Of the Commandments
Exodus 20:4 You shall not make to you any graven image, etc.
In the First Commandment is forbidden the worshipping a false God, in this, the worshipping the true God in a false manner.
1. You shall not make to you any graven image; this forbids not the making an image for civil use (Matthew 22:20). Whose is this image and superscription? They say to him Caesar's. But the Commandment forbids setting up an image for religious use or worship.
2. Nor the likeness of any thing, etc. All ideas, portraits, shapes, images of God, whether by effigies or pictures, are here forbidden (Deuteronomy 4:15). Take heed lest you corrupt yourselves, and make the similitude of any figure. God is to be adored in the heart, not painted to the eye.
3. You shall not bow down to them. The intent of making images and pictures, is to worship them. No sooner was Nebuchadnezzar's golden image set up, but all the people fell down and worshipped it (Daniel 3:7). Therefore God forbids the prostrating ourselves before an idol: so then the thing prohibited in this Commandment is image-worship. To set up an image to represent God, is a debasing of the deity, it is below God. If one should make the images of snakes or spiders, saying, he did it to represent his prince, would not the prince take this in high disdain? What greater disparagement to God, than to represent the infinite God by that which is finite; the Living God, by that which is without life, and the Maker of all, by a thing which is made?
1. To make a true image of God is impossible. God is a spiritual essence (John 4:24). And being a spirit he is invisible (Deuteronomy 4:15). You saw no similitude on the day the Lord spoke with you out of the midst of the fire. How can any paint the deity? Can they make an image of that which they never saw? Quod invisibile est, pingi non potest, Ambr. You saw no similitude. It is impossible to make a picture of the soul, or to paint the angels, because they are of a spiritual nature; much less then can we paint God by an image, who is an infinite, increate spirit.
2. To worship God by an image, is both absurd and unlawful.
1. It is absurd and irrational; for first, the workman is better than the work (Hebrews 3:3). He who builds the house, has more honor than the house; if the workman be better than the work, and none bows to the workman, how absurd then is it to bow to the work of his hands? Secondly, is it not an absurd thing to bow down to the king's picture, when the king himself is present? So to bow down to an image of God, when God himself is everywhere present.
2. It is unlawful to worship God by an image; for first, it is against the homily of the church; it runs thus, The images of God, our Savior, the Virgin Mary, are of all others most dangerous, therefore the greatest care ought to be had that they stand not in temples and churches. So that image-worship is contrary to our own homilies, and does affront the authority of the Church of England. Secondly, image-worship is expressly against the letter of Scripture (Leviticus 26:1). You shall make no graven image, neither shall you set up any image of stone to bow down to it. (Deuteronomy 16:22) Neither shall you set up any image which the Lord your God hates. (Psalm 97:7) Confounded be all who serve graven images. Do we think to please God by doing that which is contrary to his mind, and which he has expressly forbidden? Thirdly, image-worship is against the practice of the saints of old. Josiah that renowned king, destroyed the groves and images (2 Kings 23:24). Constantine abrogated the images set up in temples. The Christians destroyed images at Basel, Zurich, Bohemia; when the Roman emperors would have thrust images upon them, they chose rather to die than defile their virgin profession by idolatry. They refused to admit any painter or carver into their society, because they would not have any carved statue, or image of God: when Seraphion bowed to an idol, the Christians excommunicated him, and delivered him up to Satan.
Use 1. It reproves and condemns the Church of Rome, who from the alpha of their religion, to the omega, are wholly idolatrous; they make images of God the Father, painting him in their church windows as an old man, and an image of Christ in the crucifix. And because it is against the letter of this Commandment, therefore they sacrilegiously blot out the Second Commandment out of their catechisms, dividing the Tenth Commandment into two. Now this image-worship must needs be very impious and blasphemous, because it is a giving that [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], or religious worship to the creature, which is only due to God. It is vain for Papists to say they give God the worship of the heart, and the image only the worship of the body; for the worship of the body is due to God, as well as the worship of the heart, and to give an outward veneration to an image, is to give that adoration to a creature, which only belongs to God. (Isaiah 42:8) My glory will I not give to another.
Objection 1. But the Papists say, they do not worship the image, only make use of it as a medium, they worship God by it; Ne imagini quidem Christi in quantum est Lignum sculptum, ulla debetur reverentia, Aquinas.
Response 1. Where has God told them to worship him by an effigies or spirit? (Isaiah 1:12) Who has required this at your hands? The Papists can't say so much as the Devil, Scriptum est, it is written.
2. The Heathens may bring the same argument for their gross idolatry, as the Papists do for their image-worship; who of the Heathens were so simple, as to think gold and silver, or the figure of an ox or elephant, were God? They were only emblems and hieroglyphics to represent him; they did worship the invisible God, by such visible things. To worship God by an image, God takes as done to the image itself.
Objection 2. But say the Papists, images are laymen's books, and they are good to put us in mind of God. One of the Popish councils affirmed that we might learn more by an image, than by long study of the Scriptures.
Response. (Habakkuk 2:18) What profits the graven image, the molten image, and a teacher of lies? Is an image a layman's book? See then what lessons this book teaches, it teaches lies, it represents God in a visible shape, who is invisible. For the Papists to say they make use of an image, to put them in mind of God, is as if a woman should say she keeps company with another man, to put her in mind of her husband.
Obj. 3. But did not Moses make the image of a brazen serpent, why then may not images be set up?
Resp. That was done by God's special command (Numbers 21:8), Make a brazen serpent; and there was a special use of it, both literal and spiritual; but what, does the setting up this image of the brazen serpent justify the setting up of images in churches? What, because Moses did make an image by God's appointment, may we therefore set up an image of our own devising? Because Moses made an image to heal them that were stung, is it lawful therefore to set up images in churches, to sting them that are whole? This does not at all follow. In fact, that very brazen serpent which God himself commanded to be set up, when Israel did look upon it with too much reverence, and began to burn incense to it, Hezekiah defaced that image, and called it Nehushtan, and God commended him for doing so (2 Kings 18:4).
Obj. 4. But is not God represented as having hands and eyes and ears? Why then may we not make an image to represent him by, and help our devotion?
Resp. Though God is pleased to stoop to our weak capacities, and set himself out in Scripture by eyes, to signify his omniscience, and hands, to signify his power, yet it is very absurd from metaphors and figurative expressions, to bring an argument for images and pictures; for by that rule God may be pictured by the sun and the element of fire, and by a rock, for God is set forth by these metaphors in Scripture; and surely the Papists themselves would not like to have such images made of God.
Quest. 1. If it be not lawful to make the image of God the Father, yet may we not make an image of Christ, who took upon him the nature of man?
Resp. No. Epiphanius seeing an image of Christ hanging in a church, broke it in pieces; it is Christ's Godhead, united to his manhood, that makes him to be Christ; therefore to picture his manhood, when we cannot picture his Godhead, is a sin, because we make him to be but half Christ; we separate what God has joined, we leave out that which is the chief thing, which makes him to be Christ.
Quest. 2. But how then shall we conceive of God aright, if we may make no image or resemblance of him?
Resp. We must conceive of God spiritually, namely: 1. In his attributes, his holiness, justice, goodness, which are the beams by which his divine nature shines forth. 2. We must conceive of him as he is in Christ. Christ is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). As in the wax we see the print of the seal. Set the eyes of your faith on Christ-God-Man (John 14:9). He that has seen me, has seen the Father.
Use 2. Take heed of idolatry, namely image-worship; our nature is prone to this sin, as dry wood to take fire; and indeed what needs so many words in the commandment, You shall not make any graven image, or the likeness of any thing, in heaven, earth, water, sun, moon, stars, male, female, fish; you shall not bow down to them; I say, what needed so many words, but to show how subject we are to this sin of false worship? It concerns us therefore to resist this sin. Where the tide is apt to run with greater force, there we had need make the banks higher and stronger; the plague of idolatry is very infectious (Psalm 106:35-36). They were mingled among the heathens, and served their idols. It is my advice to you, to avoid all occasions of this sin.
1. Come not into the company of idolatrous Papists; dare not to live under the same roof with them: you run into the devil's mouth. John the Divine would not be in the bath where Cerinthus the Heretic was.
2. Go not into their chapels to see their crucifixes or hear Mass: as the looking on a harlot draws to adultery, so the looking on the Popish gilded picture, may draw to idolatry. Some care not though they go and see their idol-worship; indeed a vagrant that has nothing to lose, cares not though he goes among thieves. Such as have no goodness in them, care not into what idolatrous places they come, or what temptations they cast themselves upon; but you who have a treasure about you, good principles, take heed the Popish priests do not rob you of your principles, and defile you with their images.
3. Dare not to join in marriage with image-worshippers. Solomon though a man of wisdom, yet his idolatrous wives drew away his heart from God; the people of Israel entered into an oath and curse, that they would not give their daughters in marriage to the idolaters (Nehemiah 10:30). For a Protestant and Papist to marry, is to be unequally yoked (2 Corinthians 6:14), and there is more danger the Papist will corrupt the Protestant, than hope the Protestant will convert the Papist. Mingle wine and vinegar, the vinegar will sooner sour the wine, than the wine will sweeten the vinegar.
4. Avoid superstition, which is a bridge that leads over to Rome. Superstition is the bringing in any ceremony, fancy, or innovation into God's worship which he never appointed. This is very provoking to God, because it reflects much upon his honor, as if he were not wise enough to appoint the manner of his own worship. God hates all strange fire to be offered in his temple (Leviticus 10:1). A ceremony may in time bring to a crucifix. They who contend for the cross in baptism, why may they not as well have the oil, salt, and cream, the one being as ancient as the other? Such as are for altar-worship, they who will bow to the east, may in time bow to the host. Take heed of all occasions of idolatry. Idolatry is devil-worship (Psalm 106:37). And if you search through the whole Bible, there is no one sin that God has more followed with plagues than idolatry; the Jews have a saying, that in every evil which befalls them, there is uncia aurei vituli, an ounce of the golden calf in it. Hell is a place for idolaters (Revelation 22:15). For without are idolaters. Synesius calls the devil [illegible], a rejoicer at idols, because image-worshippers help to fill hell. That you may be preserved from idolatry and image-worship,
1. Get good principles, that you may be able to oppose the gainsayer. From where does the Popish religion get ground? Not from the goodness of their cause, but from the ignorance of the people.
2. Get love to God. The wife that loves her husband is safe from the adulterer; and the soul that loves Christ is safe from the idolater.
3. Pray that God will keep you. Though it is true, there is nothing in an image to tempt; for if we pray to an image, it cannot hear, and if we pray to God by an image, he will not hear; I say there is nothing to tempt; yet we know not our own hearts, or how soon we may be drawn to vanity, if God leave us; therefore pray that you be not enticed to false worship, or receive the mark of the beast in your right hand or forehead: Pray (Psalm 119:117). Hold you me up, and I shall be safe. Lord, let me neither mistake my way for want of light, or leave the true way for want of courage.
2. Let us bless God who has given us the knowledge of his truth: That we have tasted the honey of his word, and our eyes are enlightened. Bless him that he has shown us the pattern of his house; the right mode of worship: That he has discovered to us the forgery and blasphemy of the Romish religion. Let us pray, that God will preserve pure ordinances and powerful preaching among us. Idolatry came in at first by the want of good preaching. Then the people began to have golden images when they had wooden priests.
