Page images
PDF
EPUB

such perhaps as were but a few degrees removed from idiotism, believed the statue to be the god whose name it bore. When Protestants, therefore, speak

of the idolatry of the Mass, they speak correctly.

As to invocation of Saints, and the worship or veneration of images, neither of them was known in the primitive church, for it had neither temples, altars, nor images. And the argument of Arnobius against the Heathen veneration of images is directly in point against that paid to them by the church of Rome with the single substitution of the word Saints for Gods. *« Ye say we venerate the Saints by means of the images; what can be a greater insult, contumely, or inconsistency, than, knowing it not to be the {Saint, to supplicate what is not so, or to hope for the aid of the {Sain 'whilst you pray before

an insensible representation?

Abstractedly considered †, it is doing little honour to a Saint to imagine him capable of being affected by the childish vanity arising from any respect paid to his image, &c. It is true that the council of Trent has been singularly guarded in its expressions on the subject; and the well-informed among the Roman Catholics do not probably go further than to consider images, &c. of Saints, as memorials of those whom

-Et quid fieri

* Deos (inquitis) per simulachra veneramur. potest injuriosius, contumeliosius, aut durius, quam Deum alterum scire, et rei alteri supplicare? Opem sperare de numine, et nullius sensus ad effigiem deprecari?-Adv. Gentes, lib. 5. + See, upon this subject, more in the Appendix.

they honour. Yet, when that council permits, and even approves the kissing the images, uncovering the head before them, and bowing down before them, though it enjoins that the honour be referred to the original, we cannot but recollect, that this mode of veneration is the very same that the Heathens paid to their images. The argument of Arnobius therefore applies full as much to the Roman Catholics as it did to the Heathens, as to images in general; but much more so as to the veneration of the cross, which, in some of their prayers, is so addressed, as, at least, to make it very difficult to distinguish it, if intended metaphorically, or referentially, as being such. Is it then to be conceived that the ignorant will make such distinctions? surely not. We have also the testimony of Minucius Felix that no veneration was paid to the cross in the primitive church, and that this very veneration was originally a Pagan one, and thus only can we rationally account for its adoption afterwards. This Christian apologist, addressing the Heathens, says, *"We neither honour CROSSES, nor wish for them. You, who openly consecrate wooden gods, perhaps adore wooden crosses, as limbs of your gods. For what are your several standards, but crosses gilt and ornamented?

* Cruces nec colimus, nec optamus. Vos plane qui ligneos deos consecratis, cruces ligneos, ut deorum vestrorum partes, forsitan adoratis. Nam et signa ipsa et cantabra et vexilla castrorum quid aliud quam inauratæ cruces sunt, et ornatæ ? Trophæa vestra victricia non tantum simplicis crucis faciem, verum et affixi hominis imitantur.-Min. Fel. Octavius.

Your trophies are not simple crosses, but have some kind of a resemblance of a man affixed to them." Hence then it seems most probable, that the veneration of crosses was introduced as another compliment to Heathen prejudices; but with the change of the reference. To this prejudice there was another attached, that of the healing powers of crosses; from whence, and similar ones in other respects, the miraculous powers attributed to crosses and reliques were likewise most probably derived. According to Pliny, "A piece of a nail from a cross, wrapped in woollen and applied to the throat, was a magical remedy for a quartan ague." It must not however be omitted, that this might possibly, in Pliny's time, be one of the prescriptions of the poor Jews, who, driven to extremities, made some pretensions to magic, and might be tempted thus to endeavour to turn to their advantage the celebrity of the miracles done in the name of him who was crucified. What makes this the more probable is, that Juvenal introduces a poor Jewess as chief priestess of the tree, and interpreter of the will of Heaven, in a passage which, thus understood, with reference to the cross, obviates obviates every difficulty.

Whether this conjecture be well-founded or not, the honouring of the cross was not known in the Latin

* In quartanis fragmentum clavi a cruce involutum lanâ collo subnectunt.-Plinii Hist. Nat. lib. 28. cap. 4.

† Arcanum Judæa tremens mendicat in aurem, Interpres legum Solymarum, et magna sacerdos

Arboris, ac summi fida internuncia cœli.-Juv. Sat. 6.

church in the time of Minucius Felix. It is a doctrine of the times when Heathen principles broke into it like a torrent, and Heathen customs and prejudices polluted its simplicity and purity.

It is not necessary, nor would it be just, to consider all this as intentional error, or error against knowledge. In many cases it was, no doubt, the error of prejudice and ignorance; but the sudden and extravagant change which took place on Constantine's embracing Christianity, and the violent ones that followed it, from simplicity to luxury, and from religion to superstition, cannot be remembered without regret, or considered without blame.

Even the temper of the old Roman state was transferred to the church; and, if the cry of the Christians to the lions ceased, that of the heretics to the stake succeeded it. The excommunication of the primitive church, in the apostolic age, was what every society requires, and no more; that is, the

*

* See the Speech of the late Bishop of St. Asaph, Dr. Horsley, on the Catholic Question, whose name I cannot suffer to pass under my pen without paying a tribute (small indeed, but truly sincere) to his memory. He was truly a great and good man. His mind had taken an ample range of science. As a classic scholar, a mathematician, and a divine, his knowledge was extensive and profound; his memory retentive, his penetration quick, and his decision prompt, and expressed readily in strong and nervous language. His disposition was cheerful; and, like that of most, perhaps all men of first-rate abilities, highly liberal. What the church of England owes to him she will long remember with gratitude; and those who knew him personally will think of him with a sigh that they see him no more, though their trust will be that he is now enjoying a blessed reward of his labours.

[ocr errors]

mere exclusion from the church or society, and its spiritual benefits. When a Christian was excluded from the church, he was of course thrown into the world; and to be considered as the rest of the world was, in apostolic langauge, said to be; that is, under the power of Satan. To expel from the church, and to deliver to Satan, were therefore synonymous expressions. The Christians were not to associate with the excommunicated person, or to readmit him into the church without repentance; but here the human effect of the censure terminated. The calling in of the civil power to punish a spiritual offence purely such, has no foundation in the New Testament. It is only when the spiritual offence becomes a civil one also, that the civil power has a Christian authority to take notice of it; and then not of the spiritual, but of the civil quality of the offence, and that, exercising judgment in mercy.

It may be said of the Roman laws, as of those of Draco, that they were written in blood; and, whereever the civil code has been adopted, a sanguinary ferocity has been the leading feature of its legalized inflictions. It is to be lamented that the church of Rome should ever have favoured them; but still it is a truth that she has not only done so, but that, wherever that church has had the power of persecution, it has been so much in their full spirit as sometimes to have brought reprisals on themselves, in the heat of the recollection of sufferings, which, in the cooler moments of reflection, even they who retorted could not, it is to be hoped, approve.

Whether it were a merit or not to go out of the

« PreviousContinue »