it, Moses, in Deuteronomy, immediately after mentioning the delivery of the Ten Commandments, adds with respect to the second: "Take therefore 66 good heed unto yourselves: for ye saw no man"ner of similitude, on the day that the Lord spake 66 unto you in Horeb, out of the midst of the fire: "lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you the "similitude of any figure." And when the Israelites made a golden calf in the wilderness, though evidently their design was to represent 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 with it, and punished for it, as a breach of their covenant with God; and Moses accordingly broke, on that occasion, the two tables of the Commandments, which were, on their part, the condition of that covenant." Again, in after-times, when the kings of Israel set up the same representation of the same true God at Dan and Bethel; the Scripture constantly speaks of it, as the leading sin from which all the rest of their idolatries, and at last their utter destruction proceeded. For, from worshipping the true God by an image, they soon came to worship the images of false gods too; and from thence fell into all sorts of superstition, 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 observe, not only the Jews, but the Heathens also, who never were subject to the law of Moses, are condemned in Scripture for this mode of worship. For St. Paul's accusation 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,

(8) Deut. iv. 12, 15, 16.

(9) Exod. xxxii,

"made like to corruptible man." And in another place he argues with the Athenians thus: "Forasmuch as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto

66

gold, or silver, or stone, 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. 992

as

Where then is, or can be, the allowance of that image worship 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 Scripture. 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 seen or can see,' some of that Church have done, without any censure from the rulers of it, liberal as they are of censures on other occasions, is both a palpable and a heinous breach of this Commandment. For, though we find in the Old Testament, than an angel hath sometimes appeared, representing his person, as an ambassador doth that of his prince; and though, in a vision of " the Ancient of days, "his garment was white as snow, and the hair of "his head like pure wool;"4 yet these things gave the Jews no right then, and therefore can give us none now, to make other, or even the like, representations of him, contrary to his express order.

Our blessed Saviour indeed existed in a human form. But we have not the least knowledge of any other part or feature of his person. And therefore all attempts of exhibiting a likeness of him are utterly vain. Besides, he hath appointed (3) 1 Tim. vi. 16.

(1) Rom. i. 21, 23. (2) Acts xvii. 29, 30. (4) Dan. vii. 9.

a very different memorial of himself, the Sacrament of his body and blood; and we ought to think that a sufficient one. These others can serve 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 sensible objects, instead of raising them higher, which if any one doth not feel in himself, he must however see in others. But particularly in this case, long experience hath given sad proof, that from setting up images of our gracious Redeemer, the holy Virgin, and other saints, to remind persons of them and their virtues, the world hath run on to pay such imprudent and extravagant honours to the figures themselves, as by degrees have arisen to the est idolatry.

gross

Indeed some of the Popish writers tell us, that they do not worship their images. Yet others of them, who have never been condemned for it, say quite the contrary, that they do worship them; and with the very same degree of worship, which they pay to the persons represented 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 so many words, expressly directed to the very wood, as "their only hope, to increase the joy and grace of "the godly, and blot out the sins of the wicked."5

But let us suppose them to pay only an inferior honour to images, and to worship the Holy Trinity and the Saints by them. Having no ground or permission to pray at all to Saints departed, they certainly have none to use images for enlivening

(5) See Dr. Hicks's collection of controversial discourses, vol. 1. p. 47.

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 transgressing it, the same will acquit the ancient Jews and Heathens also. For if any of the former mean only that their adoration should pass through the image, as it were, to the person for whom it was made; so did many of the Pagans plead, that their meaning was just the same: yet the Scripture accuses them of idolatry. And if great numbers of the Pagans did absolutely pray to the image itself; so do great numbers of the Papists too; and some of their own writers honestly confess and lament it.

But further, had they little or no regard, as they sometimes pretended, to the image, but only to the person represented by it; why is an image, of the blessed Virgin suppose, in one place, so much more frequented, than another in a different place, and the prayers made before it thought to have so much more efficacy?

Upon the whole, therefore, they plainly appear to be guilty of that image worship, which reason and Scripture condemn. Nor do they so much as allege either any command or express allowance for it. And yet they have pronounced a curse upon all who reject it.

But let us go on, from the prohibition, to the reasons given for it in the Commandment. The first is a very general, but a very awful one. "For "the Lord thy God is a jealous God;" not jealous for himself, lest he should suffer for the follies of his creatures; that cannot be but jealous for us, for his spouse the Church; lest our notions of his nature and attributes, and consequently of the

(6) See a remarkable proof of this produced in an epistle to Mr. Warburton, concerning the conformity of Rome, Pagan, and Papal; printed for Roberts, 1748, 8vo. p. 21.

duties which we owe to him, being depraved, and our minds darkened with superstitious persuasions, and fears and hopes, we should depart from the fidelity which we have vowed to him, and fall into these grievous immoralities which St. Paul, in the beginning of his Epistle to the Romans, describes as the consequences of idolatry,7 and which have been its consequences in all times and places.

The second reason for this prohibition, is more particular; that God will visit the sins of the "fathers upon the children, unto the third and "fourth generation of them that hate him." For, observe, worshipping him irrationally, or in a manner which he hath forbidden, he interprets to be hating him; as it must proceed, wholly or in part, from a dishonourable opinion of him, and tend to spread the like opinion amongst others. Now, we are not to understand by this threatening, that God will ever, on account of the sins of parents, punish children, in the strict sense of the word punish, when they deserve it not. But in the course of things, established by his providence, it comes to pass, that the sins of one person, or one generation, lead those, who come after, into the same, or other, perhaps greater, sins; and so bring upon them double sufferings, partly the fruits of their predecessors' faults, partly of their own. And when successive ages follow one another in crimes, besides the natural bad effects of them, which punish them in some measure, God may justly threaten severer additional corrections, than he would else inflict for their personal transgressions; both because it may deter men from propagating wickedness down to their posterity; and

(7) Rom. i. 21, 32.

(8) Against this wrong imagination, Cotta, in Cic. de Nat. Deor. lib. 3. § 38, inveighs vehemently.

(9) See Sherlock on Providence, p. 382, 390.