As for the proofs alleged out of Scripture;namely,those examples of images appointed by God to be set up;they were not set up for the people or any man to worship,but that they should worship God Himself before them;as before the cherubim over the Ark,and the brazen serpent.For we read not that the priest or any other did worship the cherubim.But contrarily we read that Hezekiah broke in pieces the brazen serpent which Moses had set up,because the people burnt incense to it.Besides,those examples are not put for our imitation,that we also should set up images,under pretence of worshipping God before them;because the words of the second Commandment,"Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image,"etc.,distinguish between the images that God commanded to be set up,and those which we set up to ourselves.And therefore from the cherubim or brazen serpent,to the images of man's devising;and from the worship commanded by God,to the will-worship of men,the argument is not good.This also is to be considered,that as Hezekiah broke in pieces the brazen serpent,because the Jews did worship it,to the end they should do so no more;so also Christian sovereigns ought to break down the images which their subjects have been accustomed to worship,that there be no more occasion of such idolatry.For at this day the ignorant people,where images are worshipped,do really believe there is a divine power in the images;and are told by their pastors that some of them have spoken,and have bled;and that miracles have been done by them;which they apprehend as done by the saint,which they think either is the image itself,or in it.The Israelites,when they worshipped the calf,did think they worshipped the God that brought them out of Egypt,and yet it was idolatry,because they thought the calf either was that God,or had Him in his belly.And though some man may think it impossible for people to be so stupid as to think the image to be God,or a saint,or to worship it in that notion,yet it is manifest in Scripture to the contrary;where,when the golden calf was made,the people said,"These are thy gods,O Israel";and where the images of Laban are called his gods.And we see daily by experience in all sorts of people that such men as study nothing but their food and ease are content to believe any absurdity,rather than to trouble themselves to examine it,holding their faith as it were by entail unalienable,except by an express and new law.
But they infer from some other places that it is lawful to paint angels,and also God Himself:as from God's walking in the garden;from Jacob's seeing God at the top of the ladder;and from other visions and dreams.But visions and dreams,whether natural or supernatural,are but phantasms:and he that painteth an image of any of them,maketh not an image of God,but of his own phantasm,which is making of an idol.I say not,that to draw a picture after a fancy is a sin;but when it is drawn,to hold it for a representation of God is against the second Commandment and can be of no use but to worship.And the same may be said of the images of angels,and of men dead;unless as monuments of friends,or of men worthy remembrance:for such use of an image is not worship of the image,but a civil honouring of the person;not that is,but that was:
but when it is done to the image which we make of a saint,for no other reason but that we think he heareth our prayers,and is pleased with the honour we do him,when dead and without sense,we attribute to him more than human power,and therefore it is idolatry.
Seeing therefore there is no authority,neither in the Law of Moses nor in the Gospel,for the religious worship of images or other representations of God which men set up to themselves,or for the worship of the image of any creature in heaven,or earth,or under the earth;and whereas Christian kings,who are living representants of God,are not to be worshipped by their subjects by any act that signifieth a greater esteem of his power than the nature of mortal man is capable of;it cannot be imagined that the religious worship now in use was brought into the Church by misunderstanding of the Scripture.It resteth therefore that it was left in it by not destroying the images themselves in the conversion of the Gentiles that worshipped them.
The cause whereof was the immoderate esteem and prices set upon the workmanship of them,which made the owners,though converted from worshipping them as they had done religiously for demons,to retain them still in their houses,upon pretence of doing it in the honor of Christ,of the Virgin Mary,and of the Apostles,and other the pastors of the primitive Church;as being easy,by giving them new names,to make that an image of the Virgin Mary and of her Son our Saviour,which before perhaps was called the image of Venus and Cupid;and so of a Jupiter to make a Barnabas,and of Mercury,a Paul,and the like.And as worldly ambition,creeping by degrees into the pastors,drew them to an endeavour of pleasing the new-made Christians;and also to a liking of this kind of honour,which they also might hope for after their decease,as well as those that had already gained it:so the worshipping of the images of Christ and his Apostles grew more and more idolatrous;save that somewhat after the time of Constantine diverse emperors,and bishops,and general councils observed and opposed the unlawfulness thereof,but too late or too weakly.
