XXII.

19, 20.

27 to the end.

28, 29.

To this it is to be added, that it seems very clear from ART. the history of the golden calf, that the Israelites did not intend, by setting it up, to cast off the true Jehovah, that Ex. xxxii. had brought them out of Egypt. They plainly said the 1, 4, 5. contrary, and appointed a feast to Jehovah. It is probable they thought Moses was either burnt or starved on Mount Sinai, so they desired some visible representation of the Deity to go before them; they intended still to serve him; but since they thought they had lost their prophet and guide, they hoped that this should have been perhaps as a teraphim to them; yet for all this, the calf is called an Idol: Acts vii. 41. and they are said to have changed their glory into the simili- Psal. cvi. tude of an ox that eateth grass. So that here an emblem of the Deity is called an Idol. They could take the calf for no other, but as a visible sign or symbol in which they intended to worship their God or Elohim, and the Lord or Jehovah. Such very probably were also the calves of Dan and I Kings xii. Bethel, set up by Jeroboam, who seemed to have no design to change the object of their worship, or the nature of their 1 Kings xvi. religion; but only to divert them from going up to Jerusa- 31. lem, and to furnish them with conveniencies to worship 2 Kings x. the living God nearer home. His design was only to establish the kingdom to himself; and in order to that, we must think that he would venture on no more than was necessary for his purpose. Besides, we do clearly see an opposition made between the calves set up by Jeroboam, and the worship of Baal brought from Tyrus by Ahab. Those who hated that idolatry, such as Jehu and his family, yet continued in the sin of Jeroboam; and they are represented as zealous for Jehovah, though they worshipped the calves at Dan and Bethel. These are called Idols by Hosea. Hosea viii. From all which it seems to be very evident that the ten 4, 5. tribes still feared and worshipped the true Jehovah. This appears yet more clear from the sequel of their history, when they were carried away by the kings of Assyria; and new inhabitants were sent to people the country, who brought their idols along with them, and did not acknowledge Jehovah the true God; but upon their being plagued with lions, to prevent this, the king of Assyria sent one of 2 Kings the priests, that had been carried out of the country, who xvii. 28, taught them how they should fear the Lord: out of which that mixture arose, that they feared the Lord, and served their own images. This proves, beyond all contradiction, that the ten tribes did still worship Jehovah in those calves that they had at Dan and Bethel: and thus it appears very clear, that, through the whole Old Testament, the use of all images in worship was expressly forbid; and that the

32, 41.

ART. worshipping them, even when the true God was worshipXXII. ped by them, was called Idolatry. The words in which this matter is expressed are copious and full, and the reasons given for the precept are taken from the nature of God, who could be likened to nothing, and who had shewed no similitude of himself when he appeared to their fathers, and delivered their law to them.

Acts xvii. 16, 24 to

29.

The New Dispensation does in all respects carry the ideas of God and of true religion much higher, and raises them much above those compliances that were in the Old, to men's senses, and to sensitive natures; and it would seem to contradict the whole design of it, if we could imagine that such things were allowed in it, which were so expressly forbid in the Old. Upon this occasion it is remarkable, that the two fullest passages in the New Testament concerning images, are written upon the occasion of the most refined idolatry that was then in the world, which was at Athens. When St. Paul was there, his spirit was moved within him, when he saw that city full of Idols: he upon that charges them for thinking that the Godhead was like unto gold or silver, or stone graven by art or man's device: he argues from the majesty of God, who made the world and all things therein, and was the Lord of heaven and earth, and therefore was not to be worshipped by men's hands, (that is, images made by them,) who needed nothing, since he gives us life, breath, (or the continuance of life,) and all things. He therefore condemns that way of worship as an effect of ignorance, and tells them of a day in which God will judge the world. It is certain that the Athenians at that time did not think their images were the proper resemblances of the DiviCic.de Nat. nity. Tully, who knew their theology well, gives us a very Deor. 1. i. different account of the notion that they had of their images. Some images were of no figure at all, but were only stones and pillars that had no particular shape; others were hieroglyphics made up of many several emblems, of which some signified one perfection of the Deity, and some another; and others were indeed the figures of men and women; but even in these the wiser among them said, they worshipped one Eternal Mind, and under him some inferior beings, demons, and men; who they believed were subordinate to God, and governed this world. So it could not be said of such worshippers, that they thought that the Godhead was like unto their images; since the best writers among them tell us plainly that they thought no such thing. St. Paul therefore only argues in this against image-worship in itself, which does naturally lead

cap. 27.

ART.

men to these low thoughts of God; and which is a very unreasonable thing in all those who do not think so XXII. of him. It is contrary to the nature and perfections of God: few men can think God is like to those images, therefore that is a very good argument against all worshipping of them. And we may upon very sure grounds say, that the Athenians had such elevated notions both of God and of their images, that whatsoever was a good argument against image-worship among them, will hold good against all image-worship whatsoever.

But as St. Paul stayed long enough at Athens to understand their opinions well, and that no doubt he learned their doctrine very particularly from his convert Dionysius, so at his coming to Corinth from thence, when he had learned from Aquila and Priscilla the state of the Church in Rome, and no doubt had learned among other things that the Romans admired the Greeks, and made them their patterns; he in the beginning of his Epistle to them, having still deep impressions upon his spirit of what he had seen and known at Athens, arraigns the whole Greek philosophy; and especially those among them who professed themselves wise, but became fools; who Rom. i. 20. though they knew God, yet glorified him not as God, nor were to the end. thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, so that their foolish heart was darkened. They had high speculations of the unity and simplicity of the Divine Essence; but they set themselves to find such excuses for the idolatry of the vulgar, that they not only continued to comply with them in the grossest of all their practices, but they studied more laboured defences for them, than the ruder multitudes could ever have fallen upon. They knew the true God; for God had shewed to them that which might be known of him: but they held the truth in unrighteousness, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and four-footed beasts, and to creeping things: which seems to be a description of hieroglyphic figures, the most excusable of all those images by which they represented the Deity. This St. Paul makes to be the original of all the corruption and immorality that was spread over the Gentile world, which came in, partly as the natural consequence of idolatry, of its debasing the ideas of God, and wounding true religion and virtue in its source and first seeds, and partly as an effect of the just judgments of God upon those who thus dishonoured him, that was to a very monstrous degree spread over both Greece and Rome. Of these St. Paul gives us some very enormous instances, with a

ART. catalogue of the vices that sprang from those vitiated XXII. principles. These two passages, the one of St. Paul's preaching, and the other of his writing, being both applied to those who had the finest speculations among the Heathen, do evidently demonstrate how contrary the Christian doctrine is to the worshipping of images of all sorts, how speciously soever that may be disguised.

If these things wanted an explanation, we find it given us very fully in all the writings of the Fathers during their disputes with the Heathens. They do not only charge them with the false notions that they had of God, the many Deities they worshipped, the absurd legends that they had concerning them; but in particular they dwell long upon this of the worshipping God in or by an image, with arguments taken both from the pure and spiritual nature of God, and from the plain revelation he made of his will in this matter. Upon this argument many long citations might be gathered from Justin Martyr, from Clemensa of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, Minutius Felix, Lactantius, Eusebius, Ambrose, and St. Austin. Their reasonings are so clear and so full, that nothing can be more evident, than that they condemned all the use of images in the worship of God and yet both Celsus, Porphyry, Maximus Tyrius, and Julian, told them very plainly, that they did not believe that the Godhead was like their images, or was shut up within them; they only used them as helps to their imagination and apprehension, that from thence they might form suitable thoughts of the Deity. This did not satisfy the Fathers, who insisted on it to the last, that all such images as were made the objects of worship were idols; so that if in any one thing we have a very full account of the sense of the whole Church for the first four centuries, it is in this matter. They do not speak of it now and then only by the way, as in a digression; in which the heat of argument, or of rhetoric, may be apt to carry men too far: they set themselves to treat of this argument very nicely; and they were engaged in it with philosophers, who were as good at subtleties and distinctions as other men. This was one of the main parts of the controversy: so if in any head whatsoever, they writ

a Just. Mart. Apol. 2. Clem. Alex. Strom. I. i. 5. Protr. Orig. cont. Cels. 1. ii. 3, 5, 7. Tertull. Apol. Cypr. de Idol. Vanitate. Arnob. lib. v. Minut. Felix Oct. Euseb. Præp. Evang. 1. iii. Lactan. 1. ii. c. 2. Ambros. Resp. ad Sym. Angust. de Civitate Dei, 1. vii. c. 5.

Orig. con. Cels. 1. vii. Euseb. Præp. Ev. 1. iii. c. 7. Max. Tyr. diss. 38. Jul. Frag. Ep. Euseb. Præp. Evang. 1. iv. c. 1.

exactly upon those subjects. They attacked the established ART. religion of the Roman empire; and this was not to be XXII. done with clamour, nor could they offer at it in a plain contradiction to such principles as are consistent with the Christian religion, if the doctrine of the Roman Church is true. Here then we have not only the Scripture but tradition fully of our side.

7.

Some pretended Christians, it is true, did very early worship images; but those were the Gnostics, held in detestation by all the orthodox. Irenæus, Epiphanius, Iren. 1. i. and St. Austin tell us, that they worshipped the images of c. 24. Christ, together with Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle: Hares. 27. Epiph. nor are they only blamed for worshipping the images of August. de Christ, together with these of the philosophers; but they Hæres. cap. are particularly blamed for having several sorts of images," and worshipping these as the Heathens did; and that among these there was an image of Christ, which they pretended to have had from Pilate. Besides these corrupters of Christianity, there were no others among the Christians of the first ages that worshipped images. This was so well known to the Heathens, that they bring this, among other things, as a reproach against the Christians, that they had no images: which the first apologists are so far from denying, that they answered them, that it was impossible for him who knew God, to worship images. But as human nature is inclined to visible objects of worship, so it seems some began to paint the walls of their Churches with pictures, or at least moved for it. In the beginning of the fourth century this was condemned by the Council of Eliberis, Can. 36. It pleases us to have no pictures in Churches, lest that which is worshipped should be painted upon the walls. Towards the end of that century, we have an account given us by Epiphanius, of his indigna- Epiph. Ep. tion occasioned by a picture that he saw upon a veil at ad Joan. Anablatha. He did not much consider whose picture it was, whether a picture of Christ, or of some Saint; he positively affirms it was against the authority of the Scriptures, and the Christian religion, and therefore he tore it, but supplied that Church with another veil. It seems, private persons had statues of Christ and the Apostles; which Eusebius censures, where he reports it as a remnant of hea- Euseb. thenism. It is plain enough from some passages in St. Aus- Hist. Eccl. 1. vii. c. 18. tin, that he knew of no images in Churches in the beginAug. in ning of the fifth century. It is true, they began to be brought Psal. cxiii. before that time into some of the Churches of Pontus and de Moribus Eccl. Cath. Cappadocia, which was done very probably to draw the Heathens, by this piece of conformity to them, to like

Hieros.

c. 34.