s made, the
people said, (Exod. 32. 2.) "These are thy Gods O Israel;" and where the
Images of Laban (Gen. 31.30.) are called his Gods. And wee see daily by
experience in all sorts of People, that such men as study nothing but
their food and ease, are content to beleeve any absurdity, rather than
to trouble themselves to examine it; holding their faith as it were by
entaile unalienable, except by an expresse and new Law.

Painting Of Fancies No Idolatry: Abusing Them To Religious Worship Is

But they inferre from some other places, that it is lawfull to paint
Angels, and also God himselfe: as from Gods walking in the Garden; from
Jacobs seeing God at the top of the ladder; and from other Visions, and
Dreams. But Visions, and Dreams whether naturall, or supernaturall, are
but Phantasmes: and he that painteth an Image of any of them, maketh not
an Image of God, but of his own Phantasm, which is, making of an Idol. I
say not, that to draw a Picture after a fancy, is a Sin; but when it
is drawn, to hold it for a Representation of God, is against the second
Commandement; and can be of no use, but to worship. And the same may be
said of the Images of Angels, and of men dead; unlesse as Monuments of
friends, or of men worthy remembrance: For such use of an Image, is not
Worship of the Image; but a civill honoring of the Person, not that is,
but that was: But when it is done to the Image which we make of a Saint,
for no other reason, but that we think he heareth our prayers, and is
pleased with the honour wee doe him, when dead, and without sense, wee
attribute to him more than humane power; and therefore it is Idolatry.

Seeing therefore there is no authority, neither in the Law of Moses,
nor in the Gospel, for the religious Worship of Images, or other
Representations of God, which men set up to themselves; or for the
Worship of the Image of any Creature in Heaven, or Earth, or under the
Earth: And whereas Christian Kings, who are living Representants of God,
are not to be worshipped by their Subjects, by any act, that signifieth
a greater esteem of his power, than the nature of mortall man is capable
of; It cannot be imagined, that the Religious Worship now in use,
was brought into the Church, by misunderstanding of the Scripture. It
resteth therefore, that it was left in it, by not destroying the Images
themselves, in the conversion of the Gentiles that worshipped them.

How Idolatry Was Left In The Church

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