Chapter
VI.—Idolatry Condemned by Baptism. To Make an Idol Is, in Fact, to Worship It.
If no law of God had prohibited idols to be made
by us; if no voice of the Holy Spirit uttered general menace no less
against the makers than the worshippers of idols; from our sacrament
itself we would draw our interpretation that arts of that kind are
opposed to the faith. For how have we renounced the devil and
his angels, if we make them? What divorce have we declared from
them, I say not with whom, but dependent on whom, we
live? What discord have we entered into with those to whom we are under
obligation for the sake of our maintenance? Can you have denied with
the tongue what with the hand you confess? unmake by word what by deed
you make? preach one God, you who make so many? preach the true God, you who make false ones? “I make,” says one, “but I worship not;” as if there were some cause for which he dare not worship, besides that for which he ought not also to make,—the offence done to God, namely, in either case. Nay, you who make, that they may be able to be worshipped, do worship; and you worship, not with the spirit of some worthless perfume, but with your own; nor at the expense of a beast’s soul, but of your own. To them you immolate your ingenuity; to them you make your sweat a libation; to them you kindle the torch of your forethought. More are you to them than a priest, since it is by your means they have a priest; your diligence is their divinity. Do you affirm that you worship not what you make? Ah! but they affirm not so, to whom you slay this fatter, more precious and greater victim, your salvation.