HOMILY AGAINST THE PERIL OF IDOLATRY

from Short-Title Catalogue 13675. Renaissance Electronic Texts 1.1.
Short-Title Catalogue 13675. Renaissance Electronic Texts 1.1.
copyright 1994 Ian Lancashire (ed.) University of Toronto

Edited to 2003 American English by Curtis I. Caldwell on 31 March 2003.
Revised 14 August 2004.

A HOMILY AGAINST THE
PERIL OF IDOLATRY, 
AND THE SUPERFLUOUS DECORATING OF CHURCHES

Against Peril of Idolatry.
[Title from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, Episcopal Church USA,
Articles of Religion Article XXXV, Of the Homilies]

First part. In what points the true ornaments of the church or temple of God consist and stand, has been declared in the two last homilies, entreating of the right use of the temple or house of God, and of the due reverence that all true Christian people are bound to give to them. The summary is that the church or house of God is a place appointed by the Holy Scriptures, where the lively word of God ought to be read, taught, and heard, the Lord's holy name called upon by public prayer, hearty thanks given to his majesty for his infinite and unspeakable benefits bestowed upon us, his holy sacraments duly and reverently administered, and that therefore all that are godly indeed ought, both with diligence at times appointed, to go often together to the church, and there with all reverence to use the church and behave themselves before the Lord. And that the church, thus used in a godly manner by the servants of the Lord, in the Lord's true service, for the effectual presence of God's grace, through which He does by his holy word and promises, endue his people there present and assembled, to the attainment of worldly benefits necessary for us, as also of all heavenly gifts, and life everlasting, is called by the word of God (as it is indeed) the "temple of the Lord", and the "house of God", and that therefore due reverence  is stirred up in the hearts of the godly, by the consideration of these true ornaments of the house of God, and not by any outward ceremonies, or costly and glorious decorating of the house or temple of the Lord, contrary to the most manifest doctrine of the scriptures, and contrary to the usage of the primitive church which was most pure and uncorrupt, and contrary to the sentences and judgments of the most ancient, learned and godly teachers of the church (as hereafter shall appear), the corruption of these latter days has brought into the church infinite number of images, and the same, with other parts of the temple also, have decked with gold and silver, painted with colors, set with stone and pearl, clothed with silks and precious vestures, fancying untruly that to be the chief decorating and adorning of the temple or house of God, and that all people should be more moved to the due reverence of the same, if all corners thereof were glorious, and glistering with gold and precious stones. Whereas indeed they, by the images, and such glorious decorating of the temple, have nothing at all profited, such as were wise and of understanding, but have thereby greatly hurt the simple and unwise, occasioning them thereby to commit most horrible idolatry. And the covetous persons by the same occasion, seeming to worship, and perhaps worshipping indeed, not only the images, but also the matter of them, gold and silver, as that vice is of all others in the scriptures peculiarly called idolatry or worshipping of images (Ephesians 5:5, Colossians 3:5). Against the foul abuses and great enormities shall be alleged unto you, first the authority of God's holy word, as well out of the Old Testament, as of the New Testament. And secondly, the testimonies of the holy and ancient learned fathers and teachers, out of their own works and ancient  ecclesiastical histories, both that you may at once know their judgments, and on account of this understand what manner of ornaments were in the temples in the primitive church in those times, which were most pure and sincere. Thirdly, the reasons and arguments made for the defense of images or idols, and the outrageous decorating of temples and churches with gold, silver, pearl, and precious stone, shall be confuted, and so this whole matter concluded. But lest any should take occasion by the way, of doubting by words or names, it is thought good here to note first of all that although in common speech we use to call the likeness or resemblances of men or other things images, and not idols, yet the scriptures use the two words (idols and images) indifferently for one thing always. They are words of diverse tongues and sounds, but one in sense and meaning in the scriptures. The one is taken from the Greek word (ed. note: probably eikwn (εικων)), an idol, and the other of the Latin word Imago, an image. And so both used as English terms in the translating of scriptures indifferently, according as the Septuagint have in their translation in Greek, (ed. note: probably , eidwlon (ειδωλον)), and St. Jerome in his translation of the same places in Latin has Simulachra, in English, images. And in the New Testament, that which St. John calls eidwlon, St. Jerome likewise translates Simulachrum, as in all other like places of scripture usually he does so translate (1 John 5:21). And St. Jerome, a most ancient doctor, and well learned in both the tongues, Greek and Latin, interpreting this place of St. John, "Beware of idols", that is to say (said St. Jerome) of the images themselves, the Latin words which he uses, are effigies and imago, to say, an image (St. Jerome, Liber de Corona Militis). And therefore it does not matter, whether in this process we use one term or the other, or both together, seeing they both (though not in common English speech, yet in scripture) signify one thing. And though some to blind men's eyes, have heretofore craftily gone about to make them to be taken for words of different meaning in matters of religion, and have therefore usually named the likeness or resemblance of a thing set up amongst the heathen in their temples or other places to be worshipped, an idol. But the like resemblance with us, set up in the church, the place of worshipping, they call an image, as though these two words (idol and image) in scripture, did differ in propriety and sense, which as is aforesaid) differ only in sound and language, and in meaning is in deed all one, especially in the scriptures and matters of religion. And our images also have been, and are, and if they are publicly permitted in churches and temples, ever will be also worshipped, and so idolatry committed to them, as in the last part of this homily shall at large be declared and proved. Wherefore our images in temples and churches, are in deed none other but idols, as unto the which idolatry has been, is, and ever will be committed.

And first of all, the scriptures of the Old Testament, condemning and abhorring as well all idolatry or worshipping of images, as also the very idols or images themselves, especially in temples, are so many and plentiful, that it were almost an infinite work, and to be contained in no small volume, to record all the places concerning the same. For when God had chosen to himself a peculiar and special people from among all other nations that knew not God, but worshipped idols and false gods, he gave unto them certain ordinances and laws to be kept and observed by his people. But concerning no other matter did he give either more, or more earnest and express laws to his people, than those that concerned the true worshipping of him, and avoiding and fleeing of idols and images, and idolatry. Idolatry is most repugnant to the right worshipping of him and his true glory, above all other vices, and that he knew the proneness and inclination of man's corrupt kind and nature, to that most odious and abominable vice. Of the ordinances and laws, so given by the Lord to his people concerning that matter, I will recite and allege some that are most special for this purpose, that you by them may judge of the rest.

In the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy is a notable place, and most worthy with all diligence to be marked, which begins thus: "And now Israel hear the commandments and judgments which I teach you (said the Lord), that by doing them, you might live and enter and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers will give you. You shall add nothing to the word which I speak to you; neither shall you take anything from it. Keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you" (Deuteronomy 4:1-2, Numbers 22:18, 35, 38). And by and by, he repeats the same sentence three or four times, before he comes to the matter that he would especially warn them of, as it were for a preface, to make them to better heed it. Take heed to yourself (said he), and to your soul, with all carefulness, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and that they go not out of your heart all the days of your life. You shall teach them to your children and nephews, or posterity. And shortly after, the Lord spoke to you out of the middle of fire; you heard the voice or sound of his words, but you saw no form or shape at all. And by and by follows, "Take heed therefore diligently unto your souls. You saw no manner of image in the day in the which the Lord spoke unto you in Horeb, out of the midst of the fire, lest perhaps, you being deceived, should make for yourselves any graven image or likeness of man or woman, or the likeness of any beast which is upon the earth, or of the birds that flee under heaven, or of any creeping thing that moves on the earth, or of the fishes that continue in the waters: least perhaps you lifting up your eyes to heaven, see the sun and the moon, and the stars of heaven, and so you, being deceived by error, should honor and worship them which the Lord your God has created to serve all nations that are under heaven." And again: "Beware that you forget not the covenant of the Lord your God which he made with you, and so make to yourself any carved image of them which the Lord has forbidden to be made. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire and a jealous God. If you have children and nephews, and tarry in the land and, being deceived, make for yourselves an image, doing evil before the Lord your God, and provoke him to anger, I do this day call upon heaven and earth to witness, that you shall quickly perish out of the land which you shall possess. You shall not dwell in it any long time, but the Lord will destroy you and will scatter you amongst all nations, and you shall remain but a very few among the nations, whither the Lord will lead you away, and then shall you serve gods which are made with man's hands, of wood and stone, which see not, and hear not, neither eat nor smell, and so forth. This is an important chapter, and entreats almost altogether of this matter. But because it is too long to write out the whole text. I have noted certain principal points out of it. First, how earnestly and often he calls upon them to mark and to take heed, and that upon the peril of their souls, to the command which he gives them. Then how he forbids, by a solemn and long rehearsal of all things in heaven, in earth, and in the water, any image or likeness of anything at all to be made. Thirdly, what penalty and horrible destruction, he solemnly, with invocation of heaven and earth, for record, denounces and threatens to them, their children and posterity if they, contrary to this commandment, make or worship any images or resemblance, which he so directly has forbidden. And when they, this notwithstanding, partly by inclination of man's corrupt nature most prone to idolatry, and partly occasioned by the gentiles and heathen people dwelling about them, who were idolaters, did fall to making and worshipping images, God, according to his word, brought upon them all those plagues which he threatened them with, as appears in the books of the Kings and the Chronicles, in various places at large. And agreeable hereunto are many other notable places in the Old Testament, (Deuteronomy 27) "Cursed be he that makes a carved image, or a cast or molten image, which is abomination before the Lord, the work of the artificer's hand, and sets it up in a secret corner, and all the people shall say, Amen."

Read the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of the Book of Wisdom concerning idols or images, how they are made, set up, called upon, and offered unto, and how he praises the tree whereof the gallows is made, as happy, in comparison to the tree that an image or idol is made of, even by these very words, "Happy is the tree where thorough righteousness comes (meaning the gallows), but cursed is the idol that is made with hands, yea, both it, and he that made it," and so forth (Apocrypha. Wisdom 14:7-8). And by and by he shows how that the things which were the good creatures of God before (as trees or stones), when they are once altered and fashioned into images to be worshipped, become abomination, a temptation to the souls of men, and a snare for the feet of the unwise. And why? The seeking out of images is the beginning of whoredom (said he), and the bringing up of them is the destruction of life. For they were not from the beginning, neither shall they continue forever. The wealthy idleness of men has found them out upon earth; therefore shall they come shortly to an end, and so forth to the end of the chapter, containing these points. Now idols or images were first invented, and offered unto. By an ungracious custom they were established, tyrants compel men to worship them, the ignorant and the common people are deceived by the cunning of the workman, and the beauty of the image, to do honor unto it, and so err from the knowledge of God, and of other great and many mischiefs that come by images. And for a conclusion he said that the honoring of abominable images is the cause, the beginning, and end of all evil, and that the worshippers of them are either mad, or most wicked. See and view the whole chapter with diligence, for it is worthy to be well considered, especially that which is written about the deceiving of the simple and unwise common people by idols and images, and repeated twice or thrice lest it should be forgotten. And in the following chapter are these words: "The painting of the picture, and carved image with diverse colors, entices the ignorant so that he honors and loves the picture of a dead image that has no soul" (Apocrypha. Wisdom 15:4-5). Nevertheless, they that love such evil things, they that trust in them, they that make them, they that favor them, and they that honor them, are all worthy of death, and so forth.

In the Book of Psalms in several places, the prophet curses those who honor images. Confounded are all they who worship carved images, and who delight or glory in them (Psalms 97:7, 96:5, 115:8). They are like the images that make them, and all they that put their trust in them (Psalms 135:15, 18). And in the prophet Isaiah, said the Lord: "Even I am the Lord, and this is my Name, and my glory will I give to none other, neither my honor to graven images" (Isaiah 42:8). And by and by: "Let those be confounded with shame who trust in idols or images, or say to them, you are our gods". And in the 11th chapter, after he has set forth the incomprehensible majesty of God, he asks, "To whom then will you make God like? Or what resemblance will you set up unto him" (Isaiah 40:18)? Shall the carver make him a carved image? Shall the goldsmith cover him with gold, and cast him into a form of silver plates? For the poor man, shall the image maker frame an image of timber, that he may have somewhat to set up also? And after this he cries out: "O wretches, heard you never of this? Has it not been preached unto you since the beginning, and so forth, how by the creation of the world, and the greatness of the work", (Isaiah 40:21) they might understand the majesty of God, the creator and maker of all, to be greater than that it should be expressed, or set forth in any image or bodily resemblance? And besides this preaching, even in the law of God written with his own finger (as the Scripture speaks) and that in the first table, and the beginning thereof, is this doctrine aforesaid against images (not briefly touched) but at length set forth and preached, and that with denunciation of destruction to those who treat this law with contempt, and breakers of this law, and their posterity after them (Exodus 20:4). And lest it should yet not be marked or not remembered, the same is written and reported not in one, but in various places of the word of God, that by often reading and hearing of it, we might once learn and remember it, as you also hear daily read in the church, God spoke these words, and said, "I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods but me. You shall not make to your self any graven image, nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, nor in the earth beneath, nor in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, nor worship them. For I the Lord your God am a jealous God, and visit the sin of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, and show mercy unto thousands in those who love me and keep my commandments" (Exodus 20:1-6, Leviticus 26:13, Deuteronomy 5:6-10). All this notwithstanding, neither could the importance of the place, being at the very beginning of the very loving Lord's law, make us to mark it, nor the plain declaration by recounting of all kind of resemblances, cause us to understand it, nor the often repeating and reporting of it in diverse and various places, the frequent reading and hearing of it could cause us to remember it, nor the dread of the horrible penalty to our selves, our children, and posterity after us, fear us from transgressing of it, nor the greatness of the reward to us and our children after us, move us anything to obedience, and the observing of this the Lord's great law. But as though it had been written in some corner, and not extensively expressed, but briefly and obscurely touched, as though no penalty to the transgressors, nor reward to the obedient, had been adjoined unto it, like blind men without all knowledge and understanding, like unreasonable beasts, without dread of punishment or respect of reward, have diminished and dishonored the high majesty of the living God by the baseness and vileness of various and diverse images of dead stocks, stones, and metals.

Places of the Scripture against idols or images. As the majesty of God, whom we have left, forsaken, and dishonored, and therefore the greatness of our sin and offence against his majesty, cannot be expressed, so is the weakness, vileness, and foolishness, in device of the images (whereby we have dishonored him) expressed at large in the Scriptures, namely the Psalms, the Book of Wisdom, the prophet Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Baruch, especially in these places and chapters of them: Psalms 115:8, 135:15, Apocrypha: Wisdom 13, 14, 15, Isaiah 40:18, 44:9, and Ezekiel 6:13. These places, as I exhort you often and diligently to read, are too long at this moment to be rehearsed in a homily. Notwithstanding, I will make you certain brief or short notes out of them, about what they say of these idols or images. First, that they are made but of small pieces of wood, stone, or metal, and therefore they cannot be any resemblances of the great majesty of God, whose seat is heaven, and the earth his footstool. Secondarily, that they are dead, have eyes and see not, hands and feel not, feet and cannot go, etc. and therefore they cannot be fit resemblances of the living God. Thirdly, that they have no power to do good nor harm to others, though some of them have an axe, some a sword, some a spear in their hands, yet thieves come into their temples and rob them, and they cannot once stir to defend themselves from the thieves. If the temple or church be set afire, their priests can run away and save themselves, but the idols cannot once move, but tarry still like blocks as they are, and are burned, and therefore they can be no apt figures of the powerful and mighty God, who alone is able both to save his servants and to destroy his enemies everlastingly. They are trimly decked in gold, silver, and stone, the images of men, as well as of women, like wanton wenches (said the prophet Baruch) that love paramours, and therefore can they not teach us, nor our wives and daughters any soberness, modesty, and chastity (Ezekiel 6:9-11). And therefore, although it is now commonly said that they are the laymen's books, yet we see they teach no good lesson, neither of God, nor godliness, but all error and wickedness. Therefore God by his word, as he forbids any idols or images to be made or set up, so does he command such as we find made and set up to be pulled down, broken, and destroyed.

And so forth to the chapter's end, worthy with diligence to be read, that those who are near shall perish with the sword, they that are far off, with the pestilence, they that flee into holds or wilderness, with hunger. And if any are yet left, that they shall be carried away prisoners to servitude and bondage. So that if either the multitude, or plainness, of the places might make us to understand, or the earnest charge that God gives in those places move us to regard, or the horrible plagues, punishments, and dreadful destruction, threatened to such worshippers of images or idols, setters up, or maintainers of them, might engender any fear in our hearts, we would once leave and forsake this wickedness, being in the Lord's sight so great an offence and abomination. Infinite places almost might be brought out of the scriptures of the Old Testament concerning this matter, but these few at this time shall serve for all.

You will say perhaps these things pertain to the Jews, what have we to do with them? Indeed they pertain no less to us Christians, than to them. For if we are the people of God, how can the word and law of God not pertain to us? Saint Paul, citing one text out of the Old Testament, concludes generally for other scriptures of the Old Testament as well as that, saying, "Whatever is written before (meaning in the Old Testament) is written for our instruction" (Romans 15:4). Which sentence is most especially true of such writings of the Old Testament, as contain the immutable law and ordinances of God, in no age or time to be altered, nor of any persons of any nations or age to be disobeyed, such as the above reported places are. Notwithstanding, for your further satisfying herein, according to my promise, I will, out of the scriptures of the New Testament or Gospel of our Savior Christ, likewise make a confirmation of the doctrine against idols or images, and of our duty concerning the same. First the scriptures of the New Testament do in various places make mention with rejoicing, as for a most excellent benefit and gift of God, that those who received the faith of Christ were turned from their dumb and dead images to the true and living God, who is to be blessed for ever. Namely in these places, the 14th and 17th chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, the eleventh chapter to the Romans, the twelfth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, the fourth chapter of Galatians, and the first chapter of the first epistle to the Thessalonians.

And likewise, idols, images, and worshipping of them are, in the scriptures of the New Testament, by the spirit of God much abhorred and detested, and earnestly forbidden, as appears both in the previously named places, and also many others besides, as in the seventh, and fifteenth chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, the first chapter to the Romans, where is set forth the horrible plague of idolaters, given over by God into a reprobate sense to work all wickedness and abominations not to be spoken, as usually spiritual and carnal fornication go together.

In the first epistle to the Corinthians, the fifth chapter, we are forbidden to keep company or to eat and drink with such as are called brethren or Christians that worship images. In Galatians 5:20, the worshipping of images is numbered among the works of the flesh. In 1 Corinthians 10:19-20, it is called the service of devils, and those who do it shall be destroyed. And in 1 Corinthians 6:9, and Galatians 5:20-21, is denounced, that such image worshippers shall never come into the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven. And in various other places is threatened, that the wrath of God shall come upon all such people. And therefore Saint John, in 1 John 5:21, exhorts us as his dear children to beware of images. And Saint Paul warns us to flee from the worshipping of them if we are wise, that is to say, if we care for health, and fear destruction if we regard the kingdom of God and life everlasting, and dread the wrath of God and everlasting damnation (1 Corinthians 10:14). For it is not possible that we should be worshippers of images, and the true servants of God also, as St. Paul teaches, in 2 Corinthians 6:16, affirming expressly that there can be no more consent or agreement between the temple of God (which all true Christians are) and images, than between righteousness and unrighteousness, between light and darkness, between the faithful and the unfaithful, or between Christ and the devil. Which place enforces both that we should not worship images, and that we should not have images in the temple, for fear and occasion of worshipping them, though they are of themselves things indifferent. For the Christian is the holy temple and lively image of God, as the place well declares, to such as will read and weigh it. And whereas all godly men did ever abhor that any kneeling and worshipping or offering should be done to themselves when they were alive (for that it was the honor due to God only), as shown in the Acts of the Apostles by St. Peter forbidding it by Cornelius (Acts 10:25-26), and by St. Paul and Barnabas forbidding the same by the citizens in Lystra (Acts 14:14-15). Yet we like mad men fall down before the dead idols or images of Peter and Paul, and give that honor to stocks and stones which they thought abominable, to be given to themselves being alive. And the good angel of God, as appears in the book of St. John's Revelation, refused to be kneeled unto, when that honor was offered him by John: "Beware (said the angel) that you do it not, for I am your fellow servant." But the evil angel Satan desires nothing so much as to be kneeled unto, and thereby at once both to rob God of his due honor, and to work the damnation of those who curtsey low to him, as in the story of the Gospel appears in various places. Yes, and he offered our Savior Christ all earthly goods on the condition that Jesus would kneel down and worship him (Matthew 4:9, Luke 4:7). But our Savior repels Satan by the scriptures, saying, "It is written: you shall worship your Lord God, and him alone shall you serve." But we, by not worshipping and serving God alone (as the scriptures teach us), and by worshipping of images, contrary to the scriptures, pluck Satan to us, and are ready without reward to follow his desire. Yes, rather than fail, we will offer him gifts and oblations to receive our service. But let us, brethren, rather follow the counsel of the good angel of God than the suggestion of subtle Satan, that wicked angel and old serpent, who according to the pride whereby he first fell, attempts always by such sacrilege to deprive God (whom he envies) of his due honor, and (because his own face is horrible and ugly) to convey it to himself by the mediation of gilt stocks and stones, and on account of this to make us the enemies of God, and his own suppliants and slaves, and in the end to procure us for the reward of everlasting destruction and damnation. Therefore above all things, if we call ourselves Christians indeed (as we are named), let us credit the word, obey the law, and follow the doctrine and example of our savior and master Christ, repelling Satan's suggestion to idolatry and worshipping of images, according to the truth alleged and taught from the Testament and Gospel of our heavenly doctor and schoolmaster Jesus Christ, who is God to be blessed for ever, amen.

The second part of the Homily against peril of Idolatry.

You have heard (well beloved) in the first part of this homily, the doctrine of the word of God against idols and images, against idolatry and worshipping of images, taken out of the scriptures of the Old Testament and the New Testament, and confirmed by the examples of the apostles as well as by our Savior Christ himself. Now although our Savior Christ takes not, or needs not any testimony of men, and that which is once confirmed by the certainty of his eternal truth has no more need of the confirmation of man's doctrine and writings, than the bright sun at noon has need of the light of a little candle to put away darkness, and to increase his light, yet for your further satisfaction, it shall in this second part be declared (as in the beginning of the first part was promised) that this truth and doctrine concerning the forbidding of images and worshipping of them, taken out of the holy scriptures, of the Old Testament as well as the New Testament, was believed and taught of the old holy fathers, and most ancient learned doctors, and received in the old primitive church, which was most uncorrupt and pure. And this declaration shall be made from the holy doctors' own writings, and from the ancient ecclesiastical histories belonging to the same.

St. Jerome, a most ancient writer and doctor of the church, who lived about one hundred and sixty years after the death of our Savior Christ, both in various other places of his works, and especially in his book written against the manner of crowning, and in another little treatise entitled, "Of the soldier's crown or garland", do most sharply and vehemently write and inveigh against images or idols (St. Jerome, Liber contra Coronandi Morem). And upon St. John's words, the first epistle and fifth chapter, said thus, St. John (said he) deeply considering the matter, said: "My little children, keep yourselves from images or idols" (1 John 5:21). He said not merely, "keep your selves from idolatry", as it were from the service and worshipping of them, but "from the images or idols themselves", that is, from the very shape and likeness of them. For it were an unworthy thing, that the image of the living God should become the image of a dead idol. Do you not think those persons who place images and idols in churches and temples, and shrine them even over the Lord's table, even as it were of purpose to the worshipping and honoring of them, take good heed to either of St. John's counsel, or St. Jerome? For so to place images and idols is it to keep themselves from them, or else to receive and embrace them. Origen, in his book Against Celsus, said thus: "Christian men and Jews, when they hear these words of the law (You shall fear the Lord your God, and shall not make any image) do not only abhor the temples, altars, and images of the gods, but if need be, will rather die than they should defile themselves with any impiety." And shortly after he said: "In the commonwealth of the Jews, the carvers of idols and image makers were cast far off and forbidden, lest they should have any occasion to make images, which might pluck certain foolish persons from God and turn the eyes of their souls to the contemplation of earthly things." And in another place of the same book: "It is not only (said he) a mad and frantic part to worship images, but also once to dissemble or wink at it. And a man may know God and his only son, and those which have had such honor given them by God, that they are called gods. But it is not possible that any should by worshipping of images get any knowledge of God."

Athanasius, in his book Against the Gentiles, has these words: "Let them tell, I pray you, how God may be known by an image. If it is by the matter of an image, then there needs no shape or form, seeing that God has appeared in all material creatures which testify his glory." Now if they say he is known by the form or fashion, is he not better to be known by the living things themselves, whose fashions the images express? For certainly, the glory of God should be more clearly known if it were declared by reasonable and living creatures, rather than by dead and unmovable images. Therefore when you do engrave or paint images, to the end to know God thereby, surely you do an unworthy and unfit thing. And in another place of the same book he said, "The invention of images came of no good, but of evil, and whatever has an evil beginning, can never in any thing be judged good, seeing it is altogether naught." Thus far Athanasius, a very ancient, holy, and learned bishop and doctor, who judges both the first beginning and the end, and altogether of images or idols, to be naught.

Lactantius likewise, an old and learned writer, in his book of the Origin of Error, has these words, "God is above man, and is not placed beneath, but is to be sought in the highest region." Wherefore there is no doubt, but that no religion is in that place wherever any image is, for if religion stands in godly things, (and there is no godliness but in heavenly things) then images are without religion. These are Lactantius' words, who lived A.D. 260 - 330, and within three hundred years after our Savior Christ (Lactantius, Of the Origin of Error, Bk. 2, Chap. 16).

Cyril of Alexandria, an old and holy doctor, upon the Gospel of Saint John has these words, "Many have left the Creator, and have worshipped the creature. Neither have they been abashed to say unto a stock, you are my father, and unto a stone. You begot me. For many, yes, almost all (alas for sorrow) are fallen unto such folly, that they have given the glory of deity or godhead, to things without sense or feeling."

Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, a very holy and learned man, who lived during Theodosius the Emperor's time, about three hundred and ninety years after our Savior Christ's ascension, writes this to John Patriarch of Jerusalem: "I entered (said Epiphanius) into a certain church to pray. I found there a linen cloth hanging in the church door, painted, and having in it the image of Christ, as it were, or of some other saint, (for I remember not well whose image it was). Therefore when I saw the image of a man hanging in the church of Christ, contrary to the authority of the scriptures, I tore it and gave counsel to the keepers of the church that they should wrap a poor man that was dead in the cloth, and to bury him" [See footnote 7].

And afterwards, the same Epiphanius sending another unpainted cloth for that painted one which he had torn, to the Patriarch, writes thus, "I pray you desire the elders of that place to receive this cloth which I have sent by this bearer, and command them that from henceforth, no such painted cloths contrary to our religion be hanged in the church of Christ. For it becomes your goodness rather to have this care, that you take away such scrupulosity, which is unfitting for the church of Christ and offensive to the people committed to your charge." And this epistle, as worthy to be read by many, did St. Jerome himself translate into the Latin tongue.

All notable bishops were then called popes. And that you may know that St. Jerome had this holy and learned Bishop Epiphanius in most high estimation, and therefore did translate this epistle, as a writing of authority. Hear what a testimony St. Jerome gives him in another place, in his treatise against the errors of John, Bishop of Jerusalem, where he has these words: "You have (said Saint Jerome) Pope Epiphanius, who openly in his letters calls you a heretic. Surely you are not to be preferred before him, neither for age nor learning, nor godliness of life, nor by the testimony of the whole world." And shortly after, in the same treatise, said St. Jerome: "Bishop Epiphanius was ever of so great veneration and estimation, that Valens the Emperor, who was a great persecutor, did not once touch him. For heretics, being princes, thought it their shame if they should persecute such a notable man." And in the tripartite ecclesiastical history, the ninth book and 48th  chapter, is testified, that Epiphanius being yet alive did work miracles, and that after his death devils, being expelled at his grave or tomb, did roar. Thus you see what authority St. Jerome and that most ancient history give unto the holy and learned Bishop Epiphanius, whose judgment of images in churches and temples, then beginning by stealth to creep in, is worthy to be noted.

First, he judged it contrary to Christian religion and the authority of the scriptures, to have any images in Christ's church. Secondly, he rejected not only carved, graven, and molten images, but also painted images, out of Christ's church. Thirdly, that he regarded not whether it were the image of Christ or of any other saint, but being an image, would not suffer it in the church. Fourthly, that he not only removed it from the church, but with a vehement zeal tear it apart and exhorted that a corpse should be wrapped and buried in it, judging it apt for nothing but to rot in the earth, following the example of Ezekiel, who broke the brazen serpent to pieces, and burned it to ashes, for that idolatry was committed to it. Last of all, that Epiphanius thinks it the duty of vigilant bishops to be careful that no images be permitted in the church, for they are the occasion of scruple and offence to the people committed to their charge. Now whereas neither St. Jerome, who did translate the same epistle, nor the authors of that most ancient history ecclesiastical tripartite (who most highly commend Epiphanius, as is aforesaid), nor any other godly or learned bishop at that time, or shortly after, have written anything against Epiphanius' judgment concerning images, it is an evident proof that in those days, which were about four hundred years after our Savior Christ, there were no images publicly used and received in the church of Christ, which was then much less corrupt, and more pure than now it is.

And whereas images began at that time secretly and by stealth to creep out of private men's houses into the churches, and that first in painted cloths and walls, such bishops as were godly and vigilant, when they saw them, removed them away, as unlawful and contrary to Christian religion, as did here Epiphanius, to whose judgment you have not only Saint Jerome the translator of his epistle, and the writer of the history tripartite, but also all the learned and godly clerics, even the whole church of that age, and so upward to our Savior Christ's time, by the space of about four hundred years, consenting and agreeing. This is written primarily by Epiphanius; for that our image maintainers now, seeing themselves so pressed with this most plain and earnest act and writing by Epiphanius, a bishop and doctor of such antiquity and authority, labor by all means (but in vain against the truth) either to prove that this epistle was neither of Epiphanius' writing, nor Saint Jerome's translation. Either if it be, say they, it is of no great force, for this Epiphanius, say they, was a Jew, and being converted to the Christian faith, and made a bishop, retained the hatred which Jews have to images still in his mind, and so did and wrote against them as a Jew rather than as a Christian. O Jewish impudence and malice of such devisers, it would be proved, and not said only, that Epiphanius was a Jew. Furthermore, concerning the reason they make, I would admit it gladly. For if Epiphanius' judgment against images is not to be admitted because he was born of a Jew an enemy to images, which are God's enemies, converted to Christ's religion, then likewise it follows that no sentence in the old doctors and fathers advocating for images ought to be of any authority, for that in the primitive church, most of the learned writers, as St. Jerome, Cyprian, Ambrose, Austen [See footnote 8], and infinite others more, were by gentiles (who are favorers and worshippers of images) converted to the Christian faith, and so let somewhat slip out of their pens, advocating for images, rather as gentiles than Christians, as Eusebius in his History Ecclesiastical, and Saint Jerome, said plainly, that images came first from the gentiles to us Christians. And much more does it follow, that the opinion of all the rabblement of the popish church, maintaining images ought to be esteemed of small or no authority, for that it is no marvel that they who have from their childhood been brought up among images and idols, and have drunk in idolatry almost with their mothers milk, support images and idols, and speak and write for them. But in deed it would not be so much marked whether he were of a Jew or a gentile converted to Christ's religion, that writes, as how agreeable or contrary to God's word he does write, and so to credit or discredit him. Now what God's word said of idols and images, and the worshipping of them, you heard at large in the first part of this homily.

Saint Ambrose in his treatise of the death of Theodosius the Emperor said, "Helene found the cross and the title on it. She worshipped the King, and not the wood, surely (for that is a heathenish error, and the vanity of the wicked), but she worshipped him who hung on the cross, and whose name was written in the title", and so forth. See both the godly empress fact, and Saint Ambrose' judgment at once. They thought it had been a heathenish error and vanity of the wicked, to have worshipped the cross itself, which was imbrued with our Savior Christ's own precious blood. And we fall down before every cross piece of timber, which is but an image of that cross.

Saint Augustine, the best learned of all ancient doctors, in his 44th epistle to Maximus said, know you that none of the dead, nor anything that is made by God, is worshipped as God by the Catholic Christians, of whom there is a church also in your town. Note that by Saint Augustine, those who worshipped the dead, or creatures, are not Catholic Christians.

The same Saint Augustine teaches in the twelfth book of the City of God, the tenth chapter, that neither temples or churches ought to be built or made for martyrs or saints, but to God alone, and that there ought no priests to be appointed for martyr or saint, but to God only. The same Saint Augustine, in his book of the manners of the Catholic Church, has these words: "I know that many are worshippers of tombs and pictures. I know that there are many that banquet most riotously over the graves of the dead, and giving meat to dead carcasses, do bury themselves upon the buried, and attribute their gluttony and drunkenness to religion." See, he esteems "worshipping of saints' tombs and pictures as good religion" as being gluttony and drunkenness, and no better at all. Saint Augustine greatly allows Marcus Varro [see footnote 6], affirming that religion is most pure without images, and said himself: "Images are of more force to warp an unhappy soul than to teach and instruct it." And said further: "Every child, even every beast, knows that it is not God that they see." Wherefore then does the Holy Ghost so often admonish us of that which all men know? Saint Augustine answers himself thus (Augustine, Liber de Civi. Deim Chap. 43; Psalms 36 and 113) "For (said he) when images are placed in temples, and set in honorable sublimity and begin once to be worshipped, forthwith breeds the most vile affection of error." This is Saint Augustine's judgment of images in churches; that by and by they breed error and idolatry. It would be tedious to recount all other places which might be brought out of the ancient doctors against images and idolatry. Wherefore we shall hold ourselves contented with these few at this present time. Now as concerning ecclesiastical histories, touching this matter, that you may know why and when, and by whom images were first used privately, and afterwards not only received into the Christians churches and temples, but in conclusion worshipped also, and how the same was refused, resisted, and forbidden, by godly bishops and learned doctors, as well as also by various Christian princes, I will briefly collect into a compendious history that which is at large and in various places written by diverse ancient writers and historiographers concerning this matter.

As the Jews, having most plain and express commandment of God, that they should neither make nor worship any image (as it is at great length before declared) did notwithstanding, by the example of the gentiles or heathen people that dwelled about them, fall to the making of images, and worshipping of them, and so to the committing of most abominable idolatry, for which God by his holy prophets most sharply reproves and threatens them, and afterward did accomplish his threats by extreme punishing of them (as is also above specified ). Even so, some of the Christians in old time, who were converted from worshipping of idols and false gods, unto the true living God, and to our Savior Jesus Christ, did by a certain blind zeal (as men long accustomed to images) paint or carve images of our Savior Christ, his mother Mary, and of the apostles, thinking that this was a point of gratitude and kindness towards those, by whom they had received the true knowledge of God, and the doctrine of the Gospel. But these pictures or images came not yet into churches, and were not yet worshipped for a long time after. And lest you should think that I do say this of mine own head only without authority, I allege for me Eusebius, Bishop of Cesarea, and the most ancient author of the ecclesiastical history, who lived about the three hundred and thirtieth year of our Lord in the days of Constantinus Magnus (Emperor Constantine I), and his son Emperor Constantius [footnote 3], in the seventh book of his ecclesiastical history, the fourteenth chapter, and Saint Jerome upon the tenth chapter of the prophet Jeremiah, who both expressly say that the errors of images (for so Saint Jerome calls it) has come in and passed to the Christians from the gentiles by a heathenish use and custom. The cause and means Eusebius shows, saying, "It is no marvel if they who being gentiles before, and did believe, seemed to offer this as a gift to our Savior for the benefits which they had received of him", Yes, and we do see now that images of Peter and Paul, and of our Savior himself are made, and tables are painted, which I think to have been observed and kept indifferently by a heathen custom. For the heathen are accustomed to honor those whom they judged worthy of honor, for that some tokens of old men should be kept. For the remembrance of posterity is a token of their honor that was before, and the love of those that come after.

Thus far I have recounted Eusebius words. Where note you, that both Saint Jerome and he agrees herein, that these images came in among Christian men by such as were gentiles, and accustomed to idols, and being converted to the faith of Christ, retained yet some remnants of being gentile not thoroughly purged. For Saint Jerome calls it an error manifestly. And the similar example we see in the Acts of the Apostles, of the Jews, who when they were converted to Christ, would have brought in their circumcision (whereunto they were so long accustomed) with them, into Christ's religion, with whom the Apostles (namely Saint Paul) had much ado for stopping that practice (Acts 15.5). But of circumcision was less marvel, for that it came first in by God's ordinance and commandment. A man may most justly wonder of images so directly against God's holy word and straight commandment, how they should enter in. But images were not yet worshipped in Eusebius' time, nor publicly set up in churches and temples, and they who privately had them did err of a certain zeal, and not by malice, but afterwards they crept out of private houses into churches, and so bred first superstition, and last of all idolatry amongst Christians, as hereafter shall appear.

In the time of Emperors Theodosius and Martian, who reigned about the year of our Lord 460, and 1117, years ago, when the people of the city of Nola, Italy, once a year did celebrate the birth day of Saint Felix in the temple, and used to banquet there sumptuously, Pontius Paulinus Bishop of Nola caused the walls of the temple to be painted with stories taken out of the Old Testament, that the people beholding and considering those pictures, might better abstain from too much overindulgence and riot. And about the same time, Aurelius Prudentius, a very learned and Christian poet, declares how he did see painted in a church the history of the passion of Saint Cassian, a schoolmaster and martyr, whom his own scholars at the commandment of the tyrant tormented with the pricking or stabbing in front of their pointels [footnote 2] or brazen pens into his body, and so by a thousand wounds and more (as said Prudentius) most cruelly slew him. And these were the first paintings in churches that were notable of antiquity. And so by this example came in painting, and afterward images of timber and stone and other matter, into the churches of Christians. Now and you well consider this beginning, men are not so ready to worship a picture on a wall, or in a window, as an embossed and gilt image, set with pearl and stone. And a process of a story, painted with the gestures and actions of many persons, and commonly the sum of the story written thereupon, has another use in it, than one dumb idol or image standing by itself. But from learning by painted stories, it came by little and little to idolatry. Which when godly men (as well emperors and learned bishops as others) perceived, they commanded that such pictures, images, or idols, should be used no more. And I will for a declaration thereof begin with the decree of the ancient Christian emperors, Valens and Theodosius the second, who reigned about four hundred years after our Savior Christ's ascension, who forbad that any images should be made or painted privately. For certain it is, that there was none in temples publicly in their time. These emperors wrote to the captain of the army attending on the emperors, after this sort, "Emperors Valens and Theodosius, to the captain of the army: Whereas we have a diligent care to maintain the religion of God above, in all things, we will grant to no man to set forth, engrave, carve, or paint the image of our Savior Christ in colors, stone, or any other matter, but in whatever place it shall be found, we command that it be taken away, and that all such as shall attempt anything contrary to our decrees or commandment herein shall be most sharply punished." This decree is written in the books named Libri Augustales, the Imperial books, gathered by Tribonianus, Basilides, Theophilus, Dioscorus, and Satira, men of great authority and learning, at the commandment of the Emperor Justinian, and is alleged by Petrus Crinitus, a notable learned man, in the ninth book and ninth chapter of his work, entitled, De honesta disciplina, that is to say, of honest learning. Here you see what Christian princes of most ancient times decreed against images, which then began to creep in amongst the Christians. For it is certain that by the space of three hundred years and more, after the death of our Savior Christ, and before these godly emperors reigned, there were no images publicly in churches or temples. How would the idolaters glory, if they had so much antiquity and authority for them, as is here against them?

Now shortly after these days, the Goths, Vandals, Huns, and other barbarous and wicked nations burst into Italy and all parts of the West countries of Europe, with huge and mighty armies, spoiled all places, destroyed cities, and burned libraries, so that learning and true religion went to wreck, and decayed incredibly. And so the bishops of those latter days, being of less learning, and in the midst of the wars, taking less heed also than did the bishops before, by ignorance of God's word, and negligence of bishops, and especially barbarous princes, not rightly instructed in true religion bearing the rule, images came into the church of Christ in the Western parts where these barbarous people ruled, not now in painted clothes only, but embossed in stone, timber, metal, and other like matter, and were not only set up, but began to be worshipped also. And therefore Serenus Bishop of Massile [see footnote 9], the head town of Gallia Nabonensis [see footnote 10] (now called the Province), a godly and learned man, who was about six hundred years after our Savior Christ, seeing the people by occasion of images fall to most abominable idolatry, broke to pieces all the images of Christ and Saints which were in that city, and was therefore complained about to Gregory, the first of that name, Bishop of Rome, who was the first learned bishop that allowed the open possession and display of images in churches, that can be known by any writing or history of antiquity. And upon this Gregory, all image-worshippers at this day ground their defense. But as all things that are amiss, have from a tolerable beginning grown worse and worse, till they at the last became intolerable, so did this matter of images. First, men used privately stories painted in tables, clothes, and walls. Afterwards, gross and embossed images privately in their own houses. Then afterwards, pictures first, and after them embossed images began to creep into churches, learned and godly men ever speaking against them. Then by use it was openly maintained that they might be in churches, but yet forbidden that they should be worshipped. Of which opinion was Gregory, as by the said Gregory's epistle to the forenamed Serenus Bishop of Massile, plainly appears. This epistle is to be found in the Book of Epistles of Gregory, or Register, in the tenth part of the fourth epistle, where he has these words: "That you did forbid images to be worshipped, we praise altogether, but that you did break them, we blame. For it is one thing to worship the picture, and another thing by the picture of the story, to learn what is to be worshipped. For that which scripture is to those who read, the same do picture perform unto idiots or the unlearned beholding," and so forth. And after a few words: "therefore it should not have been broken, which was set up not to be worshipped in churches, but only to instruct the minds of the ignorant. And a little after, thus you should have said, 'If you will have images in the church for that instruction wherefore they were made in old time, I do permit that they may be made, and that you may have them, and show them, that not the sight of the story which is opened by the picture, but that worshipping which was inconveniently given to the pictures, did dislike you.' And if any would make images, not to forbid them, but avoid by all means to worship any image." By these sentences taken here and there out of Gregory's Epistle to Serenus (for it is too long to recount the whole) you may understand whereunto the matter was now come six hundred years after Christ, that having images or pictures in the churches were then maintained in the West part of the world (for they were not so forward yet in the East church), but the worshipping of them was utterly forbidden. And you may thereby note that seeing there is no ground for worshipping of images in Gregory's writing, but a plain condemnation thereof, that those who do worship images, do unjustly allege Gregory for them. And further, if images in the church do not teach men according to Gregory's mind, but rather blind them, it follows that images should not be in the church by his sentence, who only wished they should be placed there, to the end that they might teach the ignorant. Wherefore, if it is declared that images have been and are worshipped, and also that they teach nothing but errors and lies (which shall by God's grace hereafter be done) I trust that then by Gregory's own determination, all images and image worshippers shall be overthrown. But in the mean time, Gregory's authority was so great in all the West church, that by his encouragement, men set up images in all places. But their judgment was not so good to consider why he would have them set up, but they fell all on heaps to manifest idolatry by worshipping of them, which Bishop Serenus (not without just cause) feared would come to pass. Now if Serenus, his judgment thinking it apt that images, whereunto idolatry was committed, should be destroyed, had taken place, idolatry had been overthrown. For to that which is not, no man commits idolatry. But of Gregory's opinion, thinking that images might be suffered in churches, so it were taught that they should not be worshipped. What ruin of religion, and what mischief ensued afterward to all Christendom, experience has to our great hurt and sorrow proved. First, by the schism rising between the East and the West church about the said images. Next, by the division of the empire into two parts by the same occasion of images, to the great weakening of all Christendom, whereby last of all, has followed the utter overthrow of the Christian religion and noble empire in Greece and all the East parts of the world, and the increase of Mohammed's false religion, and the cruel dominion and tyranny of the Saracens and Turks, who do now hang over our necks also, and that dwell in the West parts of the world, ready at all occasions to overrun us. And all this do we owe to our idols and images, and our idolatry in worshipping of them.

But now listen to the process of the history, wherein I do much follow the histories of Paulus Diaconus, and others joined with Eutropius an old writer (Eutropius, Liber de Rebus Rom., 23). For though some of the authors were favorers of images, yet do they most plainly and at large prosecute the histories of those times whom Baptist Platina also in his history of Popes (Baptist Platina, Lives of Constantine and Gregory II), as in the lives of Constantine, and Gregory the second, Bishops of Rome, and other places (where he entreats of this matter) does chiefly follow. After Gregory's time, Constantine Bishop of Rome assembled a council of bishops in the West church, and did condemn Philippicus then Emperor, and John Bishop of Constantinople of the heresy of the Monothelites, not without a cause in deed, but very justly. When he had so done, by the consent of the learned about him, Constantine Bishop of Rome caused the images of the ancient fathers, which had been at those six councils which were allowed and received by all men, to be painted in the entry of Saint Peter's Church at Rome. When the Greeks had knowledge hereof, they began to dispute and reason the matter of images with the Latins, and held this opinion, that images could have no place in Christ's church, and the Latins held the contrary, and took part with the images. So the East and West churches, which agreed evil before, upon this contention about images fell to utter enmity, which was never well reconciled yet. But in the mean time Philippicus and Arthemius, or Anastatius, Emperors, commanded images and pictures to be pulled down, and purged from every place of their dominion. After them came Theodosius the third. He commanded the defaced images to be painted again in their places, but this Theodosius reigned but one year. Leo the third of that name succeeded him, who was born a Syrian, a very wise, godly, merciful, and valiant prince. This Leo by proclamation commanded that all images, set up in churches to be worshipped, should be plucked down and defaced, and required especially the Bishop of Rome that he should do the same, and himself in the mean time caused all images that were in the imperial city Constantinople to be gathered on an heap in the midst of the city, and there publicly burned them to ashes, and whitewashed, and scratched out all pictures painted upon the walls of the temples, and punished sharply diverse maintainers of images. And when some did therefore report him to be a tyrant, he answered that such of all other were most justly punished, which neither worshipped God aright, nor regarded the imperial majesty and authority, but maliciously rebelled against wholesome and profitable laws. When Gregorius, the third of that name, Bishop of Rome, heard of the Emperor's doings in Greece concerning the images, he assembled a council of Italian bishops against him, and there made decrees for images, and that more reverence and honor should yet be given to them than was before, and stirred up the Italians against the Emperor, first at Ravenna, and moved them to rebellion.

Treason and rebellion for the defense of images. And as Uspurgensis and Anthonius Bishop of Florence testify in their Chronicles, he caused Rome and all Italy, at the least to refuse their obedience and the payment of any more tribute to the emperor, and so by treason and rebellion maintained their idolatry. Which example, other bishops of Rome have continually followed, and gone through likewise most stoutly.

After this Leo III, who reigned 34 years, was succeeded by his son Constantine the Fifth. After his father's example, he kept images out of the temples, and being moved with the council which Gregory had assembled in Italy for images against his father, he also assembled a council of all the learned men and bishops of Asia and Greece, although some writers place this council during the latter days of his father, Leo Isauricus.¹¹

A council against images. In this great assembly they sat in council from the 10th of February to the 8th of August,¹² and made concerning the use of images this decree. It is not lawful for those who believe in God through Jesus Christ to have any images, neither of the creator, nor of any creatures, set up in temples to be worshipped, but rather and that all things by the law of God, and for the avoiding of offence, ought to be taken out of the churches. And this decree was executed in all places where any images were found in Asia or Greece. And the emperor sent the determination of this council held at Constantinople to Paul, then bishop of Rome, and commanded him to cast all images out of the churches, which he (trusting in the friendship of Pipine a mighty prince) refused to do. And both he and his successor Stephanus the Third (who assembled another council in Italy for images) condemned the emperor and the Council of Constantinople of heresy, and made a decree that the holy images (for so they called them) of Christ, the blessed virgin, and other saints, were in deed worthy honor and worshipping.

Of Irene. When Constantine was dead, his son Leo the Fourth reigned after him, who married a woman of the city of Athens named Theodora, who also was called Irene, by whom he had a son named Constantine the Sixth. And dying while his son was yet young, he left the regiment of the empire and governance of his young son to his wife Irene. These things were done in the church about the year of our Lord 760. Note here I pray you, in this process of the story, that in the churches of Asia and Greece there were no images publicly for almost seven hundred years. And there is no doubt but that the primitive church near the apostles' time was most pure. Note also, that when the contention began about images, how of six Christian emperors who were the chief magistrates by God's law to be obeyed, only one, which was Theodosius, who reigned but one year, supported images. All the other emperors, and all the learned men and bishops of the East Church, and that in assembled councils, condemned them, besides the two emperors before mentioned, Valence and Theodosius the Second, who were long before these times, who directly forbade that any images should be made. And universally after this time, all the emperors of Greece (only Theodosius excepted) destroyed continually all images. Now on the contrary part, note that the bishops of Rome, being no ordinary magistrates appointed by God out of their diocese, but usurpers of princes' authority contrary to God's word, were the maintainers of images against God's word, and stirrers up of sedition and rebellion, and workers of continual treason against their sovereign lords contrary to God's law and the ordinances of all human laws, being not only enemies to God, but also rebels and traitors against their princes. These are the first to bring images openly into churches. These are the maintainers of them in the churches, and these are the means whereby they have maintained them, to wit: conspiracy, treason, and rebellion against God and their princes.

Now to proceed in the history, most worthy to be known. When Constantine the Sixth was still a minor, the Empress Irene, his mother, in whose hands the regiment of the empire remained, was governed much by the advice of Theodore Bishop, and Tharasius Patriarch of Constantinople, who practiced and agreed with the bishop of Rome in maintaining of images most earnestly. By whose counsel and entreaty, the empress first most wickedly dug up the body of her father in law, Constantine the Fifth, and commanded it to be openly burned, and the ashes to be thrown into the sea. Which example (as the constant report goes) had like to have been put in practice with princes' corpses in our days, had the authority of the holy father continued but a little longer. The cause why the Empress Irene thus used her father-in-law was because he had destroyed images and had taken away the sumptuous ornaments of churches, saying that Christ, whose temples they were, allowed poverty, and not pearls and precious stones. Afterward, Irene, at the persuasion of Adrian, bishop of Rome, and Paul the patriarch of Constantinople and his successor Tharasius, assembled a council of the bishops of Asia and Greece at the city Nicea [Second Council of Nicea] where the bishop of Rome's legates being presidents of the council, and ordering all things as they listed. The council which was assembled before under the emperor Constantine the Fifth, and had decreed that all images should be destroyed, was condemned as a heretical council and assembly. And a decree was made that images should be put up in all the churches of Greece, and that honor and worship also should be given unto the images.

A decree that images should be worshipped. And so the empress, sparing no diligence in setting up images, nor cost in decorating them in all churches, made Constantinople within a short time altogether like Rome itself. And now you may see that come to pass which Bishop Serenus feared, and Gregory the first forbade in vain: to wit, that images should not be worshipped in any manner. For now not only the simple and unwise (unto whom images, as the Scriptures teach, are especially a snare) but the bishops and learned men also, fall to idolatry by occasion of images, and even make decrees and laws for the maintenance of the same. So hard is it, and indeed impossible, to have images any long time publicly in churches and temples without idolatry, as by the space of little more than one hundred years between Gregory the First, forbidding most directly the worshipping of images, and Gregory the Third, Paul, and Leo the Third, bishops of Rome, with this council commanding and decreeing that images should be worshipped, most evidently appears.

Now when Constantine, the young emperor, came to the age of twenty years, he was daily less and less important. For those who were advisors to his mother persuaded her that it was God's determination that she should reign alone, and not her son with her. The ambitious woman believing the same, deprived her son of all imperial dignity and compelled all the men of war, with their captains, to swear to her that they would not permit her son Constantine to reign during her life. With which indignity, the young prince being moved, recovered the regiment of the empire unto himself by force, and being brought up in true religion in his father's time, seeing the superstition of his mother Irene and the idolatry committed by images, cast down, broke, and burned all the idols and images that his mother had set up. But within a few years after, Irene the empress, taken again into her son's favor after she had persuaded him to put out his uncle Nicephorus' eyes, to cut out the tongues of his four other uncles, and to forsake his wife, and by such means to bring him into hatred with all his subjects, now further to declare that she was not a different person, but the same woman that had before dug up and burned her father-in-law's body, and that she would be as natural a mother as she had been a kind daughter, seeing the images which she loved so well and had with so great cost set up daily destroyed by her son the emperor, by the help of certain good companions deprived her son of the empire. And first, like a kind and loving mother, put out both his eyes and laid him in prison, where after long and many torments, she at the last most cruelly slew him.

In this history, joined to Eutropius, it is written that the sun was darkened for 17 days most strangely and dreadfully, and that all men said that for the horribleness of that cruel and unnatural fact of Irene, and the putting out of the emperor's eyes, the sun had lost his light. But indeed, God would signify by the darkness of the sun, into what darkness and blindness of ignorance and idolatry, Christendom should fall by the occasion of images. The bright sun of his eternal truth and light of his holy word, by the mists and black clouds of men's traditions being blemished and darkened, as by various most terrible earthquakes that happened about the same time, God signified that the quiet estate of true religion should by such idolatry be most horribly tossed and agitated. And here may you see what a gracious and virtuous lady this Irene was, how loving a niece to her husband's uncles, how kind a mother-in-law to her son's wife, how loving a daughter to her father-in-law, how natural a mother to her own son, and what a stout and valiant captain the bishops of Rome had of her, for the setting up and maintenance of their idols or images. Surely, they could not have found a more appropriate patron for the maintenance of such a matter than this Irene, whose ambition and desire of rule was insatiable, whose treason continually studied and wrought, was most abominable, whose wicked and unnatural cruelty passed Medea¹³ and Progne¹⁴, whose detestable paracides have ministered matter to poets, to write their horrible tragedies.

And yet certain historians, who put in writing all her horrible wickedness, for love they had of images, which she maintained, praise her as a godly empress and as sent from God. Such is the blindness of false superstition, if it once take possession in a man's mind, that it will both declare the vices of wicked princes and also commend them. But not long after, Irene, being suspected by the princes and lords of Greece of treason in alienating the empire to Charles, king of the Franks, and for practicing a secret marriage between herself and that king, and being convicted of the same, was by the lords deposed and deprived again of the empire, and carried into exile to the island Lesbos, where she ended her lewd life.

Another council against images. While these tragedies about images were thus working in Greece, the same question of the use of images in churches began to be moved in Spain also. And at Elvira, a notable city, now called Granada, a council of Spanish bishops and other learned men was assembled¹⁵, and there, after long deliberation and debating of the matter, it was concluded at length by the whole council, after this sort, in the 36th canon.¹⁶

Doctors of the council against images. We think that pictures ought not to be in churches, lest that which is honored or worshipped is that which is painted on walls. And in Canon 41 of that council it is written, "We thought good to admonish the faithful, that to the extent they can control, they permit no images to be in their houses, but if they fear any violence of their servants, at least let them keep themselves clean and pure from images. If they do not so, let them be accounted as not a member of the church." Note here, I pray you, how a whole and great country in the West and South parts of Europe, nearer to Rome a greater deal than to Greece in situation of place, do agree with the Greeks against images, and do not only forbid them in churches, but also in private houses, and excommunicate those who do the contrary.

Yet another council against images. And another council of the learned men of all Spain also, called Concilium Toletanum Duodecimum¹⁷  (12th Council of Toledo), decreed and determined likewise against images and image worshippers. But when these decrees of the Spanish council at Elvira came to the knowledge of the bishop of Rome and his adherents, they fearing lest all Germany also would decree against images and forsake them, thought to prevent the matter, and by the consent and help of the prince of Franks (whose power was then most great in the West parts of the world) assembled a council of Germans at Frankfurt, and there condemned the previously mentioned Spanish council against images, calling it the Felician heresy (for that Felix, bishop of Aquitania was chief in that council), and established that the acts of the Second Nicene Council, assembled by Irene (the holy empress whom you heard of before), and the sentence of the bishop of Rome for images might be received. For much in this fashion do the Papists report of the history of the Council of Frankfurt.¹⁸ Notwithstanding the book of Carolus Magnus [Charlemagne], his own writing, as the title declares, shows the judgment of that prince, and of the whole Council of Frankfurt also, to be against images and against the Second Council of Nicea assembled by Irene for images, and calls it an arrogant, foolish, and ungodly council, and declares the assembly of the Council of Frankfurt to have been directly made and gathered against that Nicene Council and its errors. It necessarily follows that either there were in one prince's time two councils assembled at Frankfurt, one contrary to the other, which by no history appears, or else that after their custom, the popes and papists have most shamefully corrupted the council, as their manner is to handle, not only councils, but also all histories and writings of the old doctors, falsifying and corrupting them for the maintenance of their wicked and ungodly purposes, as has in recent times come to light, and in our days more and more continually appears most evidently.

The forged gift of Constantine. etc. Let the forged gift of Constantine, and the notable attempt to falsify the First Nicene Council for the popes' supremacy, practiced by popes in Saint Augustine's time, be a witness hereof: which practice indeed had then taken effect, had not the diligence and wisdom of St. Augustine and other learned and godly bishops in Africa, by their great labor and charges also, resisted and stopped the same. Now to come towards an end of this history, and to show you the principal point that came to pass by the maintenance of images.

Nicene council like to be falsified. Whereas from Constantinus Magnus' [Emperor Constantine] time, until this day [1623], all authority imperial and princely dominion of the empire of Rome remained continually in the right and possession of the emperors, who had their continuance and seat imperial at Constantinople, royal city. Leo the Third, then bishop of Rome, seeing the Greek emperors so bent against his gods of gold and silver, timber and stone, and having the king of the Franks or Frenchmen, named Charles, whose power was exceeding great in the West countries, very pliable to his mind for causes hereafter appearing, under the pretence that they of Constantinople were for that matter of images under the Pope's ban and curse, and therefore unworthy to be emperors, or to bear rule, and for that the emperors of Greece being far off, were not ready at a beck to defend the pope against the Lumbards, his enemies, and others with whom he had variance. This Leo the Third, I say, attempted a thing exceeding strange and unheard of before, and of incredible boldness and presumption. For he, by his Papal authority, translates the government of the empire, the crown, and name imperial, from the Greeks, and gives it unto Charles the Great, king of the Franks, not without the consent of the forenamed Irene, empress of Greece, who also sought to be joined in marriage with the said Charles. For which cause Irene was by the lords of Greece deposed and banished, as one that had betrayed the empire, as you before have heard.

These things were done about the 803 year of our Lord. And the princes of Greece did, after the deprivation of Irene, by common consent, elect and create (as they always had done) an emperor named Nicephorus, whom the Bishop of Rome and they of the West would not acknowledge for their emperor, for they had already created another. And so there became two emperors. And the empire which was before one, was divided into two parts, upon occasion of idols and images, and the worshipping of them. Even as the kingdom of the Israelites was in old time for similar cause of idolatry divided in King Rehoboam's time. And so the bishop of Rome, having the favor of Charles the Great by this means assured to him, was wondrously enhanced in power and authority, and did in all the West church (especially in Italy) what he desired, where images were set up, garnished, and worshipped of all sorts of men.

Of Scauratius. But Images were not to fast set up, and so much honored in Italy and the West, but Nicephorus, emperor of Constantinople, and his successors Scauratius, the two Michaels, Leo, Theophilus, and other emperors, their successors in the empire of Greece, continually pulled them down, broke them, burned them, and destroyed them as fast. And when Emperor Theodorus, would at the Council of Lions have agreed with the bishop of Rome, and have set up images, he was by the nobles of the empire of Greece deprived, and another chosen in his place. And so rose a jealousy, suspicion, grudge, hatred, and enmity between the Christians and empires of the East countries and West, which could never be quenched nor pacified. So that when the Saracens first, and afterward the Turks, invaded the Christians, one part of Christendom would not help the other. By reason whereof at the last, the noble empire of Greece, and the imperial city Constantinople, was lost, and came into the hands of the infidels, who now [1623] have overrun almost all Christendom, and possessing past the middle of Hungary, which is part of the West Empire. The infidels hang over all our heads, to the utter danger of all Christendom.

Thus we see what a sea of mischief the maintenance of images has brought with it, what a horrible schism between the East and the West Church, what a hatred between one Christian and another, councils against councils, church against church, Christians against Christians, princes against princes, rebellions, treasons, unnatural and most cruel murders, the daughter digging up and burning her father, the emperor's body, the mother for love of idols most abominably murdering her own son, being an emperor, at the last, the tearing in sunder of Christendom and the empire into two pieces, till the infidels, Saracens, and Turks, common enemies to both parts, have most cruelly vanquished, destroyed and subdued one part, the whole empire of Greece, Asia Minor, Thracia, Macedonia, Epirus, and many other great and good countries and provinces, and have won a great piece of the other empire, and put the whole in dreadful fear and most horrible danger. For it is not without a just and great cause to be dread, left as the empire of Rome was even for the like cause of images and the worshipping of them torn in pieces and divided, as was for idolatry the kingdom of Israel in old time divided. So the similar punishment for the similar offence fell upon the Jews will also light upon us, that is, left the cruel tyrant and enemy of our commonwealth and religion the Turk, by God's just vengeance, in likewise partly murder, and partly lead away into captivity us Christians, as did the Assyrian and Babylonian kings murder and lead away the Israelites, and left the empire of Rome and Christian religion be so utterly brought under foot, as was then the kingdom of Israel and true religion of God, whereunto the matter already (as I have declared) shrewdly inclined on our part, the greater part of Christendom within less then three hundred years space, being brought into captivity and most miserable slavery under the Turk, and the noble empire of Greece completely overthrown. Whereas if the Christians, divided by these image matters, had held together, no infidels and miscreants could have prevailed against Christendom. And all this mischief and misery, which we have hitherto fallen into, do we owe to our mighty gods of gold and silver, stock and stone, in whose help and defense (where they can not help themselves) we have trusted so long, until our enemies the infidels have overcome and overrun us almost altogether. A just reward for those that have left the mighty living God, the Lord of hosts, and have stooped and given the honor due to him, to dead blocks and stocks, who have eyes and see not, feet and cannot go, and so forth, and are cursed of God, and all those who make them and put their trust in them. Thus you understand (well beloved in our Savior Christ ) by the judgment of the old learned and godly teachers of the church, and by ancient ecclesiastical histories, agreeing to the truth of God's word, alleged out of the Old Testament and the New, that images and image worshipping were in the primitive church (which was most pure and uncorrupt) abhorred and detested, as abominable and contrary to true Christian religion. And that when images began to creep into the church, they were not only spoken and written against by godly and learned bishops, teachers, and clerics, but also condemned by whole councils of bishops and learned men assembled together. Yes, the images by many Christian emperors and bishops were defaced, broken, and destroyed, and that above seven hundred and eight hundred years ago, and that therefore it is not of recent days (as some would bear you in hand) that images and image worshipping have been spoken and written against. Finally, you have heard what mischief and misery has by the occasion of the said images fallen upon whole Christendom, besides the loss of infinite souls, which is most horrible of all. Wherefore let us beseech God that we, being warned by his holy word, forbidding all idolatry, and by the writing of old godly teachers and ecclesiastical histories written, and preserved by God's ordinance for our admonition and warning, may flee from all idolatry, and so escape the horrible punishment and plagues, as well worldly, as everlasting, threatened for the same, which God our heavenly Father grant us, for our only Savior and Mediator Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

The third part of the homily against images, and the worshipping of them, containing the confutation of the principal arguments which used to be made for the maintenance of images, which part may serve to instruct the curates themselves, or men of good understanding.

Now you have heard how plainly, how vehemently, and that in many places, the word of God speaks against not only idolatry and worshipping of images, but also against idols and images themselves. (I mean always thus herein, in that we are stirred and provoked by them to worship them, and not as though they were simply forbidden by the New Testament, without such occasion and danger.) And you have heard likewise out of ecclesiastical histories, the beginning, proceeding, and success of idolatry by images, and the great contention in the church of Christ about them, to the great trouble and decay of Christendom, and in addition, you have heard the sentences of old ancient fathers and godly learned teachers and bishops against images and idolatry taken out of their own writings. It remains that such reasons as are made for the maintenance of images, and excessive painting, gilding and decorating, as well of them, as of the temples or churches, also are answered and confuted, partly by application of some places before alleged, to their reasons, and partly by otherwise answering the same. Which part has the last place in this treatise, for that it cannot be well understood by uneducated people, nor can the arguments of image maintainers without too much lengthy tedious discourse be answered without the knowledge of the treatise going before. And although diverse things before mentioned are here recited again, yet this repetition is not superfluous, but in a manner necessary, for the uneducated cannot else understand how the previous parts of this homily are to be applied to the arguments of those who maintain images, wherewith otherwise they might be abused.

First, it is alleged by those who maintain images that all laws, prohibitions, and curses noted by us out of the Holy Scripture, and sentences by the teachers, also by us alleged against images and the worshipping of them, pertain to the idols of the gentiles or pagans, as the idol of Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, etc. and not to our images of God, of Christ, and his saints. But it shall be declared both by God's word, and the sentences of the ancient teachers, and judgment of the primitive church, that all images, as well ours, as the idols of the gentiles, are forbidden and unlawful, namely in churches and temples. And first this is to be replied out of God's word, that the images of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, either severally, or the images of the Trinity, which we had in every church, are by the scriptures expressly and directly forbidden and condemned, as appears by these texts: "The Lord spoke unto you out of the middle of fire, you heard the voice or sound of his words, but you saw no form or shape at all, lest perhaps you being deceived, should make to your self any graven image or likeness" (Deuteronomy 4.12, 16), and so forth, as is exhaustively discussed in the first part of this treatise against images. And therefore in the old law, the middle of the propitiatory, which presented God's seat, was empty, lest any should take occasion to make any resemblance or likeness of him. Isaiah, after he has set forth the incomprehensible majesty of God, he asks, "To whom then will you make God like, or what resemblance will you set up unto him? Shall the carver make him a carved image? And shall the goldsmith cover him with gold, or cast him into a form of silver plates" (Isaiah 40.18-20)? "And for the poor man, shall the image maker frame an image of timber, that he may have somewhat to set up also?" And after this he cries out, "O wretches, heard you never of this? Has it not been preached to you since the beginning, how by the creation of the world and the greatness of the work, they might understand the majesty of God, the maker and Creator of all, to be greater than that it could be expressed or set forth in any image or bodily resemblance?" Thus far the prophet Isaiah, who from the 44th chapter to the 49th chapter, entreats in a manner of no other thing. And St. Paul in the Acts of the Apostles obviously teaches the same, that no resemblance can be made unto God, in gold, silver, stone or any other matter (Acts 17:29). By these and many other places of scripture, it is evident that no image either ought or can be made unto God. For how can God, a most pure spirit, whom man never saw, be expressed by a gross, bodily, and visible resemblance? How can the infinite majesty and greatness of God, incomprehensible to man's mind, much more not able to be encircled with the sense, be expressed in a small and little image? How can a dead and dumb image express the living God? What can an image, which when it is fallen, cannot rise up again, which can neither help his friends nor hurt his enemies, express of the most powerful and mighty God, who alone is able to reward his friends, and to destroy his enemies everlastingly? A man might justly cry with the prophet Habakkuk, "Shall such images instruct or teach any thing right of God? Or shall they become teachers? Wherefore men that have made an image of God, whereby to honor him, have thereby dishonored him most highly, diminished his majesty, blemished his glory, and falsified his truth" (Habakkuk 2.18). And therefore St. Paul said, "That such as have framed any resemblance or image of God like a mortal man, or any other likeness, in timber, stone, or other matter, have changed his truth into a lie" (Romans 1.25). For both they thought it to be no longer that which it was, a stock or a stone, and took it to be that which it was not, as God, or an image of God. Wherefore an image of God, is not only a lie, but a double lie also. "But the devil is a liar, and the father of lies. Wherefore the lying images which are made of God, to his great dishonor, and horrible danger of his people, came from the devil" (John 8:44).

Wherefore they are convicted of foolishness and wickedness in making of images of God, or the Trinity. For no image of God ought or can be made, as by the Scriptures and good reason evidently appears. Yes, and once to desire an image of God comes of infidelity, thinking not God to be present except they might see some sign or image of him, as appears by the Hebrews in the wilderness desiring Aaron to make them gods whom they might see go before them. Where they object, that seeing in Isaiah and Daniel are certain descriptions of God, as sitting on a high seat, etc. Why may not a painter likewise render him in colors to be seen, as it were a judge sitting in a throne, as well as he is described in writing by the prophets, seeing that scripture or writing, and picture, differ but a little? First, it is to be answered that things forbidden by God's word, as painting of images of God, and things permitted of God, as such descriptions used of the prophets, are not the same. Neither ought, nor can man's reason (although it show never so goodly) prevail against God's express word, and plain statute law, as I may well term it. Furthermore, although the scripture has certain descriptions of God, yet if you continue reading, it expounds itself, declaring that God is a pure spirit, infinite, who replenishes heaven and earth, which the picture does not, nor expounds itself, but rather when it has set God forth in a bodily resemblance, leaves a man there, and will easily bring one into the heresy of the anthropomorphites, thinking God to have hands and feet, and to sit as a man does. Those who do (said St. Augustine in his Book de fide and symbolo cap.7.) fall into that sacrilege which the apostle detests, in those who have changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the resemblance of a corruptible man. For it is wickedness for a Christian to erect such an image to God in a temple, and much more wickedness to erect such a one in his heart by believing by it. But to this they reply, that this reason notwithstanding, images of Christ may be made, for he took upon him flesh and became man. It is appropriate that they would first grant that they have hitherto done most wickedly in making and maintaining of images of God, and of the Trinity in every place, whereof they are by force of God's word and good reason convicted, and then to descend to the trial for other images.

Now concerning their objection, that an image of Christ may be made, the answer is easy. For in God's word and religion, it is not only required whether a thing may be done or not, but also whether it is lawful and agreeable to God's word to be done, or not. For all wickedness may be and is daily done which yet ought not to be done. And the words of the reasons above alleged out of the scriptures are that images neither ought, nor can be, made unto God. Wherefore, to reply that images of Christ may be made, except notwithstanding it be proved that it is lawful for them to be made, is to say somewhat, rather than to hold one's peace, but nothing to the purpose. [?] And yet it appears that no image can be made of Christ, but a lying image (as the scripture peculiarly calls images lies) for Christ is God and man. Seeing therefore that for the Godhead, which is the most excellent part, no images can be made, it is falsely called the image of Christ (Romans 1.23). Wherefore images of Christ are not only defects, but also lies. Which reason serves also for the images of saints, whose souls, the most excellent parts of them, can by no images be presented and expressed. Wherefore, they are not images of saints, whose souls reign in joy with God, but of the bodies of saints, which as yet lie putrefied in the graves. Furthermore, no true image can be made of Christ's body, for it is unknown now of what form and countenance he was. And there are in Greece and at Rome, and in other places, diverse images of Christ, and none of them similar to another, and yet every one of them affirms that theirs is the true and lively image of Christ, which cannot possible be. Wherefore, as soon as an image of Christ is made, a lie is made of him, which by God's word is forbidden. This also is true of the images of any saints of antiquity, for it is unknown of what form and countenance they were. Wherefore, seeing that religion ought to be grounded upon truth, images which cannot be without lies ought not to be made or put to any use of religion, or to be placed in churches and temples, places distinctly appointed to true religion and service of God. And thus, no true image of God, our Savior Christ, or his saints can be made. Therefore also their allegation is confuted that images are the laymen's books. For it is evident by that which is previously presented, that they teach no things of God, or our Savior Christ, and of his saints, but lies and errors. Wherefore, either they are not books, or if they are, they are false and lying books, the teachers of all error.

And now if it should be admitted and granted that an image of Christ could truly be made, yet it is unlawful that it should be made, or that the image of any saint should be made, especially to be set up in temples, to the great and unavoidable danger of idolatry, as hereafter shall be proved. And first concerning the image of Christ, that though it might be had truly, yet it were unlawful to have it in churches publicly, is a notable place in Ireneus, who reproved the heretics called Gnostics, for they carried about the image of Christ, made truly after his own proportion in Pilate's time (as they said) and therefore more to be esteemed than those lying images of him which we now have (Irenaeus, Bk. 1, Chap. 24). The Gnostics also used to set garlands upon the head of the said image to show their affection to it. But to go to God's word, are not, I pray you, the words of the scripture plain? Beware lest you, being deceived, make for yourself (to say, to any use of religion) any graven image, or any resemblance of any thing, etc (Leviticus 26.1, Deuteronomy 5.8, Sculptile, ed. note: original text also refers to Fusile and Similitudo). Cursed be the man that makes a graven or molten image, abomination before the Lord, etc (Deuteronomy 27.15). Are not our images such? Are not our Images of Christ and his saints, either carved or molten, or cast, or resemblances of men and women? It is happy that we have not followed the Gentiles in making of images of beasts, fish, and vermin also? Notwithstanding, the image of a horse, as also the image of the donkey that Christ rode on, have in several places been brought into the church and temple of God. And is not that which is written in the beginning of the Lord's most holy law, and daily read unto you, most evident also? You shall not make any likeness of any thing in heaven above, in earth beneath, or in the water under the earth, etc. Could any more be forbidden, and said, than this? Either of the kinds of images, which are either carved, molten or otherwise resemblances? Or of things of which images are forbidden to be made? Are not all things either in heaven, earth, or water under the earth (Exodus 20.4)? And are not our images of Christ and his saints likenesses of things in heaven, earth, or in the water? If they continue in their former answer, that these prohibitions concern the idols of the Gentiles, and not our images, first that answer is already confuted concerning the images of God and the Trinity at large, and concerning the images of Christ also, by Ireneus. And that the law of God is likewise to be understood against all our images, as well of Christ, as his saints, in temples and churches, appears further by the judgment of the old teachers and the primitive church. Epiphanius tearing a painted cloth, wherein was the picture of Christ, or of some saint, affirming it to be against our religion, that any such image should be had in the temple or church (as is before extensively declared) judged that not only idols of the Gentiles, but that all images of Christ and his saints also, were forbidden by God's word and our religion. Lactantius, affirming it to be certain that no true religion can be where any image or picture is (as is before declared) judged, that as well all images and pictures, as the idols of the Gentiles were forbidden, else would he not so generally have spoken and pronounced about them. And Saint Augustine (as is before alleged) greatly allows Marcus Varro [see footnote 6], affirming that religion is most pure without images, and said himself, "Images are of more force to pervert an unhappy soul than to teach and instruct it" (Augustine, De Civit. Dei, Bk. 4, Chap. 3, Psalms 36, 113). And he said further, "Every child, even every beast, knows that it is not God that they see. Wherefore then does the Holy Ghost so often admonish us about that which all men know?" Whereunto Saint Augustine answers thus: "For (said he) when images are placed in temples, and set in honorable sublimity, and begin once to be worshipped, immediately breeds the most vile affection of error." This is Saint Augustine's judgment of images in churches, that eventually they breed error and idolatry. The Christian emperors, the learned bishops, all the learned men of Asia, Greece, and Spain, assembled in councils at Constantinople and in Spain, seven and eight hundred years ago and more, condemning and destroying all images of Christ, as well as of the Saints, set up by the Christians (as is before extensively declared) testify, that they understood God's word so, that it forbad our images, as well as the idols of the Gentiles. And as it is written, "That images were not from the beginning, neither shall they continue to the end" (Apocrypha. Wisdom 14:13). So were they not in the beginning in the primitive church, God grant they may in the end be destroyed. For all Christians in the primitive church, as Origen Against Celsus (Origen, `Against Celsus', bks. 4, 8) {Chapters against images:}<sup>19</sup> [Book 1: Chapters 1, and 5][Book 2: Chapters 51 and 60][Book 3: Chapters 15, 17, 40, 76, and 77][Book 4: Chapters 26 and 31][Book 5: Chapters 6, 8, 35, and 38][Book 6: Chapters 4, 5,  39, and 70][Book 7: Chapters 41, 44, 51, 56, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, and 69][Book 8: Chapter 41]{Book 8 has a positive discussion of the image of God.}, Arnobius, and also Cyprian, testify (Cyprian `Against Demetrium')²⁰, were sore charged and complained on, that they had no altars nor images. Wherefore did they not (I pray you) conform themselves to the Gentiles in making of images, but for lack of them sustained their heavy displeasure if they had taken it to be lawful by God's word to have images? It is evident therefore that they took all images to be unlawful in the church or temple of God, and therefore had none (though the Gentiles therefore were most highly displeased) following this rule, "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). And Zephirus, in his notes upon the Apology of St. Jerome, gathers, that all his vehement persuasion should be but cold, except we know this once for all, that Christian men in his time did most hate images, with their ornaments. And Ireneus (as is above declared) reproves the heretics called Gnostics, for that they carried about the image of Christ. And therefore the primitive church, which is especially to be followed as most incorrupt and pure, had publicly in churches neither idols of the Gentiles nor any other images, as things directly forbidden by God's word. And thus it is declared by God's word, the sentences of the teachers, and the judgment of the primitive church, which was most pure and sincere, that all images, the idols of the Gentiles, as well ours, are by God's word forbidden and therefore unlawful, especially in Temples and Churches.

Now if they (as their custom is) flee to this answer, that God's word forbids not absolutely all images to be made, but that they should not be made to be worshipped, and that therefore we may have images, so we worship them not, for that they are things indifferent which may be abused or well used. Which seems also to be the judgment of Damascene and Gregory the first, as is above declared (Damascene, `De Fide Orth.', bk. 4, chap. 17, Gregory I, `Epistle to Serenum Massil.'). And this is one of their chief allegations for the maintenance of images, which have been alleged since Gregory the first his time.

Well, then we come to their second allegation, which in part we would not hesitate to grant them. For we are not so superstitious or scrupulous that we abhor either flowers wrought in carpets, hangings, and other arasse²¹ [possibly "trasse", which is trash?], either images of princes printed or stamped in their coins, which when Christ did see in a Roman coin, we read not that he reprehended it, neither do we condemn the arts of painting and image making as wicked of themselves. But we would admit and grant that images not used for religion or superstition may be permitted, by which we mean images of nothing worshipped, nor in danger of being worshipped. But images placed publicly in temples cannot possibly be without danger of worshipping and idolatry, wherefore they are not publicly to be had or permitted in temples and churches. The Jews, to whom this law was first given (and yet being a moral commandment, and not ceremonial, as all teachers interpret it, binds us as well as them), the Jews I say, who should have the true sense and meaning of God's law so distinctly given to them, neither had in the beginning any images publicly in their temple (as Origen and Josephus exhaustively declare: Origen `Against Celsus', book 4; Josephus, `Antiquities', book 17, chapter 8, book. 18, chapters 5, 15) neither after the restitution of the temple, would by any means consent to Herod, Pilate or Petronius, that images should be placed only in the temple at Jerusalem, although no worshipping of images was required at their hands, but offered themselves to the death rather than to assent that images should once be placed in the temple of God; neither would they permit any image-maker among them. And Origen added this cause, lest their minds should be plucked from God to the contemplation of earthly things. And they are much commended for this earnest zeal in maintaining of God's honor and true religion. And truth it is, that the Jews and Turks, who abhor images and idols as directly forbidden by God's word, will never come to the truth of our religion, while the stumbling blocks of images remain among us and lie in their way. If they object, "yet the brazen serpent which Moses did set up", or the images of the cherubim, or any other images which the Jews had in their temple, the answer is easy. We must in religion obey God's general law which binds all men, and not follow examples of particular dispensation which are not warrants for us, else we may by the same reason resume circumcision and sacrificing of beasts, and other rites permitted to the Jews. Neither can those images of cherubim, set in secret where no man might come nor behold, be any example for our public setting up of images in churches and temples, but to let the Jews go where they say that images, so they are not worshipped, as things indifferent may be tolerable in temples and churches. We infer and say for the adversative, that all our images of God, our Savior Christ, and his saints, publicly set up in temples and churches, places peculiarly appointed to the true worshipping of God, are not things indifferent, nor tolerable, but against God's law and commandment, taking their own interpretation and exposition of it. First, for that all images so set up publicly have been worshipped by the unlearned and simple sort shortly after they have been publicly so set up, and finally by the wise and learned also. Secondly, for that they are worshipped in various places now in our time also. And thirdly, for that it is impossible that images of God, Christ, or his saints can be permitted (especially in temples and churches) anywhere without worshipping of them, and that idolatry, which is most abominable before God, cannot possibly be escaped and avoided without the abolishing and destruction of images and pictures in temples and churches, for that idolatry is to images, especially in temples and churches, an inseparable accident (as they term it) so that images in churches and idolatry go always both together, and that therefore the one cannot be avoided, except the other (especially in all public places) be destroyed. Wherefore, to make images, and publicly to set them up in the temples and churches, places appointed peculiarly to the service of God, is to make images for the use of religion, and not only against this precept, "You shall make no manner of images", but against this also, "You shall not bow down to them, nor worship them." For they being set up, have been, are, and ever will be worshipped. And the full proof of that which, in the beginning of the first part of this treatise was touched, is here to be made and performed, to wit: that our images, and idols of the Gentiles are all one, as well in the things themselves, as also in that our images have been before, are now, and ever will be worshipped, in like form and manner, as the idols of the Gentiles were worshipped, so long as they are permitted in churches and temples. Whereupon it follows that our images in churches have been, are, and ever will be none other but abominable idols, and are therefore not things indifferent.

Simulachra gentium argentum and aurum.²⁵ Fusile. Similitudo, Sculptilo. Similachrum opera mannum hominum. [The silver and gold idols of the Gentiles.  Molded, Likeness, Carved, The likeness of the gods of lower worlds are the work of men.] And each of these parts shall be proved in order, as hereafter follows. And first, that our images and the idols of the Gentiles are all one concerning themselves, is most evident, the matter of them being gold, silver, or other metal, stone, wood, clay, or plaster, as were the idols of the Gentiles. And so being either molten or cast, either carved, graven, hewn, or otherwise formed and fashioned after the resemblance and likeness of man or woman, are dead and dumb works of man's hands, having mouths and speak not, eyes and see not, hands and feel not, feet and go not, and so as well in form as matter, are altogether like the idols of the Gentiles. Insomuch that all the titles which are given to the idols in the scriptures may be verified by our images. Wherefore, no doubt but similar curses which are mentioned in the scriptures will descend upon the makers and worshippers of them both. Secondly, that they have been and are worshipped in our time, in like form and manner as were the idols of the Gentiles, is now to be proved.

Dii tutelares (image maintainers?). [Idol Protectors] And for that idolatry resides chiefly in the mind, it shall first be proved in this part that our image maintainers have had, and have, the same opinions and judgment of saints whose images they have made and worshipped, as Gentiles idolaters had of their gods. And afterwards shall be declared that our image-maintainers and worshippers have used, and use, the same outward rites and manner of honoring and worshipping their images as the Gentiles used before their idols, and that therefore they commit idolatry, inwardly and outwardly, as did the wicked Gentiles idolaters.

And concerning the first part of the idolatrous opinions of our image maintainers. What I pray you are such saints with us, to whom we attribute the defense of certain countries, spoiling God of his due honor herein, but Dii tutelares of the Gentiles idolaters? Such as were Bel²² to the Babylonians and Assyrians, Osiris and Isis²³ to the Egyptians, Vulcane to the Lemnians²⁴, and to such other.

Dii praesides (image rulers/judges?, Perhaps in this context, images considered rulers of a locale). What are such saints to whom the safeguard of certain cities are appointed, but Dii Praesides, with the Gentiles idolaters? Such as were Apollo at Delphos,  Minerva at Athens, Juno at Carthage,  Quirinus at Rome. etc.

Dij patroni. [Idolatric Patrons] What are such saints to whom, contrary to the use of the primitive church, temples and churches are built and altars erected, but Dij Patroni, of the Gentiles idolaters? Such as were Jupiter in the capitol, Temple Venus in Paphus, Temple Diana in Ephesus, and such like. Alas, we seem in thus thinking and doing to have learned our religion not out of God's word, but out of the pagan poets who say, "Excessere omnes adytis, arisque relictis, Dij quibus imperiu hoc steterat" etc. That is to say, "All the gods by whose defense this empire stood, are gone out of the temples, and have forsaken their altars." And where one saint has images in diverse places, the same saint has diverse names thereof, most similar to the Gentiles. When you hear of our Lady of Walsingham, our Lady of Ipswich, our Lady of Wilsdon, and such others, what is it but an imitation of the Gentiles idolaters? Diana Agrotera, Diana Coriphea, Diana Ephesia, and Venus Cypria, Venus Paphia, Venus Gnidia. Whereby is evidently meant that the saint, for the image's sake, should in those places, even in the images themselves, have a dwelling which is the ground of their idolatry. For where no images are, they have no such means. Terentius Varro shows that there were three hundred Jupiters in his time. There were no fewer Veneres and Dianas. We had no fewer Christophers, Ladies, Mary Magdalene, and other saints. Oenomaus, and Hesiodus, show that in their time there were thirty thousand gods. I think we had no fewer saints to whom we gave the honor due to God. And they have not only spoiled the true living God of his due honor in temples, cities, countries, and lands, by such devises and inventions as the Gentile idolaters have done before them, but the sea and waters as well have special saints with them, as they had gods with the Gentiles: Neptune, Triton, Nereus, Castor, and Pollux, Venus, and such others. In whose places become Saint Christopher, Saint Clement, and various others, and especially Our Lady, to whom sailors sing Ave maris stella. Neither has the fire escaped the idolatrous inventions. For instead of Vulcan and Vesta, the Gentiles' gods of the fire, our men have placed Saint Agatha, and make letters on her day to quench fire with. Every artificer and profession has his special saint, as a peculiar god. As for example, scholars have Saint Nicholas and Saint Gregory, painters have Saint Luke. Neither lack soldiers their Mars, nor lovers their Venus, amongst Christians. All diseases have their special saints, as gods, the curers of them. The pox [such as small pox] Saint Roche, the falling evil Saint Cornelis, the tooth ache Saint Appolin, etc. Neither do beasts and cattle lack their gods with us, for Saint Loy is the veterinary surgeon, and Saint Anthony the swineherd. etc. Where is God's providence and due honor in the mean time? Who said, "The heavens are mine, and the earth is mine, the whole world and all that in it is; I give victory, and I put to flight; of me are all counsels and help" etc. Except I keep the city, in vain does he watch that keeps it. You, Lord, shall save both men and beasts. But we have left him neither heaven, nor earth, nor water, nor country, nor city, peace nor war, to rule and govern, neither men, nor beasts, nor their diseases to cure, that a godly man might justly for zealous indignation cry out, "O heaven, O earth, and seas, what madness and wickedness against God are men fallen into? What dishonor do the creatures to their creator and maker?" And if we remember God sometimes, yet because we doubt of his ability or will to help, we join to him another helper, as if he were a known adjective, using these sayings: such as learn, God and Saint Nicholas be my speed; such as neese [sneeze?], God help and Saint John; to the horse, God and Saint Loy save you.²⁷  Thus are we become like horses and mules, which have no understanding. For, is there not one God only, who by his power and wisdom made all things, and by his providence governs the same? And by his goodness maintains and saves them? Are not all things of him, by him, and through him? Why do you turn from the creator to the creatures? This is the manner of the Gentile idolaters. But you are a Christian, and therefore by Christ alone have access to God the Father, and help by him only. These things are not written to any reproach of the saints themselves, who were the true servants of God, and gave all honor to him, taking none unto themselves, and are blessed souls with God. But these things are written against our foolishness and wickedness, making false gods of the true servants of God, by attributing to them the power and honor which is God's, and due to him only. And for that we have such opinions of the power and ready help of saints, all our legends, hymns, sequences, and masses, which contain stories, lauds, and praises of them, and prayers to them, even sermons also altogether of them, and to their praises, God's word being completely laid aside. And this we do altogether agreeable to the saints, as did the Gentile idolaters to their false gods. For these opinions which men have had of mortal persons, were they never so holy, the old most godly and learned Christians have written against the feigned gods of the Gentiles, and Christian princes have destroyed their images, who if they were now living, would doubtless likewise both write against our false opinions of saints, and also destroy their images. For it is evident, that our image-maintainers have the same opinion of saints which the Gentiles had of their false gods, and thereby are moved to make them images as the Gentiles did.

Medioximi Dij. [Intercessors to God] If answer is made that they make saints but intercessors to God, and the means for such things as they would obtain of God, that is even after the Gentiles' idolatrous usage, to make them of saints, gods, called Dij Medioximi, to be mean intercessors and helpers to God, as though he did not hear, or should be weary if he did all alone. So the Gentiles taught that there was one chief power working by another, as means, and so they made all gods subject to fate or destiny, as Lucian in his dialogues feigns that Neptune petitioned to Mercury, that he might speak with Jupiter. And therefore in this also, it is most evident that our image maintainers are all one in opinion with the Gentile idolaters.

Now remains the third part, that their rites and ceremonies in honoring and worshipping of the images or saints are all one with the rites which the Gentile idolaters used in honoring their idols. First, what does it mean, that Christians, after the example of the Gentile idolaters, go on pilgrimage to visit images when they have similar ones at home, but that they have a greater opinion of holiness and virtue in some images than some others, as the Gentile idolaters had? This is the quickest way to bring them to idolatry, by worshipping of them, and directly against God's word, who said, "Seek me, and you shall live, and do not seek Bethel, enter not into Gilgal, neither go to Beersheba" (Amos 5:4-5). And against such as had any superstition in holiness of the place, as though they should be heard for the place's sake, saying, "Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, and you say that at Jerusalem is the place where men should worship", our Savior Christ pronounces, "Believe me, the hour comes when you shall worship the father neither on this mountain, nor at Jerusalem, but true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth" (John 4:20-21). But it is too well known, that by going on such a pilgrimage, Lady Venus and her son Cupid were rather worshipped wantonly in the flesh, than God the Father and our Savior Christ his Son truly worshipped in the spirit.

And it was very agreeable (as Saint Paul teaches) that those who fell to idolatry, which is spiritual fornication, should also fall into carnal fornication and all uncleanness, by the just judgments of God, delivering them over to abominable concupiscenses (Romans 1:24).

What does it mean that Christian men, after the use of the Gentile idolaters, kneel before images? If the images had any sense and gratitude, they would kneel before men, carpenters, masons, plasterers, founders, and goldsmiths, their makers and framers by whose means they have attained this honor, which else should have been evil-favored and rude lumps of clay, or plaster, pieces of timber, stone, or metal. without shape or fashion, and so without all estimation and honor, as that idol in the pagan poet confesses (Horatius.)²⁸, saying, "I was once a vile block, but now I have become a god", etc.

Adorare [to honor], Genesis 23:7, 12 and 33:3, 7, 9, 10. What a fond thing is it for man who has life and reason to bow himself to a dead and unsensible image, the work of his own hand? Is not this stooping and kneeling before them, adoration of them, which is forbidden so earnestly by God's word? Let those who fall down before images of saints know and confess that they exhibit that honor to dead stocks and stones which the saints themselves, Peter, Paul, and Barnabas, would not allow to be given them while alive (Acts 10:25, 14:14), which the angel of God forbids to be given to him (Revelations 19:10). And if they say they exhibit such honor not to the image, but to the saint whom it represents, they are convicted of folly to believe that they please saints with that honor which they abhor as a spoil of God's honor. For they are not inconsistent, but now both having greater understanding and more fervent love of God, do more abhor to deprive him of his due honor. And being now like the angels of God, do with angels flee to take unto them by sacrilege the honor due to God. And here is confuted their lewd distinction of Latria and Dulia²⁶, where it is evident that the saints of God can not accept any outward worshipping be done or exhibited to them. But Satan, God's enemy, desiring to rob God of his honor, desires exceedingly that such honor might be given to him (Matthew 4:9). Wherefore those who give the honor due to the creator, to any creature, do service acceptable to no saints who are the friends of God, but unto Satan, God and man's mortal and sworn enemy. And to attribute such desire of divine honor to saints is to blot them with a most odious and devilish ignominy and villainy, and indeed of saints, to make them Satan's, and very devils, whose property is to claim for themselves the honor which is due to God only. And furthermore, in that they say that they do not worship the images as the Gentiles did their idols, but God and the saints whom the images represent, and therefore that their actions before images are not like the idolatry of the Gentiles before their idols, Saint Augustine, Lactantius, and Clement prove clearly, that by their answer they are all the same as the Gentile idolaters. The Gentiles (said St. Augustine), which seem to be of the purer religion say, "We worship not the images, but by the corporal image, we behold the signs of the things which we ought to worship" (Augustine, on Psalm 1:35). And Lactantius said, "The Gentiles say, 'we fear not the images, but those after whose likeness the images are made, and to whose names they are consecrated' " (Lactantius `Insti.', book 2). Thus far Lactantius. And Clement said, "That serpent the devil utters these words by the mouth of certain men, 'We to the honor of the invisible God, worship visible images' " This surely is most false. See how in using the same excuses which the Gentile idolaters pretended, they show themselves to join with them in idolatry. For notwithstanding this excuse, Saint Augustine, Clement, and Lactantius prove them to be idolaters. And Clement said that the serpent, the devil, puts such excuses in the mouth of idolaters. And the scriptures say that they worship the stocks and stones (notwithstanding this excuse) even as our image maintainers do. And Ezekiel therefore calls the gods of the Assyrians "stocks and stones" although they were but images of their gods. So are our images of God and the saints named by the names of God and his saints, after the use of the Gentiles. And the same Clement said thus in the same book, "They dare not give the name of the emperor to any other, for he punishes his offender and traitor by and by, but they dare give the name of God to others, because he for repentance endures his offenders." And even so do our image worshippers give both names of God and the saints, and also the honor due to God, to their images, even as did the Gentiles, idolaters to their idols. What should it mean that they, according as did the Gentile idolaters, light candles at noontime, or at midnight, before them, but therewith to honor them? For other use is there none in so doing. For in the day it needs not, but was ever a proverb of foolishness, to light a candle at noon time. And in the night, it avails not to light a candle before the blind, and God has neither use nor honor thereof. And concerning this candle lighting, it is notable that Lactantius over a thousand years ago has written in this manner, "If they would behold the heavenly light of the sun, then should they perceive that God has no need of their candles, who for the use of man has made such a good light" (Lactantius, `Instit.', book 6, chapter 2). And whereas in so little a circle of the sun, which for the great distance seems to be no greater than a man's head, there is so great brightness that the sight of man's eye is not able to behold it, but if one steadfastly looks upon it a while, his eyes will be dulled and blinded with darkness. Now great light, how great clearness may we think to be with God, with whom is no night nor darkness? etc. And by and by he said, "Seems he therefore to be in his right mind, who offers up to the giver of light the light of a vigil candle for a gift? He requires another light of us which is not smoky, but bright and clear, even the light of the mind and understanding." And shortly after he said, "But their gods, because they are earthly, have need of light lest they remain in darkness, whose worshippers, because they understand no heavenly thing, draw religion, which they use, down to the earth, which in being dark of nature, is need of light. Wherefore they give to their gods no heavenly, but the earthly, understanding of mortal men. And therefore they believe those things to be necessary and pleasant unto them which are so to us, who have need either of meat when we are hungry, or drink when we are thirsty, or clothing when we are cold, or when the sun is set, candle light, that we may see. Thus far Lactantius, and much more, too long here to write, of candle lighting in temples before images and idols for religion, whereby appears both the foolishness thereof, and also, that in opinion and act, we do agree altogether in our candle religion, with the Gentile idolaters. What does it mean, that they, after the example of the Gentile idolaters, burn incense, offer up gold to images, hang up crouches, chains, and ships, legs, arms, and whole men and women of wax, before images, as though by them, or saints (as they say), they were delivered from lameness, sickness, captivity, or shipwreck? Is not this Colere imagines, to worship images, so earnestly forbidden in God's word?

Colere. If they deny it, let them read the 11th chapter of Daniel the prophet, who said of Antichrist: "He shall worship God whom his fathers knew not, with gold, silver, and with precious stone, and other things of pleasure" [Daniel 11:38].  In this place, the Latin word is Colet [Jerome's Latin Vulgate].

Cultus. And in the second book of Paralipomenon²⁹ [II Chronicles], the 29th chapter [2 Chronicles 29:35], all the outward rites and ceremonies, as burning of incense, and such other, wherewith God in the Temple was honored, is called Cultus (to say) worshipping, which is forbidden strictly by God's word to be given to images.

Do not all stories ecclesiastical declare that our holy martyrs, rather than they would bow and kneel, or offer up one crumb of incense before an image or idol, have suffered a thousand kinds of most horrible and dreadful death? And whatever excuses they make, yet that all this running on pilgrimage, burning of incense and candles, hanging up of crouches, chains, ships, arms, legs, and whole men and women of wax, kneeling and holding up of hands, is done to the images, appears by this, that where no images are, or where they have been, and are taken away, they do no such things at all. But all the places frequented when the images were there, now they are taken away, are forsaken and left deserted, nay, now they hate and abhor the place deadly, which is an evident proof that that which they did before was done in respect of the images. Wherefore, when we see men and women in multitudes go on pilgrimage to images, kneel before them, hold up their hands before them, set up candles, burn incense before them, offer up gold and silver unto them, hang up ships, crouches, chains, men and women of wax before them, attributing health and safeguard, the gifts of God, to them, or the saints whom they represent, as they rather would have it, who I say, who can doubt but that our image maintainers, agreeing in all idolatrous opinions, outward rites, and ceremonies with the Gentile idolaters, agree also with them in committing most abominable idolatry? And to increase this madness, wicked men which have the keeping of such images for their more lucre and advantage, after the example of the Gentile idolaters, have reported and spread abroad as well by lying tales, as written fables, diverse miracles of images. As that such an image miraculously was sent from heaven, even like Palladium³⁰, or magna Diana Ephesiorum [Acts 19: 23-41]. Such another was as miraculously found in the earth, as the man's head was in Capitol³², or the horse head in Capua³¹. Such an image was brought by angels. Such a one came itself far from the East to the West, as dame Fortune fled to Rome. Such an image of Our Lady was painted by Saint Luke, whom of a physician they have made a painter for that purpose. Such a one a hundred yokes of oxen could not move, like Bona Dea³⁴ whom the ship could not carry [?], or Jupiter Olympius, who laughed the artificers to scorn that went about to move him to Rome³⁵. Some images, though they were hard and stony, yet for tender heart and pity, wept. Some like Castor and Pollux³³, helping their friends in battle, sweat, as marble pillars do in dank weather. Some spoke more monstrously than ever did Balaam's donkey [Numbers 22: 22-35], who had life and breath in him. Such a cripple came and saluted this Saint of oke [?], and eventually he was made whole, and observe, here hangs his crutch. Such a one in a violent storm vowed to Saint Christopher and escaped, and behold here is his ship modeled in wax. Such a one by St. Leonard's help broke out of prison, and see where his fetters hang. And infinite thousands more miracles, by similar or more shameless lies were reported. Thus do our image maintainers in earnest apply to their images all such miracles as the Gentiles have feigned of their idols. And if it were to be admitted, that some miraculous acts were by illusion of the devil done where images are, (for it is evident that the most part were feigned lies, and crafty juggling of men) yet follows it not therefore that such images are either to be honored, or permitted to remain, no more than Hezekiah left the brazen serpent undestroyed when it was worshipped [2 Kings 18:1-4], although it were both set up by God's commandment, and also approved by a great and true miracle, for as many as beheld it were subsequently healed, neither ought miracles persuade us to do what is contrary to God's word. For the scriptures have for a warning hereof foreshown, that the kingdom of antichrist shall be mighty in miracles and wonders, to the strong illusion of all the reprobate. But in this they pass the folly and wickedness of the Gentiles, that they honor and worship the relics and bones of our saints, which prove that they are mortal men and dead, and therefore not gods to be worshipped, which the Gentiles would never confess of their gods for very shame. But the relics we must kiss and offer unto, especially on relic Sunday. And while we offer (that we should not be weary or repent us of our cost) the music and minstrels go merrily all the offertory time, with praising and calling upon those saints, whose relics are then in presence. Yes, and the water also wherein those relics have been dipped must with great reverence be reserved as very holy and effectual. Is this agreeable to Saint Chrysostom who writes thus of relics (Chrysostom, Homily of the Seven Macabees)? Do not regard the ashes of the saints' bodies, nor the relics of their flesh and bones, consumed with time, but open the eyes of your faith and behold them clothed with heavenly virtue and the grace of the Holy Ghost and shining with the brightness of the heavenly light. But our idolaters found too much profit from relics and relic water to follow Saint Chrysostom's counsel. And because relics were so profitable, few places were there but they had relics provided for them. And for more plenty of relics, some one saint had many heads, one in one place, and another in another place. Some had six arms, and 26 fingers. And where Our Lord bare his cross alone, if all the pieces of the relics thereof were gathered together, the greatest ship in England would scarcely bear them, and yet the greatest part of it, they say, does yet remain in the hands of infidels, for the which they pray in their beads bidding, that they may get it also into their hands for such godly use and purpose. And not only the bones of the saints, but every thing appertaining to them was a holy relic. In some place they offer a sword, in some the scabbard, in some a shoe, in some a saddle that had been set upon some holy horse, in some the coals wherewith Saint Laurence was roasted, in some place the tail of the donkey which our Lord Jesus Christ sat on, to be kissed and offered as a relic. For rather than they would lack a relic, they would offer you a horse bone, instead of a virgin's arm, or the tail of the donkey to be kissed and offered as relics. O wicked, impudent, and most shameless men, the devisers of these things. O simple, foolish, and dastardly simpletons, and more beastly than the donkey whose tail they kissed, that believe such things. Now God be merciful to such miserable and simple Christians, who by the fraud and falsehood of those who should have taught them the way of truth and life, have been made not only more wicked than the Gentiles idolaters, but also no wiser than asses, horses, and mules, which have no understanding.

Of these things already rehearsed, it is evident, that our image maintainers have not only made images and set them up in temples, as did the Gentiles idolaters their idols, but also that they have had the same idolatrous opinions of the saints to whom they have made images, which the Gentiles idolaters had of their false gods, and have not only worshipped their images with the same rites, ceremonies, superstition, and all circumstances, as did the Gentiles idolaters of their idols, but in many points also have far exceeded them in all wickedness, foolishness, and madness. And if this is not sufficient to prove them image worshippers, that is to say, idolaters, lo, you shall hear their own open confession, I mean not only the decrees of the second Nicene council under Irene, the Roman council under Gregory the shipped [?], as is before declared, so yet they do it warily and fearfully, in comparison to the blasphemous bold blazing of manifest idolatry to be done to images, set forth of late, even in these our days, the light of God's truth so shining, that above other abominable doings and writings, a man would marvel most at their impudent, shameless, and most shameful blustering boldness, who would not at the least have chosen them a time of more darkness, as more suitable to utter their horrible blasphemies in, but have now taken a harlot's face, not intended to blush, in setting abroad the furniture of their spiritual whoredom. And hear the plain blasphemy of the reverend father in God, James Naclantus, Bishop of Clugium, written in his exposition of Saint Paul's Epistle to the Romans and the first Chapter, and printed in Venice, may stand instead of all, whose words of image worshipping are these in Latin, as he did write them, not one syllable altered:

The sense in English is this:

Thus far has Naclantus, whose blasphemies let Pope Gregory the First confute, and by his authority damn them to hell, as his successors have horribly thundered (Gregory). For although Gregory permits images to be had, yet he forbids them by any means to be worshipped, and praises much Bishop Serenus for forbidding the worship of them, and wants him to teach the people to avoid by all means tht worship any image (Gregory, `Epistle to Serenus Massil.').

Of image worshipping. But Naclantus blows forth his blasphemous idolatry, willing images to be worshipped with the highest kind of adoration and worship, and least such wholesome doctrine should lack authority. He grounds it upon Aristotle, in his book de somno and vigilia, that is, of sleeping and waking, as by his printed book noted in the margin is to be seen, whose impudent wickedness and idolatrous judgment I have therefore discussed in more detail, that you may (as Virgil speaks of Simon) of one know all these image - worshippers and idolaters, and understand to what point in conclusion the having public images in temples and churches has brought us, comparing the times and writings of Gregory the First with our days, the blasphemies of such idolaters as this instrument of Belial [worthlessness], named Naclantus. Wherefore, now it is by the testimony of the old godly fathers and teachers, by the open confession of bishops assembled in councils, by most evident signs and arguments, opinions, idolatrous acts, deeds, and worshipping done to their images, and by their own open confession and doctrine set forth in their books, declared and shown, that their images have been, and be commonly worshipped, yes, and that they ought so to be. I will from God's word make this general argument against all such makers, setters-up, and maintainers of images in public places. And first of all I will begin with the words of our Savior Christ, "Woe be to that man by whom an offence is given. Woe be to him that offends one of these little ones, or weak ones. Better were it for him, that a millstone were hung about his neck, and he cast into the middle of the sea and drowned, than he should offend one of these little ones, or weak ones" (Matthew 18:6-7). And in Deuteronomy, God himself denounces him accursed that makes the blind to wander in his way (Deuteronomy 27:18). And in Leviticus, "You shall not lay a stumbling block or stone before the blind" (Leviticus 19.14). But images in churches and temples have been, and are, and (as afterward shall be proved) ever will be offences and stumbling blocks, especially to the weak, simple, and blind common people, deceiving their hearts by the cunning of the artificer (as the scripture expressly in various places testifies) and so bringing them to idolatry. Therefore, woe be to the erecter, setter-up, and maintainer of images in churches and temples, for a greater penalty remains for him than the death of the body (Apocrypha, Wisdom 13:10, 14:8).

If answer is yet made that this offence may be taken away by diligent and sincere doctrine and preaching of God's word, as by other means, and that images in churches and temples therefore are not things absolutely evil to all men, although dangerous to some, and therefore that it were to be gazed upon, that the public having of them in churches and temples is not expedient, as a thing perilous, rather than unlawful, and a thing utterly wicked. Then follows the third article to be proved, which is in this: That it is not possible, if images are permitted in churches and temples, either by preaching of God's word or by any other means, to keep the people from worshipping of them, and so to avoid idolatry. And first concerning preaching. If it should be admitted that, although images were permitted in churches, yet might idolatry by diligent and sincere preaching of God's word be avoided, it should follow of necessity that sincere doctrine might always be had and continue, as well as images, and so that wherever, to offence, were erected an image, there also, of reason, a godly and sincere preacher should and might be continually maintained. For it is reason, that the warning be as common as the stumbling block, the remedy as large as is the offence, the medicine as general as the poison. But that is not possible, as both reason and experience teaches. Wherefore preaching cannot restrain idolatry. Images being publicly permitted. For an image, which will last for many hundred years, may for a small price be bought, but a good preacher cannot without much be continually maintained. Item, if the prince will permit it, there will be by and by many, yew, infinite images. But sincere preachers were, and ever shall be, but a few in respect of the multitude to be taught. For our Savior Christ said, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workmen are but few". This has been hitherto continually true, and will be to the world's end. And in our time, and here in our country, so true that every area should scarcely have one good preacher, if they were divided.

Now images will continually to the beholders preach their doctrine, that is, the worshipping ofi images and idolatry, to the which preaching mankind is exceeding prone, and inclined to give ear and credit, as experience of all nations and ages do too much prove. But a true preacher to halt this mischief, is in very many places scarcely heard once in a whole year, and some where not once in seven years, as is evident to be proved. And that evil opinion which has been long rooted in men's hearts cannot suddenly by one sermon be rooted out completely. And as few are inclined to credit sound doctrine, as many, and almost all, are prone to superstition and idolatry. So that herein appears not only a difficulty, but also an impossibility of the remedy. Further, it appears, not by any story of credit, that true and sincere preaching has endured in any one place above one hundred years. But it is evident, that images, superstition, and worshipping of images and idolatry, have continued many hundred years. For all writings and experience do testify that good things do by little and little ever decay until they are completely banished, and contrariwise, evil things do more and more increase, until they come to a full perfection and wickedness. Neither need we to seek examples far off for a proof of this, our present matter is an example. For preaching of God's word (most sincere in the beginning) by process of time, grown less and less pure, and after corrupt, and last of all, altogether laid down and left off, and other inventions of men crept in place of it. And on the other part, images among Christian men were first painted, and that in whole stories together, which had some signification in them. Afterwards, they were embossed, and made of timber, stone, plaster, and metal. And first they were only kept privately in private men's houses. And then after, they crept into churches and temples, but first by painting, and after by embossing, and yet were they no where at the first worshipped. But shortly after, they began to be worshipped by the ignorant sort of men, as appears by the epistle that Gregory the First of that name, bishop of Rome, wrote to Serenus, bishop of Marcelles. Of the which two bishops, Serenus for idolatry committed to images, broke them and burned them. Gregory, although he thought it tolerable to let them stand, yet he judged it abominable that they should be worshipped, and thought (as is now alleged) that the worshipping of them might be stopped by teaching God's word, according as he exhorts Serenus to teach the people, as in the same epistle appears. But whether Gregory's opinion, or Serenus judgment were better herein, consider, I pray, for experience which confutes Gregory's opinion. For notwithstanding Gregory's writing, and the preaching of others, images being once publicly set up in temples and churches, simple men and women shortly after lay prostrate in large numbers to worshipping of them. At the last, the learned also were carried away with the public error, as with a violent stream or flood. And at the Second Council Nicene, the bishops and clergy decreed that images should be worshipped. And so by occasion of these stumbling blocks, not only the unlearned and simple, but the learned and wise, not the people only, but the bishops, not the sheep, but also the shepherds themselves (who should have been guides in the right way, and light to shine in darkness) being blinded by the bewitching of images, as blind guides of the blind, fell both into the pit of damnable idolatry. All the world continued in idolatry, as it were drowned, until our age [1623], by the space of above eight hundred years [ie, since about 800 A.D.], unspoken against in some way. And this success had Gregory's order, which mischief had never come to pass, had Bishop Serenus way been taken, and all idols and images been utterly destroyed and abolished. For no man worships that which does not exist. And thus you see how from having images privately, it came to public setting of them up in churches and temples, although without harm initially, as was then by some wise and learned men judged, and from simply having them there, it came at the last to worshipping of them. First, by the uneducated people, who especially (as the scripture teaches) are in danger of superstition and idolatry, and afterwards by the bishops, the learned, and by the whole clergy (Apocrypha. Wisdom 13:10, 14:16). So that laity and clergy, learned and unlearned, all ages, sects, and degrees of men, women, and children, of whole Christendom (an horrible and most dreadful thing to think) have been at once drowned in abominable idolatry, of all other vices most detested by God, and most damnable to man and that by the space of eight hundred years and more. And to this end is come that beginning of setting up of images in churches, then judged harmless, in experience proved not only harmful, but a way of death and pestilent, and to the destruction and subversion of all good religion universally. So that I conclude, as it may be possible in some one city or little country, to have images set up in temples and churches and yet idolatry, by earnest and continual preaching of God's true word and the sincere Gospel of our Savior Christ, may be kept away for a short time. So is it impossible, that (images once set up and suffered in temples and churches) any great countries, much less the whole world, can any long time be kept from idolatry. And the godly will respect, not only their own city, country and time, and the health of men of their age. But be careful for all places and times, and the salvation of men of all ages. At the least, they will not lay such stumbling blocks and snares for the feet of other countrymen and ages, whose experience has already proved to have been the ruin of the world. Wherefore I make a general conclusion of all that I have hitherto said. If the stumbling blocks and poisons of men's souls, by setting up of images, will be many, yea, infinite if they are permitted, and the warnings of the same stumbling blocks, and remedies for the mentioned poisons by preaching but few, as is already declared. If the stumbling blocks are easy to be laid, the poisons soon provided, and the warnings and remedies hard to know or come by, if the stumbling blocks lie continually in the way and poison be ready at hand every where, and warnings and remedies but seldom given, and if all men are more ready of themselves to stumble and be offended than to be warned, all men more ready to drink of the poison than to taste of the remedy (as is before partly, and shall hereafter more fully be declared) and so finally, the poison continually and deeply drunk of many, the remedy seldom and faintly tasted of a few. How can it be but that very many of the weak and infirm shall be offended, very many by ruin shall break their necks, very many by deadly venom by poisoned in their souls? And how is the charity of God, or love of our neighbor in our hearts then, if when we may remove such dangerous stumbling blocks, such pestilent poisons, we will not remove them? What shall I say of those who will lay stumbling blocks where before there was none, and set snares for the feet, nay, for the souls of weak and simple ones, and work the danger of their everlasting destruction, for whom our Savior Christ shed his most precious blood, where better it were that the arts of painting, plastering, carving, graving, and founding, had never been found nor used, than one of them, whose souls in the sight of God are so precious, should by occasion of image or picture perish and be lost. And thus is it declared that preaching cannot possibly prevent idolatry if images are set up publicly in temples and churches. And as true is it, that no other remedy, as writing against idolatry, councils assembled, decrees made against it, severe laws likewise and proclamations of princes and emperors, neither extreme punishments and penalties, nor any other remedy could or can be possibly devised for the avoiding of idolatry, if images be publicly set up and permitted. For concerning writing against images, and idolatry to them committed, there has been alleged to you in the second part of this treatise a great many places, out of St. Jerome, Origen, Lactantius, St. Augustine, Epiphanius, St. Ambrose, Clement, and several other learned and holy bishops and teachers of the church. And besides these, all ecclesiastical histories and books of other godly and learned bishops and teachers are full of notable examples and sentences against images and the worshipping of them. And as they have most earnestly written, so did they sincerely and most diligently in their time teach and preaching, according to their writings and examples. For they were then preaching bishops, and more often seen in pulpits, than in princes' palaces, more often occupied in his legacy, who said, "Go you into the whole world, and preach the Gospel to all men", than in messages conveyed by ambassadors and affairs of princes of this world. And as they were most zealous and diligent, so were they of excellent learning and godliness of life, and by both of great authority and credit with the people, and so of more force and likelihood to persuade the people, and the people more likely to believe and follow their doctrine. But if their preaching could not help, much less could their writings, which do but come to the knowledge of a few that are learned, in comparison to continual preaching, whereof the whole multitude is partaker. Neither did the old fathers, bishops, and teachers, each successively only by preaching and writing, but also together, great numbers of them assembled in synods and councils, make decrees and ecclesiastical laws against images, and the worshipping of them. Neither did they so once or twice, but many times, and in many ages and countries, assembled synods and councils, and made severe decrees against images and worshipping of them, as has been discussed extensively in the second part of this homily before declared. But all their writing, preaching, assembling in councils, decreeing and making of ecclesiastical laws, could nothing help, either to pull down images to whom idolatry was committed, or against idolatry while images stood. For those blind books and dumb schoolmasters, I mean images and idols (for they call them laymen's books, and schoolmasters) by their carved and painted writings, teaching and preaching idolatry prevailed against all their written books, and preaching with lively voice, as they call it. Well, if preaching and writing could not keep men from worshipping of images and idolatry, if pen and words could not do it, you would think that penalty and sword might do it, I mean, that princes by severe laws and punishments might stay this unbridled affection of all men to idolatry, though images were set up and permitted. But experience proves that this can no more help against idolatry than writing and preaching. For Christian emperors (whose authority ought of reason, and by God's law, to be greatest) above eight in number, and six of them successively reigning one after another (as is in the histories before rehearsed) making most severe laws and proclamations against idols and idolatry, images, and the worshipping of images, and executing most grievous punishments, even the penalty of death, upon the maintainers of images, and upon idolaters and image-worshippers, could not bring to pass that either images once set up might thoroughly be destroyed, or that men should refrain from the worshipping of them, being set up. And what think you then will come to pass if men of learning should teach the people to make them, and should maintain the setting up of them, as things necessary in religion? To conclude, it appears evidently by all stories and writings, and experience in times past, that neither preaching, neither writing, neither the consent of the learned, nor authority of the godly, nor the decrees of councils, neither the laws of princes, nor extreme punishments of the offenders in that behalf, nor any other remedy or means, can help against idolatry if images are permitted publicly. And it is truly said that times past are schoolmasters of wisdom to us that follow and live later. Therefore, if in times past, the most virtuous and best learned, the most diligent also, and in number almost infinite, ancient fathers, bishops, and teachers, with their writing, preaching, industry, earnestness, authority, assemblies and councils, could do nothing against images and idolatry to images once set up, what can we, neither in learning, nor holiness of life, neither in diligence, neither authority, to be compared with them, but men in contempt, and of no estimation (as the world goes now) a few also in number, in so great a multitude and malice of men. What can we do, I say, or bring to pass to the elimination of idolatry or worshipping of images, if they are allowed to stand publicly in temples and churches? And if so many, so mighty emperors, by so severe laws and proclamations, so rigorous and extreme punishments and executions could not keep the people from setting up and worshipping of images, what will ensue, think you, when men shall commend them as necessary books by the laymen? Let us therefore of these latter days learn this lesson of the experience of ancient antiquity, that idolatry can not possibly be separated from images any long time, but that as an inseparable accident, or as a shadow follows the body when the sun shines, so idolatry follows and cleaves to the public having of images in temples and churches. And finally, as idolatry is to be abhorred and avoided, so are images (which can not be long without idolatry) to be put away and destroyed. Besides the experiments and proof of times before, the very nature and origin of images themselves draws to idolatry most violently, and men's nature and inclination also is bent to idolatry so vehemently, that it is not possible to sever or part images, nor to keep men from idolatry, if images are permitted publicly. That I speak of the nature and origin of images, is this: Even as the first invention of them is evil, and no good can come of that which had an evil beginning, for they are altogether evil, as Athanasius in his book against the Gentiles declares, and Saint Jerome also upon the prophet Jeremiah the sixth chapter, and Eusebius, the seventh book of his ecclesiastical history, the 18th chapter testifies, that as they first came from the Gentiles, who were idolaters and worshippers of images, unto us, and as the invention of them was the beginning of spiritual fornication, as the word of God testifies (Apocrypha, Wisdom 14:12). So will they naturally (as it were of necessity) turn to their origin from whence they came, and draw us with them most violently to idolatry, abominable to God and all godly men. For if the origin of images and worshipping of them, as it is recorded in the eight chapter of the book of Wisdom, began of a blind love of a fond father, framing for his comfort an image of his son, being dead, and so at the last men fell to worshipping the image of him whom they knew to be dead, how much more will men and women fall to worshipping of the images of God, our Savior Christ, and his saints, if they are permitted to stand in churches and temples publicly? For the greater the opinion is of the majesty and holiness of the person to whom an image is made, the sooner will the people fall to worshipping of that image. Wherefore the images of God, our Savior Christ, the blessed virgin Mary, the apostles, martyrs, and others of notable holiness, are of all other images most dangerous for the peril of idolatry, and therefore greatest heed to be taken that none of them be permitted to stand publicly in churches and temples. For there is no great dread lest any should fall to the worshipping of the images of Annas, Caiaphas, Pilate, or Judas the traitor, if they were set up. But to the others, it is already fully proven that idolatry has been, is, and is most likely continually to be committed. Now as was before touched on, and is here most largely to be declared, the nature of man is none otherwise bent to worshipping of images (if he may have them, and see them) than it is bent to whoredom and adultery in the company of harlots. And as unto a man given to the lust of the flesh, seeing a wanton harlot, sitting by her, and embracing her, it profits little for one to say, "Beware of fornication, God will condemn fornicators and adulterers". For neither will he, being overcome with greater enticements of the strumpet give ear or take heed to such godly admonitions, and when he is left afterwards alone with the harlot, nothing can follow but wickedness (1 Corinthians 6.9-10, 1 Thessalonians 4.3, 1.Cor. 5.1, Hebrews 13.4). Even so, permit images to be set in the churches and temples, you shall in vain bid them to beware of images, as Saint John does, and flee idolatry (1 John 5.21), as all the scriptures warn us, you shall in vain preach and teach them against idolatry. For a number will notwithstanding fall headlong unto it, by the nature of images, and by the inclination of their own corrupt nature.

Wherefore as for a man given to lust, to sit down by a strumpet, is to tempt God, so is it likewise to erect an idol in this proneness of man's nature to idolatry, nothing but a tempting. Now if any will say that this resemblance proves nothing, yet I pray them let the word of God, out of the which the resemblance is taken, prove something. Does not the word of God call idolatry "spiritual fornication" (Leviticus 17:7, 20:3, Numbers 25:2, Deuteronomy 31:16, Ezekiel 6:9)? Does it not call a gilt or painted idol or image a strumpet with a painted face? Are not the spiritual wickedness of idols enticing, like the flatteries of a wanton harlot? Are not men and women as prone to spiritual fornication (I mean idolatry) as to carnal fornication? If this is denied, let all nations upon the earth which have been idolaters (as by all stories appears) prove it true. Let the Jews and the people of God which were so often and so earnestly warned, so dreadfully threatened concerning images and idolatry, and so extremely punished therefore (and yet fell unto it) prove it to be true, as in almost all the books of the Old Testament, namely the Kings and the Chronicles, and the prophets, it appears most evidently. Let all ages and times, and men of all ages and times, of all degrees and conditions, wise men, learned men, princes, idiots, unlearned, and commonalty, prove it to be true. If you require examples: for wise men, you have the Egyptians, and the Indian Gymnosophistes⁴, the wisest men of the world, you have Solomon the wisest of all others. For learned men, the Greeks, and namely the Athenians, exceeding all other nations in superstition and idolatry, as in the history of the Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul charges them (Acts 17:16, Romans 1:23). For princes and governors, you have the Romans, the rulers of the roost (as they say), you have the same forenamed King Solomon, and all the kings of Israel and Judah after him, saving David, Ezekiel and Josiah, and one or two more. All these (I say) and infinite others, wise, learned, princes, and governors, being all idolaters, have you for examples and a proof of men's inclination to idolatry. That I may pass over with silence in the mean time, infinite multitudes and millions of idiots and unlearned, the ignorant and gross people, like unto horses and mules in whom is no understanding, whose peril and danger to fall in multitudes to idolatry by occasion of images, the scriptures especially foreshow and give warning of (Psalms 32:9). And indeed how should the unlearned, simple, and foolish escape the nets and snares of idols and images, in the which the wisest and the best learned have been so entangled, trapped, and wrapped (Apocrypha. Wisdom 13:17-19, 14:1, 27)? Wherefore the argument holds this ground sure, that men are as inclined of their corrupt nature to spiritual fornication as to carnal fornication, which the wisdom of God foreseeing, to the general prohibition that none should make to themselves and image or resemblance, adds a cause, depending of man's corrupt nature. Lest (says God) you being deceived with error, honor and worship them (Deuteronomy 4:16, 19). And of this ground of man's corrupt inclination, as well to spiritual fornication as to carnal, it necessarily follows that as it is the duty of the godly magistrate, loving honesty, and hating whoredom, to remove all strumpets and harlots, especially out of places notoriously suspected or resorted unto by evil groups of people, for the avoiding of carnal fornication, so it is the duty of the same godly magistrate, after the examples of the godly kings, Ezekiel and Josiah, to drive away all spiritual harlots, (I mean idols and images) especially out of suspected places, churches and temples, dangerous for idolatry to be committed to images placed there, as it were in the appointed place and height of honor and worship (as Saint Augustine said) where the living God only (and not dead stones and stocks) is to be worshipped. It is (I say) the office of godly magistrates likewise to purge images and idols out of churches and temples, as spiritual harlots out of suspected places for the avoiding of idolatry, which is spiritual fornication (Augustine, on Psalms 36 and 113 in `De Civitatis Dei', Book. 4, Chapter 3). And as he were the enemy of all honesty, that should bring strumpets and harlots out of their secret corners into the public market place, there freely to dwell and practice their filthy merchandise, so is the enemy of the true worshipping of God, that brings idols and images into the temple and church, the house of God, there openly to be worshipped, and to rob the zealous God of his honor, who will not give it to any other, nor his glory to carved images, who is as much forsaken, and the bond of love between man and him as much broken by idolatry, which is spiritual fornication, as is the knot and bond of marriage broken by carnal fornication. Let all this be taken as a lie, if the word of God enforce it not to be true. "Cursed be the man", said God in Deuteronomy, "that makes a carved or molten image, and places it in a secret corner. And all the people shall say, 'Amen' " (Deuteronomy 27:15). Thus said God, for at that time no man dared to have or worship images openly, but in corners only, and the whole world being the great temple of God, he that in any corner thereof robs God of his glory, and gives it to stocks and stones, is pronounced by God's word accursed. Now he that will bring these spiritual harlots out of their lurking corners, into public churches and temples, that spiritual fornication may there openly of all men and women without shame be committed with them, no doubt that person is cursed of God, and twice cursed, and all good and godly men and women will say "Amen", and their "Amen" will take effect also. Yes, and furthermore the madness of all men professing the religion of Christ, now [1623 A.D.] for about a hundred years [since about 1500 A.D.], and yet even in our time [1623 A.D.] in so great light of the Gospel, very many running on heaps by sea and land, to the great loss of their time, expense and waste of their goods, destitution of their wives, children, and families, and danger of their own bodies and lives, to Compostella [Spain]³⁶, Rome, Jerusalem, and other far countries, to visit dumb and dead stocks and stones, does sufficiently prove the proneness of man's corrupt nature to the seeking of idols once set by, and the worshipping of them. And thus as well by the origin and nature of idols and images themselves, as by the proneness and inclination of man's corrupt nature to idolatry, it is evident that neither images, if they are publicly set up, can be separated, nor men, if they see images in temples and churches, can be steadfast and kept from idolatry. Now whereas they yet allege that however the people, princes, learned, and wise of old time, have fallen into idolatry by occasion of images, that yet in our time the most part, especially the learned, wise, and of any authority, take no hurt nor offence by idols and images, neither do run into far countries to them, and worship them. And that they know well what an idol or image is, and how to be used, and that therefore it follows that images in churches and temples are an indifferent thing, which of some is not abused, and that therefore they may justly hold (as was in the beginning of this part by them alleged) that it is not unlawful or wicked absolutely to have images in churches and temples, though it may for the danger of the simple sort seem to be not altogether expedient.

Whereunto may be well replied, that Solomon, also the wisest of all men, did well know what an idol or image was, and neither took any harm thereof a great while himself, and also with his godly writings armed others against the danger of them. But yet afterward the same Solomon, suffering his wanton paramours to bring their idols into his court and palace, was by carnal harlots persuaded, and brought at the last to the committing of spiritual fornication with idols, and of the wisest and godliest prince became the most foolish and wicked also (Apocrypha. Wisdom 13:14). Wherefore, it is better even for the wisest to regard this warning, he that loves danger shall perish therein. And let him that stands beware lest he fall, rather than wittingly and willingly to lay such a stumbling block for his own feet and others, that may perhaps bring at last to break neck (Apocrypha. Ecclesiasticus 3:26, 13:13, 1 Corinthians 10:12). The good king Ezekiel knew well enough that the brazen serpent was but a dead image, and therefore he took no hurt himself thereby through idolatry to it (2 Kings 18:4). Did he therefore let it stand, because hr, himself, took no hurt thereof? No not so, but being a good king, and therefore regarding the health of his simple subjects deceived by that image, and committing idolatry thereto, he not only took it down, but also broke it to pieces. And this he did to that image that was set up by the commandment of God, in the presence whereof great miracles were wrought, as that which was a figure of our Savior Christ to come, who should deliver us from the mortal sting of the old serpent Satan. Neither did he spare it in respect of the ancientness or antiquity of it, which had continued more than seven hundred years, nor for that it had been permitted and preserved by so many godly kings before his time. Now (think you) would that godly prince (if he were now living) handle our idols, set up against God's commandment directly, and being figures of nothing but folly, and for fools to gaze on, till they become as wise as the blocks themselves which they stare on, and so fall down as dared larks in that gas, and being themselves alive, worship a dead stock or stone, gold or silver, and so become idolaters, abominable and cursed before the living God, giving the honor due unto him which made them when they were nothing, and to our Savior Christ who redeemed them being lost, to the dead and dumb idol, the work of man's hand, which never did nor can do anything for them. No, is not able to stir nor once to move, and therefore worse than a vile worm which can move and creep? The excellent King Josiah also took himself no hurt of images and idols, for he knew well what they were. Did he therefore because of his own knowledge let idols and images stand? Much less did he set any up? Or rather did he not by his knowledge and authority also help or assist the ignorance of such as did not know what they were, by utter taking away of all such stumbling blocks as might be occasion of ruin to his people and subjects? Will they, because a few took no hurt by images or idols, break the general law of God, "You shall make to you no resemblance", etc. They might as well, because Moses was not seduced by Jethro's daughter, nor Boas by Ruth, being strangers, reason, that all the Jews might break the general law of God, forbidding his people to join their children in marriage with strangers, lest they seduce their children, that they should not follow God. Wherefore they who thus reason, thought it is not expedient, yet it is lawful to have images publicly, and do prove that lawfulness by a few picked and chosen men. If they object that indifferently to all men, which a very few can have without hurt and offence, they seem to take the multitude for vile souls (as he said in Virgil) of whose loss and safeguard no reputation is to be had, for whom yet Christ paid as dearly as for the mightiest prince, or the wisest and best learned in the earth. And they that will have it generally to be taken for indifferent, that a very few take no hurt of it, though infinite multitudes beside perish thereby, show that they put little difference between the multitude of Christians and brute beasts, whose danger they do so little esteem. Besides this, if they are bishops or parsons, or otherwise having charge of men's consciences that thus reason, it is lawful to have images publicly, though it is not expedient what manner of pastors they show themselves to be to their flock, which thrust unto those which they themselves confess not to be expedient for them, but to the utter ruin of the souls committed to their charge, for whom they shall give a strait account before the prince of pastors at the last day? For indeed to object to the weak, and ready to fall of themselves, such stumbling blocks, is a thing not only not expedient, but unlawful, yes, and most wicked also. Wherefore it is to be wondered how they can call images, set up in churches and temples to no profit or benefit of any, and to so great peril and danger, even hurt and destruction of many, or rather infinite, things indifferent. Is not the public setting up of them rather a snare for all men, and the tempting of God? I beseech these who reason to call to mind their own accustomed ordinance and decree, whereby they determined that the scripture, though by God himself commanded to be known by all men, women, and children, should not be read by the simple, nor had in the vulgar tongue, for that (as they said) it was dangerous, by bringing the simple people into errors (Deuteronomy 31:11-12). And will they not forbid images to be set up in churches and temples which are not commanded, but forbidden most strictly by God, but let them still be there, yes, and maintain them also, seeing the people are brought not in danger only, but in deed into most abominable errors and detestable idolatry thereby? Shall God's word, by God commanded to be read unto all, and known of all, for danger of heresy (as they say) be shut up? And idols and images, notwithstanding they are forbidden by God, and notwithstanding the danger of idolatry by them, shall they yet be set up, permitted, and maintained in churches and temples? O worldly and fleshly wisdom, even bent to maintain the inventions and traditions of men by carnal reason, and by the same to abolish or deface the holy ordinances, laws, and honor of the eternal God, who is to be honored and praised forever. Amen.

Conclusion. Now it remains for the conclusion of this treatise, to declare as well the abuse of churches and temples, by too costly and sumptuous decorating and adorning of them, as also the lewd painting, gilding, and clothing of idols and images, and so to conclude the whole treatise.

In St. Jerome's [347 - 420 A.D.] [Tertulian's] time [145 - 220 A.D.], a hundred and threescore [160] years after Christ [193 A.D.], Christians had no other temples but common houses, to which place they usually secretly frequently gathered (St. Jerome, `Apology'; Chapter 39, Tertulian Apology<sup>37</sup>). And so remotely possible was it that they had before his time any splendid or gorgeous decked temples, that laws were made in the times of Emperors Antonius, Verus, and Commodus, that no Christians should dwell in houses, come in public bathes, or be seen in streets, or any where abroad, and that if they were once accused to be Christians, they should not be permitted to escape (Eusebius, `Ecclesiastical History', book 5 [chapter 1]³⁹; Hieronymus³⁸). As was practiced on Apolonius, a noble senator of Rome, who being accused by his own bondman and slave that he was a Christian could neither by his defense and apology learnedly and eloquently written and read publicly in the senate, nor in respect that he was a citizen, nor for the dignity of his order, nor for the vileness and unlawfulness of his accuser, being his own slave, by likelihood of malice moved to forge lies against his Lord, nor for no other respect or help could be delivered from death. So that Christians were then driven to dwell in caves and dens, so impossible was it that they had any public temples adorned and decorated as they now are. This is discussed here to the confutation of those who report such glorious glossed fables of the splendid and gorgeous temple that Saint Peter, Linus, Cletus, and their successors, those thirty bishops, had at Rome, until the time of the Emperor Constantine, and which Saint Polycarp should have in Asia, or Ireneus in France, by such lies, contrary to all true histories, to maintain the superfluous gilding and decorating of temples today [1623], wherein they put almost the whole sum and pith of our religion. But in those times the world was won to Christendom, not by gorgeous, gilded, and painted temples of Christians, who had scarcely houses to dwell in, but by the godly, and as it were golden minds and firm faith of those who in all adversity and persecution professed the truth of our religion. And after these times in Emperor Maximinian [286 - 305 A.D.] and Emperor Constantius' [Constantine's] proclamation [Edict of Religious Toleration, April 311 A.D.][Edict of Milan, 313 A.D.] , the places where Christians resorted to public prayer were called conventicles⁵ (Eusebius, `Ecclesiastical History', book 8, chapter 19 [ ?  Chapter 17 is the last chapter of Book 8.], and book 9, chapter 9 [report of Constantine's public proclimation that his victories were due to the sign of the cross.]). And in Galerius Maximinus the Emperor's Epistle, they are called Oratories and Dominicae, to say, places dedicated to the service of the Lord. And here by the way it is to be noted, that at that time there were no churches or temples erected unto any saint, but to God only, as Saint Augustine also records, saying, "We build no temples unto our martyrs" (Augustine, De Civitate [Dei], book 8, chapter 1 [No such statement is in Augustine, City of God, book 8, chapter 1.]). And Eusebius himself calls churches "houses of prayer", and shows that in Constantine the Emperor's time, all men rejoiced, seeing instead of low conventicles, which tyrants had destroyed, high temples to be built.

Catacombs. Notice, to the time of Constantine, for over three hundred years after our Savior Christ, when Christian religion was most pure, and indeed golden, Christians had but low and poor conventicles, and simple oratories, even caves under the ground, called catacombs, where they for fear of persecution assembled secretly together.

Basilica. A figure whereof remains in the vaults which yet are built under great Churches, to put us in remembrance of the old state of the primitive Church before Constantine, whereas in Constantine's time, and after him, were built great and splendid temples for Christians called basilicas, either because the Greeks used to call all great and splendid places basilicas, or because the high and everlasting King God and our Savior Christ was served in them. But although Constantine and other princes of good zeal to our religion sumptuously decorated and adorned Christians temples, at that time they dedicated all churches and temples to God or our Savior Christ, and to no saint, for that abuse began long after in Justinian's time [483-565 A.D.]. And that gorgeousness then used, as it was borne with, as rising of a good zeal, so was it noted by the godly educated people even at that time that such cost might otherwise have been better bestowed (Novellae Constitutiones⁴⁰, 3, 47).  Let Saint Jerome (although otherwise too great a liker and allower of external and outward things) be a proof hereof, who has these words in his epistle to Demetriades⁴¹, "Let others (said Saint Jerome) build churches, cover walls with tables of marble, carry together huge pillars, and gild their tops or heads, who do not feel or understand their precious decorating and adorning. Let them decorate the doors with ivory, and silver, and set the golden altars with precious stones. I blame it not. Let every man abound in his own sense, and it is better to do so than carefully to keep their riches laid up in store. But you have another way appointed you, to clothe Christ in the poor, to visit him in the sick, feed him in the hungry, lodge him in those who lacks harbor, and especially such as are of the household of faith."

And the same Saint Jerome touches the same matter somewhat more freely in his treatise of the life of clergy to Nepotian⁴², saying thus, "Many build walls, and erect pillars of churches, the smooth marbles glisten, the roof shines with gold, the altar is set with precious stones, but of the ministers of Christ there is no election or choice. Neither let any man object and allege against me the rich temple that was in jury, the table, candlesticks, incense, incense vessel, platters, cups, bowls, and other things all of gold. These things were then allowed by the Lord, when the priests offered sacrifices and the blood of beasts was accounted the redemption of sins. Be that as it may, all these things went before symbolically, and they were written for us upon whom the end of the world is come. And now since our Lord, being poor, has dedicated the poverty of his house, let us remember his cross and we shall esteem riches as mire and dung. What do we marvel at, that which Christ calls wicked mammon? Whereto do we so highly esteem and love that which St. Peter does for a glory testify that he had not?" Hitherto St. Jerome. Thus you see how St. Jerome teaches the sumptuousness amongst the Jews to be a figure to signify, and not an example to follow, and that those outward things were permitted for a time, until Christ our Lord came, who turned all those outward things into spirit, faith, and truth. And the same Saint Jerome, regarding the seventh chapter of Jeremiah  said, God commanded both the Jews at that time, and now us who are placed in the church, that we "have no trust in the goodliness of building and guilt roofs, and in walls covered with tables of marble, and say, 'the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord' " [Jeremiah 7: 3-4]. For that is the temple of the Lord wherein dwells true faith, godly conversation, and the company of all virtues. And regarding the prophet Haggai, he describes the true and right decorating or ornaments of the temple after this sort: I (said Saint Jerome) do think the silver wherewith the house of God is decorated, to be the doctrine of the scriptures, of the which it is spoken, The doctrine of the Lord is a pure doctrine. Silver tried in the fire, purged from dross, purified seven times. And I take gold to be that which remains in the hidden sense of the saints, and the secret of the heart, and shines with the true light of God. Which is evident that the apostle also meant of the saints that build upon the foundation of Christ, some silver, some gold, some precious stones, that by the gold, the hidden sense, by silver, godly utterance, by precious stones, works which please God, might be signified. With these metals, the church of our Savior is made more splendid and gorgeous than was the synagogue in old time. With these lively stones is the church and house of Christ built, and peace is given to it for ever. All these are Saint Jerome's sayings. No more did the old godly bishops and teachers of the church allow the oversumptuous furniture of temples and churches, with plate, vessels of gold, silver, and precious vestments. St. Chrysostom said, in the ministry of the holy sacraments, there is no need of golden vessels, but of golden minds (Chrysostom, `2 Offi.', chapter 28)⁴³. And Saint Ambrose said, "Christ sent his apostles without gold, and gathered his church without gold. The church has gold, not to keep it, but to bestow it on the necessities of the poor. The sacraments look for no gold, neither do they please God for the commendation of gold, which are not bought for gold. The adorning and decorating of the sacraments is the redemption of captives."⁴⁴ Thus much said Saint Ambrose.

Saint Jerome commends Exuperius, Bishop of Tolose⁴⁵, that he carried the sacrament of the Lord's body in a wicker basket, and the sacrament of his blood in a glass, and so cast covetousness out of the church (unidentified, Tit. de consecra. can. Triburien.). And Bonifacius⁴⁸, bishop and martyr, as it is recorded in the decrees, testifies that in old time the ministers used wooden, and not golden, vessels. And Zephyrinus⁴⁹, the 16th [15th] bishop of Rome [198 - 217 A.D.], made a decree that they should use vessels of glass. Likewise, the vestments used in the church in old time were very plain and single, and not costly (Lactantius, The Devine Institutes, book 1, chapter 14)⁴⁶. And Rabanus⁴⁷ declares with lengthy explanation that this costly and manifold furniture of vestments of late [about 850 A.D.] used in the church was set from the Jewish usage, and agrees with Aaron's appareling almost altogether. For the maintenance of which Pope Innocent II⁵⁰ pronounces boldly that all the customs of the old law are not abolished, that we might in such apparel, of Christians the more willingly become Jewish. This is noted not against churches and temples, which are most necessary, and ought to have their due use and honor, as is in another homily declared for that purpose, nor against the convenient cleanness and ornaments thereof, but against the sumptuousness and abuses of the temples and churches. For it is a church or temple also that glitters with no marble, shines with no gold nor silver, glistens with no pearls nor precious stones, but with plainness and frugality, signifies no proud doctrine nor people, but humble, frugal, and nothing esteeming earthly and outward things, but gloriously decked with inward ornaments according as the prophet declares, saying, "The king's daughter is altogether glorious inwardly" [Psalm 45:13].

Now concerning excessive decorating of images and idols, with painting, gilding, adorning, with precious vestures, pearl, and stone. What is it else, but for the further provocation and enticement to spiritual fornication, to decorate spiritual harlots most costly and wantonly, which the idolatrous church understands well enough. For she being in deed not only a harlot (as the scripture calls her), but also a foul, filthy, old withered harlot (for she is indeed of ancient years), and understanding her lack of nature and true beauty, and great loathsomeness which of herself she has, does (after the custom of such harlots) paint herself, and decorate and attire herself with gold, pearl, stone, and all kind of precious jewels, that she, shining with the outward beauty and glory of them, may please the foolish fantasy of fond lovers, and so entice them to spiritual fornication with her. Who, if they saw her (I will not say naked), but in simple apparel, would abhor her as the foulest and filthiest harlot that ever was seen. Accordingly, as appears by the description of the garnishing of the great strumpet of all strumpets, the mother of whoredom, set forth by Saint John in Revelation 17:2, who by her glory provoked the princes of the earth to commit whoredom with her. Whereas on the contrary part, the true church of God, as a chaste matron, espoused (as the scripture teaches) to one husband, our savior Jesus Christ, whom alone she is content only to please and serve, and looks not to delight the eyes or fantasies of any other strange lovers or wooers, is content with her natural ornaments, not doubting, by such sincere simplicity, best to please him, who can well distinguish the difference between a painted visage and true natural beauty. And concerning such glorious gilding and decorating of images, both God's word written in the tenth chapter of the prophet Jeremiah, and Saint Jerome's commentaries upon the same, are most worthy to be noted. First, the words of the scriptures are these: "The workman with his axe hewed the timber out of the wood with the work of his hands, he decked it with gold and silver, he joined it with nails and pins and the stroke a hammer, that it might hold together. They are made smooth as the palm, and they can not speak: if they be borne they remove, for they cannot go. Fear you them not, for they can neither do evil nor good." Thus said the prophet (Jeremiah 10.3-5). Upon this text, Saint Jerome⁵¹ has these words: "This is the description of idols which the Gentiles worship, their matter is vile and corruptible. And since the artificer is mortal, the things he makes are necessarily be corruptible, he decorates it with silver and gold, that with the glittering or shining of both metals he may deceive the simple. This error indeed has passed over from the Gentiles, that we should judge religion to depend on riches. And by and by after he said, "They have the beauty of metals and are beautified by the art of painting, but good or profit is there none in them." And shortly after again, "They make great promises and devise an image of vain worshipping of their own fantasies, they make great brags to deceive every simple body, they dull and amaze the understanding of the unlearned, as it were with golden sentences and eloquence, shining with the brightness of silver. And of their own devisers and makers are these images advanced and magnified, in the which there is no utility nor profit at all, and the worshipping of the which properly pertains to the Gentiles and heathen, and those who do know not God."

Thus far of Saint Jerome words. Whereupon you may note as well his judgment of images themselves, as also of the painting, gilding, and decorating of them. That it is an error which came from the Gentiles, that it persuades religion to remain in riches, that it amazes and deceives the simple and unlearned with golden sentences, and silver shining eloquence, and that it pertains properly to the Gentiles and heathens, and those who do know not God. Wherefore the having, painting, gilding, and decorating of images, by Saint Jerome's judgment, is erroneous, seducing and bringing into error (especially the simple and unlearned) heathenish, and void of the knowledge of God.

Surely the prophet Daniel, in the eleventh chapter [Daniel 11:38], declares such sumptuous decorating of images with gold, silver, and precious stones, to be a token of antichrist's kingdom, who (as the prophet foreshows) shall worship God with such gorgeous things. Now usually such excessive adorning and decorating of images has risen and been maintained either by offerings provoked by superstition and given in idolatry, or by spoils, robberies, usury, or goods otherwise unjustly gotten. Whereof wicked men have given part to the images or saints (as they call them), that they might be pardoned of the whole, as of diverse writings and old monuments concerning the cause and end of certain great gifts, may well appear. And indeed, such money so wickedly gotten is most appropriate to be put to so wicked a use. And that which they take to be amends for the whole before God, is more abominable in his sight, than both the wicked getting, and the more wicked spending of all the rest. For how the Lord allows such gifts, he declares evidently in the prophet Isaiah, saying, "I (said the Lord) love judgment, and I hate spoil and ravenousness offered in sacrifice, which the very Gentiles understood" [Isaiah 61: 8-9]  For Plato shows that such men who suppose that God pardons wicked men, if they give part of their spoils and rapine to him, take him to be like a dog that would be entreated and hired with part of the pray, to permit the wolves to weary the sheep (Plato, De Legibus, 10)⁵². And in case the goods with which images are decorated were justly gotten, yet it is extreme madness, so foolishly and wickedly to bestow goods purchased by wisdom and truth. Of such lewdness Lactantius writes thus, "Men do in vain decorate images of the gods with gold, ivory, and precious stone, as though they could take any pleasure in those things" (Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 2, chapter 4)⁵³. "For what use have they of precious gifts, which understand nor feel nothing? Even the same that dead men have. For with like reason do they bury dead bodies, embalmed with spices and odors, and clothed with precious vestures, and adorned with images which neither felt or knew when they were made, nor understand when they are honored, for they get no sense and understanding by their consecration." Thus far Lactantius, and much more, too long here to rehearse, declaring, that as little girls play with little puppets, so are these decked images great puppets for old fools to play with. And that we may know what, not only men of our religion, but pagans also, judge of such decorating of dead images, it is not unprofitable to hear what Seneca⁵⁴, a wise and excellent learned senator of Rome, and philosopher, said concerning the foolishness of ancient and entombed men, used in his time in worshipping and decorating of images: "We (said Seneca) are not twice children (as the common saying is) but always children. But this is the difference, that we being elder, play the children, and in these plays they bring in before great and well decked puppets (for so he calls images) ointments, incense, and odors. To these puppets they offer up sacrifice, which have a mouth, but not the use of teeth. Upon these they put attiring and precious apparel, which have no use of clothes. To these they give gold and silver, which they who receive it (meaning the images) lack, as well as they who have given it from them." And Seneca much commends Dionysius, king of Sicily, for his merry robbing of such adorned and jeweled puppets. But you will ask, what does this pertain to our images, since this is written against the idols of the Gentiles? Altogether surely. For what use or pleasure have our images of their decorating and precious ornaments? Did our images understand when they were made, or know when they are so trimmed and decked? Are not these things bestowed upon them, as much in vain, as upon dead men which have no sense? Wherefore it follows, that there is similar foolishness and lewdness in decorating our images, as great puppets for old fools, like children, to play the wicked play of idolatry before, as was among the pagans and Gentiles. Our churches stand full of such great puppets, wondrously decked and adorned, garlands and coronets be set on their heads, precious pearls hanging about their necks, their fingers shine with rings, set with precious stones. Their dead and stiff bodies are clothed with garments stiff with gold. You would believe that the images of our men saints were some princes of Persia with their proud apparel, and the idols of our women saints were nice and well trimmed harlots, tempting their paramours to wantonness. Whereby the saints of God are not honored, but most dishonored, and their godliness, soberness, chastity, contempt of riches, and of the vanity of the world, defaced and brought in doubt by such monstrous decorating, most differing from their sober and godly lives. And because the whole pageant must thoroughly be played, it is not enough thus to decorate idols, but at the last come in the priests themselves, likewise adorned with gold and pearl, that they may be apt servants for such lords and ladies, and fit worshippers of such gods and goddesses. And with a solemn pace, they pass forth before these golden puppets and fall down to the ground on their marrow bones before these honorable idols, and then rising up again, offer up odors and incense unto them to give the people and example of double idolatry by worshipping not only the idol, but the gold also, and riches wherewith it is garnished. Most of our old martyrs suffered most cruel and terrible deaths rather than do these things, or once kneel, or offer up one crumb of incense before an image, as the histories of them declare. And here again their allegation out of Gregory the First and John of Damascus, that images are the laymen's books, and that pictures are the scripture of idiots and simple persons, is worthy to be considered (Gregory, Epistle to Serenus Masile⁵⁵, John of Damascus, De Fide Ortho. [Exposition of the Orthodox Faith]⁵⁶, book 4, chapter 17 16). For as it has been addressed in various places before, how they are books teaching nothing but lies, as by Saint Paul in the first chapter to the Romans clearly states about the images of God [Romans 1: 21-23]. So what manner of books and scripture these painted and gilt images of saints are unto the common people, note well I pray you. For after that our preachers shall have instructed and exhorted the people to the following of the virtues of the saints, as contempt of this world, poverty, soberness, chastity, and similar virtues, which undoubtedly were in the saints. Think. As soon as they turn their faces from the preacher and look upon the graven books and painted scripture of the glorious gilt images and idols, all shining and glittering with metal and stone, and covered with precious vestures, or else with Choerea in Terence⁵⁷, behold a painted table, wherein is set forth by the art of the painter, an image with a nice and wanton apparel and countenance, more like Venus or Flora than Mary Magdalene, or if like Mary Magdalene, it is when she played the harlot rather than when she wept for her sins. When I say they turn about from the preacher to these books and schoolmasters and painted scriptures, shall they not find them lying books, teaching other manner of lessons, of esteeming of riches, of pride, and vanity in apparel, of niceness and wantonness, and perhaps of whoredom, as Choerea of similar pictures was taught? And to Lucian⁵⁸, one learned a lesson of Venus Gnidia too abominable here to be remembered. Are not these, think you, pretty books and scriptures for simple people, and especially for wives and young maidens to look in, read on, and learn such lessons by? What will they think either of the preacher who taught them contrary lessons of the saints, and therefore by these carved teachers are charged with a lie, or of the saints themselves, if they believe these graven books and painted scriptures of them, who make the saints now reigning in heaven with God, to their great dishonor, schoolmasters of such vanity, which they in their life time most abhorred? For what lessons of contempt of riches and vanity of this world can such books, so besmeared with gold, set with precious stones, covered with silks, teach? What lessons of soberness and chastity can our women learn by these pictured sons of soberness and chastity? Can our women learn by these pictured scriptures, with their nice apparel and wanton looks? But a way for shame with these colored cloaks of idolatry, of the books and scriptures of images and pictures, to teach idiots, nay to make idiots and stark fools and beasts of Christians. Do men, I pray you, when they have the same books at home with them, run on pilgrimage to seek similar books at Rome, Compostella⁵⁹, or Jerusalem, to be taught by them, when they have similar ones to learn at home? Do men reverence some books, and despite and set light of others of the same sort? Do men kneel before their books, light candles at noon time, burn incense, offer up gold and silver, and other gifts to their books? Do men either feign or believe miracles to be wrought by their books? I am sure that the New Testament of our savior Jesus Christ, containing the word of life, is a more lively, express, and true image of our savior than all carved, graven, molten, and painted images in the world, and yet none of all these things are done to that book or scripture of the Gospel of our savior which are done to images and pictures, the books and scriptures of laymen and idiots, as they call them. Wherefore call them what they desire, it is most evident by their deeds that they make of them no other books nor scripture, than such as teach most filthy and horrible idolatry as the users of such books daily prove by continual practicing the same. O books and scriptures, in the which the devilish schoolmaster Satan has penned the lewd lessons of wicked idolatry for his dastardly disciples and scholars to behold, read, and learn, to God's most high dishonor, and their most horrible damnation. Have not we been much bound, think you, to those who should have taught us the truth out of God's book and his holy scripture, that they have closed that book and scripture from us, and none of us so bold as once to open it, or read it? And instead thereof, to spread us abroad these splendid, carven, and gilt books and painted scriptures, to teach us such good and godly lessons? Have not they done well, after they ceased to stand in pulpits themselves, and to teach the people committed to their instruction, keeping silence of God's word, and become dumb dogs (as the prophet calls them) to set up in their stead on every pillar and corner of the church such goodly teachers as dumb, but more wicked, than themselves are? We need not to complain of the lack of one dumb parson having so many dumb devilish vicars (I mean these idols and painted puppets) to teach in their stead. Now in the mean time, while the dumb and dead idols stand thus decked and clothed, contrary to God's law and commandment, the poor Christian people, the lively images of God, commended to us so tenderly by our Savior Christ as most dear to him, stand naked, shivering for cold, and their teeth chattering in their heads, and no man covers them, are pined with hunger and thirst, and no man gives them a small amount of money to refresh them, whereas much money is ready at all times (contrary to God's will) to deck and trim dead stocks and stones, which neither feel cold, hunger nor thirst.

Clement has a notable sentence concerning this matter, saying thus, "That serpent the Devil, by the mouth of certain men, utters these words: 'We, for the honor of the invisible God, worship visible images', which doubtless is most false. For if you will truly honor the image of God, you should by doing well to man, honor the true image of God in him. For the image of God is in every man. But the likeness of God is not in every one, but in those only which have a godly heart and pure mind. If you will therefore truly honor the image of God, we declare to you the truth that you are to do well to man, who is made after the image of God, that you give honor and reverence to him, and refresh the hungry with meat, the thirsty with drink, the naked with clothes, the sick with attendance, the homeless stranger with lodging, the prisoners with necessaries, and this shall be accounted as truly bestowed upon God. And these things are so directly pertaining to God's honor, that whoever does not do this shall seem to have reproached and done villainy to the image of God. For what honor of God is this, to run to images of stock and stone, and to honor vain and dead figures of God, and to despise man in whom is the true image of God? And by and by after he said, 'Understand therefore that this is the suggestion of the serpent Satan, lurking within you, which persuades you that you are godly, when you honor insensible and dead images, and that you are not ungodly when you hurt, or leave without merciful aid, the lively and reasonable creatures.' " All these are the words of Clement.⁶⁰

Note, I pray you, how this most ancient and learned teacher, within one hundred years of our Savior Christ's time, most plainly teaches that no service of God, or religion acceptable to him, can be in honoring of dead images, but in helping of the poor the lively images of God, according to Saint James (James 1:27), who said, "This is the pure and true religion before God the Father, to help fatherless and motherless children, and widow's in their affliction, and to keep himself undefiled from this world."

True religion then, and pleasing of God, stands not in making, setting up, painting, gilding, clothing and decorating of dumb and dead images (which are but great puppets and babies for old fools in dotage, and wicked idolatry, to dally and play with, nor in kissing of them, capping, kneeling, offering to them, in sensing of them, setting up of candles, hanging up of legs, arms, or whole bodies of wax before them, or praying, and asking of them or of saints, things belonging only to God to give. But all these things are vain and abominable, and most damnable before God. Wherefore all who not only bestow their money and labor in vain but, with their pains and cost, purchase to themselves God's wrath and utter indignation, and everlasting damnation both of body and soul. For you have heard it clearly proven in these homilies against idolatry, by God's word, the teachers of the church, ecclesiastical histories, reason, and experience, that images have been and are worshipped, and so idolatry committed to them by infinite multitudes, to the great offence of God's majesty, and danger of infinite souls, and that idolatry can not possibly be separated from images set up in churches and temples, gilded and decorated gloriously, and that therefore our images are indeed properly called idols. And so all the prohibitions, laws, curses, threats of horrible plagues, temporal as well as eternal, contained in the Holy Scripture, concerning idols, and the makers, and maintainers, and worshippers of them, pertain also to our images set up in churches and temples, and to the makers, maintainers, and worshippers of them. And all those names of abomination, which God's word in the Holy Scriptures gives to the idols of the Gentiles, pertain to our images, being idols like to them, and having like idolatry committed unto them. And God's own mouth in the Holy Scriptures calls them vanities, lies, deceits, uncleanness, filthiness, dung, mischief, and abomination before the Lord. Wherefore God's horrible wrath, and our most dreadful danger can not be avoided, without the destruction and utter abolishing of all such images and idols out of the church and temple of God, which to accomplish, God put in the minds of all Christian rulers. And in the mean time, let us take heed and be wise, you beloved of the Lord, and let us have no strange gods, but one only God, who made us when we were nothing, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who redeemed us when we were lost, and with his Holy Spirit who sanctifies us. "For this is life everlasting: To know him to be the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent" (John 17:3). Let us honor and worship for religion's sake none but him, and let us worship and honor him as he himself wishes. He has declared by his word, that he will be honored and worshipped, not in, nor by images or idols, which he has most directly forbidden, neither in kneeling, lighting of candles, burning of incense, offering up of gifts unto images and idols, to believe that we shall please him, for all these be abomination before God. But let us honor and worship God in spirit and truth, fearing and loving him above all things, trusting in him only, calling upon him, and praying to him only, praising and lauding of him only, and all others in him, and for him. For such worshippers does our heavenly Father love, who is a most pure spirit, and therefore will be worshipped in spirit and truth (John 4:24). And such worshippers were Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, Peter, Paul, John, and all other the holy patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, and all true saints of God, who all, as the true friends of God, were enemies and destroyers of images and idols, as the enemies of God and his true religion. Wherefore take heed and be wise, you beloved of the Lord, and that which others, contrary to God's word bestow wickedly, and to their damnation, upon dead stocks and stones, (no images, but enemies of God and his saints) that bestow you, as the faithful servants of God, according to God's word, mercifully upon poor men and women, fatherless children, widows, sick persons, strangers, prisoners, and such others that are in any necessity, that you may at that great day of the Lord hear that most blessed and comfortable saying of our Savior Christ: "Come, you blessed, into the kingdom of my father, prepared for you before the beginning of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me meat, thirsty and you gave me drink, naked and you clothed me, homeless and you lodged me, in prison and you visited me, sick and you comforted me. For whatever you have done for the poor and needy in my name, and for my sake, that have you done for me." [Matthew 26: 34-36, 40]  God the Father of mercies brings us to his heavenly kingdom for Jesus Christ's sake, our only savior, mediator, and advocate, to whom with the Holy Ghost, one immortal, invisible and most glorious God, be all honor and thanksgiving, and glory, world without end. Amen.

*Editing goals: Clear the text from obsolete words and phrases and from references local to England, its constitution, and laws.