CHAP.
XII.

[St. John

of idolaters,

therefore

not of the papists.]

CHAPTER XII.

[THE PAPISTS NOT NECESSARILY IDOLATERS BY THEIR RELIGION:
AND WHAT IDOLATRY IS.]

My last argument is the second part of my position:prophesies that the persecutors, whereof St. John prophesieth, were idolaters; the papists necessarily, by the religion they profess, are not. This is indeed made the argument, why the pope should be antichrist, here foretold. But it would have become those, that undertake this, to say first what idolatry is; if they would not fight with shadows. For when they say, that all religious worship of the creature is idolatry; it is manifest, that the prime object of religious worship, which is both the formal and material object, both the thing that is worshipped and the reason why it is worshipped, is only God. But it is as manifest, that a creature (for instance, a saint upon earth) may be honoured for religion's sake and no idolatry committed. And to call this civil worship, is to do violence to common sense; which owns no civil relation for the ground of this honour or worship. Besides, there are three religions on foot besides Heathenism; Judaism, Mahumetism, and Christianity. And do not the Jews worship the book of their Law, the Mahumetans their Alcoran, in their mosques and synagogues; and yet think themselves as far from idolatry, as they that make the pope antichrist for it? Indeed, when I name other religions beside Christianity, I do it with an abatement, understanding only false religions. And so I do of the religion of the papists: either in worshipping the cross of Christ, His images, and the elements of the eucharist; or in worshipping the saints, their relics and images.

[Papists not idolaters.]

§ 2. But I say not therefore, that they are idolaters: for then they should be apostates to heathenism, no Christians, incapable of salvation, no Church; which those, that grant them to be, and would have them idolaters, contradict them

Epilogue, Bk. III. Of the Laws of the Ch., c. xxxi. § 57; and Conclusion, § 42: Just Weights and Measures, c. i. § 1-6; c. ii. § 4.-And see More,

Antidote to Idolatry, c. i. Works, p. 774, and elsewhere.

e See Bellarmine as quoted in Epilogue, Bk. III. ibid. § 12. note n.

XII.

selves. But I would distinguish between that, which is re- CHAP. ligion for the nature of it, and that, which is morally religious, as commanded by that Christianity which God commandeth. And I would reserve myself another place', to say, why I count not the worship of the cross, images, relics, and the eucharist, religious in this sense, which the Church of Rome requires; though I count it not idolatry.

a creature,

try.]

§ 3. In the mean time, neither do I yield to them, that say, [All worship of all worship of God by the means of a creature is idolatry. God by For I see, that all men worship God by the images that they means of know Him by, in their own senses. Nor does it avail to say, not idolathat they worship not those images, and God by them, as they intend for without doubt they do; and that most evidently, when their worship is irreligious. All heresy and schism is the worship of men's own imaginations: as St. Hierome shews in expounding the prophets; always making the spiritual sense of all, that they speak against the worship of Jeroboam's calves, to rest in the heretics and schismatics of the Christian Church. And we have a sermon of Lancelot, late Lord Bishop of Winchester, against worshipping our own imaginations". Nay, our Lord Christ says of the Samaritans, "Ye worship ye know not what, we know what we worship" (John iv. 22); when it is well known, the Samaritans worshipped the same true God as the Jews, but as heretics and schismatics. And this indeed is spiritual idolatry, forbidden by the mystical sense of the second commandment; but nothing to our purpose, concerning carnal idolatry.

§ 4. And, therefore, not to refute anybody but to declare [What is the truth, I say, that idolatry is the worship of the creature idolatry.] for God; and that this cannot be done, till a man takes the creature to be God; nor that, till he think there are or may be more gods than one'. Only, when I say a creature, I mean, that, if a thing may be imagined to be a creature and yet be none, it may also be imagined to be a god and yet [be] none: and so it is made an idol, and to worship it is idolatry. And

Below in c. xlii.

See Disc. of Forbearance or Penalties &c., c. xxvii. note k.

Sermon on 2nd Commandment, preached Jan. 9, 1592; being the second of Certain Sermons preached at sundry times upon several occasions;

in Bp. Andrewes' Sermons, vol. v. pp.
54, sq. Svo. Oxf. 1843.

See Epilogue, Bk. III. Of the
Laws of the Ch., cc. xxvi., xxxi.: Just
Weights and Measures, c. i. § 6: and
below, c. xiii. § 7, note v.

XII.

CHA P. so it is said in the Psalm, xcvi. 5, " All the gods of the nations are idols;" that is, imaginary gods, or images of imaginary gods. And xcvii. 7: "Confounded be all they that worship graven images, that boast themselves of idols;" or, as in the other translation, "that delight in vain gods:" for this will extend to the images of things, that never were, and may be worshipped. And since this definition cannot fit anything the papists do, marvel not that I suffer not the breach to seem irreconcileable upon a false cause, the truth whereof must open the point of reformation to ourselves.

[Worship

charist, and

object is Christ.]

CHAPTER XIII.

[WORSHIP OF THE EUCHARIST, AND OF THE CROSS AND IMAGES OF christ, AND REVERENCE PAID TO IMAGES OF SAINTS, NOT NECESSARILY IDOLATRY; ALTHOUGH UNJUSTIFIABLE.]

THE reason is plain, then, why idolatry is not committed of the eu- in worshipping the elements of the eucharist, the cross and the like, not images of Christ;-because the worship of them is the woridolatry, because its ship of the true God, which is our Lord Christ;-according to the saying of St. Basil, arguing, that our Lord Christ being the image of God is to be worshipped as God, "because the honour of the image endeth in the prototype." For the reason is the same in the elements of the eucharist and the cross of Christ. The ground of this reason is taken from the received opinion of divines: that the inward action of inclination and the outward action of execution are both one and the same sin; several actions indeed as to their nature, but morally one and the same. For the intention of the mind, necessarily looking upon our Lord Christ, whensoever any sign of worship is tendered to those things, necessarily makes our Lord Christ the object of it; the cross, or the image, or the clements of the eucharist, only determining the circumstance of time and place and manner, in which the mind is stirred to perform it.

[Distinc

§ 2. I know, that the Greeks themselves, when they detions made creed the worship of images in the seventh council, do proQuoted in Epilogue, Bk. III. Of the Laws of the Ch., c. xxxi. § 46, note h.

by the

XIII.

and by the

fess the worship, which they tender to the image or cross, CHA P. not to be the same, which they tender to the principal; but second an inferior reverence, suitable to it. I know our school Nicene doctors and disputers of controversies, affecting to hold them Council, on the highest terms and furthest from the heretics, will schoolneeds go beyond the council' (somem say, because they know doctors.] not the acts of it); and have the worship of them to be specifically the same with the worship of the principal, only secondarily and accidentally". As if they were ambitious to bring the people as near idolatry as is possible, because the heretics would be as far from it.

saved from

taking, or

§ 3. But, contradicting themselves, they avoid being idola- [Both ters. For it is not possible, that the worship of God should idolatry, be tendered secondarily or accidentally; because it is not by mispossible to be God secondarily or accidentally, as the Gentiles by contradicting imagined secondary gods. And since this profession is of the themsubstance of Christianity, they, that hold Christianity and selves.] say this, must be said to hold contradictions. As for that inferior honour, which the council introduces, it proves only a mistake in divinity; as hath been declared. It is no more than this, that they make the cross and images of Christ, and so the elements of the eucharist, the object of that worship, which is given our Lord Christ before them; being only the circumstance or occasion, determining the time and place of tendering it. And so, proportionably, my meaning is of the saints, and of their images and relics.

of the eu

§ 4. I do not now justify the worship tendered to the ele- [Worship ments of the eucharist; no more than I justify transub- charist stantiation, which it is tendered to signify. Only I say, that need not be idolatry, they, who believe not transubstantiation, taking the presence even alof the elements for a circumstance occasioning the worship of our Lord Christ the true God, shall not be idolaters in lieving tendering it.

not be

transubstantia

§ 5. I say not, that the Church did well in tendering the tion.] cross to the people on Good Friday to be worshipped. But Worship I do not therefore grant, that it makes them idolaters, that not idola

See Epilogue, ibid. § 42-46.

1 See ibid. § 47-49.

m See ibid. § 55.

a See ibid. § 47, notes j, k.

See ibid., § 44, 45; Just Weights

and Measures, c. xix. § 4.

P See Epilogue, ibid. § 1-10.

See ibid., c. ii. § 1-7.

See ibid., § 48: and Bramhall,
Answ. to La Millet., Works, Pt. i.

Disc. i. vol. i. p. 46. note z.

of the cross

XIII.

try, although not to be defended.]

CHAP. do it any more than Helena the mother of Constantine, whom St. Ambrose excuses, that, out of joy that she had found it, she worshipped its; not meaning the wood, as did the Gentiles, but our Lord. This, I suppose, was the beginning of this custom. I say not, that Christians did well to set up the images of our Lord to be worshipped. As I believe Constantine did set them up instead of the images of the heathen gods in the standards of his armiest; that so bringing the soldiers to pay those devotions to our Lord Christ, which formerly they paid to their idol gods, he might by that means bring them to Christianity. But I say not, therefore, that he continued them idolaters.

[Origin of

tice of wor

shipping images.]

§ 6. I doubt not but idolatry was committed to the images the prac- of heathen emperors; and that, when the Christians found no danger of it left, they advanced the images, not only of our Lord Christ, but of His saints, which even the emperors reverenced. I make no question, but it will appear to all, that shall study the histories of the Church for truth and not for partiality; that the reverence first given to the images of our Lord, and the saints, came first from that reverence which the Gentile Romans paid to the images of their emperors, if they would not stand suspected crimine majestatis" : for Christians were flattered with an appearance of religion, and the honour of Christianity, in honouring them as the heathen did their emperors, by whom they were honoured. Now they did not necessarily honour their emperors for gods; though as many as would did. And, Christ being reputed the only true God, and the saints His favourites, they thought

De obitu Theodos. Oratio, § 4348; Op. tom. ii. pp. 1210. A—1211. D.

The cross certainly became the standard of Constantine's armies (see the account of the labarum in Eusebius, De Vit. Constant., lib. ii. cc. 6, 7, p. 417): and mention is made repeatedly by Eusebius of images of Constantine himself in his own palace. representing him as bearing a cross. But of images of our Lord there is not a word. See Chemnitz, Hist. Conc. Trid., P. iv. § de Imag., pp. 15, 28. 29.

"Compare e. g. S. Ambrose, In Psalın. exviii. Expositio, Serm. x. § 25, 26 (Op. tom. i. p. 1095. D, E): "Qui enim coronat imaginem imperatoris, utique illum honorat cujus ima

:

ginem coronavit: et qui statuam contemserit imperatoris, imperatori utique cujus statuam consputaverit, fecisse videtur injuriam: Gentiles lignum adorant, quia Dei imaginem putant," &c. "vides ergo quia inter multas Christi imagines" (scil. the poor)" ambulamus." Such honour was offered to the statues of even Christian emperors until prohibited by the younger Theodosius (Cod. tit. iv. lege unica, quoted by Benedictine editors on S. Ambrose). A passage from S. Athanasius to the same effect with that of S. Ambrose is cited by Chemnitz (Exam. Decret. Conc. Trid., P. iii. De Inagin., p. 26. b). See also Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, art. Diocletien, tom. iv. p.

60.