The Great Controversy by Ellen White (Unabridged Version)

(pseudonym "Janus") The Pope and the Council (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1869);
and W.J. Sparrow Simpson, Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (London: John
Murray, 1909). For the non-Roman view, see George Salmon, Infallibility of the Church
(London: John Murray, rev. ed., 1914).
Page 52. Image worship.--"The worship of images . . . was one of those corruptions of
Christianity which crept into the church stealthily and almost without notice or observation.
This corruption did not, like other heresies, develop itself at once, for in that case it would
have met with decided censure and rebuke: but, making its commencement under a fair
disguise, so gradually was one practice after another introduced in connection with it, that the
church had become deeply steeped in practical idolatry, not only without any efficient
opposition, but almost without any decided remonstrance; and when at length an endeavor was
made to root it out, the evil was found too deeply fixed to admit of removal. . . . It must be
traced to the idolatrous tendency of the human heart, and its propensity to serve the creature
more than the Creator. . . .
"Images and pictures were first introduced into churches, not to be worshiped, but either
in the place of books to give instruction to those who could not read, or to excite devotion in
the minds of others. How far they ever answered such a purpose is doubtful; but, even granting
that this was the case for a time, it soon ceased to be so, and it was found that pictures and
images brought into churches darkened rather than enlightened the minds of the ignorant--
degraded rather than exalted the devotion of the worshiper. So that, however they might have
been intended to direct men's minds to God, they ended in turning them from Him to the
worship of created things."--J. Mendham, The Seventh General Council, the Second of Nicaea,
Introduction, pages iii-vi.
For a record of the proceedings and decisions of the Second Council of Nicaea, A.D.
787, called to establish the worship of images, see Baronius, Ecclesiastical Annals, vol. 9, pp.
391-407 (Antwerp, 1612); J. Mendham, The Seventh General Council, the Second of Nicaea;
Ed. Stillingfleet, Defense of the Discourse Concerning the Idolatry Practiced in the Church of
Rome (London, 1686); A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2d series, vol. 14,
pp. 521-587 (New York, 1900); Charles J. Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church,
From the Original Documents, b. 18, ch. 1, secs. 332, 333; ch. 2, secs. 345-352 (T. and T.
Clark ed., 1896), vol. 5, pp. 260-304, 342372.
475