reasons, and judge whether they be to be suffered

or not.

First, the most perfect churches of the Prophets, Christ, and his Apostles, used no such means to instruct the people. We ought to follow them and the word of God written by the Prophets and Apostles. Also the Greek church never consented willingly to admit the use of images in the temples. The ill that hath happened unto the people by the means of images is too plain and well known-God by idolatry robbed of his glory, and the idolater disin herited of God's mercy, except he repent in this life. An image once brought into the church liveth a. long time. Grant, that at the beginning there was a good preacher in the church, the preacher dieth, the idol the longer it liveth the younger it waxeth, as ye may see by the idols of Walsingham, Canterbury, and Hales. They flourished most a little before the desolation in the reign of the King's Majesty that dead is, Henry VIII. of a blessed memory. At their setting up I suppose the preachers were more diligent and zealous of God's glory than afterward. But was not the original damnable against the word of God, to give the people such a book to learn by, that should school them to the devil?

The words of Gregory to Serenus, Bishop of the Massilians, should move no man, though he say, "What the Scripture is to those that read: the same does the picture afford to the eyes of those who cannot:" and doth reprehend Serenus for the breaking of images, saying, the like was not seen done by any other minister. This is but St. Gregory's opinion. Epiphanius, writing in a certain epistle to John, Bishop of Jerusalem, willeth the occasion of ill to be taken out of the church, as Paul commandeth.

KA

(1 Thess. v.) This doctor, as all men know, was of singular learning and virtue.

Again, against the authority of Gregory the Great, I set the authority of Athanasius the Great, who denieth by express words the images to be the books of the lay people. With great gravity and godly reasons this great clerk 'confuteth this fond opinion, images to be the books of the laymen.

The great clerk Lactantius crieth so out' against images, that he saith there can be no true religion where they be, Tertullian, De Corona Militis, judgeth the same. The law of God doth not only condemn the use of them in the church, and these holy doctors, but also the name of an image declareth. it to be an abomination.

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1. Read all the Scripture, and in every place where thou findest this word, ezeb, idol or image; it signi fies either affliction, rebellion, sorrow, sadness, travail or pain, or else the wicked muk and mammon of the world, or the thing that always provoketh the ire of God, as Rabbi David Kymhy well expoundeth Psalm cxv. This Jew saith, that the idols bring men into hatred of God, expounding these words of David, "Like unto them are all they, that put their trust in them;" he saith, the text must be understood by the manner of prayer, as though David prayed Almighty God to make these gravers and carvers of images as dumb, as blind, as mute, and as insensible as the idol that can neither speak nor hear.

What should move men to defend in the church of Christ so unnecessary an ill and pestilent treasure, that hath seduced both our fathers and great-grandfathers? whereas the church of the Patriarchs, Prophets, and Apostles, never used them, but in all their writings abhorred them. Loved we God, we would be content with Scripture. Every scholar of Aristotle taketh this for a sufficient verity, "The

master saith so:" he will be contented as soon as he heareth his master's name. Cicero (lib. iii. De Oratore) was thus persuaded of those that were excellent orators," and so esteems the suavity of Isocrates, the subtlety of Lysias, the acumen of Hyperides, the eloquence of Aschines, the power of Demosthenes, and the oratory of Catullus: that whatsoever, saith he, you add, or change, or take away, it will become thereby worse." And should not the Patriarchs, Prophets, Christ, and the Apostles, as well suffice the church of God?

What although many learned men have approved of images, should their wisdom maintain any thing contrary unto the word of God? No; a Christian man must not care who speaketh, but what is spoken; the truth is to be accepted, whosoever speaketh it. Balaam was as wise, learned, and replenished with God's gift, as man could be; notwithstanding, his ass telling the truth must be believed better than he. The law of God teacheth no use of images, but saith, "Thou shalt not make, thou shalt not worship it" (Exod. xx.): believe it. Yet the art of graving and painting is the gift of God. To have the picture or image of any martyr or others, so they be not put in the temple of God, nor otherwise abused, it may be suffered. Christ by the picture of Cæsar taught his audience obedience unto the civil prince, saying, Cujus est hæc imago? Cæsaris inquiunt. Ergo reddite quæ sunt Cæsaris Cæsari: "Whose image is this? They say to him, Caesar's: therefore render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's."

But if man will learn to know God by his creatures, let him not say Good morrow, master, to an old moth-eaten post, but behold the heavens which declare the mighty power of God. Consider the earth, how it bringeth forth the fruits thereof, the water with fishes, the air, with the birds. Consider

the disposition, order, and amity, that is between the members of man's body, the one always ready to help the other, and to save the other: the hand the head, the head the foot, the stomach to disperse the meat and drink into the external parts of the body. Yea, let man consider the hawk and the hound, that obey in their vocation, and so every other creature of the earth, and with true heart and unfeigned penitence come to the knowledge of himself, and say, "All the creatures that ever the living God made, obey in their vocation, saving the devil, and I, most wretched man."

Those things were made to be testimonies unto us of God's mighty power, and to draw men unto virtue, not these idols which the devil caused to be set in the temple to bring men from God. Thus did Christ teach the people his most blessed death and passion, and the fruit of his passion by the grain of corn cast into the earth. He hanged not the picture of his body upon the cross, to teach them his death, as our late learned men have done.

The ploughman, be he never so unlearned, shall better be instructed of Christ's death and passion by the corn that he soweth in the field, and likewise of Christ's resurrection, than by all the dead posts that hang in the church, or are pulled out of the sepulchre with," Christ is risen." What resemblance hath the taking of the cross out of the sepulchre and going a procession with it, with the resurrection of Christ? None at all; the dead post is as dead, when they sing, "Now he is not dead," as it was, when they buried it with, "His grave is made in peace." If any preacher would manifest the resurrection of Christ unto the senses, why doth not he teach them by the grain of the field that is risen out of the earth, and cometh of the dead corn that he sowed in the winter? Why doth not the preacher

A

preach the death and resurrection of Christ by such figures and metaphors as the Scripture teacheth? Paul wonderfully (1 Cor. xv.) proveth with arguments the death and resurrection of Christ and ours likewise, that nothing may be more plainly taught,

A dead post carried in procession as much resembleth the resurrection of Christ, as very death resembleth life. People should not be taught either by images or by reliques, as Erasmus in his third book of Ecclesiastes well declareth. Lactantius useth a wonderful, divine, eloquent, and plain manner in the declaring of this resurrection, which is sung yearly in the church concerning Easter-day, with many godly and divine verses. The same Lactantius saith, that there can be no true religion where these images be. Austin ad Mercellum reprehendeth them wonderfully in these words of David, "Mouths have they, and speak not ;" and saith men may be soon deceived by images. Likewise in the first book De Consensu Evangelistarum.

Such as defend them have nothing but sophistical arguments to blind the people with. The Scripture and the Apostles' church used none: as for Gregory the Great and Theodosius, with others that defend them, all the histories declare, that men of greater learning than they by the Scripture condemned them; as Leo III. the Emperor Constantinus V. who assembled all the learned men of Asia and Greece, and condemned the use of images, that Gregory and Martin the First had established. But it forceth not, had all Asia, Africa, and Europe, and Gabriel the archangel, descended from heaven, and approved the use of images. Forasmuch as the Apostles neither taught nor wrote of them, their authority should have no place. The word of God solely and only is to be preferred (Gal. i.), which forbiddeth images.