no title set down; if he had pleased to look to the next title, "Simonis Hæresis," where in reason all Simon's heresies were to be looked for, he should have found that which I referred to". But why E. W. denies St. Austin to have reported that for which he is quoted, viz. that Simon Magus brought in some images to be worshipped, I cannot conjecture, neither do I think himself can tell; but the words are plain in the place quoted, according to the intention of the Dissuasive. But that he may yet seem to lay more load upon me, he very learnedly says that Irenæus, in the place quoted by me, says not a word of Simon Magus being author of images; and would have his reader believe that I mistook Simon Magus for Simon Irenæus. But the good man I suppose wrote this after supper, and could not then read or consider that the testimony of Irenæus was brought in to no such purpose; neither did it relate to any Simon at all, but to the Gnostics or Carpocratians, who also were very early and very deep in this impiety; only they did not worship the pictures of Simon and Helena, but of Jesus and Paul, and Homer and Pythagoras, as St. Austin testifies of them; but that which he remarks in them is this, that Marcellina, one of their sect, worshipped the pictures of Jesus, &c. "adorando, incensumque ponendo," "they did adore them, and put incense before them :" I wish the church of Rome would leave to do so, or acknowledge whose disciples they are in this thing. The same also is said by Epiphanius; and that the Carpocratians placed the image of Jesus with the philosophers of the world, "collocatasque adorant, et gentium mysteria perficiunt." But I doubt that both Epiphanius and St. Austin, who took this story from Irenæus, went further in the narrative than Irenæus; for he says only that they placed the images of Christ, &c. "et has coronant:" no more;-and yet even for this, for crowning the image of Christ with flowers, though they did not so much as is now-a-days done at Rome, St. Irenæus made an outcry, and reckoned them in the black catalogue of heretics, not for

d Cum ejus statuam in Jovis figuram construxissent, Helenæ autem in Minervæ speciem, eis thura adolebant, et libabant, et tanquam Deos adorabant, Simonianos seipsos nominantes. Theodoret. Hæret. Fab. lib. 1. tit. Simonis Hæresis in fin. e Vide Irenæ. lib. 1. adv. Hæres. c. 23, 24. ! Ubi suprà Hæres. 7. Iren. reliquam observationem circa eas similiter ut gentes faciunt, i. e. sicut cæterorum illustrium virorum imaginibus consueverunt facere.

joining Christ's image with that of Homer and Aristotle, Pythagoras and Plato, but even for crowning Christ's image with flowers and coronets, as they also did those of the philosophers; for though this may be innocent, yet the other was a thing not known in the religion of any, that were called Christians, till Simon and Carpocrates began to teach the world.

2. We find the wisest and the most sober of the heathens speaking against the use of images in their religious rites. So Varro, when he had said that the old Romans had for one hundred and seventy years worshipped the gods without picture or image, adds, "quod si adhuc mansisset, castius dii observarentur;" and gives this reason for it; "Qui primi simulacra deorum populis posuerunt, et civitatibus suis et me tum dempsisse, et errorem addidisse :" "The making images of the gods took away fear from men and brought in error:" which place St. Austin quoting, commends and explicates it, saying, "he wisely thought that the gods might easily be despised in the blockishness of images h."-The same also was observed by Plutarch, and he gives this reason; "Nefas putantes augustiora exprimere humilioribus, neque aliter aspirari ad Deum quam mente posse:" "They accounted it im piety to express the great beings with low matter, and they believed there was no aspiring up to God but by the mind'." This is a philosophy, which the church of Rome need not be ashamed to learn.

3. It was so known a thing, that Christians did abominate the use of images in religion and in their churches, that Adrian the emperor was supposed to build temples to Christ, and to account him as God, because he commanded that churches without images should be made in all cities, as is related by Lampridius *.

4. In all the disputations of the Jews against the Christ ians of the primitive church, although they were impatient of having any image, and had detested all use of them, especially ever since their return from Babylon, and still retained the hatred of them, even after the dissolution of their tem ple, "even unto superstition," says Bellarmine'; yet they

h Prudenter existimavit deos facile posse in simulacrorum stoliditate contemni. 1 Plut. in Numâ.

klius Lamprid. in Alexandro Severo. edit. Salmat. P. 120.

De Imag. c. 7. sect. Ad primum.

never objected against Christians their having images in their churches, much less their worshipping them. And let it be considered, that in all that long disputation between Justin Martyr and Tryphon the Jew, in which the subtle Jew moves every stone, lays all the load he can at the Christian's door, makes all objections, raises all the envy, gives all the matter of reproach, he can against the Christians, yet he opens not his mouth against them concerning images. The like is to be observed in Tertullian's book against the Jews; no mention of images, for there was no such thing amongst the Christians, they hated them as the Jews did; but it is not imaginable they would have omitted so great a cause of quarrel. On the other side, when in length of time images were brought into churches, the Jews forbore not to upbraid the Christians with it. There was a dialogue written a little before the time of the seventh synod, in which a Jew is brought in saying to the Christians, "I have believed all ye say, and I do believe in the crucified Jesus Christ, that he is the Son of the living God;‘Scandalizor autem in vos Christianos, quia imagines adoratis,' 'I am offended at you Christians that ye worship images ";' for the Scripture forbids us every where to make any similitude or graven image."-And it is very observable, that in the first and best part of the talmud of Babylon, called the Misna, published about the end of the second century, the Christians are not blamed about images; which shews they gave no occasion: but in the third part of the talmud, about the tenth and eleventh age after Christ, the Christians are sufficiently upbraided and reproached in this matter. In the Gemara, which was finished about the end of the fifth century, I find that learned men say the Jews called the Christian church the house of idolatry;' which though it may be expounded in relation to images, which about that time began in some churches to be placed and honoured; yet I rather incline to believe, that they meant it of our worshipping Jesus for the true God and the true Messias; for at this day they call all Christians idolaters,' even those that have none, and can endure no images in their religion or their churches. But now since these periods, it is plain that the case is altered, and when the learned Christians of the Roman communion write against the Jews, they

Synod. 7. act. 5.

are forced to make apologies for the scandal they give to the Jews in their worshipping of images, as is to be seen (besides Leontius Neopolitanus of Cyprus's Apology, which he published for the Christians against the Jews) in Ludovicus Carretus's epistle, in Sepher Amana, and Fabianus Fioghus's Catechetical Dialogues. But I suppose this case is very plain, and is a great conviction of the innovation in this matter made by the church of Rome.

5. The matter of worshipping images looks so ill, so like idolatry, so like the forbidden practices of the heathens, that it was infinitely reasonable, that if it were the practice and doctrine of the primitive church, the primitive priests and bishops should at least have considered, and stated the question how far, and in what sense, it was lawful, and with what intention, and in what degrees, and with what caution and distinctions, this might lawfully be done; particularly when they preached, and wrote commentaries and explications upon the decalogue; especially since there was at least so great a semblance of opposition and contradiction between the commandment and any such practice; God forbidding any image and similitude to be made of himself, or any thing else in heaven, or in earth, or in the sea, and that with such threatenings and interminations of his severe judgments against them that did make them for worship, and this thing being so constantly objected by all those many that opposed their admission and veneration; it is certainly very strange that none of the fathers should take notice of any difficulty in this affair. They objected the commandment against the heathens for doing it; and yet that they should make no account, nor take notice how their worshipping saints and God himself by images, should differ from the heathen superstition that was the same thing to look upon : this indeed is very likely. But so it is; Justin Martyr and Clemens Alexandrinus speak plainly enough of this matter, and speak plain downright words against making and worshipping images; and so careless they were of any future chance, or the present concern of the Roman church, that they do not except the image of the true God, nor the images of saints and angels, no, not of Christ, or the blessed Virgin Mary herself. Nay, Origen " expounds the commandments, and St. Austin makes a pro

un

fessed commentary upon them, but touched none of these things with the top of his finger, only told that they were all forbidden: we are not so careless now-a-days in the church of Rome; but carefully expound the commandments against the insufferable objections of the heretics of late, and the prophets and the fathers of old. But yet for all this, a suspicious man would conclude, that, in the first four hundred years, there was no need of any such explications, inasmuch as they had nothing to do with images, which only could make any such need.

6. But then, in the next place I consider, that the second commandment is so plain, so easy, so peremptory, against all the making and worshipping any image or likeness of any thing, that besides that every man naturally would understand all such to be forbidden, it is so expressed, that upon supposition that God did intend to forbid it wholly, it could not more plainly have been expressed. For, the prohibition is absolute and universal, and therefore of all particulars; and there is no word or sign, by the virtue of which it can, with any probability, be pretended that any one of any kind is excepted. Now then to this when the church of Rome pretends to answer, they overdo it, and make the matter the more suspicious. Some of them answer by saying, that this is no moral commandment, not obligatory to Christians, but to the Jews only: others say, that by this commandment it is only forbidden to account an image to be very God; so Cajetan: others say, that an idol only is forbidden, and that an image is no idol. Others yet distinguish the manner of worshipping, saying, that the image is worshipped for the sampler's sake, not for its own. And this worship is by some called dovλsía or service; by others λarpɛía; saying that the first is to images of saints, the other to God only. And yet with this difference; some saying that the image of God is adored with the same kind of adoration that God is; only it is to the image for God's sake; so St. Thomas of Aquine, and generally his scholars. Others say that it is a religious kind of worship due to images, but not at all divine; some say it is but a civil worship. And then it is for the image's sake, and so far is intransitive, but whatever is paid more to the image is transitive, and passes further. And whatsoever it be, it cannot be agreed how it ought to be