'The visible representation of sacred objects': An 18th century Anglican defence of venerating imagery

In the Introduction to The Ornaments of Churches Considered, With a Particular View to the Late Decoration of the Parish Church of St. Margaret Westminster (1761), Thomas Wilson - a Prebendary of Westminster - provides what we might regard as a thoroughly Laudian response to those who object that his defence of imagery will inevitably lead to a situation in which reverence will be shown to such 'visible representations':

But perhaps it may be affirmed, that some Respect will certainly be paid to the visible Representation of sacred Objects. And why, it may be asked, should it not? Surely the same Veneration is due to them, that we allow to every Thing employed in the Service of God, and more they will scarcely receive ...

Should we see then some pious Christian fixed with Attention upon a Picture of the Crucifixon, would it not be absurd and injurious to suppose, that this was an Adoration of the Objects before him, and not the Consequence of his being led into a Train of Reflexions on that stupendous Instance of his Redeemer’s Benevolence, by which he is again a Candidate for eternal Happiness?

What is more, Wilson also quoted from William Wake's Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England (1686):

When the Pictures of ... of our Saviour and the blessed Saints be by all necessary Cautions rendered truly the Books not Snares of the Ignorant, then will we respect the Images of our Saviour and of the blessed Virgin. And as some of us now bow down towards the Altar, and all of us are enjoined to do so at the Name of the Lord Jesus; so will we not fail to testify all due Respect to his Representation.

Mindful that Wake was Archbishop of Canterbury 1716-37, and that Wilson himself was the son of a bishop and a royal chaplain, we are not talking about marginal figures with Non-juring sympathies. Wilson and Wake, by contrast, represent the doctrinal and liturgical mainstream of the 18th century Church of England. And here they provide a Laudian defence of imagery in churches and, significantly, of - to use Wilson's term - "veneration" for such imagery.

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laudable Practice

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