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Indeed in so great account was the use of Images among them; that in the ancientest and best times, Christians would by no means permit them to be brought into their Churches; nay some of them would not so much as admit the art it self of making them: so jealous were they of the danger, and careful of the prevention of the deceit, whereby the simple might any way be drawn on to the adoring of them. ^uWe are plainly forbidden, saith Clemens Alexandrinus, to exercise that deceitful art. For the Prophet saith; Thou shalt not make the likeness of any thing, either in the heaven or in the earth beneath. ^xMoses commandeth men, to make no Image, that should represent God by art. ^yFor in truth an Image is a dead matter, formed by the hand of an artificer. But we have no sensible Image made of any sensible matter, but such an Image as is to be conceived with the understanding. So his scholar Origen, writing against Celsus the philosopher: ^zWho having his right wits (saith he) will not laugh at him, who after such great philosophical discourses of God or Gods, doth look on Images; and either presenteth his prayer to them, or by the sight thereof offereth it to him who is conceived ⟨p. 454⟩thereby, unto whom he imagineth that he ought to ascend from that which is seen and is but a sign or symbol of him? And whereas Celsus had brought in that speech of Heraclitus; ^aThey pray unto these Images, as if a man should enter into conference with his house: and demanded; ^bWhether any man unless he were a very child, did think these things to be Gods, and not monuments and images of the Gods? Origen replieth, that ^cit is not a thing possible, that one should know God, and pray to Images: and that Christians