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Bishop Gardiner, being present at the delivery of this discourse, addressed on the next Monday a letter to the preacher, to the following effect. I fully admit, Master Ridley, as matters indisputable, what you preached at court, on Wednesday last, against the Bishop of Rome's pretended authority, and against indulgences. Upon what you said respecting images and holy water, the candour which you professed, and my own desire of unity lead me to send you some observations. From Eusebius' it appears that the use of images is very ancient in the Church, and therefore to affirm that we may not have them, nor call upon them, when they represent Christ or his saints are opinions too gross for admission into your learned head, whatever the ignorant may tattle. As for the text, Thou shalt not make unto thee

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holy water, so often spoken of among the Heathen. The things are so like one another, that some modern transcribers of Sozomen have mistaken them for one another. For whereas Sozomen speaking of Julian's going into a temple to sacrifice, in Gaul, with Valentinian to attend him, says 'the priest sprinkled them with water as they went in according to the heathen custom;' Valesius has observed that in some copies, it is read according to ecclesiastical custom, instead of heathen custom: which he imputes to some modern transcribers, who were minded to make church-holy-water of it; whom he ingenuously chastises for their ignorance, or impudence, in corrupting good authors." Bingham. I. 290.

e Foxe, 1226. Where the Bishop's letter is to be seen at length.

"Euseb. Cæsar. saith that he saw the pictures of Paul and Peter kept with a certain Christian man, but yet he saith not that these pictures were set up in any church." Ibid. 1227.

graven image, you know that it no more forbids us at this time to use images than another text forbids us to eat blood puddings. If, however, to the pure all kinds of food be pure, there is no reason why to the same persons all objects of sight should not also be pure. To assert, therefore, that image and idol are virtually the same is not less unreasonable than to say this of king and tyrant; since the latter of these words meant originally no more than the former. In retaining images we do no more than Luther did, for he, though earnest in depriving them of honour, contended stoutly for keeping them in their accustomed places. All that is to be feared respecting images is an excess in worshipping them; but of this the Roman Church hath taken especial care, and therefore we cannot say that this evil arose from Popery. Indeed we find that Gregory the Great condemned alike, in writing to the Bishop of Marseilles, the adoration and the

"About the year 600, images began to be worshipped in some places, for which reason, Serenus, Bishop of Marseilles, broke them, and threw them out of the church, as appears by Gregory, Bishop of Rome's letter to him, in which he tells him, That he was informed that he had broken, and cast out of the church the images which he had observed some to worship. He commends his zeal against worshipping that which is made with hands, but judges that he ought not to destroy those images, because pictures are therefore set up in churches, that such as cannot read, may behold on the walls what they cannot read in books." (Owen on Image-worship, 67.) That Gregory, superstitious as he was, differed essentially, upon the subject of images, from his more modern successors in that see, which some men, who ought to know better, represent as infallible, is unde

breaking of images, observing that it is one thing to worship the representation, and another to

niable. In another epistle to Serenus, he says, "If any will make images do not forbid it; but by all means forbid the adoration of them, and carefully admonish people, that by the sight of the representation they stir up compunction in their minds, and humbly prostrate themselves in the adoration of the Holy Trinity only." The Britons and Saxons not converted to Popery. Lond. 1748. p. 372.

In a little tract recently printed, but without date, Romish images are thus defended. "Q. How do you prove that it is lawful to make or keep the image of Christ and his saints? A. Because God himself commanded Moses, Exod. xxv. 18, 19, 20, 21. to make two cherubims of beaten gold, and place them at two ends of the mercy-seat over the ark of the covenant, in the very sanctuary." 'And there,' he says, 22, I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercyseat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.' God also commanded, Numb. xxi. 8, 9, a serpent of brass to be made, for the healing of those who were bit by the fiery serpent; which serpent was an emblem of Christ, John iii. 14, 15." (The Grounds of the Catholic Doctrine, contained in the Profession of Faith published by Pope Pius IV. and now in use for the reception of converts into the Church. By way of question and answer p. 52.) This expounder of Scripture has, however, omitted to inform his readers, that the golden cherubims being placed " in the very sanctuary," to which the high priest alone ever had admission, and he but once in a year, never could be seen by either priests or people, (very different this from a Popish altar ;) and also that Hezekiah who, says the sacred historian, " did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan." Kings xviii. 4. Thus it appears that Hezekiah, seeing the Israelites use an image made at the commandment of God, in

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learn from it what one ought to worship. That abuses have occasionally sprung from images as from every thing else, is undeniable; but in general they have been considered merely as holy remembrances of Christ and his saints. Nor has the reverence paid to them been bestowed upon the materials of which they are formed, but only upon that object which they represent. Hence those who condemn all use of images should, upon their own principles, condemn persons for wearing a cross about their necks, and the knights of the Garter for wearing the George". In time such scrupulous people might go so far as to forbid carving and engraving altogether; in which case we should be obliged to give up printing, for the types are cast in a graven matrice. But

the same way that Papists use images made in defiance of God's commandments, broke the venerable image into pieces, and pronounced it to be no better than a brasen bauble. For this conduct Hezekiah is commended in Scripture, and yet, the brasen serpent is even in these days brought forward as an authority for one of the basest superstitions of Popery.

"Yea, but what knight of that order kneeleth or prayeth to that George that hangeth about his neck?" Foxe, 1227.

i "If ye did see any printer yet to do worship to his graven letters, then might you well seek thus, as ye do, a knot in a rush." (Foxe, 1227.) This reasoning, however, or at least what Bp. Gardiner meant for such, is adopted by the commentator who defends Popish images by citing the golden cherubims, and the brasen serpent. "If all likenesses were forbid by this commandment (the second) we should be obliged to fling down our sign-posts, and to deface the King's coin." (Grounds of the Cath. Doctr. 52.) It is indeed unquestionable that when we see great numbers of persons, not thought to require protecVOL. III.

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as probably no man would undertake to decry letter-founding and other useful arts as forbidden by the Divine law; so ought no man to say this of carving images to represent venerable objects, and of treating such figures with due respect.

"Upon the subject of holy water, I send to you the history of Marcellus, the bishop, who, having hallowed water, bade Equitius, his deacon, sprinkle it about: which being done, the devil instantly vanished. For my part, I think that this history may be true, for we are assured in Scripture, that in the name of God, the Church is able to cast out devils, and I see no reason why, the Divine name having been first invoked over it, water may not have the effect of conveying this holiness. Our Lord's garment ministered health to the woman with an issue of blood, his spittle mingled with clay conveyed sight to the blind: St. Peter's shadow, and St. Paul's handkerchiefs were beneficial to the sick. But leaving old stories; here at home, the special gift of curátion ministered by the kings of this realm, not of their own strength, but by invocation of God's name, hath been usually distributed in rings of gold and silver. In these, I really think, that the metal hath only an office, and that its power is derived solely from the invocation over it of God's name. Upon this principle, I think that

tion from the court of chancery, saying prayers, offering incense, lighting candles, and making obeisances before a crown piece, or the Saracen's Head, it will be high time to deface the one, or to fling down the other.

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