19. It is not unlawful to make an image (out of the cases of accidental evil before named) to be objectum vel medium excitans ad cultum Dei, an object or medium of our consideration, exciting our minds to worship God. (As a death's-head, or a crucifix, or an historical image of Christ or some holy man, yea, the sight of any of God's creatures, may be so holily used, as to stir up in us a worshipping affection, and so is medium cultus excitans vel efficienter.) But no creature, or image, (I think,) may lawfully be made the medium cultum vel terminus, in genere causæ finalis, a worshipped medium, or the terminus, or the thing which we worship mediately, on pretence of representing God, and that we worship him in it ultimately. And this I take to be the thing forbidden directly in the second commandment; viz. To worship a creature (with mind or body) in the act of divine worship, as representing God, or as the mediate term of our worship, by which we send it unto God, as if it were the more acceptable to him. So that it is lawful by the sight of a crucifix to be provoked to worship God; but it is unlawful to offer him that worship, by offering it to the crucifix first, as the sign, way, or means of our sending it to God.
20. Yet a creature may be honoured or worshipped with such worship as is due to him, by the means of such a representing terminus or image. If the king command his subjects to bow towards his image or throne when he is absent, as an act of honour, or human worship to himself, it is lawful so to do, God having not forbid it. But God hath forbid us to do so by himself, because he hath no image, and is confined to no place, and to avoid the danger and appearance of idolatry.
21. Yet is it lawful to lift up our hand and eyes towards heaven, as the place of God's glory; and I condemn not the ancient churches that worshipped towards the east. But it was not heaven, or the sun, or east that they worshipped, or to which they sent their worship, as any terminus medius, or thing mediately worshipped; but only to God himself, whose glory is in the heavens.
[358] Isa. xl. 18, 25; xlvi. 5; Exod. xx. 4; Gen. i. 26; v. 1; Deut. iv. 16-18, 23, 25; v. 8; xvi. 22; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 7; Ezek. viii. 3, 5; Dan. iii.; Rom. i. 23; Heb. xii. 29; Col. iii. 10; Deut. ix; Exod. xxiii. 24; xxxiv. 13; Deut. vii. 5; 1 Kings xiv. 9, 23; 2 Kings xvii. 19; 2 Chron. xiv. 3, 5; Hab. ii. 18; Jer. x. 8; Deut. xxvii. 15; Isa. xvii. 8; xli. 29; 2 Chron. xxviii. 2; xxiv. 3, 4; Hos. xiii. 2; Ezek. xvi. 17; xxiii. 14; xxx. 13; Hos. x. 1, 2; 2 Kings xxi. 7; Jer. viii. 19; li. 47.
[359] 2 Chron. iii. 10; Matt. xxii. 10; Numb. xxi. 9; 2 Kings xvi. 17; 1 Kings vii. 18, 19, 25, 26, 29, 30.
[360] Rom. viii. 29; Rev. i. 12, &c.; 2 Cor. iv. 4; Col. i. 15; Phil. iii. 8-10, &c.
[361] 1 Cor. xi. 7; 2 Cor. iii. 18; Col. iii. 10.
[362] Exod. xxv. 18, 19; xxxvii. 8, 9.
[363] 1 Kings vi. 24-27; Ezek. x. 2, 4, 7, 9, 14; 1 Kings vii. 29, 36; viii. 6, 7; 1 Sam. iv. 4; 2 Kings xix. 15; Psal. lxxx. 1; xcix. 1; Isa. vi. 2, 6.
[364] Ut Beza Icones Viror. Illustrium.