X PREFACE. 



perverted : Painting has feldom been em- 

 ployed to any bad purpofe. Pidlures are 

 but the fcenery of devotion. I queftlon if 

 Raphael hinnfelf could ever have made one 

 convert, though he had exhaufled all the 

 expreflion of his eloquent pencil on a feries 

 of popifn do6trines and miracles. Pi6lures 

 cannot adapt themfelves to the meaneft ca- 

 pacities, as unhappily the tongue can. Non- 

 $enfe may make an apprentice a catholic or 

 a methodiil; but the apprentice would fee 

 that a very bad picture of St. Francis was 

 not like truth ; and a very good pidture 

 would be above his feeling. Pictures may 

 ferve as helps to religion y but are only an 

 appendix to idolatry ; for the people mult 

 be taught to believe in falfe gods and in the 

 power of faints, before they will learn to 

 worfhip their images. I do not doubt but if 

 fome of the firll reformers had been at 

 liberty to Tay exaftly what they thought, 

 and no more than they thought, they would 

 have permitted one of the rnxofl ingenious 

 arts implanted in the heart of mian by the 

 Supreme Being to be employed towards his 

 praife. But Calvin by his tenure, as head 

 of a fedl, v/as obliged to go all lengths. The 

 vulgar will not lift but for total contradic- 

 tions t 



