The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

IMAGE-WORSHIP REVIVED PAGANISM. 857substitutes. The vulgar, perhaps, failed to grasp this distinction,or steadily to keep it before them, just as the massof worshippers in the Roman Catholic Church fail practicallyto apprehend the difference between praying to andpraying he/ore, or rather heyond^ the image ; but such icasthe system, and that system the Bible denounced as idolatry; and the same system stands equally condemned whenfound in a popish cathedral as when found in a pagantemple.But, in the second place, it is not true that these imagesare simple helps to devotion, or mere media for the conveyanceof the worship offered before them to the object whomthey represent. The homage and honour are given to theimage immediately^ and to theobject represented mediately,the worshipper assuming the power, by an act of volition orintention, of transferring the honour from the image totheobject. But the image is honoured, and is commanded tobe so on no less an authority than the Council of Trent." Moreover,"" says the Council, " let them teach that theimages of Christ, and of the Virgin, mother of God, and ofother saints, are to be had and retained, especially inchurches, and due honour and veneration rendered to them."And the decree goes on to say, that the person is to prostratehimself before the image, touncover his head beforeit, and kiss it, no doubt under the pretence, that by thesemarks of honour to the image he is honouring those whoselikeness it bears.* This decree reduplicates on a formerdecree of the second Council of Nice, held ina.d. 787,t atwhich the controversy respecting images was finally settled.The Council of Nice decreed that the images of Christ andhis saints are to be venerated and adored, though not with" true latria,'''' or the worship exclusively due to God.:]: Thesame doctrine is taught in the Catechism of the Council ofTrent. There such acts of worship as we have already spe-* Concil. Trid. sess. xxv. + Moslaeim, book iii. part ii. chap. iii.X Cramp's Text Book of Popery, p. 338.