Excerpt from The Seventh General Council: The Second of Nicaea, Held A. D. 787, in Which the Worship of Images Was Established, With Copious Notes From the "Caroline Books," Compiled by Order of Charlemagne for Its Confutation It must be traced to the idolatrous tendency of the human heart, and its propensity to serve the creature more than the Creator. Taking advantage of this, the great enemy of souls, who led the human race astray in times of old afier gods many and lords manv, rested not till he had seduced the Christian Church into like error: turning Christians aside, first, from Christ to Saint and Angel mediators and then, from pure and spiri tual worship, to the worship of images and pictures. The Church had been assailed by fierce persecution against this she had stood her ground, and by the grace of God was made more than conqueror. But though equal and even superior to all the assaults made by the enemy in this way, she was less on her guard against the attempts afterwards too successfully made to sully her purity and corrupt her simplicity by adversity she was made great - in her prosperity was her fall. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.