A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux

Sir, In this matter of images you talk of coming up close to your business, and I was willing to take a little pains with you to direct you in your way, that having a mind to your work as you seem to pretend, you may not mistake and wander away from your duty, but address your self unto that which you undertake and which is expected from you. You are to prove that there is a necessity of receiving the use of images in the worship of the Church, so that whosoever doth not admit them, is to be cast out of the Communion thereof; and 2. That these Images so received are to be worshipped and adored with religious veneration, if not with the very same worship that is due to the Persons represented by them, yet with that which redounds unto them; and that not only by the outward gesture of the body but the inward motions of the mind. And when you shall have proved that the Doctrine and practice of your Church in this matter of making and worshipping Images is not contrary to the Scripture, or was ever received or approved by the primitive Church for six hundred years, I will promise you setting aside all other Considerations, immediately to become a Papist: for the present I see no cause so to do, and shall therefore return to consider what you here say for the further adorning of your pictures.

The first thing you reflect upon is my censure of that passage in your Fiat, that the sight of Images in the Church is apt to cast the minds of men on that meditation of the Apostle, Heb. 12. You are come to mount Zion, to the City of the living God, to the Heavenly Jerusalem, the Society of Angels, and Church of the first born written in heaven, to God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant. These, I tell you, upon the sight of an House full of Images may be the thoughts of a man distracted of his wits, not of any that are sober and wise. To which you reply, mad men it seems can tell what figures represent, sober and wise men cannot. But who told you that your images represent the things mentioned by the Apostle? for instance, God the Judge of all, the spirits of just men, Angels, and the Church of the first born; or can any man unless he be greatly distempered in his imagination, fancy any such thing. The house of Micah,