mere mistake, these laft endeavour to defend out of policy: well knowing, that when once they have got the second to be confidered as only a part of the firft, they can much more ea fily pafs it over, as a part of no great separate meaning or im portance, than if it were thought a diftinct precept. And ac cordingly, in fome of their fmall books of devotion, they pass it over, and leave it out entirely *. But it deferves, as I fhall now how you, another fort of regard. The Prophet Ifaiah very juftly puts the queftion: To whom will ye liken God? Or what likeness will ye compare unto him? He is an invifible Spirit: therefore representing him in a visible shape, is representing him to be fuch as he is not. He is every where prefent: therefore a figure, confined by its nature to a particular place, must incline persons to a wrong conception of him. He is the living, wife, and powerful Governor of the world: therefore to exprefs him by a dead lump of matter must be doing him dishonour. We are unable indeed, at beft, to speak or think worthily of him and we cannot well avoid ufing fome of the fame phrases, concerning him and his actions, which we do concerning the parts and motions of our own bodies. But we can very well avoid making visible images of him and the plaineft reafon teaches, that we ought to avoid it; because they lower and debase mens notions of God: lead the weaker fort into fuperftitious and foolifh apprehenfions and practices and provoke thofe of better abilities, from a contempt of fuch childish reprefentations, to difregard and ridicule the religion into which they are adopted. : Therefore, in the early ages of the world, many of the heathens themselves had no images of the deity. Particularly, the ancient Perfians had none ‡. Nor had the firft Romans; Numa, their fecond king, having, as the philofopher Plutarch, himself a Roman magiftrate, though a Greek by birth, tells us, forbidden them to reprefent God in the form, either of a man or any other animal. "And accordingly, he faith, they had nei ther This they do in the Latin Office of the Virgin, and in fome of their English devotional books. Indeed there they omit likewife all but the first fentence of our fourth commandment, and the promife in our fifth: perhaps to palliate their preceding omiffion. * 99 ther any painted nor engraved figure of him for 170 years; but temples, void of any image of any shape; thinking it impious to liken a fuperior nature to inferior ones; and impof fible to attain the notion of God otherwise than by the understanding And Varro, one of the most learned of their own authors, after acknowledging, that "during more than 170 years they worshipped the gods without any vifible representation," added, that "had they never had any, their religion had been the purer: for which opinion, amongst other évidences, he brought that of the Jewish people; and fcrupled not to fay in conclufion, that they who first set up images of the gods in the several nations, leffened the reverence of their countrymen towards them, and introduced error concerning them t." So much wifer were these heathen Romans in this point, than the Chriftian Romans are now. But when fome of the eastern kingdoms had fallen into this corruption; particularly the Egyptians, who claimed the invention as an honour ‡, the great care of God was to preferve or free his own people from it. The words of this commandment exprefs that purpose very strongly and very clearly forbid not only making and worshipping reprefentations of falfe gods, but any representation of God at all. And to fhow yet more fully, that even those of the true God are prohibited by it, Mofes, in Deuteronomy, immediately after mentioning the delivery of the ten commandments, adds with refpect to the fecond, "Take therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye faw no manner of fimilitude, on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb, out of the midst of the fire: left rupt yourselves, and make you the fimilitude of any figure §." And when the Ifraelites made a golden calf in the wilderness, though evidently their defign was to reprefent by it not a false object of worship, but the Lord (in the original it is Jehovah) who brought them out of the land of Egypt; yet they were charged Plut. in Num. p. 65. Ed. Par. 1624. ye cor + Aug. de Civ. Dei, l. 4. c. 31. Dionyfius Halicarnaffenfis indeed faith, 1. 2. c. 15. p. 87. that Romulus erected images. But as he mentions them no otherwise than incidentally, amongft the provifions made by that prince for divine worship, his affertion is not so much to be regarded, as the two contrary more formal ones. Or we may suppose, that Numa took them down. Herodot. 1. 2. § 4. § Deut. iv. 12, 15, 16. charged with it, and punished for it, as a breach of their co venant with God and Mofes accordingly broke, on that occafion, the two tables of the commandments, which were, on their part, the conditions of that covenant. Again, in aftertimes, when the kings of Ifrael fet up the fame reprefentation of the fame true God at Dan and Bethel; the fcripture constantly speaks of it, as the leading fin, from which all the reft of their idolatries, and at laft their utter deftruction proceeded. For, from worshipping the true God by an image, they foon came to worship the images of falfe gods too; and from thence fell into all forts of fuperftition, and all sorts of wickedness. Yet the church of Rome will have it, that we may now very lawfully and commendably practise what the Jews were forbidden. But obferve: Not only the Jews, but the heathens also, who never were fubject to the law of Mofes, are condemned in fcripture for this mode of worship. For St Paul's accufation against them is, that "when they knew God, they glorified him not as God; but became vain in their imaginations; and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image, made like to corruptible man t.". And in another place he argues with the Athenians thus: "Foralmuch as we are the offspring of Gad, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or filver or ftone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at: but now commandeth all men every where to repent t." . Where then is, or can be, the allowance of that image wor ship in the Bible, for which multitudes of the Romish communion are as earnest as if it was commanded there? Nor is antiquity more favourable to it than fcripture. For the primitive Christians abhorred the very mention of images: holding even the trade of making them to be utterly unlawful. And indeed pretending to frame a likeness of God the Father Almighty, "whom no man ever hath feen, or can fee §,” as fome of that church have done, without any cenfure from the rulers of it, liberal as they are of cenfures on other occafions is both a palpable and a heinous breach of this commandment. For, though we find in the Old Teftament, that an angel hath fometimes * Exod. xxxii. † Rom. i. 21, 23. ‡ Acts xvii. 29, 30. § 1 Tim. vi. 16. Tometimes appeared, reprefenting his perfon, as an Ambaffador doth that of his prince; and though, in a vision of the Ancient of days, his garment was white as fnow, and the hair of his bead like pure wool*; yet these things gave the Jews no right then, and therefore can give us none now, to make other, or even the like reprefentations of him, contrary to his express order. Our bleffed Saviour indeed exifted in a human form. But we have not the leaft knowledge of any one part or feature of his perfon. And therefore all attempts of exhibiting a likeness of him are utterly vain. Befides, he hath appointed a very different memorial of himself, the facrament of his body and blood: and we ought to think that a fufficient one. Thefe others can ferve no good purpose, but what, by due meditation, may be attained as well without them. And there is great and evident danger of evil in them, from that unhappy proneness of mankind to fix their thoughts and affections on fenfible objects, inftead of raifing them higher; which if any one doth not feel in himfelf, he muft however fee in others. But particularly in this cafe, long experience hath given fad proof, that from fetting up images of our gracious Redeemer, the holy virgin, and other faints, to remind perfons of them and their virtues, the world hath run on to pay fuch imprudent and extravagant honours to the figures themselves, as by degrees have arifen to the groffeft idolatry. Indeed fome of the popish writers tell us, that they do not worship their images. Yet others of them, who have never been condemned for it, fay quite the contrary, that they do worship them; and with the very fame degree of worship, which they pay to the perfons reprefented by them. Nay, their public authorised books of prayers and ceremonies not only appoint the crucifix to be adored, but in form declare, that divine adoration is due to it. And accordingly they petition it, in fo many words, exprefsly directed to the very wood, as their only hope, to increase the joy and grace of the godly, and blot out the fins of the wicked. But let us fuppofe them to pay only an inferior honour to images, and to worship the Holy Trinity, and the faints by VOL. IV. them. 3 A + See Dr Hickes's collection of controverfial difcourfes, vol. I. p. 47′′ them. Having no ground, or permiffion to pray at all to faints departed, they certainly have none to use images for enlivening their prayers. If any words can forbid the worship of God, his Son and Spirit by images, this commandment forbids it. And if any excuses or distinctions will acquit the papists of tranfgreffing it, the fame will acquit the ancient Jews and heathens also. For if many of the former mean only, that their adoration fhould pafs through the image, as it were, to the perfon, for whom it was made; fo did many of the Pagans plead, that their meaning was just the fame*: yet the scripture accuses them all of idolatry. And if great numbers of the Pagans did absolutely pray to the image itself; so do great numbers of the Papifts too: and fome of their own writers honeftly confefs and lament it. But further: Had they little or no regard, as they fometimes pretend, to the image; but only to the perfon reprefented by it: why is an image, of the bleffed virgin suppose, in one place, so much more frequented, than another in a different place, and the prayers made before it thought to have fo much more efficacy? Upon the whole, therefore, they plainly appear to be guilty of that image worship, which reafon and fcripture condemn. Nor do they so much as alledge either any command or exprefs allowance for it. And yet they have pronounced a curfe upon all who reject it. But let us go on, from the prohibition, to the reafons given for it in the commandment. The first is a very general, but very awful one. For the Lord thy God is a jealous God: not jealous for himself, left he should fuffer for the follies of his creatures that cannot be but jealous for : us, for his Spouse the church; left our notions of his nature and attributes, and confequently of the duties which we owe to him, being depraved, and our minds darkened with fuperftitious perfuafions, and fears, and hopes, we should depart from the fidelity which we have vowed to him, and fall into thofe grievous immoralities, which St Paul, in the beginning of his epistle to the Ro mans, See a remarkable proof of this produced in an epiftle to Mr Warburton, concerning the conformity of Rome, Pagan and Papal: printed for Reberts, 1748, 8vo. p. 21. |