1, 4, 5. I end. To this it is to be added, that it seems very clear from ART. the hiftory of the golden calf, that the Ifraelites did not XXII, intend, by fetting it up, to caft off the true Jehovah, that had brought them out of Egypt. They plainly faid the Ex. xxxii. contrary, and, appointed a feaft to Jehovah. It is probable they thought Mofes was either burnt or starved on Mount Sinai, fo they defired fome vifible reprefentation of the Deity to go before them; they intended ftill to ferve him; but fince they thought they had loft their prophet and guide, they hoped that this fhould have been perhaps as a teraphim to them; yet for all this, the calf is called an Idol: As vii. 41. and they are faid to have changed their glory into the fimili- Pfal. cvi. tude of an ox that eateth grafs. So that here an emblem of 19, 20. the Deity is called an Idol. They could take the calf for no other, but as a visible fign or fymbol in which they intended to worship their God or Elohim, and the Lord or Jehovah. Such very probably were also the calves of Dan and 1 Kings xii. Bethel, fet up by Jeroboam, who feemed to have no defign 27 to the to change the object of their worship, or the nature of their 1 Kings xvi. religion; but only to divert them from going up to Jerufa- 31, lem, and to furnish them with conveniencies to worship the 2 Kings x. living God nearer home. His defign was only to establish 28, 29. the kingdom to himself; and in order to that, we must think that he would venture on no more than was neceffary for his purpose. Befides, we do clearly fee an oppofition made between the calves fet up by Jeroboam, and the worship of Baal brought from Tyrus by Ahab. Those who hated that idolatry, fuch as Jehu and his family, yet continued in the fin of Jeroboam; and they are reprefented as zealous for Jehovah, though they worshipped the calves at Dan and Bethel. Thefe are called Idols by Hofea. Hofea viii. From all which it feems to be very evident that the ten 4, 5. tribes ftill feared and worshipped the true Jehovah. This appears yet more clear from the fequel of their history, when they were carried away by the kings of Affyria; and new inhabitants were fent to people the country, who brought their idols along with them, and did not acknowledge Jehovah the true God; but upon their being plagued with lions, to prevent this, the king of Affyria fent one of 2 Kings the priests, that had been carried out of the country, who xvii. 28, taught them how they fhould fear the Lord: out of which 32, 41. that mixture arofe, that they feared the Lord, and ferved their own images. This proves, beyond all contradiction, that the ten tribes did still worship Jehovah in those calves that they had at Dan and Bethel: and thus it appears very clear, that, through the whole Old Teftament, the use of all images in worship was exprefsly forbid; and that the worshipping X 4 ART. worshipping them, even when the true God was worshipXXII. ped by them, was called Idolatry. The words in which this matter is expreffed are copious and full, and the reafons given for the precept are taken from the nature of God, who could be likened to nothing, and who had fhewed no fimilitude of himself when he appeared to their fathers, and delivered their law to them. A&ts xvii. 16, 24 to 29. The New Difpenfation does in all refpects carry the ideas of God and of true religion much higher, and raifes them much above thofe compliances that were in the Old, to men's fenfes, and to fenfitive natures; and it would feem to contradict the whole defign of it, if we could imagine that fuch things were allowed in it, which were fo exprefsly forbid in the Old. Upon this occafion it is remarkable, that the two fullest paffages in the New Teftament concerning images, are written upon the occafion of the moft refined idolatry that was then in the world, which was at Athens. When St. Paul was there, his spirit was moved within him, when he faw that city full of Idols: he upon that charges them for thinking that the Godhead was like unto gold or filver, or flone graven by art or man's device: he argues from the majefty of God, who made the world and all things therein, and was the Lord of heaven and earth, and therefore was not to be worshipped by men's hands, (that is, images made by them,) who needed nothing, fince he gives us life, breath, (or the continuance of life,) and all things. He therefore condemns that way of worship as an effect of ignorance, and tells them of a day in which God will judge the world. It is certain that the Athenians at that time did not think their images were the proper refemblances of the Divinity. Cic. de Nat. Tully, who knew their theology well, gives us a very difDeor. 1. i. ferent account of the notion that they had of their images. Some images were of no figure at all, but were only ftones and pillars that had no particular fhape; others were hieroglyphics made up of many feveral emblems, of which fome fignified one perfection of the Deity, and fome another; and others were indeed the figures of men and women; but even in thefe the wifer among them faid, they worshipped One Eternal Mind, and under him fome inferior beings, demons, and men; who they believed were fubordinate to God, and governed this world. So it could not be faid of fuch worshippers, that they thought that the Godhead was like unto their images; fince the beft writers among them tell us plainly that they thought no fuch thing. St. Paul therefore only argues in this againft image-worfhip in itself, which does naturally cap. 27. naturally lead men to thefe low thoughts of God; and ART. which is a very unreasonable thing in all those who do not XXII. think fo of him. It is contrary to the nature and perfec-' tions of God: few men can think God is like to those images, therefore that is a very good argument against all worthipping of them. And we may upon very fure grounds fay, that the Athenians had fuch elevated notions both of God and of their images, that whatsoever was a good argument against image-worthip among them, will hold good against all image-worship whatsoever. But as St. Paul ftayed long enough at Athens to understand their opinions well, and that no doubt he learned their doctrine very particularly from his convert Dionyfius, fo at his coming to Corinth from thence, when he had learned from Aquila and Prifcilla the ftate of the Church in Rome, and no doubt had learned among other things that the Romans admired the Greeks, and made them their patterns; he in the beginning of his Epistle to them, having ftill deep impreffions upon his spirit of what he had feen and known at Athens, arraigns the whole Greek philofophy; and efpecially thofe among them who profeffed themfelves wife, but became fools; who Rom. i. 20. though they knew God, yet glorified him not as God, nor were to the end. thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, fo that their foolish heart was darkened. They had high speculations of the unity and fimplicity of the Divine Effence; but they set themselves to find fuch excufes for the idolatry of the vulgar, that they not only continued to comply with them in the groffeft of all their practices, but they studied more laboured defences for them, than the ruder multitudes could ever have fallen upon. They knew the true God; for God had fhewed to them that which might be known of him but they held the truth in unrighteousness, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and four-footed beafts, and to creeping things: which feems to be a defcription of hieroglyphic figures, the most excufable of all those images by which they reprefented the Deity. This St. Paul makes to be the original of all the corruption and immorality that was fpread over the Gentile world, which came in, partly as the natural confequence of idolatry, of its debafing the ideas of God, and wounding true religion and virtue in its fource and firft feeds, and partly as an effect of the juft judgments of God upon thofe who thus difhonoured him, that was to a very monftrous degree spread over both Greece and Rome. Of these St. Paul gives us fome very enormous inftances, with a : catalogue ART. catalogue of the vices that sprang from thofe vitiated XXII. principles. These two paffages, the one of St. Paul's preaching, and the other of his writing, being both applied to those who had the fineft fpeculations among the. Heathen, do evidently demonftrate how contrary the Chriftian doctrine is to the worshipping of images of all forts, how fpeciously foever that may be disguised. If these things wanted an explanation, we find it given us very fully in all the writings of the Fathers during their difputes with the Heathens. They do not only charge them with the falfe notions that they had of God, the many Deities they worshipped, the abfurd legends that they had concerning them; but in particular they dwell long upon this of the worshipping God in or by an image, with arguments taken both from the pure and fpiritual nature of God, and from the plain revelation he made of his will in this matter. Upon this argument many long citations might be gathered from Juftin Martyr, from Clemens a of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, Minutius Felix, Lactantius, Eufebius, Ambrofe, and St. Auftin. Their reafonings are fo clear and fo full, that nothing can be more evident, than that they condemned all the ufe of images in the worship of God and yet both Celfus, Porphyry, Maximus Tyrius, and Julian, told them very plainly, that they did not believe that the Godhead was like their images, or was fhut up within them; they only used them as helps to their imagination and apprehenfion, that from thence they might form fuitable thoughts of the Deity. This did not fatisfy the Fathers, who infifted on it to the laft, that all fuch images as were made the objects of worship were idols; fo that if in any one thing we have a very full account of the fenfe of the whole Church for the firft four centuries, it is in this matter. They do not fpeak of it now and then only by the way, as in a digreffion; in which the heat of argument, or of rhetoric, may be apt to carry men too far: they fet themselves to treat of this argument very nicely; and they were engaged in it with philofophers, who were as good at fubtleties and diftinctions as other men. This was one of the main parts of the controverfy: fo if in any head whatsoever, they writ - Juft. Mart. Apol. 2. Clem. Alex. Strom. 1. i. 5. Protr. Orig. cont. Celf. 1. ii. 3, 5, 7. Tertull. Apol. Cypr. de Idol. Vanitate. Arnob. lib. v. Minut. Felix O&t. Eufeb. Præp. Evang. 1. iii. Laftan. 1. ii. c. 2. Ambrof. Refp. ad Sym. Auguft. de Civitate Dei, 1. vii. c. 5. Orig. con. Celf. 1. viii. Eufeb. Præp. Ev. 1. iii. c. 7. Max. Tyr. diff. 38. Jul. Frag. Ep. Eufeb. Præp. Evang. 1. iv. c. 1. exactly exactly upon thofe fubjects. They attacked the established ART. religion of the Roman empire; and this was not to be XXII. done with clamour, nor could they offer at it in a plain' contradiction to fuch principles as are confiftent with the Christian religion, if the doctrine of the Roman Church is true. Here then we have not only the Scripture but tradition fully of our fide. Hæref. 27. Some pretended Chriftians, it is true, did very early worfhip images; but thofe were the Gnoftics, held in deteftation by all the orthodox. Irenæus, Epiphanius, Iren. I. i. and St. Auftin tell us, that they worshipped the images of c. 24. Chrift, together with Pythagoras, Plato, and Ariftotle: Epiph nor are they only blamed for worshipping the images of Auguft. de Chrift, together with thefe of the philofophers; but they Hæref. cap. are particularly blamed for having feveral forts of images and worshipping thefe as the Heathens did; and that among these there was an image of Chrift, which they pretended to have had from Pilate. Befides these corrupters of Christianity, there were no others among the Chriftians of the first ages that worshipped images. This was fo well known to the Heathens, that they bring this, among other things, as a reproach againft the Chriftians, that they had no images: which the first apologists are fo far from denying, that they answered them, that it was impoffible for him who knew God, to worthip images. But as human nature is inclined to vifible objects of worship, so it seems fome began to paint the walls of their Churches with pictures, or at least moved for it. In the beginning of the fourth century this was condemned by the Council of Eliberis, Can. 35. It pleafes us to have no pictures in Churches, left that which is worshipped fhould be painted upon the walls. Towards the end of that century, we have an account given us by Epiphanius, of his indigna- Epiph. Ep. tion occafioned by a picture that he faw upon a veil at ad Joan. Anablatha. He did not much confider whofe picture it was, whether a picture of Chrift, or of fome Saint; he pofitively affirms it was against the authority of the Scriptures, and the Chriftian religion, and therefore he tore it, but fupplied that Church with another veil. It feems, private perfons had statues of Chrift and the Apoftles; which Eufebius cenfures, where he reports it as a remnant of hea- Eufeb. thenifm. It is plain enough from foue paffages in St. Austin, Hift. Eccl. that he knew of no images in Churches in the beginning Aug. in of the fifth century. It is true, they began to be brought Pfal. cxiii. before that time into some of the Churches of Pontus and de Moribus Hierof. 1. vii. c. 18. c. 34. Cappadocia, which was done very probably to draw the Eccl. Cath. Heathens, by this piece of conformity to them, to like the |