Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	authority_n	church_n	scripture_n	4,231	5	6.1426	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61535	A defence of the discourse concerning the idolatry practised in the Church of Rome in answer to a book entituled, Catholicks no idolators / by Ed. Stillingfleet ...	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1676 (1676)	Wing S5571; ESTC R14728	413,642	908

for that which would have been Idolatry downright Paganish Idolatry under the former names becomes good Catholick Worship under the latter But I do not see that any of the Primitive Christians did ever think that the change of names or persons would have wrought such wonders but that the worship of Images would have continued the same thing whatever names had been given to them And what pleasant stories soever Epiphanius the Deacon tells in the second Council of Nice concerning the disciples of the elder Epiphanius placing his Image in a Church dedicated to him in Cyprus yet Petavius confesses that in his time there were no Images in the Churches of Cyprus which he takes to be the reason of his mighty zeal against them Any thing rather than that which himself gives viz. the Authority of Scriptures and the Christian Religion In the Theodosian Code we find a Law of Theodosius M. against the several parts of the Heathen Idolatry the sacrifices libations incense lights c. and after the rest it comes particularly to their worship of Images in these words Si quis vero mortali opere facta avum passura simulachra imposito ture venerabitur ac ridioulo exemplo metuens subito quae pro se simulaverit vel redimita vitis arbore vel erectâ effossis arâ cespitibus vanas imagines humiliore licet muneris praemio tamen plena Religionis injuriâ honorare temptaverit is utpote violatae Religionis reus eâ domo seu possessione multabitur in quâ eum Gentilitiâ constiterit Superstitione famulatum The meaning whereof is that it was the forfeiture of house and land for any man to offer incense to Images made by men and that were of a perishing nature or that hung their garlands on Trees or raised Altars of Turf before their Images for although the cost were less yet the violation of Religion was the same This Constitution I grant doth respect Heathen Images but I say it proceeds upon such grounds which are common to all Images unless they be such as drop from heaven such as the Image of Edessa and the rest mentioned by Gretser or that of Diana of Ephesus or some few others that were pretended to have a divine Original for such as these the Constitution doth not reach being Divine and immortal but for all others I do not see how they can escape the Reason of this Law And it is altogether as ridiculous for Christians to worship the things they have formed as it was for the Heathens to do it where T. G. may learn the signification and Etymology of simulachrum à simulando for simulare is the same with effigiare as the Scholiast on that Constitution tells him In the same Constitution they are called sensu carentia simulachra which are words put in on purpose to shew how stupid and senseless the worship of them is and are not all Images among Christians so Have they not eyes and see not and ears and hear not as well as the Heathen Images Or do they worship only living and sensible Images moving I grant sometimes they do such as Themistius upon Aristotle tells us that Daedaelus made that moved by the help of quicksilver or springs such as the Holy Rood of Boxtel in Kent whose secret engines for moving the eyes and lips were laid open and an Anatomy Lecture read upon them at Pauls Cross in Henry the Eighths time by Bishop Fisher. 2. That Notion of Idolatry which the Heathens were charged with by the primitive Christians may be common to Christians with them Therefore if the fear of Idolatry kept them from the worship of Images and the same fear may justly continue where ever Images are worshipped then the Christians rejecting of Images was not upon any reason peculiar to that Age of the Church If men by being Christians were uncapable of being Idolaters without renouncing Christianity there were some pretence for laying aside the fears and jealousies of Idolatry when the Christian Religion had prevailed in the world But S. Paul supposes that Christians continuing so might be Idolaters Neither be ye Idolaters as were some of them Yet these were the Persons who were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and the Sea and did all eat the same spiritual meat and drink the same spiritual drink for they drank of that rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ. Which water they drank of both before and after their Idolatry and since the water followed them at the very time of committing it so that those persons are said to be partakers of Christ who were charged with Idolatry and therefore S. Paul is far from supposing that Idolatry and the profession of Christianity are inconsistent with each other But it is said that there can be no Idolatry to the Images of Christ because the true object of worship is honoured by them nor to the Images of Saints so long as men take them for Saints that is Gods Creatures and give only an inferiour worship to them If this be true there appears to be little danger of Idolatry among those who do not renounce Christianity But against this plea I put in these exceptions 1. That upon the same grounds all the Wiser Heathens must be cleared from Idolatry For 1. They owned the true Object of Divine worship viz. One Supreme God as I have at large proved in the former Discourses both those that went on the Platonick hypothesis of one Supreme Deity and others inferiour and those who believed one God to be worshipped under different representations The former was the principle which Iulian went upon and the latter Platonists who opposed Christianity to the utmost the other was the principle of the Stoicks and others and particularly owned by Maximus Madaurensis who saith that the Heathens did worship one God under several names thereby to express his several powers diffused through the World Now upon this supposition that where there is a true object of worship represented there can be no Idolatry in worshipping the representation I challenge any man to shew how the Heathens that went on these principles were chargeable with Idolatry For is Christ any otherwise a right object of worship than as he is believed to be the True God if then there can be no Idolatry towards an Image of Christ neither can there be towards any representation of the True God 2. The Heathens did assert the difference between God and his Creatures as I have already proved that they looked on their inferiour Deities as dependent on the supreme Being Created and Governed by Him so that if the acknowledgement of Saints to be Gods Creatures doth hinder men from committing Idolatry it must do the same for all those who owned a subordination of Deities which takes in the far greatest part of the Heathen World 3. They allowed the different degrees of worship suitable to the excellencies of the objects as Soveraign worship

such an answer for then all the folly and madness in making the grossest Images of God doth not lye in the Images themselves but in the imagination of the Persons that make them Is it not as great in those that worship them with such an imagination if it be then whatever the Design of the makers was if they be apt to beget such imaginations in those who see and worship them they are in that respect as unlawful as T. G. supposes any Images of God among the Heathens to have been 4. What doth T. G. mean when he makes those Images unlawful which represent the Divinity in it self and not those which represent God as he appeared Can the meer essence of any thing be represented by an Image Is it possible to represent any being otherwise than as it appears But it may be T. G. hath found out the way of painting Essences if he hath he deserves to have the Patent for it not only for himself but for his Heirs and Executors For he allows it to be the peculiar priviledge of an infinite Being that it cannot be represented as it is in it self then all other things may be represented as they are in themselves in opposition to the manner of their appearance or else the distinction signifies nothing Petrus Thyraeus a man highly commended by Possevin for for his explication of this matter saith the meaning is that an Image doth not represent the Nature but the Person that is visible for saith he when we see the Image of a man we do not say we see a Reasonable Creature but a Man Very well and so in the Image of the Deity we do not see the Divine Nature but the Divine Person or in such a way as he became visible The Invisible Nature of God cannot be represented in an Image and can the invisible Nature of Man Therefore saith he it is no injury to God to be painted by an Image no more upon these principles than to a man Bellarmin proves the lawfulness of making Images of God because man is said to be the Image of God and he may be painted therefore the Image of God may be too for that which is the Image of the Image is likewise the Image of the Exemplar those which agree in a third agreeing among themselves To this some answer'd that man was not the Image of God as to his body but as to his soul which could not be painted but Bellarmin takes off this answer by saying that then a man could not not be painted for he is not a man in regard of his outward lineaments but in regard of his substance and especially his Soul but notwithstanding the soul cannot be painted yet a man may truly and properly be said to be painted because the Figure and colours of an Image do represent the whole man otherwise saith he a thing painted could never seem to be the true Thing as Zeuxis his grapes did which deceived the birds Therefore according to Bellarmines reasoning that which represents a Being according to outward appearance although it have an invisible Nature yet is a true and real representation and represents it as it is in it self and as far as it is possible for an Image to represent any thing Wherein then lyes the difference between making the Picture of a man and the Image of God If it be said that the Image of God is very short imperfect and obscure is not the same thing to be said of the Picture of a man which can only represent his outward Features without any description of his inward substance or soul If it be farther said that there is a real resemblance between a Picture of a man and his outward lineaments but there is none between God and the Image of a man then I ask what Bellarmins argument doth signifie towards the proving the lawfulness of making an Image of God For if God may be painted because man may who is the Image of God for the Image of the Image is the Image of the Exemplar then it follows that Man is the Image of God as he may be painted and so God and man must agree in that common thing which is a capacity of being represented which cannot be supposed without as real a resemblance between God and his Image as between a Man and his Picture But T. G. tells us that they abhorr the very thoughts of making any such likeness of God and all that the Council of Trent allows is only making representations of some apparition or action of God in a way proportionable to our Humane Conception I answer 1. It is no great sign of their abhorring the thoughts of any such likeness of God to see such arguments made use of to prove the lawfulness of making Images of God which do imply it 2. Those Images of God which are the most used and allowed in the Roman Church have been thought by Wise men of their own Church to imply such a Likeness Molanus and Thyraeus mention four sorts of Images of the Trinity that have been used in the Roman Church 1. That of an old man for God the Father and of Christ in humane nature and of the Holy Ghost in the Form of a Dove 2. That of three Persons of equal Age and Stature 3. That of an Image of the Bl. Virgin in the belly of which was represented the Holy Trinity this Ioh. Gerson saith he saw in the Carmelites Church and saith there were others like it and Molanus saith he had seen such a one himself among the Carthusians 4. That of one Head with three faces or one body and three Heads which Molanus saith is much more common than the other and is wont to be set before the Office of the Holy Trinity these two latter those Authors do not allow because the former of them tends to a dangerous errour viz. that the whole Trinity was incarnate of the B. Virgin and the latter Molanus saith was an invention of the Devil it seems then there was one invention of the Devil at least to be seen in the Masse-Book for saith he the Devil once appeared with three Heads to a Monk telling him he was the Trinity But the two former they allow and defend Waldensis saith Molanus with a great deal of learning defends that of the three Persons from the appearance of the Three to Abraham and Thyraeus justifieth the first and the most common from the Authority of the Church the Consent of Fathers and the H. Scriptures And yet Pope Iohn 22. as Aventinus relates it condemned some to the Fire as Anthropomorphites and enemies to Religion for making the very same representation of the Trinity which he defends being only of God as an old man and of the Son as a young man and of the Holy Ghost under the picture of a Dove Ysambertus takes notice of this story but he saith they were such Images as were according to