A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux

have you no Tradition amongst you that you plead for the Adoration of Images? hath no Council amongst you determined it? doth not your practice speak it? were you awake when you wrote these things? did you never read your Tridentine Decree, or the Nicene Canons commended by them? is not the adoration of Images asserted an hundred times expressly in it? hath no man alive such thoughts? are not only Thomas and Bonaventure, but Bellarmine, Gregory de Valentia, Baronius, Suarez, Vasquez, Azorius, with all the rest of your great Champions now utterly defeated, and have not one man left to be of their judgement? I would be glad to hear more of this matter. Speak plainly, do you renounce all adoration and worship of Images? is that the Doctrine of your Church? prove it so, and I shall publicly acknowledge my self to have been a long time in a very great mistake. But it was for this cause that I gave you a little Image of the Doctrine and practice of your Church in this matter, at the entrance of our discourse, foreseeing how you would prevaricate in our progress. Come Sir, if Image Worship be such a shameful thing that you dare not avow it, deal ingenuously and acknowledge the failings of your Church in this matter, and labour to bring her to amendment. If you think otherwise, and in truth yet like it well enough, d•al like a man, and dare to dete•d it at least as well as you can, and more no […] can look for at your hands. You mention somewhat of the different opinions of your Schoolmen in this matter, which you sleight. But Sir, I tell you again, that you and all your Masters are agreed that Images are to be adored and venerated▪ ⟨p. 511⟩that is, worshipped; and their disputes about that honour that rests absolutely on the Image, and that which passeth on to the Prototype, with the kind of the one and the other, are such as neither themselves, nor any other do understand. You tell us indeed, All Catholic Councils and practice, declare such sacred figures to be expedient assistants to our thoughts in our divine meditations and prayers, and that is all you know of it. But if you intend Councils and practice truly Catholic or Primitive, you can give no instance of allowing so much to Images as here you ascribe unto them;

have you no Tradition amongst you that you plead for the Adoration of Images? hath no Council amongst you determined it? doth not your practice speak it? were you awake when you wrote these things? did you never read your Tridentine Decree, or the Nicene Canons commended by them? is not the adoration of Images asserted an hundred times expresly in it? hath no man alive such thoughts? are not only Thomas and Bonaventure, but Bellarmine, Gregory de Valentia, Baronius, Suarez, Vasquez, Azorius, with all the rest of your great Champions now utterly defeated, and have not one man left to be of their judgement? I would be glad to hear more of this matter. Speak plainly, do you renounce all adoration and worship of Images? is that the Doctrine of your Church? prove it so, and I shall publickly acknowledge my self to have been a long time in a very great mistake. But it was for this cause that I gave you a little Image of the Doctrine and practice of your Church in this matter, at the entrance of our discourse, foreseeing how you would prevaricae in our progress. Come Sir, if Image Worship be such a shameful thing that you dare not avow it, deal ingenuously and acknowledge the failings of your Church in this matter, and labour to bring her to amendment. If you think otherwise, and in truth yet like it well enough, dal like a man, and dare to deted it at least as well as you can, and more no can look for at your hands. You mention somewhat of the different opinions of your Schoolmen in this matter, which you sleight. But Sir, I tell you again, that you and all your Masters are agreed that Images are to be adored and venerated