Constantine Copronymus, Leo’s son and successor in the empire, inherited his father’s zeal against the worship of images, and called a synod at Constantinople to determine the controversy. The fathers being met together, to the number of 330, after considering the doctrine of scripture, and the opinions of the fathers, decreed, “that every image, of whatsoever materials made and formed by the artist, should be cast out of the Christian church as a strange and abominable thing; adding an anathema upon all who should make images or pictures, or representations of God, or of Christ, or of the Virgin Mary, or of any of the saints, condemning it as a vain and diabolical invention; deposing all bishops, and subjecting the monks and laity, who should set up any of them in public or private, to all the penalties of the imperial constitutions.” They also deposed Constantine, patriarch of Constantinople, for opposing this decree; and the emperor first banished him, and afterwards put him to death; and commanded, that this council should be esteemed and received as the seventh oecumenical, or universal one. Paul I.[[242]] pope of Rome, sent his legate to Constantinople, to admonish the emperor to restore the sacred images and statues which he had destroyed; and threatened him with excommunication upon his refusal. But Copronymus slighted the message, and treated the legates with great contempt, and used the image worshippers with a great deal of severity.

Constantine, bishop of Rome, the successor of Paul, seems also to have been an enemy to images, and was there tumultuously deposed; and Stephen III.[[243]] substituted in his room, who was a warm and furious defender of them. He immediately assembled a council in the Lateran church, where the holy fathers abrogated all Constantine’s decrees; deposed all who had been ordained by him bishops; made void all his baptisms and chrisms; and, as some historians relate, after having beat him, and used him with great indignity, made a fire in the church, and burnt him therein. After this, they annulled all the decrees of the synod of Constantinople, ordered the restoration of statues and images, and anathematized that execrable and pernicious synod, giving this excellent reason for the use of images; “that if it was lawful for emperors, and those who had deserved well of the commonwealth, to have their images erected, but not lawful to set up those of God, the condition of the immortal God would be worse than that of men.” After this the pope published the acts of the council, and pronounced an anathema against all those who should oppose it.

SECT. IX.
The second Nicene council; or seventh general council.

Thus the mystery of this iniquity worked, till at length, under the reign of Irene and Constantine her son, a synod was packed up of such bishops as were ready to make any decrees that should be agreeable to the Roman pontiff, and the empress. They met at Nice, An. 787, to the number of about 350. In this venerable assembly it was decreed, “that holy images of the cross should be consecrated, and put on the sacred vessels and vestments, and upon walls and boards, in private houses and public ways; and especially that there should be erected images of the Lord our God, our Saviour Jesus Christ, of our blessed Lady, the mother of God, of the venerable angels, and of all the saints. And that whosoever should presume to think or teach otherwise, or to throw away any painted books, or the figure of the cross, or any image or picture, or any genuine relicts of the martyrs, they should, if bishops or clergymen, be deposed; or if monks or laymen, be excommunicated.” Then they pronounced anathemas upon all who should not receive images, or who should call them idols, or who should wilfully communicate with those who rejected and despised them; adding, according to custom, “Long live Constantine and Irene his mother. Damnation to all heretics. Damnation on the council that roared against venerable images: the holy Trinity hath deposed them.”

Irene and Constantine approved and subscribed these decrees, and the consequence was, that idols and images were erected in all the churches; and those who were against them, treated with great severity. This council was held under the popedom of Hadrian I. and thus, by the intrigues of the popes of Rome, iniquity was established by a law, and the worship of idols authorized and established in the Christian church, though contrary to all the principles of natural religion, and the nature and design of the Christian revelation.

It is true, that this decision of the council did not put an entire end to the controversy. Platina tells us,[[244]] that Constantine himself, not long after, annulled their decrees, and removed his mother from all share in the government. The synod also of Francfort, held about six years after, decreed that the worship and adoration of images was impious; condemned the synod of Nice, which had established it, and ordered that it should not be called either the seventh, or an universal council. But as the Roman pontiffs had engrossed almost all power into their own hands, all opposition to image worship became ineffectual; especially as they supported their decrees by the civil power, and caused great cruelties to be exercised towards all those who should dare dispute or contradict them.

For many years the world groaned under this antichristian yoke; nor were any methods of fraud, imposture and barbarity, left unpractised to support and perpetuate it. As the clergy rid lords of the universe, they grew wanton and insolent in their power; and as they drained the nations of their wealth to support their own grandeur and luxury, they degenerated into the worst and vilest set of men that ever burdened the earth. They were shamefully ignorant, and scandalously vicious; well versed in the most exquisite arts of torture and cruelty, and absolutely divested of all bowels of mercy and compassion towards those, who even in the smallest matters differed from the dictates of their superstition and impiety. The infamous practices of that accursed tribunal, the inquisition, the wars against heretics in the earldom of Tholouse, the massacres of Paris and Ireland, the many sacrifices they have made in Great Britain, the fires they have kindled, and the flames they have lighted up in all nations, where their power hath been acknowledged, witness against them, and demonstrate them to be very monsters of mankind. So that one would really wonder, that the whole world hath not entered into a combination, and risen in arms against so execrable a set of men, and extirpated them as savage beasts, from the face of the whole earth; who, out of a pretence of religion, have defiled it with the blood of innumerable saints and martyrs, and made use of the name of the most holy Jesus, to countenance and sanctify the most abominable impieties.

But as the inquisition is their master piece of hellish policy and cruelty, I shall give a more particular account of it in the following book.