At the reformation the reforming party generally rejected the use of images as an unscriptural novelty, irreconcilable as well with the prohibition of the old law as with that characteristic of " spirit and trnth" which is laid down by our Lord as specially distinctive of time new dispensation; and they commonly stigmatized the Catholic prac tice as superstitious, and even idolatrous. The Zwinglian, and subsequently the Calvin istic churches, absolutely and entirely repudiated all use of images for the purposes of worship. Luther, on the contrary, while he condemned the Roman worship of images. regarded the simple use of them even in the church, for the purpose of instruction, and as incentives to faith and to devotion, as one of those adiaphora. or indifferent things, which may be permitted, although not of necessary institution; hence, in the Lutheran churches of Germany and the northern kitigdoms, pictures, crucifixes, and other reli gions emblems are still freely retained,. In the Anglican church the practice is still a subject of controversy. In the Presbyterian church, and in all the other Protestant communions, images are entirely unknown.
The Roman Catholic church, through the decree of the council of Trent, disclaim; the imputation, commonly made against Catholics, of the idolatrous worship of images. as though a divinity dwelt in them, or as though we [Catholics] asked anything of them, or trusted in them, as the heathens did in their idols." It renews the Nicene dis
tinction absolute and relative worship the latter of which alone—" whereby we worship Christ and' thatirit, whin ore the protOtypes of e hoes"-it sanctions or permits; and it contends for the great advantage, especially for time rude and unlearned people, to be drawn from the use of pictures and statues in the churches as " memorials of the sufferings and of the mercy of our Lord, as instructive records of the virtues of the saints, and exhortations to the imitation of their example, and as incentives to the love of God and to the •practice of piety" (Sess. xxv. On the Invocation of Saints). In many foreign churches, especially in Italy, in Southern Germany, and in France, are to be found images which are popularly reputed as especially sacred, and to which, or to prayers offered before which, miraculous effects are ascribed. But instructed Catholics declare that the legends connected with such images form no part of Catholic belief. Most Catholic books of instruction contain cautions against attributing such effects to any special virtue of the images themselves, rather than to the special faith, trustfulness, and fervor which are stirred up by their presence, and by the recorded examples of the mercy of God with which they are associated in the minds of the faithful.