Of idolatry a discourse, in which is endeavoured a declaration of, its distinction from superstition, its notion, cause, commencement, and progress, its practice charged on Gentiles, Jews, Mahometans, Gnosticks, Manichees Arians, Socinians, Romanists : as also, of the means which God hath vouchsafed towards the cure of it by the Shechinah of His Son / by Tho. Tenison ...

PART 2. Of the Idolatry charged on the Romanists in the Worship of the Images of Saints.

Touching the Images of the Saints, and the Vene∣ration of them, it is fit I say something; but the Premisses being considered, I have the less need of being voluminous.

It is a question whether any such Images can be made with any suitableness to the Prototypes. Christ indeed hath raised his own body long ago, and it is contained in the Heavens. But of Saints who are yet in an imper∣fect estate, whose bodies are yet asleep in the dust;

what Praxiteles or Titian, can give us fit Statues, or Pictures of them? What they were we may by Images and Pictures conceive. But what they now are in the present heavenly condition, with relation to which the Romanists worship them, who on earth can reveal to us, whilst eye hath not seen it, neither hath ear heard it?

But for the Images or Pictures of the Saints in their former estate on earth; if they be made with discreti∣on; if they be the Representations of such whose Saint∣ship no wise man calleth into question; if they be de∣signed as their honourable Memorials; they who are wise to sobriety, do make use of them; and they are permitted in Geneva it self, where remain in the Quire of the Church of St. Peter a 1.1, the Pictures of the twelve Prophets on one side, and on the other those of the twelve Apostles, all in wood; also the Pictures of the Virgin and St. Peter in one of the Windows. And we give to such Pictures that negative honour which they are worthy of. We value them beyond any Images besides that of Christ; we help our memo∣ries by them; we forbear all signs of contempt to∣wards them. But worship them we do not, so much as with external positive signs: for if we uncover the head, we do it not to them, but at them, to the ho∣nour of God who hath made them so great Instruments in the Christian Church; and to the subordinate praise of the Saints themselves.

They who worship such Images, do either worship them as the Statues of such invisible Powers as do un∣der God govern the world; or of holy Spirits who hear them in all places, and pray to God particularly for them; or who only pray for them in general; or as so many Shechinahs of ruling, or interceding Saints.

And, First, If they worship them as Representations of ruling Daemons, they are Idolatrous. For they there∣by give away the honour of Gods reserved power, to a Creature: They honour as Clients the statue of a Saint, whilst God is by right their Patron.

Secondly, If they worship the Images of Saints, on∣ly as holy spirits who pray for them, and hear them in any place, by the help of that God whose essence is every-where, and who enabled the Prophet to know the actions of Gehazi, when he was out of his sight; they are still thereby in peril of Idolatry: for if God does not enable them to hear, and they pray with confidence in them as hearing, they relye on a power in the Creature, which God hath not communicated to it.

Thirdly, If they honour the Images of Saints only as holy spirits who in general pray for them, they are not to be thence condemned as Idolaters: for should they so far debase their reason as to give to the Image the same honour which is due to the Saint, they honour but a creature that is inferior, with the honour of a creature, superior to it, who prayeth for them in the mass of mankind. And if they bow to such an Image, that external sign of worship can't reasonably be inter∣preted by the beholders as a sign of Divine honour; because they bow to that which appears no other than the Image of a Saint, and not a Crucifix or Image of Christ (the eye sufficiently distinguishing these); and therefore it hath no higher honour than the Proto∣type, which is a Creature. I except here such bowing and kneeling to the Image of a Saint as is in use in the Roman Church; and is accompanied with a form of Prayer proper to be addressed to God, and particular∣ly that form which Christ hath taught us. For though the Catechism of Trent requireth the Parish Priest to

let the people understand, that a 1.2 when any one pronounceth the Lords-Prayer to the Image of a Saint, he should think only that he joineth his Pray∣ers with those of that Saint to God for him.

Yet the people are not so apt to receive the instruction, and to be free from mistake: and this the Catechism it self supposeth, whilst it speaketh of the need there is of the greatest caution b 1.3 in this matter: need of it, not only for the moment of the thing, but for the easiness of erring in it.

Fourthly, If they worship them as Shechinahs of ru∣ling Daemons, they honour that as the presence of a power which God is pleased every-where to exercise; and which he hath not fixed in such Statues, in order to any eminent operation. Wherefore they give the honour of Gods Schechinah to that which is not such, and their trust is in an Idol. And here the practice of the Church of Rome is scandalous, if its constitution be not. There is a common perswasion among that people, that Prayers are more effectually heard, and that Mira∣cles are sooner done before an Image than in the ab∣sence of it: That one Image is a more excellent She∣chinah than another; that our Lady will perform things at Loretto, which she will not do at Rome it self. And they who desire blessing of St. Winifred, think they soonest attain it at her well. The Liber Festivalis (as they called it) in use here in England, in the time of Henry the seventh c 1.4, aboundeth with stories of Divine power working in Images; and amongst other tales, it telleth of the power of the Image of St. Nicho∣las, in keeping mens Goods in safety; and how cer∣tain Thieves who were permitted for a time to steal a few Goods committed to its care, were by St. Nicholas forced to speedy restitution. We read in Krantzius d 1.5, that Count Gerhard, Uncle to Waldemare of Sleswick,

went to battel against the Danes with the Image of the Virgin about his neck; after the manner of Sylla the Dictator, who used in such emergencies, certain little statues of Apollo or Jove, one of which after his escape in a very dangerous Fight, he kissed, saying, O Jupi∣ter! I had almost fallen with you this day, and you with me. And the Books of the most learned Papists are full of Legends, which by telling of the motion of the Images themselves in wonderful manner, or of the miraculous events succeeding the Addresses made at them, do incline the people to come thither with con∣fidence, as to the Shechinahs of God. Curtius, the Pro∣vincial of Belgium, is one of these writers, and I find this story in him:

There was a certain poor man b 1.6, who in extreme need beseeched our Saviour to pre∣serve him, from perishing, by some small Alms. At this Prayer, the Image, or rather Christ in the Image, bowed himself, and gave to the beggar his right shoo as a help in his need. Away went the man with this new prize, but the neighbours hearing of it, redeemed the shoo with the equal weight in gold. But that shoo to this day, could never be fitted again to the foot, but is supported with a Chalice.

It seems this Cruci∣fix was made of Cedar by Nicodemus himself c 1.7; but methinks with no good fancy; the Artist having car∣ved a Crown of Gold, instead of one of Thorns, upon the head of our holy Lord. Lipsius (a man rather lear∣ned than wise) telleth d 1.8 of the many drops of blood which distilled from a certain wooden Image of the Virgin at Halla. And on this he looked as on a miracle, either declaring her resentment of the present Wars, or foretelling the cessation of them by her means. The Eyes of Venantius Fortunatus were cured of their pain, after having been anointed (as they say) from the Lamp of Saint Martin; and Ba∣ronius

a 1.9 hence proveth, as from a certain medium, the worship of Images.

But how if God doth this by Nature, or sometimes by miraculous Power, for the trial of our Faith? Or what if such things should be done by Gods just per∣mission, by the Devil himself, to men that have renoun∣ced their Reason? Why then, the Devil has their trust and praise instead of God; an Idolatry not to be mentioned without religious fear and indignation. And doth not the Devil sometimes work such won∣ders? How then come the Books of the Heathens to be fill'd with stories of Miracles wrought in or at their Images, as well as those of the Romanists? If it be told by the Romanist Lipsius, That an Image of the Virgin bled; it is also storied by the Heathen Porphy∣rie b 1.10, That when a certain King endeavour'd to pull an hair from a Statue of the Brachmans, the blood gushed out against him. Moreover, that the Statue did sweat so exceedingly in the heat of the weather, that they were forc'd to refresh it with perpetual fan∣ning.

Lastly, If the worshippers of the Images of Saints, do honour them only as Shechinahs, where the Saints hear better than in other places, and as their Chambers of meer Request that they would pray for them; they commit a mistake, and they think them present when they are not: but they give not away Gods Honour, which is not infringed by this meer thought, that his Saints are in certain places; seeing that belongeth to their finite condition. But if wise men look for them in any certain place, they look for them rather in some space of the clear air, than in an Image, or a Cave, where there may be suspition of Imposture.

Now, though men by this last way of venerating Images, do not idolize them as Supreme Gods, or as

ruling-Daemons; yet they offend in the other extreme, and disparage them as Saints, whilst they make them to chuse such mean and unbecoming Apartments. This was the belief of Arnobius, with part of whose Confes∣sion I will end this Chapter.

I very grievously b 1.11 reproach'd those whom [in my state of Heathenism] I thought to be Divine, whilst I believ'd them to be Wood, Stone, Bone, or to dwell in the matter of such things.

Notes

• a 1.1

  Lassels's Voyage to Italy, p. 46.
• a 1.2

  Catech. ex Decr. Conc. Tri∣dent. p. 513. immo vero cum ad Imaginem sancti alicujus quis Dominicam Orationem pro∣nuntiat, &c.
• b 1.3

  Catech. ibid. Quo loco illud maximè caven∣dum est omni∣bus, nè quod Dei proprium est, cuiquam praeterea tribu∣ant, &c.
• c 1.4

  Lib. Fest. in S. Nicolai Nar∣rat. 6. See in Wichmans Sabb. Mar. c. 14. p. 225, of a Schedule which a young man had sealed to the Devil, dropped into his hands, whilst he was kneeling at the Image of the Virgin of Loretto.
• d 1.5

  Krantzii Saxon. I. 9. c. 10. p. 236.
• b 1.6

  F. C. Curtius de Clav. Do∣min. c. 5. p. 42.
• c 1.7

  Curt. ibid. p. 38, 39.
• d 1.8

  Lips. Virg. Hall. c. 5. cui Tit. sanguinis fudor in statuâ. p. 1303.
• a 1.9

  Baron. Annal. Tom. 9. A. 825. n. 35. p. 796. Ad marg. Cul∣tus SS. Imagi∣num miraculo probatus. See Spal. de Rep. Eccl. l. 7. c. 12. p. 296.
• b 1.10

  Porphyr. in Fragm. de Styge. p. 284.
• b 1.11

  Arnob. adv. Gent. l. 1. p. 23.