Animadversions on a treatise entitled Fiat lux, or, A guide in differences of religion,…Animadversions on a treatise intituled Fiat lux, or, A guide in differences of religion,…

The next excellency of the Roman-Church, which so exceedingly delighted our Author in his travails, is their Images. It was well for him that he travailed not in the days of the Apostles, nor for 4 or 500 years after their decease. Had he done so, and, in his choice of a Religion, would have been influenced by Images and Pictures, he had undoubtedly turned Pagan; (or else a Gnostic; for those pretended Christians, indeed wretches worse then Pagans, as Epiphanius informs us, had got Images of Christ, which, they said, were made in the days of Pontius Pilate, if not by him.) Their Temples being richly-furnished and adorned with them, ⟨p. 314⟩whilst Christian Oratories were utterly destitute of them. To forward also his inclination, he would have found them not the representations of ordinary men, but of famous Hero's, renowned throughout the whole World, for their noble achievements and inventions of things necessary to humane life; and those portrayed to the life, in the performance of those actions which were so useful to mankind, and by which they had stirred up just admiration of their virtue in all men. Moreover, he would have found their learned men profound Philosophers, devout Priests, and Virgins, contemning the Christians for want of those helps to devotion towards God, which in those Images they enjoyed; and objecting to them their rashness, fury, and ignorance in demolishing of them. As far as I can perceive by his good inclination to this excellency of Religion (the imagery of it) had he lived in those days, he would have as easily bid adieu to Christianity, as he did in these to Protestantism.