lows brought Images into England, unknown here before; a point, worthy of good observation: but, how little this proves the allowed worship of them, will easily appear to any reader, if he consider, that Gregory, the First and Great, was he, that sent Augustin into England; whose judgment concerning Images is clearly published by himself to all the world, in his fore-cited Epistle, absolutely condemning their adoration: Augustin should have been an ill Apostle, if he had herein gone contrary to the will of him, that sent him. If, withal, he shall consider, that, within the very same century of years, the Clergy of England, by Albinus, Bede's scholar, sent this public declaration of their earnest disavowing, both of the doctrine and practice of Image-Worship.

SECT. 2.

Image-Worship, against Scripture,

As for Scripture, we need not to go farther than the very Second Commandment the charge whereof is so inevitable, that it is very ordinarily (doubtless, in the guiltiness of an apparent check) left out in the devotional books to the people.

Others*, since they cannot raze it out, would fain limit it to the Jews; pretending, that this precept against the Worship of Images was only temporal and ceremonial, and such as ought not to be in force under the times of the Gospel: wherein, they recal to my thoughts that, which Epiphanes the son of Carpocrates answered, when his lust was checked with the command of Non concupisces. "True," said he, "that is to be understood of the heathen, whose wives and sisters we may not indeed lust after."

Some more modest spirits are ashamed of that shift; and fly to the distinction of Idols and Images: a distinction, without a difference †; of their making, not of God's: of whom we never learned other, than, as every idol is an image of something, so every image worshipped turns idol. The language differs; not the thing itself. To be sure, God takes order for both: Ye shall make you idol, nor graven image; neither rear you up any standing image: neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down to it; Lev. xxvi. 1. Yea, as their own Vulgate turns it, Non facies tibi &c. statuam: Thou shalt not set thee up a statue, which God hateth; Deut. xvi. 22.

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The Book of God is full of his indignation, against this practice .

* Azorius Instit. 1. ix. c. 6. cites, for this opinion, Alex. p. 3. q. 30. memb. 3. art. 3. Albert. 3. d. 9. art. 4. Bonavent. 3. d. 9. 1. q. Richard. 3. d. 9. art 2. q. 1. Palud. 3. d. 9. q. 1. Marsil. 3. q. 8. Henric. quodlib. 10. q. 6. Cent. 2. c. 5.

"Eidwλov sæpe simulachrum vers. Acts vii. 41. xv. 20. 1 Cor. xii. 2. 1 John v. 21.

Isa. xlii. 17. xlv. 16. Mich. v. 13. Hab. ii.. 18, 19. Zech. x. 2. Isa. ii. 8. xxx. 22. xli. 7, 22, 23, 24, 29. xliv. 12. Jer. vii. 18. viii. 9. x. 8. Ezek. vi. 4, 13. xx. 28, 32. xxii. 27. Hos. viii. 4, 5. Mic. i. 7.

We may well shut up all, with that curse in Mount Gerizzim; Cursed be the man, that maketh any graven or molten image, an abomination unto the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsman; and putteth it in a secret place. And all the people shall say, Amen; Deut. xxvii. 15. Surely, their Durandus, after he hath cited divers scriptures against idols, as Exod. xx. Lev. xxvi. Deut. iv. Num. xxi. &c. at last concludes, Ex his et similibus, &c: "By these and the like authorities, is condemned the too much use of Images *."

Now, because many eyes are bleared with a pretence of worshipping these, not as God's, but as resemblances of God's friends; let any indifferent man but read the Epistle of Jeremiah (Baruch vi.) canonical to them, though not to us, and compare the estate and usage of those ancient Idols, with the present Images of the Roman Church, and if he do not find them fully paralleled, let him condemn our quarrel of injustice.

But, we must needs think them hard driven for Scripture, when they run for shelter under that text, which professedly taxeth them, Ev adepitois &c. In illicitis idolorum cultibus; saith St. Peter: In unlawful idolatries; speaking of the Gentiles +: "Therefore,” saith Valentia 1, "there is a lawful worship of Idols." As if that were an epithet of favour, which is intended to aggravation. So he, that should call Satan an unclean devil, should imply, that some devil is not unclean; or deceivable lust, some lusts deceitless; or hateful wickedness, some wickedness not hateful. The man had forgot that the Apostle spake of the heathenish idolatry; wherein himself cannot plead any colour of lawfulness. May this, therefore, befriend them, to call idolatry abominable, the Scripture is theirs: neither can they look for any other countenance, from those Sacred Monuments.

SECT. 3.

Image-Worship, against Reason.

WHAT need we seek any other Reason of God's prohibition, than his will? And yet God himself hath given abundant reason of his prohibition of Images erected to himself.

To whom will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him? Is. xl. 18. Ye saw no manner of similitude, in the day that the Lord spake to you in Horeb; Deut. iv. 15. It is a high injury to the infinite and spiritual nature of God, to be resembled by bodily shapes, And, for the Worship of Images erected to him

* Durand. Ration. l. i. c. 3. Ex his et similibus authoritatibus, reprobatur nimius imaginum usus.

+ Pet. iv. 3. We turn it well, abominable idolatries.

‡ Greg. Val. I. ii. Apol. de Idol. c. 7. Neque absurdè profectò putaveris B. Petrum insinuavisse cultum aliquem simulachrorum rectum esse, &c. contra Her

brandum.

self, or his creature; I am the Lord : that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another; nor my praise to molten images; Is. xlii. 8. The holy jealousy of the Almighty will not abide any of his honour divided with his creature; and, whatever worship more than mere human is imparted to the creature, sets it in rivalry with our Maker*.

The man is better, than his picture; and, if religious worship will not be allowed to the person of man †, or angel, how much less to his image! not to man; St. Peter forbids it; Acts x. 26: not to angel; himself forbids it; Rev. xix. 10. What a madness then is it, for a living man to stoop unto a dead stock; unless, as that Cynic had wont to speak unto statues ‡, to use himself to repulses! This courtesy was too shameful, in the Pagans of old: how much more intolerable in Christians!

And, as for their last shift of this unlawful devotion, That they Worship not the Image, but, by it, the Person represented f; Hæc à Paganis afferri solebat, "This," saith Cassander |, out of the evidence of Arnobius and Lactantius, to whom he might have added St. Augustin, "was the very evasion of the old Heathen." Nec valebat tunc illa ratio: "Neither would this colour then serve." How can it hope now, to pass and find allowance?

The doctrine, therefore, and practice of Image-Worship, as late as erroneous, is justly rejected by us; who, according to St. Jerome's profession [, worship not the relics of martyrs, nor sun, nor moon, nor angels, nor archangels, nor cherubim, nor seraphin, nor any name that is named in this world, or in the world to come; and unjustly are we hereupon ejected.

CHAP. VII.

ON INDULGENCES AND PURGATORY.

SECT. 1.

The Newness of Indulgences and Purgatory.

NOTHING is more palpable, than the Novelty of INDULGENCES or PARDONS, as they are now of use in the Roman Church: the intolerable abuse whereof, gave the first hint to Luther's enquiry.

* Si quis puram creaturam, propter quamcunque excellentiam, colit cultu et honore majori quàm puro humano, cultus hic jam accedit ad cultum religiosum, et, per conseq., ad divinum. Spalat. de Rep. Eccl. 1. vii. c. 12.

+ Sed neque Elias adorandus est, etiamsi in vivis sit: neque Johannes adorandus, &c. Epiphan. cont. Collyrid, Her. 79.

Diog. Laert.

Per illa colitur Deus. Less. de Jure, &c. de Relig. 1. ii. 36. dub.
Cassand. Cons. Art. 21.

Nos non dico Martyrum reliquias, &c. Hier. ad Riparium.

Pope Leo had gratified his sister Magdalen, with a large monopoly of German Pardons *. Aremboldus, her factor, was too covetous; and held the market too high. The height of these overrated wares caused the chapmen to enquire into their worth.

They were found as they are, both for age and dignity.

For age, so new, as that Cornelius Agrippa †, and Polydore Virgil, and Machiavel (and who not ?) tell us Boniface the Eighth, who lived Anno 1300, was the first §, that extended Indulgences to Purgatory; the first, that devised a jubilee for the full utterance of them.

The Indulgences of former times were no other, than relaxations of canonical penances, which were enjoined to heinous sinners; whereof Burchard, the Bishop of Worms, set down many particulars, about the year 1020. For example, if a man had committed wilful murder, he was to fast forty days together, in bread and water; which the common people call a Lent: and to observe a course of Penance, for seven years after. Now these years of Penance and these Lents were they, which the Pardons of former times were used to strike off or abate, according as they found reason in the disposition of the penitent; which may give light to those terms of so many Lents and years remitted in former Indulgences.

But, that there should be a sacred treasure of the Church, wherein are heaped up piles of satisfactions of Saints, whereof only the Pope keeps the keys, and hath power to dispense them where he lists, is so late a device, that Gregory of Valence is forced to confess, that not so much as Gratian, or Peter Lombard (which wrote about 400 years before him), ever made mention of the name of Indulgence.

Well, therefore, might Durand and Antonine grant it not to be found either in the Scriptures, or in the writings of the ancient Doctors; and, our B. Fisher goes so far in the acknowledgment of the newness hereof, that he hath run into the censure of late Jesuits.

Just and warrantable is that challenge of learned Chemnitius, that no testimony can be produced of any Father, or of any ancient Church, that either such doctrine, or practice of such Indulgences, was ever in use, until towards one thousand two hundred years after Christ. after Christ. Talium Indulgentiarum: some, there were, in the time immediately foregoing; but such as now, they were not. Besides Eugenius's time, which was too near the verge, (for the words of Chemnitius ** are, Per annos fermè mille ducentos, "For well near a thousand two hundred years:") Bellarmin instances in the Third Council of Lateran, about the year 1116; wherein Pope Paschal the Second gave Indulgences of forty days to those,

* Histor. Concil. Trid. I. i.

De Invent. Rer. lib. viii. c. 1.

† De Vanit. Scient. c. 16.

§ Dies Indulgentiarum referuntur ad pœnitentias pro vitá injunctas. Gers. Reg. Moral.

Greg. de Val. et Bell. 1. ii. de Indulgent.
Chemn. Exam, de Indulgen. c. 4.

** Ibid.

which visited the threshold of the Apostles. But, it must be considered, that we must take this upon the bare word of Conradus Urspergensis. Secondly, that this Indulgence of his is no other but a relaxation of canonical penance: for he adds, which Bellarmin purposely concealeth, iis, qui de capitalibus, &c: "to those, that should do penance for capital sins, he released forty days' penance:" so as this instance helps nothing. Neither are the rest, which he hath raked together within the compass of a few preceding years, of any other alloy.

Neither hath that Cardinal offered to cite one Father for the proof of this practice; the birth whereof was many hundred years after their expiration but cunningly shifts it off with a cleanly excuse *; Neque mirum &c: "Neither may it seem strange, if we have not many ancient Authors, that make mention of these things in the Church, which are preserved only by use, not by writing.'

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So he.

He says, "Not many authors:" he shews not one. And, if many matters of rite have been traduced to the Church, without notice of pen or press; yet, let it be shewn what one doctrine or practice of such importance, as this is pretended to be, hath escaped the report and maintenance of some ecclesiastic writer or other, and we shall willingly yield it in this.

Till then, we shall take this but for a mere colour; and resolve, that our honest Roffensis deals plainly with us: who tells us, Quamdiu nulla fuerat de Purgatorio cura, &c: "So long as there was no care of Purgatory, no man sought after Indulgences; for, upon that, depends all the opinion of Pardons. If you take away Purgatory, wherefore should we need Pardons? Since, therefore, Purgatory was so lately known and received of the whole Church, who can marvel concerning Indulgences, that there was no use of them in the beginning of the Church? Indulgences then began, after men had trembled somewhile at the torments of a Purgatory."

Thus, their Martyr, not partially for us, but ingenuously out of the power of truth, professes the novelty of two great Articles of the Roman Creed; Purgatory and Indulgences.

Indeed, both these now hang on one string: although there was a kind of Purgatory dreamed of, before their Pardons came into play. That device peeped out fearfully from Origen; and pulled in the head again, as in St. Austin's time t, doubting to shew it: Tale aliquod &c: "That there is some such thing," saith he, "after this life, it is not utterly incredible, and may be made a question." And, elsewhere, "I reprove it not; for it may, perhaps, be true.” And, yet again, as retracting what he had yielded, he resolves; "Let no man deceive himself, my brethren: there are but two places, and a third there is none." Before whom St. Cyprian is

*Bell. lib. ii. de Indulgent. c. 17.

† Aug. Enchir. c. 69. De Civit. Dei. 1. xxi. c. 26. Quicquid sit quod illo significatur, Sum Abrahæ. Confess. 1. ix. c. 3. Serm. de Temp. 232. Qui cum Christo regnare non meruerit, cum Diabolo absque dubitatione peribit, &c. Ibid. And the like, De Civitate Dei. 1. xxi. cap. 25.