Regarding Images
Setting
up images is rendering sensible the mysteries and example which sanctify us.
The thing to be feared in respect of the ignorant is, lest they should believe
that the divine nature might be represented, or rendered present in images, or,
at all events, lest they should look upon them as filled with some virtue for
which they are honored; these are the three characters of idolatry. But the
Council has rejected them in plain terms; so that it is not lawful to attribute
to one image more virtue than to another, nor, by consequence, to frequent one
more than another, unless in memory of some miracles, or some pious history
which might excite devotion. The use of images being thus purified, Luther
himself and the Lutherans will demonstrate that images of this kind are not
what the Decalogue speaks of, and the honor rendered to them will be manifestly
nothing else than a sensible and exterior testimony of the pious remembrance
they excite, and the simple and natural effect of that mute language which
accompanies these pious representations, and whose usefulness is so much the
greater, as it is capable of being understood by all mankind. (Jacques Bénigne
Bossuet, The History and the Variations of the Protestant Churches, 2
vols. [2d ed.; Maynooth: Richard Coyne, 1836], 2:327)
Further Reading:
Answering Fundamentalist Protestants and Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox on Images/Icons
