, of God, Exod. 32.8. They have made a molten Calf, and have worshiped it, and sacrificed to it, and have said these [or this Nehem. 9.18.] is thy God, &c. And of Moses, ver. 31. They have made them a God of Gold. And of the Psalmist, Psal. 105.19, 20, 21. They worshiped the Golden Image, and changed their Glory [their God, Jer. 2.11.] into the similitude af an Ox, that eateth grass: and, they forgat God their Saviour, which had done great things in Egypt. And of St. Stephen, Act. 7.41. They made a Calf and offered Sacrifice to the Idol. See for the second, that of Jeroboam, 1. King. 12.28.32. where, after the like Proclamation, he is said to have sacri­ficed to the Calves that he had made, and also to Devils, 2. Chron. 11.15. and is accused by the Prophet Ahijah, 1. King. 14.9. to have gone and made him other Gods, and molten Images, and to have cast the Lord behind his back [that is, forgot him, which seems not done in his worshiping none, but him, between the Cherubim, and only mistaking the right place.] But yet further, since we live in a world now not so addicted to Idola­try, as the old was, and so less crediting it; that we may the easilier imagine this Idolatry of the Jews so gross, as here described, Consider, how formerly in Egypt many of the Is­raelites themselves went after, and served, the Idols thereof. Of which God complains also, Ezek. 20.7, 8. And also how in the Wilderness after this, at Sinai, and after the Taber­nacle already erected, and God's Worship better setled, they still entertained, and served, there also, strange Gods, Moloch and Remphan, and the Moabites Idol, Baal-Peor; and the [Page 7]Host of Heaven; had their Images, Figures, and Tabernacles; and, in effect, worshiped the Devils, see Levit. 17.7. that in­spirited them; see Amos 5.25, 26. Act. 7.43. Ye took up the Tabernacle, &c. And it is said, Ezek. 20.16. That, here, their hearts went after their Idols, they and their Children, ver. 24. And Deut. 32, 16, 17, 18. That they sacrificed to Devils, not to God; to new Gods, whom their Fathers feared not; and that they forgat God that formed them. See Lev. 17.7. Num. 25.3. And, if you will look yet higher, see the in­fectious Idolatry of their Forefathers in Ur of the Chaldees, perhaps the cause of God's removing Abraham and his Fa­mily thence: Jos. 24.2. compared with Gen. 31.53. Isa. 43.27. and Gen. 35.2. Again; for Jeroboam's Idolatry at Dan and Bethel, consider his new coming out of Egypt, and what Idol-worships Solomon in his old age had done, or tole­rated before him.

§. 9 Therefore Dr. Hammond, Of Idolat. §. 34, 35, 36. (having rejected Moncaeus his Opinion) concludes, —The Question which is ordinarily made (whether the Israelites worshiped this Calf, or only God in this Calf) may well enough be superseded; and the Resolution be sufficiently clear, that they worshiped not God only, but the Idol-Calf also. And, —It is not improbable by the Text (saith he, §. 34.) that the Calf was by them thus counted of as an Image, which, upon Aaron's Consecration, was thus animated by God [as the Heathen also conceited of their Idols] and so fit to go before them, and to be their Conducter in Moses's absence. And of the same Opinion is Mr. Thorn­dike, perswaded by the many Texts of Scripture clearly de­claring it. See Epilog. 3. l. 25. c. where he saith, p. 297, of the Calf at Sinai: 'That he can by no means distinguish that act of the Israelites from the Idolatries of Egypt, which it was but late that they had forsaken. And, of the other at Bethel, 'That the appearance of the Idolatry of the Gentiles in the service tendred to Jeroboam's Calves is evident in Scripture, quoting 1. King. 14.9.15, 16. And, — 'That the Israelites attributed the incommunicable Name of God to those imaginary Deities, which they advanced to the rank of the only true God. Thus Mr. Thorndike. All this I [Page 8]have produced to shew, that some Protestants have no just Grounds to plead such discretion, and subtilty in the Is­raelites Idolatry.

§. 10 Yet thus much may be conceded, tho the use of them was very idolatrous; That, for the first making of these Calves, it is not improbable, that both the Calf in Sinai, and those afterward set up in Dan and Bethel, were framed in resem­blance of the Cherubims set up in the Tabernacle first, and then in the Temple. The proper Face of a Cherub (as figu­red by Moses, and afterward by Solomon, from which Ezekiel's, as also St John's somewhat differ) being that of a Calf; as appears from Ezech. 1.10. compared with 10.14. In which later the face of an Ox is called (contradistinct to the other three faces) the face of a Cherub: and see Ezek. 1.7. for their feet. Now, tho the Tabernacle-Cherubims were set up after Aaron's Calf, yet a pattern of these things was seen in the Mount before (See Heb. 8.5. Act. 7.44. Exod. 25.9.); of which Aaron might have had some intimation, or also Vision, together with the Seventy Elders in the Mount, Exod. 24.9.10.

§. 11 I said, the face of a Calf, tho the Figure of their Body seems to be upright, as that of a Man. See Exod. 25.18. where they are made at the two ends of the Propitiatory, and co­vering it not with their Bodies, but Wings stretched out from them: (unless any will have the Calf made erect and with hands): See Ezek. 1.5. —41.28, 29. compared with Ezek. 1.10. And Gen. 3.24. the Cherubin set with a flaming two-edged Sword. And it seems their form appeared not always exactly the same, but, according to the service and use of them was diversified, as they made his seat over the Propitiatory in the Tabernacle and Temple; where the face being said to look toward the Propitiatory im­plies it was but one: Or as they drew or carried his Cha­riot in Ezekiel; where, to move always immediatly fore right without turning or wheeling about, they had four Faces: Or, as they attended on his Throne, praising, and worship­ing, in St. John's Rev. 4. and the Prophet Esay's Vision, Isa. 6. where they had, because of the Glory of the Divine Majesty, [Page 9]two wings to cover their face. Now, either Aaron's and Jeroboam's Molten-image was made exactly like these Cheru­bims, and the Scripture, in vilifying of them, calls them Calves; or else, by reason of the Israelites and also Jero­boam's lately before coming out of Egypt, and being corrupted with its Idolatry, their Images varied in part from the true figures of the Cherubims, to bear the more resemblance to the God of Egypt, a Calf. This, for the occasion of making them. And lastly, If the worship of them made be only sup­posed of such a degree, to which some Protestants, much con­trary to the Scripture-complaints, would abate it, yet thus also it is confessed before, §. 8. unexcusable: nor will such Concession prejudice any present Roman Practice in their be­haviour toward Images. This, of the Heathen, and Jewish, Idolatries.

III. In the next place then I shall shew,III. §. 12. That, from all these fore-mentioned Miscarriages the Christian's Practice, in the Veneration of Images, is easily acquitted.

1. First, then, For any Figure of God, or of the Divinity; 1st, It is no matter of Faith, but only of Opinion (some Ca­tholicks denying it) that any such may be rightly made at all.

Bellarm. de Imag. 2. l. 8. c. Non est tam certum in Ecclesia, an sint faciendae Imagines Dei, sive Trinitatis, quam Christi, & Sanctorum. Hoc enim confitentur omnes Catholici, & pertinet ad fidem; illud est in opinione.

2. Next, universally denied, That any Image, or Figure thereof may be made (in the same manner as those of Crea­tures, or those of our Lord Christ himself are) to signify any form or shape proper to it: and who shall worship God as having any such likeness is censured before. But as for the visible Apparitions of any Person of the Trinity which have bin made in Scripture, It is by many Catholicks conceived lawful to represent in a Picture to one man's eye, what hath bin seen by another's. As the sitting of the Ancient of Days in Daniel, Dan. 7.9. or Descent of the Dove in St. Matthew, Ch. 3.16. that is, to represent not the true figure of God, but [Page 10]the true figure of his Apparition, and an Emblematical or Me­taphorical Presence of God. The lawfulness of which is thus vindicated by Dr. Hammond, Of Idolatry, §. 58. 'Notwith­standing that the making any Image of God is prohibited: yet if in the representation of a sacred story there be set down any form, particularly an eye, a ray, a glory, &. [I add, or such form, as the First or Third Person of the Trinity hath appeared in, a Man, Ezek. 1.26. a Dove, Jo. 1.32.] not to signify any supposed likeness of him (which is impossible) but only to present him to the mind of the beholder in the doing some action of his (which is in effect to do the very same thing in a table, which the word Jehovah or God would do in a Book) I conceive not what charge could be laid on it, at least what degree or spice of Idolatry, unless I must be thought to worship the Name of God, because I write or read it. Thus He. And to Mr. Spencer's urging the law­fulness of representing God, as he hath pleased in the former Visions to represent himself, Dr. Fern, Answ. to Spencer, p. 57. answers, 'That the representations of these Visions are tole­rable: And if of these Visions tolerable, why not also of some part of them? As the Ancient of Days sitting on a Throne, to represent his coming to Judgment; Or the figure of a Dove, to signify a peculiar presence and assistance of the Holy Ghost; where nothing untrue or unwarranted by Scripture is de­signed: the care and over-sight of which is committed to the Church Governors. And, these thus represented, why may not the same reverence be given to such figures recommended to us by such sacred Scripture-Apparitions, as is to other re­presentations of sacred Persons, our Lord, or his Saints lim­ned, or drawn in the like stories; and why may not those Persons of the Trinity be worshiped before such Symbolical Figures, or Representations of them, if our Lord Christ may before his? Of which more hereafter. Only provided, this difference always be put; that we imagine no true resem­blance of the Person in the one, as we do in the other, and that our devotion reflect not on the similitude of the Person, but of the Apparition, and on the reality of some gracious operation thereof.

§. 13 2 In none of these, whether Metaphorical Representations of the Trinity, or proper ones of our Lord or his Saints, do Catholicks affirm or pretend any peculiar presence of the Deity, of our Lord, or of his Saints; no Virtue, either natural, or accessory and derivative in any such Image, for which it should be worshiped, or honoured, or trusted in; or, for which, our Lord should be honoured, or worshiped by it; or our re­quests to have any more access or efficacy by, or through, any such Image, to, or upon, its Exemplar, or Person represented: Or, again, the Exemplar any greater influence, by, or through it, upon those, who supplicate him before it. Nor seemeth the Expression of the Council of Trent, Sess. 25. [Per Imagi­nes quas osculamur, & coram quibus caput aperimus & procum­bimus, Christum adoramus, cujus illae similitudinem gerunt] to have any other meaning than this, That per osculationem imaginum, and apertionem capitis &c. coram illis, adoramus Prototypum: that by, or in, that inferior reverence and res­pect we give to them, we testify the Honor or Adoration we bear to him, they represent to us: as appears also by the words of the Council immediately preceding. —Non quod cre­datur &c. sed quoniam honos qui eis exhibetur [i. e. that Cult given them, expresly declared inferior by the Council of Nice, to whose explication the Council of Trent referrs us] refertur ad Prototypa, quae illae representant. In which sense, it is noted by Estius, 3. Sent. Dist. 9. §. 3. that this Saying of St. Basil, and some others, Quod Honor Imaginis transit in Prototypum, is taken, both by the second Council of Nice, by Pope Adrian, Resp. Carol. c. 8. by Damascen, De Fid. Orthod. 4. l. 17. c. and also is understood to be taken so, and in such sense disputed against by the Caroline Books, l. 3. c. 16. and not in that other sense applied to it by some Schoolmen. As the Honor done to his Image, or to the Chair of State, re­dounds to the honor of the Prince, yet is not the same we give to the Prince. Thus then per Imagines we worship the Prototype; but not, as if by, or thro, these Images, as a more advantageous or acceptable medium of our service, we direct our proper worship to the Prototype, as some Prote­stants seem willing to mistake it. Or, if any will have the Council to speak here not of the inferior Adoration termi­nated [Page 12]in the Image, but of the supreme, given to the Proto­type, then the Council in these words [Per Imaginem Chri­stum adoramus] must be understood to use per only to signify the motive, or occasion, of our worship. As that Saying of St. Gregory, Epist. 7. l. 53. long ago expresseth it: Et nos quidem ante Imaginem Salvatoris non quasi ante Divinitatem prosternimur; sed illum adoramus, quem per Imaginem aut na­tum, aut passum &c, recordamur. But I say, tho Catholicks may thus make the Image, or rather our beholding it, a me­dium of exciting the Remembrance, and so the Love, Honor, Worship, of the Exemplar, yet they make it no medium of the foresaid worship to the Exemplar or Prototype [Non quod credatur (saith the Council of Trent, Sess. 25.) inesse aliqua in its virtus, propter quam sint colendae: vel quod fiducia in iis sit figenda.] Lastly, Catholicks pretend no advantage, in the use of such Images, either to render our Prayers, or Worship, more acceptable to God, or his Saints, or more effectual to us, save so far as the frequent beholding such Representa­tions may excite, and increase our devotion, affection, and love, and imitation of their Virtues &c. and this devotion, fection, imitation obtain a more gracious acceptance and reward.

§. 14 Neither have the solemn Benedictions of Images used in the Church any such design, as to derive from above any special virtue into them, but only, as in all other benedictions of God's Creatures, to implore God's blessing on them for that purpose, to which they are made use of; viz. Ut quoties illas Imagines sive effigies oculis corporeis intuemur, toties eorum, in quorum memoriam & honorem adaptantur, Actus & sanctita­tem ad imitandum memoriae oculis meditemur. And, &Ut qui­cunque coram illis [imaginibus] talem Sanctum honorare studù­erit, Illius precibus & obtentu a Deo gratiam in praesenti, & aeternam gloriam obtineat in futuro. Where the reward fol­lows the devotion of the Supplicant, not any virtue of the Picture. And, if some Pictures or Images happen to be fre­quented with mens Prayers (I mean, to the Person repre­sented by them) more than others, because some Miracles have bin done, as in some holy Places more than in some [Page 13]others, so where some Holy Pictures or Images are, more than where some others; yet are such Miracles no more affirmed to be done by any virtue of such Images (which is by the Church declared to be none at all in any, Non quod credatur inesse aliqua in iis virtus) than by the virtue of such Holy Place; But only from God's good pleasure; a reason of which, as to the places, and times, and other circumstances he chuseth, we are not to enquire. Now, as no such corrupt Imaginations concerning any Divine influence or virtue of Images have ever bin in the Christian Church, so have always some such Imaginations attended all former Idolatrous worship of Images that have ever bin; Heathen, or Jewish. Unless it were an Idolatry, peccant only in the Exemplar; worshiping that which is represented by the Image (suppose the deceased Em­peror) for a God which is not so; and not at all faulty about the Image, if using it only as a Memorial of him. For, some Idolatry may be without, or beside, and was before, any Images.

§. 15 3ly Neither doth the Roman Church admit any Prayer, tho at pleasure said before, to be directed to, any Image; (ex­cluding here the Prosopopeias sometimes found in the Church's Poetry (as, O Crux, ave spes unica: for, Crucifixe) and by the learned, who use them, sufficiently understood in a Catho­lick sense) they being held, as without life, or knowledge, so without any animation or inhabitation of the Deity [non quod credatur inesse aliqua in iis Divinitas, —Vel quod ab eis sit aliquid petendum, saith the Council, Sess. 25. And Bellarm. De Imag. 2. l. 18. c. Precaturi ad Imagines accedimus, non ut invocemus imaginem, sed ut memoriam ejus, quem orare volumus, nobis imago refricet: This indeed being the chiefly professed Catholick use of them.] Neither do Catholicks offer any Sa­crifice to them; a thing the Heathen professed: or use any other external Ceremony of worship whatever, appropriated by God to himself.

§. 16 4. All these Fancies concerning, and Practices toward Ima­ges being rejected by the Church, Neither 4ly do Catholicks, in the relative Veneration which they retain of them, for the Person's sake whom they represent, yet give the proper Cult [Page 14]or Worship due to the Exemplar unto them: either Latria or Divine Worship to the Images of our Lord Christ, or to the Metaphorical and Historical ones of the Trinity; or that in­ferior called Dulia to those of Saints. And therefore in their applying either the term of Adoration, or of Religious Wor­ship to Images or any other sacred thing or person, save to God only, they declare their not taking or using these words in the most severe, strict, or proper sense; for so they grant them to be used to signify only the supreme worship due to the Divine Majesty.

Of which thus St. Thomas, 22^ae. q. 81. art. 5. Religio est, quae Deo debitum cultum offert. And Art. 1. Religio est virtus, per quam homines Deo debitum cultum & reverentiam exhibent. And Religio (saith he) habet duplices actus: quosdam quidem proprios & immediatos, quos elicit, per quos homo ordinatur ad solum Deum; sicut sacrificare, & adorare, & alia hujusmodi. Here we see both Religio and Adoratio appropriated to God. Vasquez in 3. Part. D. Thom. Tom. 1 Disp. 98. c. 1. Vera sententia, Duliam qua Sanctis cultum exhibemus, peculiarem esse virtutem a Latria, out Religione, distinctam — atque adeo Religionem circa cultum solius Dei versari. And, —Cum Religio circa cultum Dei solum versetur, cultus & honor, qui proxime Sanctis defertur, ad ipsam non poterit referri; alioquin si esset actus Religionis, Latriae quoque diceretur. Latria enim & Religio idem sunt. Bellarm. De Sanct. Beat. 1. l. 12. c. Aliquando accipiebant Patres nomen Religionis [strictius] ut con­venit virtuti illi speciali quae habet pro objecto cultum Dei, & quae distinguitur specie ab ea virtute qua colimus Sanctos: aliquando lar­gius, pro omni illa virtute qua colimus vel Deum, vel Dei amicos, aliasque res sacras, & quae distinguitur a cultu politico. Franciscus a Sancta Clara. Prob. 37. De Invoc. Sanct. p. 348. Objectum [actus] Religionis est Deus solus. Cultus quo veneramur Sanctos non est religionis actus; nec est actus civilis; quia objectum non est aliquid civile, sed supernaturale, scil. Sanctitas eorum.

§. 17 Therefore it may be observed of the two Councils that have chiefly spoken of Image-worship, the second of Nice, and that of Trent. 1. That the Council of Trent in the De­cree De Reliquiis Sanctorum & sacris Imaginibus, Sess. 25. pur­posely [Page 15]forbears to use either of these expressions Adoration, or Religious Worship. Sanctorum cum Christo viventium (saith it) sancta Corpora a fidelibus veneranda esse. Sanctorum reli­quiis venerationem atque honorem deberi, & eas-a fidelibus utili­ter honorari. Imaginibus Christi & Deiparae Virginis &c. debi­tum honorem & venerationem impertiendam. Et Christum ado­ramus, Sanctos veneramur. A thing observed not only by P. Veron and others in defence of this Council, but by Daille, De Religios. cult. objecto 4. l. 1. c. with this uncharitable cen­sure annexed, That they did it out of cunning to conceal the true Doctrine of their Church. I would he and other Prote­stants would make good use of this their not speaking their mind to submit to their moderate Decree, and they will be content he should forbear any subscription to their mental Reservations; or, if he will, to their Schoolmen's Specula­tions. His words are, Haec illi versute, ut solent. Primo e­nim, non adorationem, aut cultum religiosum (quae vera est ipsorum sententia) sed venerationem suis Reliquiis decernant, superstitionis suae dedecus hujus vocabuli ambiguitate obumbrantes. But indeed such was the Councils prudence, to cut off occa­sion from them who seek occasion, and to deprive their ad­versaries of any advantage (whose stile therefore, we see, much displeaseth them) from such general and equivocal words (tho cautiously explained, when formerly used) of making plausible declamations to the vulgar against her inno­cent Doctrine. This for Trent.

§. 18 2. Next, Observable also, that the second Council of Nice useth indeed the term of [...], Adoration, but usually ac­companied and qualified with some diminutive Epithet, and explained by veneratio, osculum, amplexus, honorabilis saluta­tio, reverens accessio &c. And in their Epistle to the Emper­ors Act. 7. sheweth the word Adoration to be equivocal; and, to shew a salutatory Worship as well as Latrical and Divine: That in the Scripture, as it is used to God in the Decalogue Dominum Deum tuum adorabis; so to Men also frequently, as Abraham adoravit filios Heth: Jacob, Esau, and Pharaoh: David, Jonathan, &c. That for the Fathers Gregory Nazi­anzen saith, Serm. de Nativitate Christi; Bethlehem cole & [Page 16]praesepe adora (The like we find in St. Jerome. Apol. contra Ruffin. 3. l. Bethleem meam reversus sum; ubi adoravi praesepe & incunabula Salvatoris.) On which, — Quis (saith they) nisi insensatus existimet haec [...] pronun­ciari. They urge the Church Hymn [...], Crucem tuam adoramus Domine; Quod certissime (say they) salutatio est, & dicitur. Thus they defend the word Adoration to be used to express a salutatory Honor.

For which we have Chemnitius, Exam. Conc. Trid. p. 4. p. 696. his Confession thus far. Quidam (saith he) vocabula mitigare stu­duerunt, ut Act. 3. Constantinus Cypri Episcopus dicit. —Sus­cipio venerandas Imagines: Adorationem autem, quae fit secundum [...], tantummodo Supersubstantiali & Vivificae Trinitati conservo. Et Act. 7. Dicunt veram latriam soli Divinae Naturae competere. Esse autem aliam honorariam adorationem: sicut Jacob adoravit Esau. Gen. 33. Abraham filios Heth. Gen. 23. Jacob Pharaonem Gen. 47. &c. Quando itaque dicitur, Imagines adorandas, non intelligi cultum La­triae: Sed adorare idem valere, quod salutare, amplecti, & amare, sicut Pharisaei scribuntur amasse salutationes in foro, Matt. 13. &c. Vo­lunt igitur quidam vacabulo Adorationis in Actis illius Synodi nihil aliud intelligi, quam exhibitionem bonoris seu reverentiae quae fit ex­terno aliquo gestu, vel inclinatione capitis, vel genuflectione, vel am­plexu, osculo, & hujusmodi. Thus he; rightly; if instead of Qui­dam he had put, Omnes. For, we see, it is the publick stating of the whole Council in Act. 7.

Lastly, whatever the word [...] or Adoration may properly signify, the same Fathers declare in their Decree, that the veneration, or reverence, or call it what we will, that is given by them to Images, neither for the inward in­tention, nor outward ceremony or signs of it, is any other, than that which is generally given even by the Iconoclasts to other sacred things, to the Cross, the holy Utensils, the Gos­pels, Relicks, Churches, and such as the Christians of those days gave also to the Emperors Statues. Now, the worship meanwhile they exhibit to Images certainly is not what their expression may seem to some most properly to sig­nify, but what they explain themselves to mean by it; and, if [Page 17]such worship lawful, their supposed a fault is only verbal. And here also the Caroline Books (observing this wariness in this Decree of Nice, as Daille and others in that of Trent) 3. l. 17. c. say, the Council did this to palliate and disguise their Error to the common people: (of which more anon;) And 2ly, 3. l. 16. c. That tho the learned do avoid such a mistaken Adoration, yet the unlearned are scandalized there­by, and fall into it: which also now is the last Plea of Prote­stants against the Roman Church.

§. 19 Well then: These things are clear, that the word Religious is not used at all by either Council, and is by those Roman Authors, which use it, explained to mean, not Divine, but only an inferior worship of Persons, or Things Sacred or Holy, to contradistinguish it to that worship given to Persons dig­nified in the State, or to some things relating to them meerly upon a Civil account. And so was it used by St. Austine long ago. —Memorias Martyrum (saith he, Contr. Faustum 20. l. 21. c.) Populus Christianus religiosa solemnitate celebrat. And elsewhere, De Civ. Dei, l. 8. c. 27. Quaecunque igitur adhi­bentur religiosorum obsequia in Martyrum locis, &c. And De Trinitate, 3. l. 10. c. speaking of sacred things. Honorem, tanquam religiosa, (saith he) possunt habere; stuporem, tanquam mira, non possunt. And, as if he had foreseen the present quarrel about it, and endeavoured to prevent it, he hath thus discoursed on the latitude of the use of this word, De Civ. Dei 10. l. 11. c. Et ipsa religio quamvis distinctius non quemlibet, sed Dei Cultum significare videatur; unde isto nomine interpretati sunt nostri eam quae Graece [...] dicitur: tamen quia Latina lo­quendi consuetudine non solum imperitorum, verum etiam doctissi­morum, & cognationibus humanis atque affinitatibus & quibusque necessitudinibus dicitur exhibenda religio [and so much more Sanctis] non eo vocabulo vitatur ambiguum, cum de cultu Dei­tatis vertitur Quaetio: Ut fidenter dicere valeamus, Religionem non esse nisi Dei cultum: quoniam videtur hoc verbum a signifi­canda observantia propinquitatis humanae insolenter auferri. Quae itaque [...] Graece, Latine autem Religio dicitur, sed ea quae nobis est erga Deum, hanc ei tantum Deo deberi dicimus, qui verus est Deus, facitque suos cultores Deos. Thus St. Austine. [Page 18]Clear also, that the word Adoration, by the Council that useth it, is declared to be applied to Images in no other sense, than as it is by the Scriptures (notwithstanding Dominum Deum tuum adorabis) to men, to scabellum, montem sanctum, Tem­plum &c. and by the whole Christianity of that Age, to the Cross and other Sacred things; an Antiphon in the publick Liturgy of the Church, on Good-Fryday, being —Crucem tuam adoramus Domine, See Ordo Romanus. And Alcuinus, De Divinis Officiis, who is thought to be the Pen-man of the Caroline Books, in his Comment on the Liturgy Die Para­sceves there useth the same word. —Venit Pontifex & adorat —deosculatur Crucem. And, —Qui non possunt habere de ligno Domini salva fide adorant illam [Crucem] quam habent; mean­ing hereby veneration of it.

I say then, after this, Why stay we still in the entrance of the Controversy, and make verbal quarrels? What means such Language, as this, of Bishop Andrews? Respon. Ad Apol. p. 200. 202, 203. In secundo praecepto Legis Adoratio non restringitur, ab­soluta est. 2. Distinguit Cardinalis de Adoratione ea, & non ea, ubi Lex ipsa non distinguit. Relativam sanctitatem tribuit Imaginibus, id est, minimam. Quibus adorationem tamen vin­dicat, id est, cultum maximum. [Is this, Abraham adoravit filios Heth, or, adorate scabellum, cultus maximus? Or must not Bishop Andrews distinguish at least in the former?] Non adorabis omnem similitudinem. Immo adorabis aliquam simili­tudinem. An non ex diametro contraria? No: if we distin­guish concerning Adorabis. So a late Author, Dr. Stillingft. Rom. Idol. c. 1. p. 87. 'God (saith he) challengeth all Re­ligious Adoration to himself [What? In whatever sense Adoration or Religious can possibly be taken? properly, or im­properly?] Again, p. 89. 'The Synod [of Nice] said, it intended to give no proper Divine Worship to Images. But that is not the Question, what they say; but what the na­ture of the thing doth imply. Whether that Religious Wor­ship, they give to Images, is not part of the Adoration which is only due to God. The nature of the thing, that is, of the Worship that is expressed by their words: and what is that then? Not Latria, say they, but honoraria & salutatoria Adoratio. Such, and only such, (for, if not, name what the Nicene gave [Page 19]to Images, that the Gallican gave not to the Cross?) as is given to the Gospels, and Holy Vessels. And is this such an Adoration as is only due to God? Or is Pope Adrian hard set to shew it was not so? What means, I say, such loose and confused discourse? 'If (saith another, Dr. Hammond, Of Heresy, §. 9. n. 18.) the Council of Nice define not for Ado­ration of Images, then it is not rejected by us [define not for Adoration: doth he mean Adoration here, as that Council declares they took it, for Veneration? And will Protestants allow this?] And, if it doth define for Adoration, then was it rejected by Franckfurt. But means he here Adoration, sicut Deificae Trinitati, which Nice, as well as Franckfurt, rejected? Or, taken for Veneration, which Franckfurt denies to Images indeed, but allows to all other holy things: viz. To the Image of the Cross, tho not, of our Lord: and, will that Doctor, think we, granting the one, differ with us for the other? What mean Protestants, after the distinguishing and clear dealing of the Church, to speak thus in the Clouds? When they name Religious, take heed of telling us what they mean by it; or of touching the Catholick's explication of their meaning of it? Do you understand by it, (say we) any in­ferior veneration or reverence given to such things as are called sacred, and used in our Religion and Service of God? You your selves allow it, and give it; see below, §. 51. and the Gallican Bishops did so, as much as Nice. Do you mean su­preme and divine Worship due only to God? Catholicks deny it to any Creature, as much as you. Why is here made in Protestant Writers such a Petitio principii still? Why are not the former Disputes contracted, and this only discussed: Whether sacred Images, or Images of sacred Persons, our Lord, his Holy Mother, and the Saints are without Idolatry capable of such a veneration, as is, or at least hath bin here­tofore, given generally by Christians to other holy things? Or, Whether the veneration also of some things not sacred, if only done to them in such a manner, as we honor or reve­rence things sacred, amounts to Idolatry? Or, Whether he, who acknowledgeth such adoration of Images, as was anci­ently of the Cross, maintains Idolatry? Lastly, Whether some [...] (supposed, not granted) in their expression, as [Page 20]to the word Adoration, or Religious (yet these terms not used in the Council of Trent: and only the one of them used, but this explained and qualified in the Council of Nice) can a­mount to Idolatry by their Doctrine?

§. 20 This said from §. 16. of the Church's explication of her terms, to remove all jealousies, and leave those excuseless, who from equivocal words would asperse her Tenents; Now I shall give a particular account of the proceeding of her Coun­cils in stating this matter, especially that of Nice (referred to by that of Trent; which made this Article concerning Ima­ges, and some others in some hast, for concluding the Council before the death of the Pope, then dangerously sick.) The De­cree of that Council, Act. 7. runs thus: Definimus venerandas (saith that Council) & Sacras Imagines dedicandas, & in Tem­plis sanctis Dei collocandas habendasque; quo scilicet per hanc Ima­ginum pictarum inspectionem, omnes, qui contemplantur, ad proto­typorum memoriam, & recordationem, & desiderium veniant: Illis­que salutationem, & honorariam adorationem exhibeant; non, se­cundum fidem nostram, veram latriam, quae solum Divinae naturae competit; sed, quemadmodū typo venerandae & vivificantis Crucis, & sanctis Evangeliis, & Reliquiis sacris, oblationibus suffitorum & luminarium, reverenter accedimus [where note, that this latter Quemadmod um oblationibus suffitorum & luminarium reverenter accedimus typo (or, what if they had said imagini?) venerandae & vivificantis Crucis & Sanctis Evangeliis, & Reliquiis sacris, was the universal practice of the whole Church in those days, whether Eastern, or Western, Iconoclasts, or Catholicks.] See the same Declaration, made by several members of this Council, occurring often in the 2d, 3d, 4th, and 6th Acts of it. In this last, the Iconoclasts, then also, accusing the Ca­tholicks of exhibiting Latriam to their Images, Epiphanius in his Reply exclaims; O insanientem linguam — quae Christi­anorum inculpatam fidem in simulachrorum arbitratur translatam culturam. Nemo enim Christianorum eorum, qui sub caelo sunt, imagini latriam exhibuit. Etenim hoc est Gentilium fabula­mentum, Daemonumque invocatio [viz. to give latriam or Di­vine Worship to Images.] The same is reiterated by Adrian in his Answer to the Capitalare (Act. 4. cap. 56.) Qualiter in [Page 21]eorum explanaverunt definitione, demonstrantes eis [imaginibus] osculum & honorabilem salutationem reddere, nequaquam secun­dum fidem nostram veram culturam, quae decet solum divinam naturam. And the Epistle of the Nicene Council to the Bi­shops hath these words; Quare eas [imagines] honorabiliter adoramus, & salutamus; idem enim significant haec duo verba. This of the clear resolution and explication of that Council.

§. 21 If we look before this Council, into the times when first happened some Controversy about Images; and examine the Tenet or Doctrine of St. Gregory, consulted concerning it; and which both the Nicene Council and Pope Adrian on one side, and the Caroline Books, and the Gallican Bishops on the other, professed to correspond and concur with, we do find him indeed denying adoration to Images; but adoration taken strictly sicut Deo; but yet allowing veneration to them, as to other Holy Things (as Pope Adrian also in his answer to the Caroline Books represents it to Charles the Great.) Thus He in his Epistle to Serenus, 9. l. 9. Ep. Et quidem quia eas ado­rari vetuisses omnino laudavimus, fregisse vero reprehendimus: where the Reason of non-adoration rendred by him shews him to mean it of Adoration striclly so taken. Quia (saith he) omne manu factum adorare non liceat, quonian scriptum est; Dominum Deum tuum adorabis, & illi soli servies. So also in his Epistle to Secundinus, l. 7. Ep. 53. sending to him a Picture of our Lord, as Secundinus had requested of him, He adds. Scio quidem, quod imaginem Salvatoris nostri non ideo petis, ut quasi Deum colas. By these two Dominum Deum tuum adora­bis, and non quasi Deum colas, we see the Adoration he excepts against: But then in the same Epistle he acknowledgeth a pro­stration before such Image, as a thing lawful. Et nos qui­dem non quasi ante Divinitatem ante illam [the forementioned Image of our Lord] prosternimur Sedillum adoramus, quem per imaginem aut natum, aut passum recordamur. On which Pope Adrian in his Answer to Charles his Books, c. 50. Act. 4. Sic & Secundino docuit, non quasi Deum colere, sed ante easdem sacras imagines se prosternens, non quasi ante Divinitatem, ante ipsas prosterni. And thus Spalatensis, De Repub. 7. l. 12. c. n. 47. Videtur [Gregorius] quidem fateri, se fideles ante imaginem [Page 22]solere prosternere, sed explicat in hac prostratione non imaginem, sed per imaginem exemplar adorari. Again in his Epistle to Ja­nuarius, l. 7. Ep. 5. when a zealous new Convert had car­ried the Image of our Blessed Lady and the Cross, and by force set them up in the Jews Synagogue of that place where he lived, St. Gregory reprehends the fact done without the Bi­shops Order; and requires Januarius the Bishop, That —sub­lata exinde cum ea qua dignum est veneratione Imagine atque cruce, debeat quod violenter ablatum est reformare &c. Here is Veneration. But Jonas Aurelianensis, In Lib. Sacrament. quotes a Prayer of his, wherein he useth the word Adoration also taken in a larger sense to a thing made with hands, viz. The Cross. —Deus qui unigeniti tui Domini nostri Jesu Christi pre­tioso sanguine humanum genus redimere dignatus es, concede pro­pitius, ut qui ad adorandum vivificam crucem adveniunt, a pecca­torum suorum nexibus liberentur. Thus St. Gregory; whose Doctrine both the Caroline Books, the Emperor Charles, and Pope Adrian appeal to. See Adriani Respons. cap. ult.

§. 22 Not long after St. Gregory, we find —venerabilium Imagi­num Picturae, in the 82. Canon of the Council in Trullo. In­ter venerabilium imaginum picturas Agnus &c. After this A. D. 726. a Council was held at Rome by Pope Gregory II. against the Iconoclasts, urged by Pope Adrian in his Answer to the Caroline Books, c. 12. Act. 4. which decreed not only the lawful use, but Adoration, of Images. Again, not long after the Constantinopolitan Council of the Iconoclasts held under Constantinus Copronymus, 754, another Council was assembled at Rome by Pope Stephen IV. A. D. 769. 20. years before that of Nice, to which Council, (as Anastasius relates it in the Life of Stephen) were sent at the Pope's Request by Charles the Great and his Brother, twelve Gallican Bishops, persons eminent for Learning. His words are, —Dirigentes ipsi [Papae] Christianissimi Reges duodecim Episcopos ex eiisdem Francorum regionibus nimis Divinis Scripturis & Sanctorum Canonum ceremoniis doctos & probatissimos viros. Now this Council approved the Decree made concerning Veneration of Images in the former Council held under Gregory II. See Adrian's Respons. Act. 4. c. 12. And, as Anastasius relates in [Page 23]the life of Stephen, subtilius multa perindagantes statuerunt magno honoris affectu ab omnibus Christianis ipsas sacras vene­rari imagines, sicuti ab omnibus praedecessoribus hujus Apostolicae Sedis Pontificibus, & cunctis venerabilibus Patribus usque hacte­nus de earum honore observatum, effectum, & cunctis, ad me­moriam piae compunctionis est traditum. Thus that Council under Stephen. Some years before this Council, and not long after that held against Images under Constantinus Coprony­mus, and some 20 years before that of Nice, the Eastern Pa­triarchs Cosmas of Alexandria, and two Theodorus's, one the Patriarch of Antioch, directed to Paul I. Bishop of Rome a Synodical Epistle; In qua (saith Adrian, Respons. ad Lib. Carol. Act. 3. c. 2.) de sacratissimis subtili narratione, qualiter una cum nostra S. Catholica & Apostolica universali Romana Ec­clesia ipst —Orientales orthodoxi Episcopi & Christianus populus sentiunt, & in earundum Sanctarum Imaginum veneratione sin­cero mentis affectu ferventes in fide existunt, studuerunt, intiman­dum. And afterward, —Si quis non adorat imaginem sive figu­ram Domini nostri Jesu Christi, neque humanationem ejus con­fitetur [because some Iconoclasts held Deum secundum huma­nitatem nun circumscriptibilem esse] talem impium Anathema­tizamus. He also adds, —Quam synodicam in Latino interpre­tatam eloquio Praedecessor noster quondam sanctissimus Dominus Stephanus Papa in suo Concilio quod & quod & ipse pro sacris imaginibus una cum diversis Episcopis in partibus Franciae seu Italiae fecit, suscipientes ac relegentes placuerunt &c. Thus two Roman Councils, and in the later also the learned Gallican Bishops, and also all the Eastern Patriarchs contended for, and decreed, Veneration of Images before that of Nice.

§. 23 This said of the Decree of the second Council of Nice which was held in A. D. 787. and what passed before it: about some three years after it, and four years before the Council of Franckfort, were written the Caroline Books, some think, See Matt. Westmonast. A. D. 793. by Alcuinus the Emperor's Tutor, against the Nicene Council, and Adoration of Images. I say three years after that of Nice, as appears in the Preface. Gesta praeterea est ferme ante triennium & altera Synodus &c. But meanwhile the Author or Authors of these Books knew [Page 24]nothing of Pope Adrian's Legates, present in it, or his or the Eastern Patriarchs consent to its Acts, but l. 1. c. 6. censures it because the Roman Church was not consulted by the Ni­cene Council, nor had given her consent in this matter. Quae Ecclesia Romana (saith the Capitulare, l. 1. c. 6.) nullis synodi­cis constitutis caeteris ecclesiis praelata est, sed ipsius Dei authori­tate primatum tenet dicentis; Tu es Petrus &c. Tibi dabo claves &c. And afterward, —Quod regulariter omnes Catholicae debent observare Ecclesiae, ut ab ea post Christum ad muniendam fidem adjutorium petant, quae non habens maculam nec rugam portentuosa haeresum capita calcat, & fidelium mentes in fide corroborat. And concluding that Chapter thus, Ipso [i.e. Petr] interveniente, cujus Cathedrae sumus sequaces, regni coe­lorum, cujus ille Claviger factus est, mereamur esse compotes. Therefore these Books were sent by Charles to Pope Adrian to consult his judgment, who also sent to the Emperor Charles his Answer to them, in defence of that Council, probably be­fore the sitting of the Council of Franckfort; the Act of which Council, if condemning Adoration of Images, likely, he would not have passed over in silence, had he written after it.

§. 24 An. Dom. 794. and four years after the writing of these Books was the Council of Franckfort convened, and that A­postolica authoritate as it saith, for suppressing a new Heresy inclined to Nestorianisme of Felix and Elipandus, and for setling the disturbances made by it in Spain. In this Council, after the condemnation of the Heresy of Felix and Elipandus, is said to be passed this Decree against the Nicene Council con­cerning Adoration of Images, first published by a Protestant; since, out of a very ancient Copy, as he saith, and perhaps the same wherein the Protestant found it, by Sirmondus. 2. Allata est in medium Quaestio de nova Graecorum Synodo, quam de adorandis imaginibus Constantinopoli [put for Niceae] fece­runt, in qua scriptum habebatur, ut qui imagines Sanctorum ita ut Deificam Trinitatem servitio aut adoratione non impenderent, anathemata judicarentur. Qui supra, Sanctissimi Patres nostri omnimodis & orationem & servitutem eis renuentes contempse­runt, atque consentientes condemnaverunt. Much dispute hath been, and many reasons on either side produced, concerning [Page 25]the true Decree of this Council, whether it was for, or a­gainst Adoration, i. e. Veneration of Images: Historians vary­ing in this matter, and the former published Acts of this Council containing nothing thereof. But for the present we will suppose this forementioned Decree genuine; i. e. grant all, our Adversaries can desire, and proceed only to examine, how the Nicene Decree is any way debilitated thereby: De­siring this on the other side to be granted me, that Pope Adrian, at least, confirmed no such Decree of Franckfort, upon these considerations: 1. Both because Adrian professed to the Emperor his admitting and confirming the Decree of Nice. 2. And also writ an Answer in defence of it to the Caroline Books; and particularly Act. 3. c. 9. to that Chapter (l. 3. c. 17.) which chargeth the Nicene Synod with the very same error as this Franckfort Decree doth; where he shews, that the Nicene Synod maintained just the contrary. And 3. be­cause in some parts of that Answer he produceth two fore­mentioned Councils held at Rome (one of them by his im­mediate Predecessor Stephen IV. the delegated Bishops of France also consenting) to have decreed the same Veneration of Images before that of Nice; as also, his Predecessor St. Gregory to have taught it. And lastly, because the Gallican Bishops assembled at Paris under Ludovicus Pius in 824, when the former transactions of Franckfort could not be unknown or forgotten, accuse Pope Adrian for siding with, and defend­ing the Council of Nice, and Adoration of Images; not justly done, if his latter Act at Franckfort was contrary to, and con­demned, both the Council of Nice, and consequently his own Answer. Neither, tho Ado in his Chronicle, and so others after him, mentions the presence of Pope Adrian's Legates in this Synod of Franckfort (and they might be there, and dissent) yet do I see any probability thereof; because there is no men­tion made of them (as always useth to be) in the Acts of this Council; where there is, of all the other members of it; and of the presence of the Emperor Charles: and it is also mani­fest, that Pope Adrian's Epistle to the Spanish Clergy against Elipandus, inserted in that Council, was procured by Charles his Agents at Rome before its sitting.

§. 25 After this, to consider the Canon of Franckfort it self, we see it condemns those that give such Adoration to the Ima­ges of Saints as to the Deifical Trinity: which condemna­tion is such, as both the Council of Nice, and Adrian, and the present Roman Church do willingly admit and subscribe to; the Definition of Nice, as appears before, being point-blank opposite to any such Adoration; Non secundum fidem nostram, veram latriam, quae solum Divinae naturae competit; sed quem­admodum typo venerandae Crucis, & Sanctis Evangeliis &c. Only the application of such a Tenet, and such an Anathema­tisme, to the Council of Nice is that which it is most manifest the Fathers at Franckfort erred in; and the cause of such mistake seems to be, that the Question, indeed, about Adora­tion, and the report of such an Anathematisme by the Nicene Council [in qua scriptum habebatur, saith the Franckfort De­cree] was allata in medium; but not the Copy it self; or, if the Copy, that Copy must be false: for in express words the true Copies have no such thing, but just the contrary. For we see, that the Copy of the Acts of this Council, tho it is granted, well known to the Author of the Caroline Books, and to the Assembly at Paris some twenty years after this at Franckfort, yet was not common in the West, or came into many hands; insomuch also as that it was unknown to St. Thomas, and the ancient Schoolmen. Hence that much cited Passage of Hincmar a Writer of those times, Contra Hincmar. Laudun. c. 20. [Septima autem apud Graecos vocata universa­lis, Pseudo-Synodus, de Imaginibus quas quidam confringendas, quidam autem adorandas dicebant, neutra pars intellectu sano definiens, sine authoritate Apostolicae Sedis non longe ante nostra tempora Niceae est a compluribus Episcopis habita, & Romam missa, quam etiam Papa Romanus in Franciam direxit, unde tempore Caroli Magni Imperatoris, jussione Apostolicae Sedis, generalis Synodus in Francia convocante praefato Imperatore cele­brata, & secundum Scripturarum tramitem, traditionemque ma­jorum, ipsa Graecorum Pseudo-Synodus destructa est, & penitus abdicata, de cujus destructione non modicum volumen, quod in Palatio adolescentulus legi, ab eodem Imperatore Romam est per quosdam Episcopos missum.] is found to have many mistakes in it: 1. who first mentions the Constantinopolitan and the [Page 27] Nicene as one Council, divided into two extremes in their Opinion; 2. that it was held without the authority of the Roman Bishop, (which Error the Caroline Books had spread in the West, tho the Acts of the Nicene Council often make clear the contrary,) mention the presence of his Legates, and in Actione 2. recite Pope Adrian's Synodical Epistle, sent by them, fully agreeing with the judgment of the Council con­cerning veneration of Images in such manner as other holy things. 3. That Pope Adrian, having received a Copy of it, sent it to Charles; and that, by the Pope's Order, a General Synod was called by the Emperor, in France he saith; but, surely, means this of Franckfort, wherein the Greek Pseudo-Synod was condemned; and that a large Book, written of the condemation of it (meaning the Caroline Books) was sent from Charles by some Bishops to the Pope: whereas such Books were written indeed, but long before the Synod of Franck­fort; and so the Volume sent to Adrian not by some Bishops of the Council, but by Engilbert an Abbot a Favourite of Charles, and so answered by him probably before this Coun­cil; which, was assembled indeed by the Apostolick Authori­ty, but upon another occasion, the Heresy of Elipandus: Last­ly, the Nicene Council maintaining Adoration of Images, but in a much more mitigated sense than Hincmare, and the Galli­can Bishops, all deceived by the Caroline Books, apprehended it. The same mis-opinion of this Council of Nice also had Jonas Aurelianensis, who, writing against Claudius Taurinensis, an Iconoclast, yet declares himself also an enemy to the Ado­rers of Images. Quod cum sciant (saith he) Imaginibus nil inessc Divini, majors invectione digni sunt, quod honorem debi­tum Divinitati impendant egeno & infirmo simulachro; atque idipsum nonnullis Orientalium, qui eodem sceleratissimo errori mancipantur, respondere solere. In like manner seems the Synod of Franckfort, not having seen (nor perhaps the Em­peror) (I know not by what miscarriage or concealment) the Acts of Nice, or Adrian's Answer, to have bin deceived by the Caroline Books divulged some years before, and exhibited in that Synod.

§. 26 And the particular mistake in the Caroline Books, which [Page 28]occasioned the Franckfort Canon seems to be contained in the 3. l. 17. c. where the words of Constantine a Cyprian Bishop in his Vote 2. Counc. Nice. Act. approving the Synodical E­pistle of the Eastern Patriarchs runs thus: — [...]. That is, Concors efficior, suscipiens & amplectens honorabiliter sanctas & venerabiles Imagines. Atque Adorationem quae se­cundum Latriam soli supersubstantiali & vivificae Trinitati emit­to. Et non ita sentientes Anathemati svbjicio. But the Caro­line Books give it thus: Se suscepturum & amplexurum honorabiliter Imagines, & servitium Adorationis [or [...]] quod consubstantiali & vivificatrici Trinitati debetur, ei se reddi­turum. Here mistaking at least in the sense, ei for eis: (as afterward in the same Chapter where he recites it, it is not ei, but illis:) and referring it not to Trinitati, but Imaginibus: and then carried away with Passion the Author of the Capitu­lare forementioned saith, —Caeteris consentientibus, because none of the other Bishops censured this vote at all: Nor had they reason, as Constantine delivered it. And then, having thus made this passage his own, tho he read the Decree of the Council point-blank opposite. Non veram Latriam, quae so­lum Divinae naturae convenit &c, and so the whole current of the Discourse of that Council, yet it is clear to him that all that is but palliated stuff; and this one Bishop speaks the true Opinion of them all. His words in that Chapter are: —Errorem de­tegit [this Bishop] infaustum, quem illi videntur plebibus in­gerere palliatum. Aiunt enim: Non adoramus imagines ut Deum, nec illis divini servitii cultum impendimus, sed dum illas aspicimus & adoramus, illò mentis nostrae acumen difigimus, ubi eos, quorum illae sunt, esse non ignoramus: at contra iste illorum detegens errorem, & suam pandens absque ulla obumbra­tione cogitationem, fatetur se quale Sanctae Trinitati, tale illis exhibere servitium, talemque adorationem: sicque absurditatem quam illi introrsus retinent latenter, hanc iste egerit patenter. Thus he (whereas the highest word, this Bishop spake, of the honor of Images, is [...]) and so proceeds to the censure of his anathematizing the dissenters. By all which it appears, this is the very place (most grosly mistaken) [Page 29]on which the Franckfort Fathers grounded their Canon; condemning, as they had reason, such an impious Anathema. And thus (by giving credit to the Caroline Books) one Bi­shops vote mistaken to say the contrary to what it doth, pas­seth for the true (but concealed and palliated) meaning of the whole Council; and its plain Declaration in the publick De­cree, Non veram Latriam, afterward also often pressed by Pope Adrian, is not admitted to be heard against it. This discovery is none of mine, but Dr. Hammond's candid deal­ing in this matter; who saith it is a plain calumny to that Bishop. He is seconded also herein by Mr. Thorndike, Epilog. l. 3. p. 363. 'It is to be granted (saith he) that, whosoever it was who writ the Book against Images under the name of Charles the Great, did understand the Council [of Nice] to enjoyn the worship of God to be given to the Image of our Lord (for of any other Image of God there was no question in that Council) but it is not to be denied, that it was a meer mistake &c. Again: That the Decree of the second Council of Nice enjoines no Idolatry, I must maintain as un­questionable, supposing the Premises. The honor we give to an Image is not the honor we give to the Principal, but only by the equivocating of terms, according to the Decree of the Council, and therefore that honor of Images, which the Decree maintaineth, is no Idolatry. And in Just Weights p. 128. Tho this Council acknowledgeth, that that Image it self [of our Lord] is honoured by the honor given (be­fore the Image) to that which it signifieth; yet It distin­guisheth this honor from the honor of our Lord; and there­fore teacheth not Idolatry, by teaching to honor Images. Thus he vindicates this Council both from the censure of some Protestants (Idolatry) and from that of Franckfort, and the Caroline Books not so rigorous. In which Books I grant this Doctrine of Divine Worship given to Images to be im­puted to the Greeks not only in the forementioned Chapter, but frequently elsewhere; as in 3. l. 24. c. —4. l. 21. c. but no other proof of it any where produced, but only this pas­sage of Constantine the Cyprian Bishop, and their using the word Adoration: which, after the application of it in Scripture to inferior worships, nay, by the Censurers of Nice, to the Cross; [Page 30]and, were there none of these, after the Councill's explica­tion of their innocent meaning (so that they can be charged only with the abuse of a word, not error in the sense) seems great injustice. And so also seems that, 2. l. 27. c. Si omnes Imaginum adoratione carentes secundum illorum falsissimam opinionem pereunt, infantes Baptismatis unda loti, & Corporis Dominici edulio, & Sanguinis haustu satiati, qui necdum Ima­gines adorare valuerunt, & sic e saeculo migraverunt, pereunt. And so the same Author's accusing them for passing such De­crees without the consulting, or approbation, of the Aposto­lick See; when in the very beginning of the Acts of the Coun­cil the Roman Legates are the first that are named; and {Act. 2.) set down and recited in the Council, Pope Adrian's Epistle maintaining the Veneration of Images.

But, however these things be, Catholicks stand both to the Decree of Nice and Franckfort; as to what the former affirms, so to what the later condemns; both well agreeing, both most orthodox; the later only erring in this, that they con­demned it as the Greeks Opinion, of whom it is most mani­fest that they profest the contrary.

§. 27 If here it be said; that the Fathers of Franckfort justly charged those of Nice to have allowed to Images Honors true­ly Divine; tho they acknowledge meanwhile of them, that they denied (as also the Roman-Catholicks now do) those Honors to be truly Divine, which they allowed, I answer: That then those of Franckfort, or others since, ought to instance what particular Honor that is, given by Nice to Images, that is held due only to the Deity. Now first, for the inte­rior Honor, which is given to any thing, none can censure others; for, this none can know; and therefore none can affirm of what sort it is: of which thus Spalatensis well (7. l. 12. c. 47. n.) Distinctio Latriae, Duliae, Hyperduliae, & alia­rum inferiorum adorationum ex solo hominis interno pendet, quod internum non substat Ecclesiae judicio. And it is well gathered by him there, that it was something external said, or acted, by which Serenus perceived the Massilians to give to Images an undue Adoration Next then, for exterior Honor, all that I find professed by those of Nice, or objected by those of [Page 31] Franckfort, is, (not giving to them any Divine Attribute, or Virtue, not Sacrificing, or erecting Temples, Praying to them, &c, but) osculari, amplecti, salutare, whether by un­covering the head, or kneeling, or prostration, oblatis per­lustrare luminaribus, odoriferis thymiamatibus honorare, besides using the term adorare taken in a general sense. Now none of these, or perhaps some other that may be added, could the Franckfort Fathers pretend due only to the Deity, because themselves gave them all, and allowed the lawfulness there­of, tho not to Images, yet to some other Creatures; to Men, to the Figure of the Cross, to the sacred Utensils, to the Holy Gospels, to Holy Relicks, to Churches, to the Emperor's Statue, and the like; and in no other manner did the Nicene Fathers give them to Images, than Franckfort, or the Gallican Bishops (for instance) to the Holy Cross. For Example: If the one Incensed, or set up Lights before the Cross, not imagining the Cross either saw the Lights, or scented the sweet Odours, but in Honor of Him that was Crucified upon it; so did the other before the Image of our Lord, not ima­gining it to see, or smell.

§. 28 Such external Ceremonies of Honor, I say, the Opposers of Nice freely allowed to other Holy things; and meanwhile disallowed them to Images, upon such Reasons as these, which occur frequentlly in the Caroline Books. Adoratio scabelli pedum Domini was commanded in Scripture, not so that of Images; Capit. Caroli. l. 2. c. 5. l. 3. c. 24. and Adoration also of Men hath an example in Scripture, not so that of Ima­ges, Ib. 1. l. 9. c. But, if this were good arguing, neither might the Gallican Bishops adore the Cross, the Gospels &c. of which we have in Scripture neither a Command, nor Ex­ample. Again; they use Veneration of the Cross, because, Crucis signum magnum in se habere mysterium: illud adeo esse a Redemptore mundi sacratum, ut Divini nominis invocatione illatum, alia quaeque censecret & benedicat. Which things cannot be said of Images. But neither can they of Relicks, to which yet they allow Veneration. But then concerning Relicks this Book saith, that &Non sunt coaequandae Imagines Reliquiis Sanctorum Martyrum & Confessorum; eo quod Reli­quiae [Page 32]aut de Corpore sunt, aut de his quae circa Corpus: l. 3. c. 24. but so neither is the Cross or Sacred Utensils de Corpore, or circa Corpus; yet are they venerable. But then they have another reason for the veneration of Sacred Utensils, which will not suit to Images; for —Sine Imaginibus, & lavacri unda, & sacri liquoris unctio percipi, & thymiamata adoleri, & luminaribus loca sancta perlustrari, & Corporis ac Sunguinis Do­minici consecratio effici potest, sine vasis vero nunquam. But what then? May not that be in some other respect venera­ble that is not in this; as the Cross, the Gospel, and Holy Relicks are? And, as other things have a relation to sacred Persons, for which they become venerable, that is not ap­plicable to Images; so Images have a special relation, namely that they afford a lively representation to our minds of the Exemplar or Prototype, which the others do not. From which it would be a weak arguing to conclude, therefore Images only venerable, not they. So, for the veneration of Basilica's and Churches, they have another reason. Aliud est loca divinis cultibus mancipata luminaribus perlustrari [i. e. in the day time also] & in eisdem locis & orationum & thy­miamatum Deo [which must be understood not as any special external Cult now required by him] fumum offerri; & aliud Imagini oculos habenti & nihil cernenti lumen offerre, & nares habenti & nihil odoranti, thymiamata adolere; aliud est loca di­vino cultui mancipata venerari, aliud picturis luminaria & thy­miamata offerre. Thus the Capitulare. But then as such Lights and Incense are used within Churches in honorem Dei & Christi, to whom such Churches are consecrated (yet, I suppose, without any reference to the Divine Sight or Ol­faction) and not in any honor of the sensless wood and stone of such Fabricks; so are the same things used before the Images of Christ &c. that are set in these Churches, in hono­rem Prototypi, which sees, and smells, and not in any honor of the sensless matter and colours of such Images, or Painters work. And much-what like things are there said of the rest. Add to these things in the Capitulare, what Bellarmin (in Append. de Cultu Imaginum 4. c.) relates out of the latter Synod (as they call it) at Paris: Multa testimonia proferentes pro adoratione Crucis, cum rationem reddere volunt, cur signum [Page 33]vel lignum Crucis adorandum sit, & non sint adorandae Imagines Christi, dicunt eam esse causam; quia Christus in Cruce suspensus fuit, non in Imagine; & quia per Crucem nos redemit, non per Imaginem. To which he: Certe Christus non in signo Crucis, aut in ligneis illis crucibus, quae adorantur in Ecclesiis, suspensus est. Cum ergo liceat per adversarios Crucis Imaginem colere, cur Imaginem Crucifixi colere non licebit? Now therefore, when in thus much the Franckfort Fathers are agreed with the Nicene, That the Cross and Relicks &c. may have the ex­ternal veneration, which the Nicene allow also to Images, no such exterior signs or symbols of Honor may be stiled Divine Worship, or due only to the Deity: At least neither East nor West, neither the Nicene, nor Anti-Nicene Bishops of those times thought them so. And this, supposing the worst, that such worship external or internal, were mis-ap­plied to Images, yet so long as it held lawfully communica­ble to some other Creature, extream folly and nonsence there may be in such misplacing it, but can be no Idolatry. No Idololatria or Iconodulia, if you will, because no latria or du­lia; as on the other side, such worship, as, if given to some creature, is Divine, can be exhibited to no other creature at all without Idolatry. And the Author of the Capitulare, in charging the Nicene Fathers with giving Divine Worship to Images, yet doth not, that I can find, any where charge them for it with Idolatry, but with segnities, insania, and the like; (which, methinks, might teach some late Writers that mo­desty in their language toward the present both West and Eastern Churches, which these observed toward the Eastern only.) And l. 3. c. 16. he seems to free the learned among the Greeks from any great error in it. Nam etsi a doctis qui­busque (saith he) vitari possit hoc, quod illi in adorandis ima­ginibus exercent, qui viz. non qui sint [quid], sed quid innuant, venerantur, indoctis tamen quibusque scandalum generant, qui nihil aliud in his, praeter id quod vident, venerantur & adorant. But then, why is not the Controversy a little mollified and reduced to this, whether all Veneration, or also use of sacred Pictures were better to be by all laid aside, than such a gross mistake by any incurred?

§. 29 This of those whether the Caroline Books, or Divines of Franckfort, or of Paris, assembled some thirty years after Franckfort under Ludovicus Pius, who denying such Honors lawful to be exhibited to Images, yet freely gave the very same to other sacred things; by which such external acts of honor are cleared from necessarily being, or signifying in themselves any Divine Worship. Where it is observable, that Daille in his Treatise of Images, l. 4. c. 3. tho he saith of the Nicene Fathers, that in denying to give any Divine Honor to Images, yet notwithstanding they actually gave to them those which were so: (For, saith he —se prosternere, to prostrate our selves, to be uncovered, to hold up our hands as an act of humility, to make prayers, to offer incense, and lights, are not these services, we render to God?) and tho he spends a whole Chapter, Ibid. c. 6. in justifying the Synod of Paris that censures Nice and Pope Adrian (yet makes no mention at all of any censure of Franckfort against them) against Bellarmin's reflections upon it, Yet, when he comes to the main Point, and that whereon the Cardinal chiefly in­sisteth, —Quod superat omnem admirationem, illud est, quod multa testimonia proferunt pro adoratione Crucis— Cum ergo liceat per adversarios Crucis imaginem colere, cur imaginem Cru­cifixi colere non licebit? And,—At inquiunt nihil manu factum colere fas est. Quid igitur (saith he) Lignum vel signum Cru­cis non est manu factum? Codex Evangeliorum, & sacra vasa, quae horum opinione veneranda sunt, quid sunt aliud nisi opera manuum humanarum? Et tamen verum est, nihil manu factum esse colendum eo genere cultus, quo Deus ipse, qui omnino non est factus, sed omnium rerum factor colendus. To this the main Objection, and so much, you see, pressed by the Cardi­nal, I say Daille in that Treatise, (as also Protestant Wri­ters ordinarily,) returns no Answer; passeth it over in si­lence, and takes care his Reader hear nothing of it; and so doth a late Author that goes as high as any in his charge. For, indeed, what can he, or they, say to it? But that such Idolaters as the Accused were, such also the Accusers: such as the Orientals in respect of Images, such the Gallican, Ger­man, or Brittanick Clergy, in respect of other things: finally the whole Church, then, Idolaters. And what matters it, [Page 35]whether such in respect of the Images of our Lord, or those of the Cross? hanging lights, or burning sweet odours be­fore the one, or the other? And to what purpose labour they to shew some part of the West opposite to the East, as to veneration of Images, when they have both these united, a­gainst themselves, as to Adoration of, and using, all those out­ward ceremonies of Honor to the Cross, as the other do to Images?

§. 30 Leaving then both East and West under their heavy charge of Idolatry, as to the Cross, and Holy Gospels &c, let us see now in what particular of those Honors generally ex­hibited to these a Protestant can verify it. They cannot surely in these; their being uncovered, kissing, embracing, kneeling, prostration, (I name not praying to them, for, that is generally disclaimed) for these are no Ceremonies of Wor­ship appropriated to the Deity; but lawfully exhibited to Creatures. But if perhaps they shall pitch upon the lumina­ria & suffita, lights or sweet odours (or, if any other may be named such like) that they are expressions of respect and honor only applicable to the Deity, upon what ground can this be said?

§. 31 For the First, Lights: In setting forth a shew with the greater pomp, Protestants as well as Catholicks, think they lawfully use them. In times of solemn Joy we make Bonfires; we use Torches in Funerals, not all or always for necessity, but in honor of the Deceased; and in particular they are the fittest Emblems of the present splendor and glory of our Lord and his Saints in Heaven whose Images (but in rela­tion to the Person represented) we honor with them. [Erat lucerna ardens, saith our Lord of the Baptist] They were used anciently, and that on the day time, at the reading of the Holy Gospel, which was delivered to us by the Lux Mundi our Lord: a Custome defended by St. Jerome against Vigilantius; —Per totas Orientis Ecclesias, Epist. contra Vigi­lantium (saith he) quando legendum est Evangelium, accen­duntur lucernae, jam sole rutilante: [and this reason given] non ad fugandas tenebras, sed ad signum laetitiae demonstrandum. [Page 36]And Rivet, in his Debates with Grotius; Exam. Animad. Grot. Art. 21. acknowledgeth the ancient Christians to have met the Statues of their Christian Emperors (brought into Cities as it were to receive their homage, where the Em­peror could not come in person) cum cereis & incensis, with lights, and burning sweet odours, to express a Civil Honor to the Persons these represented: a Custome mentioned also in 2. Nicene Council, Act. 1. Si enim Regum laureata & Ico­nas missas ad civitates vel regiones obvii adeunt populi cum Cereis & incensis, non cera perfusam tabulam, sed Imperatorem hono­rantes &c. Concerning this thus Bellarmin, De Reliquiis 2. l. 3. c. declares the Catholick's intention. Non offerri ce­reas Martyribus, tanquam sacrificia, sed accendi in signum lae­titiae. Ignem enim accendi solere ad laetitiam significandam in rebus profanis: praeterea ignem, Gloriae signum esse; unde Im­peratoribus Romanis ubique Ignis praeferebatur. And in the 2. Nicene Council, Act. 4. we find both them and sweet o­dours, thus defended and expounded, Epist. Germani ad Episc. Claudiopol; —Sed nec illud scandalizet quosdam, quod, ante Imagines Sanctorum, luminarium concinnatio, & suavis odoris thymiamata fiunt; symbolice namque talia celebrari ad honorem eorum ezcogitata sunt &c. Indicia sunt namque sensibilia lu­mina divini ac sine materia luminis dati [sanctis in caelo]: porro Aromatum incensum purissimae & totius S. Spiritus inspira­tionis & repletionis insigne. And St. Austine long ago in the 27th Chapter of his 8th Book De Civitate Dei, Entitled De modo honoris quem Christiani Martyribus impendant, speaking of such Ceremonies used at the Memorials, or Sepulchers, or Reliquaries of the Martyrs: —Quaecunque igitur (saith he) adhibentur Religiosorum obsequia in Martyrum locis, ornamenta sunt Memoriarum, non sacra vel sacrificia mortuorum tanquam Deorum.

§. 32 For the Second, Burning sweet Odours: It it granted, that as the sacrificing of Beasts, so the fuming of Incense joyned with certain circumstances of its being offered upon the fire of the Altar, by a Priest, of such a composition &c. was un­der the Law a Ceremony of the Divine Worship not commu­nicable, nor lawful to be performed, upon whatever recti­fied [Page 37]intention, to any other. But yet among the Jews, as the killing of Beasts also for food, so the burning of Incense or sweet Odours, divested of such circumstances, was never pro­hibited to be used otherwise than only in the Divine Service. Use all manner of Perfumes on any occasion the people might, only this excepted, that they should not be of the same com­position with that of the Sanctuary, Exod. 30.37, 38. Now the Church is far from using such perfuming with any such circumstances as may give it the appearance of a Sacrifice, or such Oblation of it as was made to God under the Law; for, she acknowledgeth none, neither that of Beasts, nor of Incense, nor any other, lawful now under the Gospel to be offered in this manner, either to any other, or to God him­self, save only that of the Body and Blood of our Lord in the Eucharist; the other being Levitical, typical, abolished Rites. She also abhorrs the use of it (as also she doth of any other the least common Honor, any kneeling, or bowing) as it was required of the ancient Christians to the Heathen, Gods, or Emperors, or their Statues, i. e. with an Altar erected be­fore such Statue, a Fire kindled on It, and Incense to be cast thereon, or at the least imposed upon them as an external acknowledgment, or confession of their believing some Di­vinity in the Person, to whom it was offered. She only useth such Odours as a common Ceremony of Honor, frequent in times of Joy, to entertain the Smell, as Lights and Bonfires do the Eyes; Hymns, Musick and ringing of Bells, the Ears. And when used in the Divine Service, it is so not only by the Priest (the proper Minister of a Sacrifice) but inferior Ministers; who incense or perfume therewith, not only the Altars and Images of Saints, but the Book of the Gospels, the Priest and other Clergy, and the people. In Ecclesia (saith Bellarmin, De Imag. 2. l. 17. c.) non-Sacer­dotes incensum offerunt, idque non solum Deo, sed etiam populo: See the Rubricks in Ordo Missae. So that, if the Saints in Glory be Deified by such a Ceremony, so are the People, and the Books too. Several ends of the Church's using it Bellarm. De Missa, 2. l. 15. c. names, such as these: —Ut significetur bonus odor Evangelii, 2. Cor. 2.15. Christi bonus odor sumus Deo. Ut significentur orationes Sanctorum, Rev. 5.8. and, a­mongst [Page 38]others; Ut teter odor, si quis ex multitudine hominum in Ecclesia existeret, abstergatur. And Thurifications or wasting sweet Odours on this manner, methinks, should be no more suspected of Idolatry, than sprinkling Holy Water. We find mention of these two last thymiama & luminaria in the 4th Canon Apostolical, and provision for these numbred amongst the Oblations allowed to be brought to the Altar: And these Canons, in the Protestant's judgment, surely as ancient as Constantine's days. And Daille, De Relig. cult. objecto 2. l. 15. c. with his Negative Arguments contending such Customes to have bin unknown to the ancient Christians, yet extends this purity of the Church in the ignorance of them no further, than till the beginning of the 4th Century, the times of Constantine; that is no further, than till the Church, lifting up her head out of long Persecutions, had the first opportunity to honor her Martyrs with a greater external Solemnity and Triumph. About which times supposing, not granting, that she had borrowed and adopted these emblemati­cal Ceremonies into her Service out of Gentilisme, yet a recti­fied intention purifies the external action; and David made no scruple of using the spoils of the Heathen for the more adorning the House of God. And, if the Christians may not use at pleasure what Paganisme hath formerly abused, nor honor God's Saints with any thing formerly applied to Idols, then neither may they with bowing to them, for this the Hea­then did to their Idols: nor, for the same reason, may Prote­stants retain any Customes supposed formerly abused by the Roman Church. Lastly, if these two of Lights and Perfume shall amount to Idolatry, so Idolatry will be introduced into the Church in the times of Constantine, and so an hundred years before the Protestant account, and extremely disorder their Calculations about the fourty two Months, or 1260. years of Anti-Christ's Reign: Neither will this leave that Church, which our Lord promised Hell Gates should not pre­vail against, one minutes respite as it were, but remove it immediatly from the Captivity under Heathen Rome, and Idolatry without the Church, to that Captivity much greater under the Christian Anti-Christ (as they stile him), and I­dolatry, within it. Meanwhile, this is willingly granted, [Page 39]That to incense or burn lights before any Image or other Creature whatever with some of those mis-apprehensions mentioned before §. 4, &c. is an act of Idolatry, as burning In­cense to the Brazen Serpent was, if done upon any such super­stitious account, or in any such way as God under the Law required it only to himself: and therefore this Serpent was removed and broken by Hezekiah, 2. King. 18.4. But so also was it Idolatry to bow the knee to the same Serpent. Now, all such superstitious intention in incensing Images, the Cross, the Gospels and the like, do Catholicks renounce, and profess whatever is offered at, to, or before, such Images, as Perfume, Lights, Tablets, &c. to have relation only to the Dignity of the Person represented, and not to any at all in the Image, and to be used as expressions of Joy and Gratitude, or honorary Ornaments of it meerly for the Exemplar's sake, or also as Memorials and Monuments of some Benefits re­ceived by the Supplicants from him.

Thus I have shewed the Gallican Bishops to have given the self same veneration to Crosses and other sacred things, as the Nicene did to Images; and have vindicated both of them from giving to sacred things, in these external Ceremonies used toward them, any Divine Honor; as also the ancient Chri­stians in their using the like to the Statues of their Emperors. And so have cleared this matter, as, That the Fathers of the Council of Nice expresly denied their giving any Latria or Divine Worship to Images; so, that no particular Note or sign of Worship exhibited by them to Images can be proved such: And consequently, that, in the condemning of those, who (to use the words of Franckfort) Imagines Sanctorum, ita ut Deificam Trinitatem servitio aut adoratione impendunt, both those of Nice and Franckfort in their Decree perfectly agree.

§. 33 But now, in the last place, supposing some difference or oppo­sition between the Decrees of these two Councils; the one of them denying, not a Divine, but any Adoration or Veneration at all lawful to be given to Images (yet which doth not ap­pear,) the other affirming it: let us examine to which rather of these, disagreeing, Christians do regularly and canonically owe their submission and obedience.

First, then, It is clear concerning the former of them, the Council of Nice; that, whatever it was in it self, when held, or, how much soever that of Franckfort following in the West (supposed opposite to it) might derogate from the univer­sality of it, yet that it was received, and admitted afterward for a General Council in the Council of Florence, Sess. 5. Ferrar. even by all the Western Provinces, as well as by the Eastern; nemine contradicente; and therefore, since such re­ception at least, obligeth as General. But the acceptation of the Decrees thereof by the West, long before the Council of Florence, appears by the general Practices there, for many Ages before the rise of Luther, in the same Veneration of Images with the other, (some stick not to say, greater). Yet higher, that the 8th Council, held, within a hundred years after this Council, acknowledgeth and ratifieth this as the 7th Council, and reiterates particularly the same Decree con­cerning Veneration of Images. See Can. 3. thereof. —Sacram Imaginem Domini nostri Jesu Christi aequo honore cum libro Sanctorum Evangeliorum adorari decernimus. Dignum est enim, ut secundum congruentiam rationis & antiquissimam traditionem propter honorem, qui ad principalia ipsa refertur, etiam deriva­tivae Imagines honorentur, ut Sanctorum Evangeliorum sacer liber: atque typus pretiosae Crucis. The 8th Council, I say, whether the Photian, or Anti-Photian, Council be taken for it (of which see what Dr. Stillingfl. saith in Rom. Idol. §. 10.) for both of these confirmed this, as the 7th General Council. See Concil. Photian. Act. 5. apud Baron. An. Dom. 879.

§. 34 2ly, Clear, that as the Grecian Bishops, and the Patriarch of Constantinople were present there, so all the other Oriental Patriarchs, hindred by the Saracene Persecution from coming in person, sent their Legates thither, and with this Council concurred in their Judgment. For, thus saith the Epistle of the Palestine Hermites recited in the Council Act. 3. that from John and Thomas, who were delegated to the Council from those parts, habebitis trium Apostolicorum thronorum con­cordem sententiam, & concinentem concordiam, qui —illam [Synodum] quam septimam dicunt [i. e. under Constantinus Copronymus against Images] non modo non recipiunt, sed uno [Page 41]animo & voce detestantur. Again, the Declaration concern­ing Images, recited in this Letter, accordingly is taken to be the sentiment of the Oriental Patriarchs, and not of these Hermites only, by the whole Council, as is seen by their several speeches upon it. Benedictus est Deus, quod Orientis Sanctissimi Praesules in confessione adorationis Imaginum vene­randarum consoni cum Adriano &c. inventi sunt. —Cum vi­deam literas, quas ab Orientali Dioecesi Sanctissimi Archiepiscopi ad Tharasium rescripserunt &c. Literis ab Orientalibus Archi­praesulibus &c. acquiesco: no notice being taken of the Her­mites, which implies them in this matter only to have bin these Prelate's Instruments. And so this Declaration was taken to be by the Caroline Books, which urge some passages of this Letter about Images, as sententiam fidei Theodori Ar­chiepiscopi Hierosolymitani. Of which Theodore also Adrian in his Answer to these Books testifies thus (2. Cap. Act. 3.) Iste cum caeteris praecipuis Patriarchis, viz. Cosma Alexandriae, & Theodoro alio Antiochiae dudum Praedecessori nostro —Paulo Papae miserunt propriam eorum rectae fidei Synodicam. To which may be added the Accusation, which the Nicene Council bringeth against the former Council under Constantinus Co­pronymus for this defect therein (Act. 6. Tom. 1.) Quinetiam neque concordantes sibi habuit Orientis Patriarchas, Alexandri­num, inquam, Antiochenum, & Urbis Sanctae summos Ponti­fices &c. With what boldness is this done, and how easily re­torted, if themselves at the same time were in the same de­fault? To conclude; this Seventh Council is also found to be afterward confirmed by the Legates of these Eastern Pa­triarchs in the 8th General Council (take whether you will, the Photian pretended by the Greeks, or the Anti-Photian affirmed by the Latines) which see in their Acts.

§. 35 3ly, Manifest also, that this Council was subscribed like­wise, as to its Definitions about Images, by the Roman Le­gates; and confirmed, and afterward also defended, against the Capitulare, by Adrian the then Bishop of Rome (this is out of dispute on all sides): and by him not standing alone, but adhered to by some part at least of the Western Church; as Baronius observes out of Hinchmar. Episcopus Rhemensis [Page 42]contr. Laudun. Episc. 20. c.; and as may be collected from the Decrees of several Western Councils before this of Nice, re­cited before §. 22. whereas there met in that of Franckfort only the Bishops from France and Germany (tho these in a great number) and some Bishops from the North part of Italy such as were under the dominions of Carolus Magnus and nearer to Franckfort. Neither was it confirmed by the Bishop of Rome, whose consent, as necessary, Charles's Books urge against that of Nice: Not confirmed by him, I say, as to this point, supposing this Synod decreed any thing against Venera­tion of Images: or concerning the Error of Nice in such their Decree. Of which (as hath bin said before) this may be a sufficient proof, that the same Pope owned the Confirmation of the Decree of Nice for Images, defended it against the Ca­pitulare, and is inveighed against by the Episcopal Meeting at Paris under Ludovicus Pius twenty four years after Franck­fort, for his justifying, and weakly maintaining the Nicene Decree; whenas of his later confirmation of a contrary Decree of Franckfort, had there bin any such thing, which also could not be unknown to them, they might have made great advan­tage. This of Franckfort therefore, being supposed to have made a contrary Decree concerning Image-Worship to that of Nice (as indeed it hath not) yet being herein unconfirmed, nay dissented-from by the Occidental Patriarch, and all the Oriental, by part of the Western Prelacy also then, and by the whole Western Clergy since, who in later Ages have re­ceived the other as General, can no way stand in competition with that of Nice confirmed by all the Patriarchs; and, in later Ages at least, received as General by all the Western, as well as Eastern, Clergy; nor can we rationally doubt, to which of these we owe Obedience.

§. 36 Thus we have seen the Decree of Nice concerning Image-Worship (referred-to by Trent) as well Negative for Latrin, as Affirmative for an inferior Veneration, such as is of other Holy things; when therefore that superior honor is spoken of, either latria, or dulia, that is given, and due, to the Ex­emplar, either the internal honor of the Soul, or external of the Body; [for, note, that the Latria or Divine Worship [Page 43]consists of both, and the external act receives its specifica­tion from the internal, and not one, but both these we equal­ly give to our Lord then also, when one prays to him, not before, but without, an Image] I say, when this superior Worship is spoken of, tho here, we uncover our heads, kneel, or prostrate our selves before an Image, nay kiss also and embrace it, yet is the Image neither objectum, nor ratio ado­rationis, but only adjunctum, as the Cardinal, De Imag. 2. 1. 23 c. hath it; a circumstantial, an inductive, a motive thereof. For, the mental intention is supposed here wholly to direct (as it can, at pleasure) these outward notes of Honor (some of which are accidentally and concomitantly applied to the Image, but without any purpose of honouring It thereby) to the Prototype; and the kiss or embracing of it, and imme­diatly touching it, is, in such worship, mentally no more in­tended to it, than the kneeling, prostration, or prayers, which as it is, then, made before it, so is made at another time, in the very same manner, and intention, to the Prototype without it. Neither is such external Latrical worship ima­gined to be conveyed to the person represented, either by, or through, the Image, as a Medium to it; but the Image is a meer circumstance of such Adoration; as time, and place, are, and any Creature of God may be; yet a circumstance much more beneficial for reminding us of such duty, as also for ren­dring this service more fix'd and steddy, or intense and de­vout, than others be. And in this sense is the Synod of Metz to be understood? held An. Dom. 1549. after the beginning of the Reformation, and in the suspension of that of Trent, for setling the new Controversies in Religion: which con­cerning Images speaks plainly thus, Cap. 41. —Non proponun­tur Imagines in Ecclesia ut adoremus eas, & colamus, sed ut per eas quid orare, colere, venerari & imitari debeamus, admo­neamur. Non ut colamus, i. e. cultu Latriae; [for certainly such a veneration and reverent treatment of them as sacrorum vasorum these Fathers denied not.] In explication of which they use this Simile as Vasquez, In 3. Thom. Disput. 108. c. 14. cites their words out of another Copy that contains their Acts more at large than that in Binius; —Codicem oculis per­lustrans, cum ad Venerabile & tremendum Nomen Jesu devene­rit, [Page 44]caput aperit, inclinatur, & suspirans in coelum oculos at­tollit [so do Protestants] & ob id, omni reprehensione, & Idolo­latriae suspicione caret, siquidem non literas &c. sic honorat, sed cogitatione & veneratione mentis suae ad eum honorandum & ado­randum rapitur, cujus memoriam hae literae ei suggerunt. Cur ergo superstitionis aut Idololatriae reus peragitur, qui ante imagi­nem crucifixi Domini caput aperit, aut procumbens adorat, cum nequaquam imaginem putet adorandam [i. e. latria, the Cult both exterior, and interior, he then gives to our Lord, just so, as, before, the other did at the sight of his name] sed cum corde veneretur & adoret, quem prose natum, passum &c, recordatur. But here it is not denyed, That the same nu­merical external mark of honor may truly be said to respect, and may be lawfully exhibited at the same time to, both the Image, and the Exemplar, if here accompanied with a double internal intention; one higher, respecting the Prototype, and another inferior, respecting the Image: As the same putting of our hat, and being uncovered, may be performed at once to the Prince, and to our Father attending upon him: but, doubtless, with a much different internal honor. So was the external bowing of the people but one, when they are said to have therewith worshiped God, and the King. 1. Chron. 29.20. And of such outward Cult it is truly said, —Eundem esse posse in Imaginem, & Exemplar. This of the Councils touching this Subject.

§. 37 For the Schoolmen, tho no Catholicks are obliged to justify, or adhere to their expressions in this matter, or discuss their subtilties; and some have bin very free also in the censure of some of them, as dangerous, and also hardly intelligible, See Bellarm. De Imag. l. 2. c. 22. §. 4. (and so the uncurious may, omitting what follows, pass on to §. 40.); yet the later Schoolmen, to whose hands the Acts of this second Nicene Council have come, have generally conformed to its language, and have taken much pains also to reduce the varii modi lo­quendi of their Predecessors to the same intention and mean­ing; who are supposed not to have seen this Decree, because they have not mentioned it; and who, upon a Philosophical Maxime, That idem est motus in Imaginem & Exemplar, have [Page 45]used expressions somewhat different from it, and apt to be mistaken. Estius faith of St. Thomas, In 3. Sent. Dist. 9. §. 3. Probabile est S. Thomam hanc Concilii definitionem non legisse, quam si legisset, aliter de Cruris, & Imaginis Christi adoratione fuisset locutus. And Bellarm. De Imag. c. 22. Valde credi­bile S. Thomam & alios Doctores Scholasticos illius temporis non vidisse Nicaenam Synodum secundam, neque octavam Syno­dum Generalem, neque Epistolam Hadriani Papae pro defensione Synodi Nicaenae. Nam haec omnia longo tempore latuerunt, & hoc nostro saeculo primum edita sunt. And, Ibid. he saith since these known: Cur ergo, quaeso, non loquimur, ut Patres nostri loquuntur? And Vasquez, In 3. Thom. Disp. 109. c. 3. in vindication of St. Thomas, and other former Schoolmen saith; —Nullus Scholasticorum sic loquitur: Imagini Christi, aut Trinitatis, Latria [he means latria taken in its strict sense, for submissio animi, or servitus in affectu consistens] tri­buenda est. And, —Qui diceret, se exhibere latriam Imaginibus, quae est divina servitus in affectu solo consistens, concederet eo ipso, se Imaginibus tanquam Diis servire. It is true, that Vasquez himself useth this language; Eadem adoratione cum exemplari Imagines esse adorandas: but he declares his mean­ing to be eadem adoratione i. e. externa, as inclination corporis, genuflectione, quam exhibemus etiam Exemplari in Latria; but not, eadem adoratione interna, i. e. submissione animi & ser­vitute, tanquam bono summo & excellentissimo: which inter­nal submission is the Latria proper only to God; but the ex­ternal notes we use thereof are common also to others. Now, to give any such interior Adoration i. e. submissio animi tan­quam excellentiori, tho the lowest or least that can be imagi­ned, to an inanimate picture, Vasquez, in defence of his Opini­on, saith very truly, and so must all Catholicks with him, that any such person agit perverse, & abjecto animo; and may rightly be called either Iconolatra i [...] be yielding such submissi­on to an Image tanquam bono summo & excellentissimo; or Ico­nodulos, if as se excellentiori. But herein is Vasquez censured by others, as mistaken; that he thought all inferior honor and veneration to be necessarily such a submission tanquam, excellentiori. Meanwhile a late Protestant Writer, Stillingfl. Rom. Idol. c. 1. §. 11. p. 104. hath very uncandidly made [Page 46]use of this passage of his to shew Catholicks confessed to be Idolaters, whether they say, they give a supreme, or whe­ther an inferior, worship to Images, even by the testimony of their own Writers. For (as he urgeth) Bellarmin saith; to give Latria, or the supreme and self same Worship that is given God to an Image is Idolatry (which, as said by Bellar­min, so is granted): and then Vasquez (he citing this Pas­sage) saith, that he who gives an inferior worship distinct from the Prototype to an Image is also an Idolater. Thus that Author. But, for this later, Vasquez first restrains the inferior worship, he speaks of, submissio animi, and servitus tanquam excellentiori; and, next, saith, that such a one is either Iconolatra, i. e. if he gives it to such a thing as super­latively excellent; [but then such worship given to an Image tanquam bono summo & excellentissimo cannot rightly be called an inferior worship; of if called so, Catholicks in such a sense renounce it and grant it to be Idolatry.] Or he is Iconodulos: which later is most true, and, as said by Vasquez, so will not be denied by Bellarmin, or any other rational person. Thus then a supreme worship given to Images (according to Bel­larmin) is Idolatry: and an inferior Worship also given to Images, (according to a sense Vasquez gives of it) is Icono­latry. Whilst meanwhile an inferior worship given to Ima­ges in the Catholick's sense thereof neither exhibited to them ut bono excellentissimo, nor excellentiori se, is very innocent and lawful. Of which sense of Vasquez thus Cardinal Lugo, De Incarnatione Disp. 36. §. 3. n. 36. Non possumus pruden­ter concipere allam prorsus adorationem respectu Imaginis, qua submittimus nos illi, praeferentes illam nobis: hoc enim esset stultum mendacium, quia absolute loquendo meliores sumus nos, quam Imago S. Petri. Ergo prudenter operando debemus nos­metipsos praeferre imagini tanquam digniores & excellentiores. Nemo ergo potest dicere, quod adoratio Imagnis includat etiam talem internam submissionem; nec de hoc potest esse rationabilis controversia. But then: by the inferior honor or worship, not only external, but interior also, that is allowed by Ca­tholicks to Images, is not meant any such submission, as to a thing more excellent than the honourer, as Vasquez sup­poseth; but only a certain internal esteem of it, as well as ex­ternal [Page 47]respect to it, for some nearer relation it hath (as a Picture hath by its similitude) to some Person, that is honour­ed by us as more excellent than our selves; which our esteem of the Exemplar we have a mind to shew, not to the Picture, but to others, or also to the Exemplar it self, by the external gestures and civilities we perform to, or before, his Image: of which I shall speak more particularly below §. 49. without which internal intention of shewing such exterior reverent treatment of such Image, the external treatment it self seems insignificant. And therefore Sunrez thus censures this Opini­on: That thus no honor at all is indeed allowed to the Image, the external note signifying nothing, when standing single, and no internal intention of reverence or esteem at all to the same thing accompanying it. See him in 3. Thom. Disp. 54. §. 5. Si interna intentio cultus non cadit in imaginem, sed sola actio exterior [or externa nota cultus] circa illam versatur, ex intentione colendi Exemplar, ex ea non solum sequitur, Imagi­nes minus coli, quam Exemplaria, sed etiam sequitur, illas non coli. Thus Vasquez and St. Thomas, and other ancient School­men, whose expressions he defends, according to the sense he gives them, in seeming to say so much beyond the Conciliary Decree of Nice, are thought to say nothing at all; or less, than must be said to justify the truth of this Decree viz. That there is not only an empty external note, but also some in­terior and real honor and respect due, and given to, Images.

§. 38 To relate any further the Schoolmen's Expressions for shew­ing them innocent and harmless in this point, would be only to embroil a matter which seems of it self sufficiently clear; and the rather may be spared here, because one would think no such diligence necessary to perswade that, I say not some ignorant persons, but the most learned in the Roman Church, should downright affirm Divine Worship due to a Creature, and that inanimate, and scarce a substance. On this matter thus Mr. Thorndike; 'To say that the Image of our Lord is to be honoured as He is, is perfect Idolatry. But he, who believes the Son to be of the Father's substance [as all the Schoolmen do] and his Picture to be his Picture [as all man­kind do] cannot say so if he be in his wits. Thus Mr. Thorn­dike. [Page 48]Who then can easily believe such a thing of them, who are granted to acknowledge neither any peculiar Divine Pre­sence to such Image; nor any other virtue in it: and expresly grant, that he who worships our Lord with latria before an Image, doth no more give such honor to the Image, than he, that worships the King with Regal Honor, gives the same regal honor also to his Cloaths, to his Robes, to his Purple, to his Crown that he wears (a Simile often used, yet not de­vised by the Schoolmen, but borrowed from St. Epiphanius, In Anchorato, and from St. Austine, De Verbis Domini Serm. 58.): Or no more than he, that bows to our Lord at the naming of Jesus, or at the producing, or reading the Gospels, worships in the same manner the Book of the Gospels; or the Letters or Syllables of the Name Jesus. For, these School­men hold Images and those other things capable of the wor­ship of the Exemplar only in the same manner: If Images of our Lord capable of Latria, so the rest: See Vasquez, Ibid. Disp. 108. c. 11. The Title of which Chapter is, —Eodem modo, atque Imagines, Nomen Jesus, & alias res sacras [he names Crucem, vasa sacra, librum Evangeliorum &c.] esse ado­randas. And see Suarez Disp. 54. §. 6. And Lugo, De In­carnat. Disp. 36. §. 5 saying the same. When Bellarmin speaks of giving to our Lord before an Image the cultus La­triae, De Imag. 2. l. c. 23. he saith the Image here is neither suppositum quod adoratur, nor ratio adorationis, sed quiddam adjunctum, and shares no more of this Honor, than the Kings garments do of that we give the King; and he saith, that such Worship is applied to the Image only improprie & per accidens, De Imag. 2. l. 21. c. and then again, to bring off this expression, he saith, —Quod non dicitur nisi improprie, simpliciter potest negari. And for his Simile, may not one truly say, that in the honor given by him to the Royal Ma­jesty sitting in his Robes, the Robes have no share at all? Vasquez, as we have seen, before §. 37. allows to the Image only an external Note of Honor, but no internal Cult at all, proper, or improper, supreme or inferior; i. e. (say others) allows them no honor, or adoration at all, which they say cannot be gone in any manner by external gestures only, with­out any internal intention. But then, when they speak of an [Page 49]internal respect or honor given to the Image, as the proper ob­ject of such respect for the Exemplar's sake, not only any latria, but any submissio animi tanquam excellentiori is herein desclaim­ed: of which saith Lugo, non potest esse rationalis controversia.

§. 39 Lastly; the worst that can be of such learned men, who, by their ascending to subtilties, have the infelicity also to be misunderstood, yet, where is had so plain a Defini­tion and explication of the Church [Non latriam], it seems unjust, against this, to make use of some contradictions and inconsistencies (were there any such) of some private Au­thors. To them we may say, as long ago Cardinal Bellarmin, De Imag. 2. l. 22. c. —Cur, quaeso, non loquimur, ut Patres nostri loquuntur? And, if it be lawful to desert not only the expressions, but opinion of St. Thomas in other points, why not in this? Nor, from such expressions, can any have the least pretence either to accuse the Roman Church of Idolatry, or reject its Communion. This, of some School-Expressions. And this in 4th place from §. 16. of the Roman Church's not acknowledging any either Latria, or Dulia to Images.

§. 40 5ly, Neither doth she give to them any external sign of honor, which the Divine Majesty hath appropriated to his own service and worship. They sacrifice not to them, as all former both Heathen and Jewish Idolatry did. And, as for any other signs of respect given them, they have bin already cleared before §. 31, 32.

§. 41 6. Lastly; To clear the Roman Church from any such Doctrine or Practice about Images, as renders her Cult of them Idolatry, an Idolatry equal with the Heathen, we may urge Mr. Thorndike's Argument set down below, §. 48. For that so she can be no true Church, neither the whole, nor any true part of the Church Catholick (which, if it cannot maintain any Heresy, can much less Idolatry. See Annotation on Dr. Stillingst. p. 73. l. 13.) Yet Protestants do not deny the Roman to be a true Church. And, should they, they would destroy a legal Mission or Ordination of their own Church-Ministry or Clergy received from this Church.

IV. The third Head proposed being thus dispatched,IV. §. 42. What Cult or Worship, practised by all former Idolaters, Catho­licks do deny to Images; I come next to shew you, what they allow.

1. First then, they maintain a very beneficial use of the Images of our Lord or his Saints set before us when we pray; and especially, when subject to distraction of thoughts in Prayer, that the sight thereof may serve to heighten our de­votion, and the better confine our meditation on the Person, or sacred Story represented, and hinder our Imaginations from straying abroad; may serve to excite in us acts of Honor, Love, Affection to such Persons, a grateful remembrance and imitation of them, of their Heroick Vertues, and valiant Sufferings, a passionate representing to them (the Persons I mean, nor the Pictures) our present condition, and implo­ring their aid and intercessions &c. From the more frequent practice of which acts, occasioned by these sensible memori­als of our Blessed Lord, and his Saints, Catholicks experience so great an advantage in raising their affections, as that they are not easily by the groundless clamours of Idolatry (or of the peril thereof to Christians, wherein Heathens are made so subtile) to be frighted out of them: Nor the Church moved at all to restrain the good use that is made of, and fruit received by, them.

§. 43 2ly, Catholicks do maintain a certain honor, reverence, or veneration properly due and lawful to be given to the Images or Pictures of our Lord or his Saints, and that per, in, or secundum, se, to the Image in it self, and as the proper object of such Honor or Veneration.

3. But 3ly this only a relative honor and not given propter se; §. 44. n. 1. but such, whereby, out of the love and honor we owe to the Prototype, we have an affection also to those things that any way appertain to it, to any Relick, Representation, Memorial of it. To understand which (if it needs any fur­ther explaining) we may observe with Suarez, In 3. Thom. 7.25. Disp. 54. §. 4, 5. That to, or in the presence of, an [Page 51]Image a twofold Adoration may be performed. 1. Either an Adoration both internal and external (the external still fol­lowing the intention of the mind) only to the Exemplar, and none at all to the Image (the Image or Picture serving only as a Motive thereto, or a Remembrancer thereof) of which we have spoken before, §. 36.2. Or an internal and external Adoration, such as that we here speak of, directed only to the Image (not the Exemplar) as its proper object; tho the honor we owe to the Exemplar be the sole motive thereof: so that, if it be done to an Image of our Lord, it proceeds originally from the honor we owe unto our Lord, tho it is not that Honor: Or also, one and the same external gesture sub­servient to a double internal intention; one, directed to the Figure; the other, to the thing designed by it. Now both these Worships are by the Church maintained lawful, and this later in the second Nicene Council vindicated, against those who, tho they were no Iconoclasts, but allowing the use of Images, yet denied it lawful to pray, or bow before, to kiss, or embrace, or to use lights, perfumes, or shew any other signs of honor to, them (therefore these called by Epi­phanius, 2. Conc. Nic. Act. 6. in fin. [...], and [...] semi-pravi, and falso veri) whenas yet those very persons that denied these lawful to Images, performed the like Ceremo­nies to the Cross, the Book of the Gospels, and other sacred Utensils. Against these therefore it concerned the Church to vindicate such long-practiced Salutation, or honorary A­doration of Images. Which also was defended in that Coun­cil, by the like civil Honors and Ceremonies relating to the Exemplar by Christians without scruple performed to the Em­perors waxen Effigies or Statues; brought into Cities for their doing homage, where the Emperor could not appear, and receive it in person. —Si enim (saith a Bishop there, 2. Conc. Nic. Act. 1.) Regum laureata & Iconas missas ad civitates vel regiones obvii adeunt populi cum Cereis. & Incensis, non cera perfusam tabulam, sed Imperatorem honorantes; Quanto magis oportet in Ecclesiis &c. And Act 2. Epist. Adriani ad Imperat. such like words are quoted out of St. Chrysostome, Serm. in 5. fer. Paschae. —Neque enim quando Imperials vul­tus & Imagines in civitates introducuntur & obviant Judices & [Page 52]plebes cum laudibus tabulam honorant, vel supereffusam cera scripturam [or sculpturam] sed figuram Imperatoris: To which I may add, that of Athanasius, Contra Arrianos Serm. 4. mentioned before, —Qui adorat imaginem Regis in illa adorat ipsum Regem: quippe cum ipsa Imago nihil aliud sit quam Regis forma ac species: and also the civil honors, that are, in relation to the Prince, tho in his absence, given in the Cham­ber of Presence, and, to the Chair of State. And, see in Nazianzen, in Julian. Orat. 1. the advantage Julian thought to make of such Honor given to Princes for an artificial in­ducement of Christians to commit Idolatry by representing some of his Heathen Gods in the same table with the Em­peror, that so they might either worship both, and so pass for Idolaters; or neither, and so suffer for disloyalty. And the heavy punishment inflicted, and greater threatned by Theodosius the Emperor to the Citizens of Antioch for their casting down the Empresse's Statue there, is well known (of which St. Ambrose, in Psal. 118. Serm. 10. —Qui statuam contempserit Imperatoris, Imperatori utique fecisse videtur in­juriam, & qui imaginem Imperatoris coronat, illum honorat, cujus imaginem coronavit.) And, if, to shew their hate to a person, people do, as it were naturally, abuse their statues; and Magistrates that cannot reach the Persons, do execution on great Delinquents in effigie, vnco impacto ad latrinas, ad Gemonias, it is as natural for those who love the person, to honor them.

4ly, Catholicks affirm, that there is no prohibition in any part of the first (or call it,§. 44. n. 2. if you please the second) Com­mandment of either of these two, 1. the making and use; or 2. such veneration, as is here asserted, of the Images of our Lord and his Saints. The words are these, Non habebis Deos alienos coram me. Non facies tibi sculptiple, neque omnem simi­litudineme, quae est in coelo desuper, & quae in terra deorsum &c. Non adorabis ea, neque coles. Ego sum Dominus Deus tuus, sortis, zelotes. Where being prohibited in the first part to have (or, if you will, to worship) any God save the true, we are consequetly much more prohibited to have to such an end, or to worship, any similitude or Image of them; the [Page 53]worship of which is still for the sake of that it represents: and therefore St. Austine, Quaest. in Exod. 71. concludes all but one precept, the later part explaining the former, —Non erunt tibi Dii alii praeter me: Hoc ipsum (saith he) perfectius explicatur, cum prohibentut colenda figmenta. And, —Quo per­tinet, non facies tibi Idolum, nisi ad id quod dictum est, non erunt tibi Dii alii praeter me. Now these words Non adorabis ea, neque coles, or servies, cannot be understood of any venera­tion or reverence whatever given to any Image whatever (as some do enlarge it) for many reasons.

1. Because there will seem the same reason of extracting, from the Non facies tibi in the Text, the not making or ha­ving any such Images, in any sense, or to any end, whatever. But the making and use of them Protestants allow; and the Jews, under the Law, practised: Solomon making many figures in the Temple, for which he had no command; and God himself also, after he had given them this Precept, com­manded several Images or Similitudes to be made, as the Cherubims joined to the Ark (to which Solomon added two more much larger before it) and afterward the Brazen Ser­pent, an eminent Type of the Crucifix; tho this foreseen, that it would afterward be abused to Idolatry. Which com­mand shews, that if any making of Images was prohibited to the Jews (as some Catholicks affirm) yet, that thus far this Precept is not to be accounted Natural, or Moral, but only Ceremonial (as those Catholicks also limit it) may be ga­thered from the Divine Dispensation therewith, in some par­ticular counter-commands for the making them, so soon after he had given it. Of this matter thus Mr. Thorndike, Just Weights, c. 19. p. 126. 'It is far more reasonable to say, That the Cherubims, the brazen Serpent, the Bulls, and other Images in Solomon's Temple, were no breaches of it, than to say, That God did dispense with his own Precept in those cases, having no appearance of any dispensation in the Scripture, in which the Precept and the seeming breach are both recorded. But it is manifest, that the Jews allow some kind of Imagery. And it is manifest, that the publick Authority of that Nation, or Religion, could never dispense in that which God's Law had prohibited.

§. 45 2ly, Because the worshiping or serving in this Precept, which God challengeth only to himself, and becomes jealous, as he saith, if communicated to any others, must be extend­ed to other things besides Images and the likenesses of things, even to all the Creatures themselves: To the Host of Heaven (See Deut. 4.14.19. where this Precept being delivered more at large these are joined with the Sculptiles.) To any sacred things also, to Gideon's Ephod, to the Egyptians liv­ing Ox; to the Emperors and Potentates of the Earth; the Deifying of whom was a great part of ancient Idolatry; and rather to those things the more, which, among the Creatures, are the more dignified, and so may sooner provoke the Lord to jealousy, and which things indeed are the principal object of all such worship, and the likeness of them honoured only at the second hand for their sake. This then supposed, both these seem very unreasonable; either to say, this Precept forbids any worship whatever to be given to any Creature: or that it forbids only a Latria, the giving supreme or divine Worship to any other thing, but indeed prohibites mean­while the giving any Worship at all whatever to Images: Especially, when the temptation to Idolotry is more danger­ous, where the object thereof is more excellent; and when neither the practice of the Heathen, nor Jewish, Idolatry was so only addicted to Images, but that it extended to other Creatures; and those that were amongst these the more glo­rious; (therefore also was the place of the Body of Moses de­ceased concealed from the Israelites:) and, again, when the self same Worship or Veneration (i. e. for the relation things have to another thing that is honoured by us) which, if given to Images, is said to break this Precept, yet is allowed to be safely given to other holy things, upon such relation, without any violation of this Precept. For, I suppose, those who make any Veneration of Images a breach of this Law, do not so any veneration or reverence given to sacred things. Or, if they do, the Adorate scabellum Psal. 98. and Moses's putting off his shooe because the ground was holy, Exod. 3.5. Jos. 5.15 Gen. 28.16, 17, 18. do warrant the contrary. And venerabantur quondam Judaer Sancta Sanctorum (saith St. Jerome, Epist. 17. Ad Marcellam.) from which he inferrs, [Page 55] Nonne tibi venerabilius videtur Sepulchrum Domini? Yet was the Ark also, as well as the Images of the Cherubims, liable to be adored with such a kind of Worship, as might be flat Idolatry.

It is most true then, and willingly conceded to those who, I know not to what end, do press it, that if God declares, that any worship whatever given to an Image is Idolatry, no di­stinction about worship can save us from it; but, as you see, most reasonably still maintained, that God in this Precept, or elsewhere in the Scriptures, hath declared no such thing. And, were the sense of Scriptures here disputable, yet from whom ought we to learn it rather, than from the Church; which we have shewed in her supreme Councils to expound them otherwise ? Lastly, supposing all Veneration of Images prohibited in the second Commandment, yet if the Venera­tion practised against the Precept be such only, as is lawfully given to other Creatures, as to sacred things, the misappli­cation thereof to Images will be a fault, or a sin, because trans­gressing some part of God's Law: but not therefore the sin of Idolatry; because no honor is done to it, but what may be lawfully done to the Creatures, and those, as to their sub­stance, the meanest; and so no Divine Jealousy raised thereby.

§. 46 Meanwhile some Catholick Divines also, I grant there are, that hold by this Commandment any Worship whatever, little, or great, to be prohibited to Images. But then so do they 1st, the making or use of any Images. 2ly, thus far they restrain and contract this Precept to be a ceremonial and temporal one, belonging only to the Jews, a Nation, and in an Age, much inclined to Idolatry: 3ly, grant this Precept not prohibiting the Jews the Adoration of other things sacred, the Temple, the Ark, &c. from which they collect, that the prohibition therein solely of Image-worship hath nothing of Morality in it: by all which their opinion is rendred useless to Protestants, who urge it. 4ly, They labour here under several difficulties: as not only God's commanding the Ima­ges of the Cherubims, and afterward of a Serpent, to be made, but Solomon's voluntary framing several figures, as without command, so without trespassing any: and their answers to [Page 56]them seem to some other Catholicks not satisfactory.

This concerning no prohibition in the first or second Com­mandment either of the making, or of the Veneration of Images, such as is maintained by Catholicks, viz. only a re­lative honor, and though given per, in, or secundum se to the Image, yet not propter se; but such, whereby, out of the love and honor we owe to the Prototype, we have an affection and respect also to those things that any way appertain to it.

§. 47 5ly, But, then, this respect or esteem of it is not affirmed the very same that we exhibit to the Prototype it self; nor any such honor, as implies out submission to it; or it a thing held more excellent, than our selves. No inanimate thing being, in reason, capable of such a subjection and homage from Man; or an inferior from the superior. But such an inferior reverence and respect, as is given to other relatives and appertinents of Holy Persons, or Instruments of Religi­on: Such as is given Typo venerandae Crucis, & Sanctis Evan­geliis, & reliquis Sacris, as the Second Nicene Council (re­ferred-to by that of Trent) declare their meaning; and so again the 8th General Council cap. 3. recited before, §. 20, &c. Such as is given to the Holy Cross, to the Book of Holy Scrip­tures, to the Sacred Utensils, Churches, Altars, lastly to the Holy Name of JESUS: for, as I have shewed, both the Councils and Schoolmen do compare and equal all these; and defend that of Images by the other, as to the same kind of honor, cult, or reverence given them: tho this reverence may be gradually different, as the Person represented is more excellent; or the thing, so honoured for his sake, more near­ly relating to him.

Of these thus Bellarmin, De Imag. l. 2. c. 21. Non debetur Imagini Honor qui debetur Deo, sed minor. Non asserimus eundem honorem, sed aliquem honorem deberi Imagini. Again, Ibid. c. 19. Imago cum sit res inanimata, & sensus ac rationis expers, non est hono­ris capax propter se: & ideo Imagines non honorantur absolute, sed relative ad Prototypum. Qui honor transit ad Exemplar mediate & quasi consequenter: nam qui honorat imaginem alicujus sine dubio ho­norat propter eum cujus est Imago, Ibid. c. 21. And. Imagines vene­randae eo modo quo veneramur Evangelia, & sacra vasa.

§. 48 6ly, A Veneration or Reverence due to Holy things as the ancient Opposers of Nice did, so the soberer sort of Prote­stants do willingly, acknowledge.

To Bellarmin, urging, That Judaei solebant, prostrati ad terram, venerari imagines Cherubim, Bishop Andrews answers, Resp. ad Apol. c. 8. p. 204. At Cherubim &c. non adorarunt. Nam vene­ratos esse eos Sanctum Sanctorum non dubitamus, qui & ipsi Templa veneramur: Sed ad Adorationem nimis angusta venerandi vox. And Cap. 1. p. 35. Rex adorationem Reliquiarum reprehendit, non Ve­nerationem. And p. 50. Tandem autem eo forte recidet ut non alium eis honorem congruere dicturus sit, quam libro Evangelii vel vasis Sacramentorum: De quo neque nos habebit valde repugnantes. Thus He. But, if that Veneration of the Images of the Cheru­bim be allowed, which he yields of the Temple, no more is by Bellarmin or Catholicks desired. But, then, for the term Adora­tion or Incurvation: the Scripture useth this term for Scabellum pedum twice, and for Templum, and Montem Sanctum too; See Psal. 98.5 Adorate Scabellum: And ver. 9. and Psal. 131.7. and Psal. 5.8. Or, if in all these by reason of a Prefix [...] before the word, they are to be translated ad Scabellum, ad Templum, incur­vate vos Templo, or ad Templum, yet the Scripture useth the same mode of expression for Abraham's worshiping of the Sons of Heth, and Jacob of Pharaoh (where is the same Article [...] too, and as much reason for translating ad filios Heth, as ad Scabellum, or ad Templum:) I say in these the word Adorare is used and applied to them notwithstanding Non added in the second Commandment to the very same Hebrew word, that is used in the other, Exod. 20. Non adorabis ea, neque coles, that is, non adorabis, neither any thing, nor the Image or Similitude of any thing, Sun, Moon, or Stars, in Heaven or in Earth. This Abraham adoravit filios Heth must force the Bishop not to restrain the word always to the Supreme, or Di­vine Worship. And then, Adorare being taken sometimes for vene­rari as it runs adoravi filios Heth, so it may also adorate Scabellum, & Templum, without an Ad; and he may safely say, if Templa vene­ramur, so Templa adoramus; both signifying the same inferior wor­ship or honor. But, however, Veneration of Temples, and other holy things, and, if I mistake him not, of the Cherubims, Bishop An­drews [Page 58]allows. Thus he also elsewhere, Serm. on Phil. 2.10. p. 478. of the Reverence due to the Holy Name of JESUS. 'He is exalted (saith he) to whose Person knees do bow; but, to whose Name only, much more. And, —His Name he left behind to us, that we may shew, by our reverence and respect to it, how much we esteem him; how true the Psalm shall be, Holy and reverend is his Name. Look to the Text then; and let no man perswade you, but that God requireth a reverent carriage, even of the Body it self: And namely, this service of the Knee; And that, to his Son's Name. Do it to the sense; have mind on him that is named, [there is the relative honor of it] and do his Name the honor, and spare not. The same he saith there also of the Holy Mysteries in the Eucharist. 'There are (saith he, wondring at it) that forbear to do it at his Name: Nay at the Holy Mysteries them­selves: Where his Name is (I am sure) and more than his Name, even the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus He.

Again: Bishop White against Fisher, p. 224. saith, — 'Religious Adoration may be founded on some certain kinds of Union, 1. Personal, 2 Substantial, or 3 lastly Causal, relative, or acci­dental; to wit, when by divine ordination things created are made instruments, messengers, signs, or receptacles of divine grace, as the holy Sacraments, and the Word and Gospel, and the Ministers of the Church &c. Christ himself is present, assistant, and operative, in and by these instruments, and hath commanded reverence to be used towards them; accounting the love, faith, and honor which are yielded to his created Word, to be love, faith, and honor to himself. And before p. 219. Upon the relative union also between the King and his Image, shewed by F. Fisher out of St. Athanasius, Contra Arrianos Serm. 4. Upon which that Father there concludes; Qui igitur adorat ima­ginem, in illa adorat ipsum Regem, quia cum ipsa imago nihil aliud sit quam Regis forma ac species, the Bishop grants, — 'That the Images of Kings sometimes (saith he) not always, in civil use, and custome, not in Religion, may be taken, and reverenced for the principal. [I suppose then in civil use and custome, not in religious, so may our Lord's Image too, sometimes. And then, why not at any time, either his or the King's?] De Sanctorum Reliquiis & Imaginibus &c. (saith Spalatensis, Ostensio Errorum Suarez, cap. 2.) cultum in his distinguo, ac Venerationem: Hu­manum [Page 59]neque Rex, neque Orthodoxi negabunt; religiosum vero & divinum omnino negandum esse affirmo. And afterward distinguish­ing — Excellentiam, qua a Deo fuerunt supernaturaliter ex­altati, & solam civilem excellentiam in ipsis, he saith, —Honore eodem humano utramque excellentiam & divinam & humanam in homine prosequimur: Religioso autem, hoc est divino, honore solum Deum prosequendum esse arbitramur. [and as well might he, if he pleased, have distinguished a Religious honor into Humanus & Divinus.] Bishop Mountague, in his Appeal to Caesar, chap. 21. saith; 'That no Religious Honor or Worship is to be given to Images; but yet, —That all Reverence simply cannot be ab­stracted from them. 'And can a man (saith he there) have the true Representation of his Prince, Patrons, &c. without awe, respect, regard, love, reverence, moved by aspect, and wrought in him? I profess my imperfection, or what they will call it, it is so with me. And quotes this out of Junius in his Animad­versions upon Bellarmin, De Imaginibus; —Hoc nemo nostrum dicit, non esse colendas [Imagines] nec ullo modo. Suo modo coli probamus, velut Imagines; at non religioso cultu, qui aut superstiti­osus est, aut impius. Nec cum aliorum scandalo, sive cultus sepa­ratus, sive conjunctus cum eorum cultu intelligatur, quorum sunt Imagines. Bishop White also of Images themselves speaks thus in the beginning of his Discousse, p. 208. 'The Advocate of Imagery [Fisher] should first of all have declared, what he un­derstands by Worship of Images, whether Veneration only, largely taken; or Adoration, properly so called. Veneration may signify external regard and reverence of Pictures, such as is given to Churches, and sacred Vessels, and to ornaments of sa­cred Places; and, according to this notion, many have approved or tolerated Worship of Images, which deny Adoration: And a­mongst the many here he means not only Papists but Protestants: For there he quotes also this place of Junius for it; and, before him, cites the Council of Nice, that we may see both agree. Some cult, honor, reverence we see then here allowed as to other holy things, so to Images. As for our stiling it a religious Cult we cannot hinder but that Protestants may take the word (of which see e­nough before, §. 16 &c.) as that Catholicks dare not apply it so to any thing save to God. Of the Equivocation that is in this, and many other words not easily to be avoided, Mr. Thorndike [Page 60]saith well, Epilog. 3. l. 30. c. p. 353. where speaking of the term of Religious as applied to the honor of Saints he saith; 'Whe­ther this Honor be Religious, or Civil nothing but equivoca­tion of words makes disputable. And, —That all is to be im­puted to nothing but want of proper terms for that Honor, which Religion enjoines in respect of God, and that relation which God hath setled between the Church Militant and Triumphant, be­ing reasonably called Religious. —And being neither civil nor humane honor, but such as a Creature is capable of for Religi­on's sake, and that relation which Religion setleth. Thus He. But that then, when otherwise agreed, we may not fall out about words, tho this honor is given to the Image not of a Statesman, but of an Holy Person, and to other things because they are sacred and belonging to Religion, yet rather than the propriety of two words shall separate us, let them, so as allowing it, freely stile and call it, if they please, a civil Veneration of the Name of JESUS, and of the Eucharistical Mysteries, of the Images of our Lord, and his Mother, of the Apostles, Martyrs, and other Saints. For indeed we are all spiritual Fellow-citizens, Phil. 3.20. and our Religion a celestial [...] or Common-wealth, and our Lord the Head of it, Heb. 12.22, 23.

Again, thus Mr. Thorndike, Just Weight, c. 19. p. 128. (ac­cording to his free language in free times.) — 'The Furniture and Utensils of the Church were honoured in the spotless times of the Church, as consecrated to God's service; tho the honor of them being uncapable of honor for themselves, was manifest­ly, and without any scruple, the honor of God. But Images, so long as they were used to no further intent, than the orna­ment of Churches, the remembrance of holy Histories, and the raising of Devotion thereby (as at the first they were used by the Church) [and so are still] came in the number [I add; and so ought to receive the honor] of things consecrated to God's Service.

Lastly, thus Daille Traicte des Images. c. 7. in his Answer to St. Gregory's forementioned Expression [ea qua dignum est venera­tione] seems to allow some Veneration to such things, so it be not cult, ou service religieuse. 'A certain degree of respect and honor (saith he) is due to all the Instruments of Religion: as to the persons and things of the Church, to the Priests, to the Chalices, [Page 61]to the sacred Bibles, which every one calls venerable, yet none deferrs to them the religious service which those of the Roman Communion now adays render to Images. See also Ibid. p. 340. 376. And Apol. des Eglis. Reform. c. 10. One of his Answers to the Text Adorate Scabellum (Psal. 98.) is; — 'That this Adora­tion of the Ark was an inferior species of honor to the Adora­tion of Latria, which is due to none but God. Thus He. This inferior reverence then due to holy things let him allow to the Images of our Lord and his Saints, and, for any further latria or religious service, he shall be dispensed with. And here I may conclude with what a modern Controvertist (Spencer, Scripture mistaken. p. 128.) writ not long since in debating the sence of the Second Commandment, 'That what Worship soever a well-minded Protestant should judge may be given to the Holy Name of JESUS, when he sees it either printed in a Book, or engraven in a Stone, without all Superstition, or Idolatry, or breach of the Second Commandment [I add, or what the Jews might give to the Ark,] let him give the same to any Image of our Saviour, and in the same manner, or at least judge that the like may lawfully be given to it, and no more in this point will be required of him to be esteemed conformable to the Doctrine, and Practice of the Roman Church.

To the Testimonies of Protestants confessing a certain Reve­rence and Honor due to Holy things might be added the Testimonies of the Fathers, and constant Practice of the Church in all former times, and the several commands and exam­ples thereof occurring in the Scripture, Ye shall reverence my Sanctuary, Lev. 19.30. and 26.2. And Adorate Scabellum pedum ejus, and that, quia sanctum est, since both in the Hebrew are of the same Gender, Sanctum or Sanctus may relate either to Sca­bellum, or Dominus; and the place where it was was called Sanctum Sanctorum: Such things, I say, I might collect if I thought this were a thing that would be much questioned, save by some late profane Sects, that cry down also all Things and Per­sons sacred, the Clergy, and Churches.

§. 49 7. Next: If it be more particularly enquired, what this Veneration or Honor is, that is communicable, or pretended to belong, as to other holy things, so to holy Images, (for so [Page 62]I call those representing Holy Persons), Such Honors, for the external signs thereof, have used to be in ancient times, and still are in the Roman, as also Oriental, Churches, un­covering the head, bowing, kissing, embracing, lights, per­fumes, &c. As we see also, men place in their Closet, kiss, or embrace, the Picture or Effigies of a person whom they dearly love, without any fear of either Idololatria, or Idolo­dulia in such a Practice. Again, For the internal intention joined with such outward gestures, this also non ullus cultus eorum qui tribuuntur naturae intelligenti, as Bellarmin ob­serves; or any such submission of mind, as he that honors it acknowledges himself inferior to it; which Vasquez therefore (taking internal Adoration in so strict sense) justly rejects as unapplicable to any Image, or inanimate thing in what con­sideration soever; but an inward esteem and value of them for some particular relation they have to some other object more excellent than our selves; as also an intention by the outward gestures we use to shew, not to the Image to which we perform them, but to any persons capable of understand­ing our action, the Prototype, or others, the esteem we have of any thing so nearly belonging to such a person.

F. Suarez thus expresses it, In 3. Thom. Disp. 54. §. 5. Est Existimatio quaedam Imaginis —ut est similitudo ad personam sa­cram, or —ut est quaedam res habens relationem ad tale exemplar; Propter quam honor illi exhibetur non ea intentione, ut Ipsa illum percipiat [such cult belongs only to things intelligent] sed solum ut convenienti & reverenti modo tractetur, juxta existimationem, quae de illa haberi debet; atque adeo ut haec ipsa existimatio ipsism actionibus significetur & ostendatur: Significatio autem haec, sicut non fit propter Imaginem quae adoratur, ita neque fit ad ipsam, id est, ut ipsa percipiat animum & intentionem adorantis; sed, hoc modo, or­dinatur significatio ad eum, propter quem fit adoratio, vel certe etiam ad alios, qui adorationem vident [whereby such person would testi­fy to them his honor of the Prototype.] Unde per tale officium adorationis homo non ita se submittit Imagini, ut profiteatur se in­feriorem illa [which may remove Vasquez's scruple] sed solum profitetur Imaginem pertinere, seu esse aliquid ejus, qui superior & excellentior est. In which worship of the Image virtualiter exhi­betur [Page 63]rei intellectuali debitus cultus, quamvis in expressa & formali intentione hoc non habeatur. Thus Suarez, De Mysterio Incarnat. Disp. 36. §. 3. n. 39. And Lugo thus —Animus exercendi exte­rius circa Imaginem (dando ei superiorem locum, honorifice eam tractando &c.) propter excellentiam Exemplaris, quam repraesen­tat, eas actiones submissionis externae praestat, quas exercere solemus circa excellentiores & dominos (sed non quod volumus signifi­care, quod interius existimemus Imaginem esse nobis superiorem vel dominum) quia totus hic honor debetur Exemplari etiam in sua Imagine. This I have exhibited at length out of these two ju­dicious Schoolmen, to avoid many cavils about the mode of this inferior worship and observance that is given to, and terminated in, Images; as also, in other sacred things.

§. 50 8. Yet 8ly Catholicks contend; That it doth not hence become necessary, that this Existimation or external reverent Tractation of inanimate things, performed to them in con­sideration of some other sacred or honourable person they appertain to, should therefore be the same or equal, of all things that have any manner of Relation to such Person; or, that the estimation of many such things, circumstances con­sidered, should be accompanied with any such external note of respect or honor. So a Prince's Servant, a person much resembling him, a Kinsman, a Friend, or Favourite, an Em­bassador, his Chair of State, his Robes, may all receive honor from us for the Prince's sake, yet not all an equal to that we give the Prince; or one of them, to that we give to some other; or all on the self same, but on a very different, ac­count. And again, some other things of a less valued relation to him receive no external mark of esteem at all; or, not in so special a manner, as the former. The same case it is in seve­ral things as they relate to God, (which, on many accounts, the whole Creation doth.) 1. First God, here, may be wor­shiped both with internal and external supreme Adoration, bowing, kneeling, prostration &c. in the beholding and con­templating, and so in the presence, of any of his Creatures, a Man, the Sun, the Stars, or any other whatever: I see not how any rational man can deny it. Yet exteriorly to do this in the sight of others, who may misinterpret our intentions, and [Page 64]mistake the direction of our Worship, especially when the thing is of a greater essential or substantial dignity before, or toward, which we perform it; and which may be to us the occasion of it, it is not convenient. And the same case it may possibly be in giving such Adoration before a Picture or other sacred thing in a Country wholly given to Idolatry; and in whom the light of Reason is so far extinguished, as that they worship Pictures for Gods. The same case I say, in the incurring a fault, not of Idolatry, but of Indiscretion. And perhaps this may be the reason of the rarer use of Pictures in the first four Ages of the Church, when the Chri­stain world was not as yet so well cleansed from Heathenisme; not that the use of these was not then held lawful, or also beneficial; but, that, for other considerations, not so expe­dient. 2ly. We may also retain a certain esteem and value of the lowest of God's Creatures, that is terminated in it; but for the Maker's sake; of a Fly, an Ant &c, much more of the Sun. But here also we stand obliged to the observing a decency; and not giving a scandal in any our external expressions thereof, which are fitly reserved for other much more prin­cipal or special Relatives. 3ly, Other things therefore there are of a more special relation and connexion to the prime Object of Honour and Adoration, as consecrated to God's more immediate service, or some way representing or mind­ing us of his presence: Such are Churches, Altars, the con­secrated Symbols of the Eucharist, the sacred Utensils and Chalices, Holy Relicks, Holy Cross, the Holy Name of JESUS, and in the last place, sacred Images or Pictures; which I call sacred, tho some of them be not consecrated, if they be such as represent and carry a similitude of Sacred Persons, viz. of our Lord, or his Saints; the natural property of which copies, being to bring into our mind and renew in us, the re­membrance of their Originals that are sacred, gives us a sufficient title to stile them so too; and the Church, having found a singular benefit in such an effect of them, hath fre­quently dedicated, consecrated and exposed, several of them in her publick places of worship for the same use; which adds also a further degree of Reverence to those so dedi­cated.

Now, what those things punctually are, which are to be treated with such a special reverence or esteem as due to them on the former account, this surely ought to be left to the judgment and arbitration of the Church, and of our Canoni­cal Superiors, whose office it is to weigh the con-or incon­veniences, the decency or indecency thereof; and private persons may safely act herein according to her declarations and directions. Neither, such external reverenc being so re­quired, may we withdraw it for fear of scandal, as in the former but now mentioned, but we are to correspond to the Church's Constitutions in our obedience; and those who take scandal are to endeavour to rectify their own fault, not ours, in conforming themselves also to the same judgment; always remembering that passage of St. Austine, Epist. 118. —Si quid tota per orbem frequentat Ecclesia, quin ita faciendum set dis­putare insolentissimae insaniae est. If Images then, represent­ing holy Persons and Stories, are numbred and ranked among these things venerable, by the Church, i. e. by the most su­preme authority of its Councils; and the veneration of them there resolved (as hath bin shewed §. 12. &c.) we need no more thus bandy arguments pro and con, but securely rest in an humble obedience, and leave the care of preventing or reme­dying mistakes, and the considering of the just extent of the Second Commandment and other Scriptures, to the same Au­thority.

§. 51 Meanwhile, those Protestants, who allow a certain Reve­rence, signified by some exterior note thereof, due at least to some sacred things (for, I account, no genuine Sons of the Church of England do to all deny it) as to Churches (nick­named by some others Steeple-houses) to Altars, to the Holy Name of JESUS, to the sacred Symbols of our Lord's Body and Blood, tho they deny it to Images, are concerned, here, as much as Catholicks; 1. both to make a distinction between exhibiting such reverence to these, and promiscuously doing this to any Creature, because that all things also some way relate to God: as, between the reverence given to God's Sanctuary, or to his Altars, and given to the Sun. Lev. 26.2. And again, 2. to distinguish the reverence they give to these [Page 66]from that superior honor they give to those for whose sake they honor these; the reverence they give to God's Sanctuary, from that they give to God himself. Neither may they pro­duce here any such arguments as current against the Venera­tion of Images, which will confute their own practice as to Churches, Altars, the Holy Name of JESUS &c. as some very unconsiderately do; and as will further appear, if we take that which a late Writer hath said concerning the reasona­bleness of worshiping the Sun rather than an Image, and apply it to worshiping the Sun rather, than any other sacred things, Churches, Altars, &c. such as Protestants also shew Reverence to.

§. 52 For, thus one may plead in his own words Rom. Idol. p. 69. against a Protestant uncovering his head, or shewing any reve­rence to a Church, to the Altar, or to the Holy Name of JESUS: or against the Gallican Bishops that opposed Nice, bowing to, and incensing Churches, Altars, the Gospel, the Holy Utensils, the Cross, &c: or the same may be applied if you will against bow­ing to the King's Chair of State, or the Emperor's Image. 'It seems (as he goes on there) much more reasonable for me to worship God by prostrating my self to the Sun, or any of the heavenly Bodies, nay to an Ant, or a Fly, than to a wooden Ta­ble, or to a Stone-building, or to the leaves of a Book, or a few letters put together in a word, or to two sticks across, or to a silver Chalice, or to a wooden Chair. For, in the other I see great evidences of the power, and wisdom, and goodness of God, which may suggest venerable apprehensions of God to my mind; whereas these can have nothing worthy admiration, unless it be the skill of the Artificer. And I cannot for my heart under­stand, why I may not as well, nay better, burn Incense and say my Prayers to the Sun, having an intention only to honor the true God by it, as to do both those, burn Frankincense and say my Prayers, in a Church, or before the Altars, or a Cross [I say here before, because as Protestants going into a Church or before an Altar to pray, yet do not pray to the Church, or Altar; so nei­ther do Catholicks to an Image. And, as Protestants do not burn Frankincense in a Church, that the Church or Altar may scent it; so neither Catholicks, that the Image.] I am sure the Sun [Page 67]hath far more advantages than any artificial Table, or a curious Structure can have, the beauty and influence of it may enflame and warm ones devotion much more. If the danger be, that I am more like to take the Sun for God, than a Church, a Ta­ble, or a Book; on that account, that which deserves most ho­nour should have least given it, and that which deserves least should have most. Then,

After his own reasoning ended, Thus he may set the Heathen himself upon the Protestant; as he there doth, upon the Catho­lick. 'I (saith the Heathen) proceeding only upon such princi­ples as these, that there is one supreme infinite Being who makes use of some more illustrous Beings of the world to communicate benefits to the rest, on which account I think my self bound to testify the honor I owe to the supreme Deity by paying my due respects and honor also in subordination to him, to those sub­servient and ministerial instruments of his, am not afraid of what any Prelatist in the world can say for my confutation. Nay I am tempted to laugh at their folly, and despise their weak­ness, who plead for the Worship of God in, or before, a dull and rude heap of stones, or frame of wood, and condemn me for honouring God in the Sun the most noble part of the Creation. If they tell me, that the supreme God must have a Worship proper to himself. Yes, I answer them in their own terms, I by no means question it, and that is it, which is called [by them, and the Fathers, See St. Austine, De Civ. Dei, l. 10. c. 1.] [...], which is reserved to the supreme Deity, all that I give to the Sun is but [...], which deserves an [...] because of its eminent usefulness. [But here the personated Heathen mi­stakes a litle: for, as the veneration of holy things is not by Pro­testants, so neither that of Images by Catholicks, called any [...], see before §. 49. much less do Catholicks do the same things to an Image, which they do to God himself, as this Author tels his Reader a litle after.] ‘'If they say, I make the Sun God by giving it religious worship: no more, than they do Temples and Altars’ [for, the Catholick's Veneration given to Images is held no more religious in any sense, than that of Protestants to Chur­ches, Altars, the Holy Name of JESUS &c, words and things re­lating to Religion, not Civil commerce.] 'If they urge, that God hath forbidden worshiping the Host of Heaven, and so the Sun, [Page 68]Yes, that is, giving the Worship of the supreme God to them, but not a subordinate, relative, inferior, worship, which was all I intend; and I hope they are not so ignorant of the nature of humane actions, as not to know that they go whither they are tended; and my intent was only to honor the true God by it. It would be too tedious to prosecute the rest of his Discourse, justi­fying the worship of the Sun rather than of any other sacred things against the Protestants as much, as, of it, rather than of Images, against Catholicks. And the same joint defence against such Heathen may serve for them both: That such relative reve­rence or veneration is not performed to those things more, that are in their essence more noble, than others (for, what compari­son herein between the Sun and a Church?) Nor yet, to all things that have any relation to him, whom we principally and soveraignly honor (for, so have all God's Creatures whatever); but to those only, that have a nearer and more immediate rela­tion to him either by consecration to his service, as Churches Altars &c. or also a representation of his Person (as the Images of our Lord,) or, some other way. In the reverent treatment of which things, tho these uncapable of any sense thereof, yet in the sight of them who behold it, we devoutly express our ho­nour and homage to the person to whom they belong. And, what things it is meet should receive such a respect, we must prudently leave to the judgment and arbitration of the Church, and our Spiritual Superiors.

§. 53 9. These things concerning the lawfulness of such an in­ferior Veneration as is given by Catholicks to Images being cleared, whether the present practice herein be also ancient, and the use of later ages precisely the same as the first, we need not be solicitous. 1. For, first, that which is lawful in any times to be practiced, may also lawfully at any time begin to be so. Nor is it necessary, that what is done now be also the practice of Antiquity; but sufficient, if nothing in Antiquity can be shewed repugnant to it. Again, It is not necessary, that there be any express Command or Precept in Scripture either for the veneration, use, or making, of Images; But it is sufficient, if there be any example in the New or Old Testament, that it is in neither of them dis­allowed: [Page 69]enough, if an example there be of something equal and parallel to it, the veneration of some other sacred things: or enough, for the lawfulness of such practice, if no prohibi­tion found thereof in the sacred Writ, as I hope for two of these, the making, and use, of Images or Pictures, Prote­stants will accord. The honor and worship of our Lord and his Saints all will allow a duty: what ways or modes also of honouring them more immediate and direct, or also more re­mote and relative are lawful, or also expedient, and when, it belongs to the Church to determine, and to prescribe to us; and we are obliged to acquiesce in her judgment, and submit to her Injunctions. Lastly, It will not follow from the non­practice of any such veneration of Images for some Ages, in all or some part of the Church, that therefore the lawfulness of such a practice is no Apostolical Tradition; because all things lawful are not, as to practice, in all times so expedi­ent. And perhaps this might be the reason, as hath bin said, of the rarer use of Pictures in the first four Ages of the Church, because the Christian world was not as yet so well cleansed from Heathenisme; and so, in later times, of the veneration or use of Images not being so universal in some parts of the West, as latelier converted from Heathenisme, and still neighbouring upon them.

§. 54 2. It is granted by Protestants, that the use of Images in Churches was introduced in the fourth Age. Of which thus Chemnitius, Exam. Conc. Trid. part. 4. De Imaginibus. —Caepit in ipsis etiam Templis usus esse Imaginum, non sane ad cultum & ado­rationem, sed partim ad historicam commonefactionem, partim orna­tus gratia. Et caeptum hoc fuit potissimum circa An. Dom. 380. Quoting a Passage of Gregory Nyssen Orat. in Theodorurn Martyrem. Et Pictor etiam artis suae stores induxit, in imaginibus exprimens res Martyris praeclare gestas, labores, cruciatus, immanes tyranno­rum aspectus &c. Christique certamini praesidentis humanae formae effigiem. Haec pictor, tanquam in libro loquente, artificiose depin­gens, Martyris certamina nobis exposuit. Solet enim etiam pictura tacens in pariete loqui, maximeque prodesse &c. Thus Gregory. See also Daille Traicte des Imag. c. 4. But, for Chemnitius or him to argue, those Pictures to be first made, or introduced into the [Page 70]Church about this time, because at this time spoken of; or at such time as these were seen here, yet not the like to have been elsewhere, because not mentioned, as here, are, both unreasona­ble. There are indeed produced by them two Testimonies in that Age that seem very prejudicial to Images. The one a Canon of Conc. Elibert, c. 36. —Placuit Picturas in Ecclesia esse non debere, ne quod colitur aut adoratur in parietibus depingatur. The other a Passage in an Epistle of St. Epiphanius to John Bishop of Jerusalem. Who, as he was travelling in Palestine, coming to a certain Church and seeing a Picture as it were of our Saviour or some Saint painted on a Veil, and a Lamp hanging before it, took and tore it, as holding such a thing unlawful, and against Scrip­ture, to be hung up in a Church. Because the place is much pressed, I will set you down the Story in his own words relating to the Bishop of Jerusalem his action, and sending that Church another Veil in stead of that he had torn. —Cum venissem ad villam quae dicitur Anablatha, vidissemque ibi praeteriens lucernam ardentem, & interrogassem quis locus esset, didicissemque esse Ec­clesiam, & intrassem ut orarem: inveni ibi velum pendens in foribus ejusdem Ecclesiae unctum atque depictum, & habens imaginem quasi Christi, vel Sancti cujusdam: non enim satis memini, cujus imago fuerit. Cum ergo hoc vidissem, in Ecclesia Christi contra authorita­tem Scripturarum hominis pendere imaginem, scidi illud, & magis dedi consilium custodibus ejusdem loci, ut pauperem mortuum eo ob­volverent, & efferrent. Illique contra murmurantes dixerunt: Si scindere valuerat, justum erat ut aliud daret velum, atque mutaret. Quod cum audissem, me daturum esse pollicitus sum, & illico esse missurum Paululum autem morarum fuit in medio, dum quaero optimum velum pro eo mittere: arbitrabar enim de Cypro mihi esse mittendum. Nunc autem misi quod potui reperire, & precor ut jubeas presbyteros ejusdem loci suscipere velum a latore, quod a nobis missum est: & deinceps praecipere, in Ecclesia Christi ejusmodi vela, quae contra religionem nostram veniunt, non appendi. But 1st both these prove beyond that, for which the objecters press them; by opposing also the making or use of holy Images, at least in Churches: the first forbids the painting or placing of them in Churches: the second tears, and defaces those found there. Pro­testants approve neither of these: Let themselves then frame an Answer to them.

§. 55 2ly, For the first of these, I grant, there might be good ground for such a prohibition, considering the times: the Council be­ing very ancient and held in Spain before that of Nice, at which time a great part of the West were Heathen-Idolaters: and taking the Adoratur in their sense not for any inferior Veneration, but such as the Heathen gave to their Images, the Prohibition was prudently made for that very reason —Ne quod adoratur, in pa­rietibus depingatur; or, which comes to the same, Ne quod in pa­rietibus depingitur, adoretur: i. e. Ne putetur Deus Christianorum esse illud quod in parietibus depingitur, as the Heathen God's were; and lest such Pictures should there, by any new Converts, be adored with any such corrupt notions as formerly were their Idols. To this purpose speaks Mr. Thorndike, concerning both these places objected. 'Granting (saith he, Just Weights, c. 9. p. 127.) that Epiphanius and the Council of Elvira did hold all Images in Churches dangerous for Idolatry; (of which there is appearance) it is manifest, that they were afterwards admitted all over. And there might be jealousy of offence, in having Images in Churches, before Idolatry was quite rooted out; of which afterwards there might be no appearance. But no man­ner of appearance, that Images in History should occasion Idola­try to those Images, in them that hold them the Images of God's Creatures; such as are those Images, which represent histo­ries of the Saints, out of the Scriptures, or other relations of unquestionable credit. Thus He. 2. Next; for the other of Epiphanius: (supposing, neither that Epistle, nor that Passage in it falsified) it seems, that he had the same jealousy with the Fathers of Elvira, tho not so much cause, considering his times; and, by some of his words, that he held also the use of Images in Churches to be against Scripture; in which therefore Protestants, as well as Catholicks, must hold him singular, and not to be cre­dited: and the rather, because what is urged out of other Fa­thers of the same age, Basil, Gregory Nyssen, and Nazianzen, al­lowing this use of them, shews him to be heterodox herein. And the Fathers of Nice, Act. 6. Tom. 5. out of the same pretended Epistle of his to Theodosius the Emperor that the Iconoclasts urged for his disallowing Images, extract such a Confession of his: Mul­toties locutus sum cum comministris meis, ut auferrentur Imagines, [Page 72]& receptus non sum ab eis, neque audire vocem meam saltem paulu­lum passi sunt. Which Comministri (say those Nicene Fathers also) were such as Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, and Nyssen, Chryso­stome, Ambrose, Amphilochius, and Cyril of Hierusalem. Epipha­nius also, in this Epistle, confesseth that the people of the place, where he tore the Veil, murmured against him for it, and this probably (if we consider such allowed use of Images elsewhere) not only for the loss of their Veil, but for his controlling, as those times were, a blameless practice. Which practice, by what the aforesaid Nicene Fathers Ibid. relate, his own disciples and followers imitated afterward also in Cyprus, building a Church in his honor; and —cum multis aliis titularibus picturis imaginem ejus in ipso templo collocantes. This of the use of Images in the fourth Age.

§. 56 3ly, Granted also by Protestants, that the Veneration of Images was practiced in the fifth Age. Of which thus Daille Des Imag. l. 3. c. 7. 'In the second half of the fifth Age, and in the whole that followed, we find frequent passages that speak of Images, and some also that make mention of venera­ting and serving them: [but the word serving he should either have omitted, or shewed it in some testimony of that Age.] But then meanwhile it is granted by them, that the venera­tion of sacred Relicks and of the Cross was a custome of the fourth Age, and that God also then honoured these with many Miracles. Now this fourth Age was the first wherein the Church enjoyed a liberty of its publick Service and Cere­monies; and wherein the Church-Practices and History were more exactly by a greater plenty of Writers, and in larger Volumes, recorded.

[See Chamier Tom. 2. l. 20. c. 9. §. 35. in his Answer to the Testi­monies of the Fathers —Trecentis post Christum annis nullum om­nino vestigium extat adoratarum Reliquiarum, vix etiam conservata­rum nisi in Sepulchris. Ergo ea veritas non est Christiana [a non­consequence; for, a Truth may be in an Age, in the Writings of which it is not set down and registred.] Nam deinceps antea con­fessus sum & invectum id studium & auctum. And see Daille in his Book De Relig. cultus objecto confining himself both for the [Page 73]non-veneration of Relicks, and of the Cross, to the three first Ages, and granting the practice of them in the fourth. But then, for the silence of the Writers of the three first Ages, we must re­member him of what he hath said in his Vray usage des Peres, l. 1. c. 1. when he thought it his interest to shew the Fathers Works unserviceable for the deciding of modern Controversies; viz. '1. That the Writings of the three first Ages were few, the faith­ful, for the most part, rather contenting themselves to write their Faith in the hearts of men &c. than to amuse themselves in composing Books of it: 2 That the greatest part of the Wri­tings then published are perished. Where also he recites the Names of eight and twenty Authors, whole Works are lost; and the Works, such as are certain and not contested, of eight only, that are of any note, to have descended to us; yet when another descant better served his turn, he elsewhere, De Relig. cultus objecto, l. 5. c. 3. amplifies the Writings of these times on this manner —Cum ex primis illis saeculis (saith he) auctorum ecclesiasticorum plurium quam viginti quinque supersint monumenta, quorundam pauciora, aliorum plura, aliquorum etiam plurima, & quidem luculentissima—monstrum esset ingens & inauditum, & plane incredibile, si veluti facta quadam inter se conjuratione, eam rem om­nes ubique constanter in tam multis libris tacuissent, quae in tota Christi sui Ecclesia pro insigni Christiani cultus parte haberetur. (And in his Noveaute des Traditions Romaines, part. 1. c. 3. p. 14. published some years before, he saith much what the same, reci­ting there particularly those many famous Writings of the three first Ages that have descended to our times.) His argument con­cluding hence, that what these mention not, then was not. But what is this insignis Christiani cultus pars, he there speaks of? The veneration of the Cross: as if this were some great and fun­damental Article of the Catholick Faith. Well: for the Cross I appeal to the equal Reader, whether the Heathens objecting then to the Christians the Adoration of it mentioned by Minutius Felix and by Tertullian, Apologet. c. 16. calling the Christians Religi­osos Cruris, (with whom Justin Martyr seems to speak like things concerning it, In Apolog. 2.) as well as the Apostate Julian's re­proaching them with it afterward, mentioned by Cyril Alexan­drinus, In Julian. l. 6. doth not shew some Veneration given to [Page 74]the Cross also before the fourth Age. Indeed so often as this was objected these Authors had reason to deny such an Adoration of it, as the other charged them with, namely an Adoration of two pieces of wood across, parallel to that given by the Heathens to their Images, as imagining some Divinity or Virtue resident therein. [O miseri homines (saith Julian) quum serventur arma quae magnus demisit Jupiter &c. cessatis adorare & colere, & in­terim Crucis lignum adoratis; imagines illius in fronte & ante domos pingentes;] But yet such Adoration so early objected seems ra­tionally to infer some reverence and honor done by the Chri­stianity of those times to it, as to other holy things. Neither hence may Daille justly draw the same consequence of the Chri­stains Veneration of an Asse's Head from the Adoration also of this objected to them; because we find not any such Practice in the sourth, or the following Ages of the one, as we do of the other; nor no such practice of the one, an Asse's Head, in any Age at all; But the Objection of it probably grounded on a fabu­lous Story, related by Tacitus.]

§. 57 If then, I say, this Veneration of Holy Relicks and the Cross which is found in the fourth Age, or ancienter, be conceded any way lawful, or justifiable, then the same and no greater given in whatever following Age to Images can never be Idolatrous. But then, that Passage written by St. Anstine at Rome about An. Dom. 388. De Moribus Ecclesiae c. 34. much urged by Protestants —Novi multos esse sepul­chrorum & picturarum adoratores, speaking of turba imperi­torum, as he there calls them amongst Christians, as it de­clare; both of these, the worship of Pictures then, as well as of Relicks, to have bin done in an excessive and superstitious way by some, so seems it to imply both also, and not one of them only, done in a laudable way by others; and that, if there was an inculpable Veneration of Holy Relicks in that Age (of which, and the due Honors done to the Sepulchres of the Martyrs, see much in his Civ. Dei 22. l. 8. c. and 8. l. 27. c.) so also, of Holy Pictures too; the excess of such a Practice among the simple and unlearned being [Page 75]not likely, where none at all was among the prudent and discreet.

V. §. 58.10. Such appearing to be the Doctrine of the Church in her retaining the use of Images, I come now to what was in the Fifth place proposed, That She is not answerable for the faults of those that practice otherwise: (Especially having laid a strict charge on all Bishops, Conc. Trid. Sess. ult. de Venerat. Imag. both for the remedying all indecencies in the making of such Pictures, and removing any Superstition in the use of them.) Nor can those be excusable who de­sert her Communion, for any such Practice, to which she no way obligeth; or also, which she with them condemneth: and much less, for such expressions, as being used more free­ly in her Hymns and Poetry, are taken by them in such a sense, as they do, or may, know, her common Doctrine dis­claims. So long as our own practice is no way hindred from going along with the Church's Doctrine, we may not alledge any other mens practice to warrant a discession from her; may alledge no more that of Idolatry, perhaps, than that of Adultery, Murther, or Blasphemy in her. 'Let Practice and Doctrine go together, we agree; said Bishop Mountague, Appeal to Caesar, p. 257. If he speak of a general Practice, this demands too much; but where our Practice, and the Church's Doctrine may go together, there we cannot justly disagree; he the Practice of some others how it will. 2. Again; nei­ther is the Church of Rome hereupon more obliged to abro­gate a lawful Veneration of Images, because Protestants are offended at it as liable to abuse, than Protestants to lay aside (which they do not) the use of Images, because the Puritans are offended at them, upon the same account.

§. 59 3. But then, as to the Practice of any particular person in this matter; it seems very difficult to charge it with Idolatry. For, 1. The internal act of the Worship given to Images by any is not knowable to any others —Distinctio Latriae (saith [Page 76] Spalatensis, De Rep. Eccl. 7. l. 12. c. 47. n.) & aliarum infe­riorum adorationum ex solo hominis interno dependet; quod in­ternum non substat Ecclesiae judicio [I add, neque cujusquam alterius.] And, not certainly known, ought to be most chari­tably interpreted (especially in the practice of people in­structed in the common Creeds, and Principles of Christianity, perfectly opposite to Idolatry.) And therefore that Passage of St. Austine, in Psal. 113. is very unreasonably urged by some Protestants —Quis autem adorat, velorat intuens simula­chrum, qui non sic afficitur, ut ab eo se exaudiriputet, ab eo sibi praestari, quod desiderat, speret? Which, as it was spoken by him of the Heathen [Quis Gentilium] of whom he saith also a little before that —Quoniam in illo figmento non invenit vitalem motum credit numen occultum. And —effigiem vi­venti corpori similem sine vivo aliquo habitatore esse non putat. So can it be no way applied to the common principles of any Christian: and, to find it false, let but the Objecter, if a Chri­stian, try the experiment of the Quis upon himself; and, look­ing on a Picture when he prays to our Lord, tell, whether he thinks it hears him. And, since Protestants at other times do so freely exalt the knowledge of the Heathen too, that they were not so stupid as to worship Stocks and Stones, or Pictures, the works of their own hands, but only the Gods by such Representations which are only the visible Memorials of them, (which they do to make the Christian run parallel with the Heathen Idolatry;) why do they not meanwhile re­flect on the great uncharitableness, on the other side, toward Christians, in fancying or representing them so stupid and void of understanding in their addresses to Images or Pictures, ut ab illis se exaudiri putent &c. I say then, as to the internal act of Veneration or Reverence given by any Catholick to an Image, since it can no way be known to Protestants, it ought to be charitably interpreted, that it doth not deviate from the Church's Doctrine.

§. 60 As to the external, I grant it may discover it self to be such as may be unlawful, or idolatrous; as, by the form of their [Page 77]Vocal Prayers addressed to such Images; Sacrifice, erection of Temples, and Altars, to them; a wrong confession of their Faith concerning them, in attributing to them something Divine, or some other of those misapprehensions mentioned in the beginning of this Discourse §. 2. &c. Of which some Christians were guilty long ago in St. Gregory's time, as appears by the Fact of Serenus, and in St. Austin's, by his —Novi multos and so, for ought we know, some may be still. But then, for those exernal acts of Veneration, that ordina­rily appear among Catholicks (as kissing, burning lights, per­fuming, or incensing them, uncovering the head, kneeling, praying, before them) I have shewed before §. 49. &c. that there are none of these but may be lawfully used (abstracting from a bad intention) in expressing the honor we give to a crea­ture; and therefore cannot be chargeable with Idolatry; and that all these are used also by Protestants in the honor they do to some of the Creatures. If then an Anti-ceremonial Pu­ritan seeing a true Son of the Church of England, that he may say his Prayers the more devoutly, going into a Church and uncovering his head so soon as he enters into it, or into the Chancel at least; bowing toward the Altar or Commu­nion-table there, sometimes also burning Frankincense there, (a thing as lawful, I suppose, as it is in our own houses,) bow­ing at the Holy Name of JESUS, kneeling down at his re­ceiving of the Holy Mysteries in the Eucharist; in his taking a solemn Oath, kissing the Gospels; in the Interrment of an honourable Friend lighting up many Torches, not for need, but as an Honor to the Deceased, and an Ornament of his Fu­neral, &c: as a Puritan, I say, would be censured to offend very much against Charity, if he should accuse or mis-con­strue him herein to commit a most gross Idolatry or Super­stition (for, possibly he may do so) in giving Divine Worship to a frame of Wood, or a Name, in Incensing a pile of Stone, in imagining God to dwell in a Fabrick made with hands, in lighting a dead man to his Grave &c. If I say this would be a most uncharitable and unjust Accusation in a Puritan to­ward a Protestant-Conformist, how will not a Protestant stand guilty of the same fault, when, beholding a Catholick kneel­ing [Page 78]and saying his Prayers before an Image, he chargeth him with praying and giving Divine Honors to it, with conceiv­ing some Divinity resident in it, or Virtue issuing from it, or, that it is lighted with his lamp, smalls his sweet odours, and hears his requests. This of the difficult discovery of an Idolatrous Practice in any: In which, as it happens in several other matters, I fear, for the most part, the guilt of the Ac­cuser is greater, than of the Accused.

§. 61 For a Conclusion to this Discourse: Having said what I think is abundantly sufficient to clear the Church's Practice in her use and veneration of Images from so heavy an impu­tation, as indeed, if the Adversaries interest would permit them to aggravate it so far, doth utterly un-church it, and make it a Synagogue of Satan, and parallel to the Heathen Religions: Now I desire those Protestants, who charge the Church herewith, to reflect what an heavy guilt it leaves upon themselves, if such Accusation should be false and without cause; and what consequences pernicious to themselves it draws along with it. For 1. if it be a great fault to charge unjustly any private person with so hainous a crime, as Idola­try; what is it to charge the whole Catholick Church, East and West, with the Practice thereof now for above a thou­sand years; and this, notwithstanding our Lord's precious Blood shed for this his Church, and all his Providence over it, now when all Power in heaven and earth is committed to him; and notwithstanding his express Promise of protecting it for ever against the gates of hell? What is it, thus to call their innocent Mother a Whore, for committing such spiri­tual Fornication; and their supreme Spiritual Father Anti-Christ? 2. And next: What consequences doth it draw after it, most mischievous to their Salvation? Since, after they have once fixed such an Apostacy upon their supreme Spiri­tual Governors and Guides, and after they have thus cryed Corban, they conceive themselves freed and absolved from any further Obedience they owe them: And, by withdraw­ing Obedience, abandon themselves to all those errors and dis­orders [Page 79]from which this supreme Church-authority would have restrained them. Nay some are so frighted herewith, as they know not how to stay longer under any Church-au­thority at all; but run away also from those Ecclesiastical Governors who have discovered this Idolatry and Anti-Christ to them; and from that Church-discipline also, and those Ceremonies, which these judge still fit to retain; as thinking they discern in all these some lineaments and resemblances of him. And so by God's just judgment what aspersions these inferior Guides have laid upon the Supreme, these other, their Subjects, have returned on them. And several sober Protestants of late (See Dr. Hammond) who seem to have better weighed these things, in labouring against these Pu­ritan Sects to free their own Church-Government from such an imputation, have also enlarged themselves so far, as to re­lease the Roman from it: and have joined themselves with the Catholick Writers to remove Anti-Christ and his Seat and Kingdom quite out of the verge of Christianity.

§. 62 Meanwhile, of those Protestants, who have supposed the Roman Church Anti-christian, and its Head the Anti-christ, and its Religion Idolatry, these later more zealous Sects seem to act much more sincerely, and consequentially, than the other, more moderate, party. For, such Idolatry and Anti-christ once clearly discovered, God forbid good Chri­stians should so far either admit of his Laws, or comply with his religious Ceremonies, or maintain Communion with his Members, or derive their Authority from him, as the Pre­latical Protestancy doth with, and from, the Church of Rome. Would any of them correspond so far with Mahomet's Re­ligion (whom yet they account not bad enough to inherit the title of Anti-christ, or charge of Idolatry) as they do with the Pope's? Let them then either remit such Accusation, or prosecute more severely and more speedily fly from, such a guilt. We can never run far enough from this Grand Ene­my of our Lord. For (as the Apostle, 2. Cor. 6.14.) 'What fellowship or communion hath light with darkness? what [Page 80]concord Christ with Belial? what commerce Jerusalem with Babylon?

Let therefore those Zelots who are so forward to heap such an extremity of Impiety on the whole Church of God for so many Centuries before Luther, or also on the whole present Church besides Luther's Followers, consider well that ne­cessary consequence thereof, which some others of their own side, to deter them from such a charge, have observed. For — 'If (as Mr. Thorndike. Epilog. 3. l. p. 357.) these Practices which the Church of Rome allows [and which we have handled here] were necessarily Idolatries, then were the Church of Rome necessarily no Church [I add, nor any other for many Ages before Luther, or the present besides Luther; for, in these Practices all else agree:] 'The being of the Church, and of Christianity, presupposing the worship of one true God, exclusive to any thing else. And elsewhere, Just Weights, 2. c. p. 11. 'They that own the Church of Rome for a true Church [and if it be not, where was the Catholick Church before Luther?] must contradict them­selves, if they maintain such a supposition, as that the Pope is Anti-christ, or the Papists Idolaters. [Their charge is too high to be possibly true; and to render her not innocent and free from their complaints they must necessarily make her less wicked.] Again the same Author Ibid. c. 19. p. 128. 'He that sees (saith he) the whole Church [for the East, as well as West, practice these by them stiled Idolatries] on the one side, and only Calvin [and his Followers] on the other hath he not cause to fear, that they who make them Idolaters without cause will themselves appear Schisma­ticks in the sight of God for it? And therefore (much more modestly) he saith, Epilog. 3. l. p. 364. That the honor of Images which the Church's Decree maintaineth is no Idolatry. And Ibid. p. 416. That the Idolatries which he grants to be possible (tho not necessary) indeed to be found in it, are by the ignorance and carnal affections of particulars, not by commands of the Church or the Laws of it. And, of the great danger of censuring such general Practices of the Church, thus Bishop Forbes, speaking of one [Page 81]of the supposed Idolatries, Invocation of Saints, De Invoc Sanct. 3. c. p. 322. &Totius Ecclesiae universalem consensum spernere aut damnare res longe periculosissima est. And much more, in abuses only of some, that which he saith is true, p. 326. —Non continuo propter periculum abusus, aut etiam a­busum, quem reipsa cernimus, legitimus rei usus, cum scandalo totius Ecclesiae, tollendus, aut damnandus est.

§. 63 Surely as the Devil gained heretofore infinite of Souls in the Old World by the Practice of Idolatry, so, in the New, after the World's being more enlightened by the coming of our Lord, and after his old gross Arts grown into general contempt and disgrace, he changeth his Colours, and plays another game; and makes no small Harvest of Souls by dri­ving and frighting them out of the Catholick Church and Faith, and former Obedience to legal Church-Authority un­der the pretence now of flying from Idolatry. And again: So great an Envy he hath to the Honor he sees given in the Church to the sacred Humanity of our Lord in the Holy Mysteries, and to his Martyrs, and Saints, and all that which any way appertains to them, that he now chooseth rather to represent himself a great Zelot of preserving Worship and Adoration entire to the one only God; and of not communi­cating any of his Excellencies to the Creature: He pleads much our Lord's sole worthy Intercessions and Mediation, and the necessity of performing all our Devotions out of the assurance of Faith and a Divine Command: He insists much on a spiritual and refined internal service of God, without any superstitious regard had to times, persons, places, and such as is divested of external and formal Rites and Ceremo­nies. Lastly; both by some of the new Reformers within the Church, and by Mahomet without it, he mainly cries out against Superstition, Ceremonies, a multitude of Sacra­ments, and their virtue, Special Ordinations and Characters of Priesthood, Will-worship, Idolatry, which last also is ag­gravated to the uttermost and extended to far greater subtil­ties, than heretofore it was supposed to comprehend: And [Page 82]by this new device he hath wrought so effectually on many, that the memory of God's former Saints and Martyrs is almost quite obliterated and worn out among them; and the Offer­ing the Evangelical Sacrifice grown much into desuetude; Holy Churches saving on the Lord's day shut up; Holy Festi­vals no more observed; Sacred Persons are seeking to credit themselves with laical, and undistinct, Habits; sacred things grown into contempt; and not enjoying so much as a nega­tive reverence, I mean, freedome from contumely: the Di­vine Worship at last so refined and purified, till it is become invisible; and, by taking away the necessary circumstances, the very substance and life thereof is perished; and by dis­joining the corporal and mental, the interior and exterior, Worship, neither the one, nor the other is, by some at all, by others so devoutly, or frequently, performed. And all this, forsooth, this new Angel of Light promoteth in oppo­sition to former Idolatry and Superstition. Was not the Great False-Prophet Mahomet, and the whole frame of his Religion, at least one of the chiefest Conceptions of Satan's old age, and Master-piece of all his Works? And, who so great an Enemy to Sacred Images as he? or who with greater zeal throws down, and declares war against, all Idolatry? And, by him Satan, instead of his former Pageantry and Puppets, after that God's Messiah was sent with a most Spiritual Law, and the Divine Grace to perswade men to it, hath also now, set up a sensual, non-ceremonious, facile, Anti-law; and a sword to compel men to it.

§. 64 Now, to be safe from all these changeable stratagems and wiles of the old Serpent, sometimes assaulting us on the left hand, sometimes on the right; in former times by setting up Idolatry; in later by exclaiming against, and making shew of pulling it down: I know no such security to a Christian, as always to repose himself on the judgment of the Church. Which Church is neither terrified with the fear of Idolatry, so, as to deny a due Honor to the Instruments of God's glory; (nor so prodigal or ignorant of the Divine Excellencies and [Page 83]Prerogatives, as to give any part of them to any other: In her honouring God's Saints, or, for their sakes, any thing that appertains to them, she knows that all such Honor fi­nally terminates in God, the sole Fountain and Donor of all that is in his Creature Honourable: And his Saints now without all vanity or self-pleasing accept such Ho­nor, in conformity to God's will; and because it is for his Honor, that it should be given them; And He is also honoured by them for bestowing such honor on them: And God's Kingdome, without all Jealousy, remains in an Eter­nal Peace. Amen.