[355] Rom. xi. 4; 1 Kings xix. 18; Rev. xxii. 8, 9; Josh. xxiii. 7; 2 Kings xvii. 35; Exod. xx. 5.
[356] Gen. xxvii. 29; xxxii. 10; xliv. 8; Exod. xi. 8; 2 Kings v. 18; Gen. xli. 43; Ruth ii. 10; 1 Sam. xxv. 23, 41.
[357] Lev. xxvi. 1; Gal. ii. 4, 5; v. 1; 1 Cor. vii. 23.
Quest. CXIII. What images, and what use of images, is lawful or unlawful?
Answ. 1. It is unlawful to make any image of God. Because it would be a blaspheming of him, as pretending him to be like to that which he is not like to, that is, a creature.[358]
Object. Man is God's image: it is lawful to make an image of man; and so an image of God's image, and that may be a secondary image of God.
Answ. 1. It is the soul of man, of which no image can be drawn or made, which is the image of God, and not the body. 2. The image of him who secundum quid as to the soul is God's image, is not God's image, but man's quoad corpus as to another part. We need not contend much about the name, whether this may be called a remote image of God (though undoubtedly unfit). But we must not really take it to be like him, or use it for his image.
Object. God hath imprinted his image on the whole creation; e. g. he is called a consuming fire; therefore fire may be pictured as his image.
Answ. The same answer serveth as to the former objection. And it is not all the impressions and vestigia of God's power, wisdom, and goodness, which are called his image; as the house is not the image of the builder, or a clock of a clock-maker, &c. And if God be metaphorically called fire, as he is called a lion, &c. because of the similitude of some operation or effect, it followeth not that these are his image; much less that the image of these is his image.
2. No image may be made to be a teacher of lies; as we may not lie by words, so neither by images. Therefore false stories, or false images of realities, when made as true, and pretended to be true images or representations, are unlawful.