(2) We deem those the most ignorant: who are not ashamed, to address lifeless things, to petition the weak for health, to ask life from the dead, to pray for health from the needy. And, though some may allege, that these images are not gods but only their symbols and representations: yet even such persons, fancying that imitations of the Deity can be made by the hands of some mean artizan, are not a whit less ignorant and slavish and uninstructed. From this sottish stupidity, the very lowest and least informed of us Christians are exempt. {53g} 5. The Council of Elvira sat at the beginning of the fourth century. It hath seemed good to us, that pictures ought not to be admitted into a church: lest that should be painted upon walls which is worshipped and adored. {54a} 6. Athanasius flourished in the fourth century. We are truly worshippers of God: because we invocate no one of the creatures nor any mere man, but the Son who is by nature from God and true God. {54b} 7. Augustine lived in the fourth and fifth centuries. (1.) Let not our point of religion be the worship of dead men. For though they lived piously; still they are not to be accounted of, as requiring from us any such honours: but they rather wish us to worship him, through whose illumination they rejoice that we should be partners of their merit. They are to be honoured, therefore, on account of imitation; not to be prayed to on account of religion. {54c} (2.) I have known that many are adorers of sepulchres and of pictures:—but the Church herself condemns them, and as bad children studies to correct them. {54d} 8. Epiphanius flourished in the fourth-century. Let Mary be held in honour: but let the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost be worshipped. As for Mary, let no one worship her. {54e} IV. Once more, let the honest inquirer freely judge and determine for himself, whether the doctrine and practice of the Roman Church and Clergy, relative to Saints and Images and Relics and Crosses, be supported either by Holy Scripture or by Primitive Antiquity. CHAPTER VII. PAPAL SUPREMACY. THE doctrine of Papal Supremacy shall next be brought to the legitimate test of Scripture and Historical Evidence. I. We find the claim of this supremacy authoritatively propounded, in manner following. 1. _The Roman Church is the mother and mistress of all other Churches_. {55a} 2. _I acknowledge the holy catholic and apostolic Roman Church to be the mother and mistress of all Churches_: _and I promise and swear true obedience to the Roman Pontiff_, _the successor of the blessed Peter Prince of the Apostles_, _and the Vicar of Jesus Christ_. {55b} II. Such, in form, is the claim: but where find we its substantiation in the Bible? 1. The Roman Church had indisputably been founded in the apostolic age: for one of St. Paul’s Epistles is addressed to it.