But whilst the instructor teaches the way in which the crucifix may be a book full of deep meaning to the unlearned, he is most careful to see that the true signification of the image is not misunderstood. In language which for clearness of expression and simplicity of illustration cannot be excelled, he warns Dives not to mistake the real nature of the reverence paid to the symbol of our redemption. “In this manner,” he says, “read thy book and fall down to the ground and thank thy God who would do so much for thee. Worship Him above all things—not the stock, nor the stone, nor the wood, but Him who died on the tree of the cross for thy sins and thy sake. Thou shalt kneel if thou wilt before the image, but not to the image. Thou shalt do thy worship before the image, before the thing, not to the thing; offer thy prayer before the thing, not to the thing, for it seeth thee not, heareth thee not, understandeth thee not: make thy offering, if thou wilt, before the thing, but not to the thing: make thy pilgrimage not to the thing, nor for the thing, for it may not help thee, but to Him and for Him the thing represents. For if thou do it for the thing, or to the thing, thou doest idolatry.”
This plain teaching as to the only meaning of reverence paid to images, namely, that it is relative and intended for that which the image represents, our author enforces by several examples. Just as a priest when saying mass with a book before him, bends down, holds up his hands, kneels, and performs other external signs of worship, not to the book, but to God, “so should the unlettered man use his book, that is images and paintings, not worshipping the thing, but God in heaven and the saints in their degree. All the worship which he doth before the thing, he doth, not to the thing, but to Him the thing represents.”
The image of the crucified Saviour on the altar is specially intended, our author says, to remind all that “Mass singing is a special mind-making of Christ’s passion.” For this reason, in the presence of the crucifix, the priest says “his mass, and offers up the highest prayer that Holy Church can devise for the salvation of the quick and the dead. He holds up his hands, he bows down, he kneels, and all the worship he can do, he does—more than all, he offers up the highest sacrifice and the best offering that any heart can devise—that is Christ, the Son of the God of heaven, under the form of bread and wine. All this worship the priest doth at mass before the thing—the crucifix; and I hope there is no man nor woman so ignorant that he will say that the priest singeth his mass, or maketh his prayer, or offers up the Son of God, Christ Himself, to the thing.… In the same way, unlettered men should worship before the thing, making prayer before the thing, and not to the thing.”
One of the special practices of the mediæval church to which the English reformers objected, and to which they gave the epithet “superstitious,” was the honour shown to the cross on Good Friday, generally known as “the creeping to the cross.” The advocates of change in insisting upon this time-honoured ceremony being swept away, claimed that in permitting it the Church had given occasion to wrong ideas of worship in the minds of the common people, and that the reverence shown to the symbol of our redemption on that occasion amounted practically to idolatry. In view of such assertions, it is not without interest to see how Pauper in this book of simple instructions treats this matter. “On Good Friday especially,” says Dives, “men creep to the cross and worship the cross.” “That is so,” replies the instructor, “but not in the way thou meanest. The cross that we creep to and worship so highly at that time is Christ Himself, who died on the cross on that day for our sin and our sake.… He is that cross, as all doctors say, to whom we pray and say, ‘Ave crux, spes unica,’ ‘Hail, thou cross, our only hope.’” But rejoins Dives, “On Palm Sunday, at the procession the priest draweth up the veil before the rood and falleth down to the ground with all the people, saying thrice thus, ‘Ave Rex noster,’ ‘Hail, be Thou our King.’ In this he worships the thing as King! Absit!” “God forbid!” replies Pauper, “he speaks not to the image that the carpenter hath made and the painter painted, unless the priest be a fool, for the stock and stone was never king. He speaketh to Him that died on the cross for us all—to Him that is King of all things.… For this reason are crosses placed by the wayside, to remind folk to think of Him who died on the cross, and to worship Him above all things. And for this same reason is the cross borne before a procession, that all who follow after it or meet it should worship Him who died upon a cross as their King, their Head, their Lord and their Leader to Heaven.”
Equally clear is the author of Dives et Pauper upon the distinction between the worship to be paid to God and the honour it is lawful to give to His saints. It is, of course, frequently asserted that the English pre-Reformation church did not recognise, or at least did not inculcate, this necessary difference, and consequently tolerated, even if it did not suggest, gross errors in this matter. No one who has examined the manuals of instruction which were in use on the eve of the Reformation can possibly maintain an opinion so opposed to the only evidence available. In particular, the real distinction between the supreme worship due to God alone, and the honour, however great, to be paid to His creatures is drawn out with great care and exactness in regard to the devotion paid to our Lord’s Blessed Mother. Thus, after most carefully explaining that there are two modes of “service and worship” which differ not merely in degree, but in kind and nature, and which were then, as now, known under the terms latria and dulia, our author proceeds, “Latria is a protestation and acknowledgment of the high majesty of God; the recognition that He is sovereign goodness, sovereign wisdom, sovereign might, sovereign truth, sovereign justice; that He is the Creator and Saviour of all creatures and the end of all things; that all we have we have of Him, and that without Him we have absolutely nothing; and that without Him we can neither have nor do anything, neither we nor any other creature. This acknowledgment and protestation is made in three ways: by the heart, and by word, and by deed. We make it by the heart when we love Him as sovereign goodness; when we love Him as sovereign wisdom and truth, that may not deceive nor be deceived; when we hope in Him and trust Him as sovereign might that can best help us in need; as sovereign greatness and Lord, who may best yield us our deserts; and as sovereign Saviour, most merciful and most ready to forgive us our misdeeds.… Also the acknowledgment is done in the prayer and praise of our mouths.… For we must pray to Him and praise Him as sovereign might, sovereign wisdom, sovereign goodness, sovereign truth; as all-just and merciful as the Maker and Saviour of all things, &c.
“And in this manner we are not to pray to or praise any creature. Therefore, they who make their prayers and their praises before images, and say their Paternoster and their Ave Maria and other prayers and praises commonly used by holy Church, or any such, if they do it to the image, and speak to the image, they do open idolatry. Also they are not excused even if they understand not what they say, for their lights, and their other wits, and their inner wit also, showeth them well that there ought that no such prayer, praise, or worship be offered to such images, for they can neither hear them, nor see them, nor help them in their needs.”
Equally definite and explicit is another writer, just on the eve of the Reformation. William Bond, the brother of Sion, in 1531 published his large volume of instructions called The Pilgrymage of Perfeccyon, to which his contemporary, Richard Whitford, refers his readers for the fullest teaching on sundry points of faith and practice. In setting forth the distinction between an image and an idol this authority says, “Many nowadays take the Scripture wrongly, and thereby fall into heresy as Wycliffe did with his followers, and now this abominable heretic, Luther, with his adherents.… And (as I suppose) the cause of their error is some of these following:—First, that they put no difference between an idol and an image; secondly, that they put no difference between the service or high adoration due to God, called in the Greek tongue latria, and the lower veneration or worship exhibited and done to the saints of God, called in Greek dulia.… The veneration or worship that is done to the images (as Damascene, Basil, and St. Thomas say) rest not in them, but redound unto the thing that is represented by such images: as for example, the great ambassador or messenger of a king shall have the same reverence that the king’s own person should have if he were present. This honour is not done to this man for himself, or for his own person, but for the king’s person in whose name he cometh, and all such honour and reverence so done redoundeth to the king and resteth in him.… So it is in the veneration or worshipping of the images of Christ and His saints. The honour rests not in the image, nor in the stock, nor in the stone, but in the thing that is represented thereby.” According to St. Thomas, he says the images in churches are intended to “be as books to the rude and unlearned people,” and to “stir simple souls to devotion.”[302]
Bond then draws out most carefully the distinction which the Church teaches as to the kinds of honour to be given to the saints. “Our lights, oblations, or Paternosters and creeds that we say before images of saints,” he says, “are as praisings of God, for His graces wrought in His saints, by whose merits we trust that our petitions shall be the sooner obtained of God.… We pray to them, not as to the granters of our petitions, but as means whereby we may the sooner obtain the same.”[303]
Speaking specially of the reverence shown to the crucifix, our author uses the teaching of St. Thomas to explain the exact meaning of this honour. “The Church in Lent, in the Passion time,” he continues, “worships it, singing, ‘O crux ave, spes unica,’ ‘Hail, holy cross, our only hope.’ That is to be understood as ‘Hail, blessed Lord crucified, Who art our only hope’—for all is one worship and act. Christ, our Maker and Redeemer, God and man in one person, is of duty worshipped with the high adoration only due to God, called latria. His image also, or his similitude, called the crucifix, is to be worshipped, just as the Blessed Sacrament is adored with the worship of latria.”[304]
To this testimony may be added that of another passage from Sir Thomas More. He was engaged in refuting the accusation made by Tyndale against the religious practices of pre-Reformation days, to which charges, unfortunately, people have given too much credence in later times. “Now of prayer, Tyndale says,” writes More, “that we think no man may pray but at church, and that (i.e. the praying before a crucifix or image) is nothing but the saying of a Paternoster to a post. (Further) that the observances and ceremonies of the Church are vain things of our own imagination, neither needful to the taming of the flesh, nor profitable to our neighbour, nor to the honour of God. These lies come in by lumps; lo! I dare say that he never heard in his life men nor women say that a man might pray only in church. Just as true is it also that men say their Paternosters to the post, by which name it pleases him of his reverent Christian mind to call the images of holy saints and our Blessed Lady, and the figure of Christ’s cross, the book of His bitter passion. Though we reverence these in honour of the things they represent, and in remembrance of Christ do creep to the cross and kiss it, and say Paternoster at it, yet we say not our Paternoster to it, but to God; and that Tyndale knows full well, but he likes to rail.”[305]