words: All hail O Cross our only hope: Increase the grace of the devout:

And blot the crimes of finners out.

We answer, that the word Crofs is here taken for Christ crucified, as it is twice over by St. Paul in one chapter, where he fays; Left they may fuffer perfecution for the Grofs of Chrift. And again; God forbid that I fhould glory fave in the Cross of our Lord Jefus Chrift. (Gal. vi. 12. & 14.) Was St. Paul an idolater for glorying in the Cross of Chrift? What more common in Scripture, and other writers, than such metaphors? And what more eafily understood? They are the elegancies of ftyle, and no reader takes them to the letter, but according to their figurative meaning.

But after all; is not all veneration of images con-` trary to the commandment; Thou shalt not make to thyfelf any graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth; thou shalt not bow down nor worship them.

Those who make this objection fhould reflect, that this commandment only forbids the making or worshipping of idols, or images, of falfe Gods, fuch as the heathens worshipped: So Mofes hinifelf explains this precept in the book of Exodus, where he repeats it again in other words: Ye shall not make Gods of filver; neither shall you make unto ye Gods of gold. (c. xx. 23) Now, when Catholicks make and venerate holy images according to the approved custom of the Church, they neither make golden Gods, nor filver Gods, nor wooden Gods; they neither make idols of them, nor give them Latria, or divine honour; for this is contrary to the fenfe and declaration of their own Church and General Councils.

To conclude; this is the doctrine of the holy Catholick Church: That a respect and reverence

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is

is due to all fuch things as relate to the honour and fervice of God: To the book of the holy Scripture, as containing God's holy word: To Churches, as the house of God: To the Saints, as to his true fervants: To altars and facred veffels, as being confecrated to his fervice: To pictures and images of Chrift, as renewing the memory of all the mysteries of our redemption: To the images of the Virgin Mary, the Apoftles, and other Saints, by whom he has converted the world, and wrought all wonders.

EXHORTATION. O Chriftian, fee what helps God gives to encourage piety and devotion even by inanimate things; for what are images and pictures but inanimate figures? Yet what good may be drawn from the fight of them, tho' there is no virtue in them; they bring to our minds the most holy perfons and things, and aid us even to penetrate into heaven. Can you lift up your eyes and behold a crucifix, and not think of the Author of life and falvation? Can you behold a picture or image of the bleffed Virgin Mary, and not think of her that gave him birth? How can you behold the images of the Apoftles, Martyrs, Confeffors, and not think of those by whom God converted the world?

SECT. VI.

On the Veneration of facred Relicks.

Praife ye our Lord in his Sants. (Pfal. cl. 1.)

2. WHAT

HAT warrant have you for the veneration of the Saints Relicks?

A. The holy Scripure; antiquity; the ancient Fathers; the authority of the holy Catholick Church.

2. But

2. But are not the Faithful in danger of venerating falfe Relicks for true?

A. No: Te Church takes all care by her Cancns to prevent fuch abuses.

6.

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So

INSTRUCTION. Concerning the veneration of Relicks the Council of Trent has defined: "That the holy bodies of the Martyrs and other "Saints now living with Chrift, which were once "living members of Chrift, and temples of the Holy Ghoft, and which are by him to be raised "again to life, and to be glorified, are to be ve"nerated by the Faithful; and that many benefits are imparted to men thro' thefe Relicks: "that those who affirm there is no veneration or "honour due to the Saints Relicks, or that fuch "their Relicks, and other monuments of them, "are in vain honoured by the Faithful, and visited "in memory of them, in hopes of obtaining fome "benefit thereby, are to be utterly condemned, as "the Church already has and does condemn them." (Seff. 25.)

Our profeffion of Faith then, fays; That the Saints Relicks are to be venerated: But how to be venerated? With fuch veneration as is given to other facred things, as to the facred veffels, to Altars, to Churches confecrated to the fervice of God. We venerate the dead bodies, the bones, the duft of thofe holy perfons, as having been victims to God, by their mortifications and martyrdoms; fanctified by his grace, and the living temples of the Holy Ghoft: Knowing that these their Remains are preordained to a happy refurrection and an eternal glory, and are allied to their fouls now reigning in blifs. Their memory should never die, but ever live; and their fepulchres and Relicks remain, to keep alive the memory of their good works and hercick virtues, which have made them

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compa

companions of Angels, and to excite mankind to imitate fuch great examples.

Our adverfaries object, that at the beft this is but will-worship, which St. Paul condems as folly and fuperftition, in his epiftle to the Coloffians: (c. ii. v. 18.)

Now, I fuppofe by will-worship they mean that which has no authority from the word of God: Let us fee then, whether the word of God does not give some sanction to this our devotion. It is written in the Acts of the Apoftles, that God wrought Special miracles by the hands of Paul, fo that from his body were brought unto the fick, handkerchiefs and aprons, and difeafes departed from them, and the evil fpirits went out of them. (c. xix. 11, 12.) Why may not Catholicks then, without fuperftition, apply the linen in which the bodies of the Martyrs have been wrapped to the fick? by which means many undoubted cures have been wrought.

In the fourth book of Kings we read: And Elifeus died, and they buried him; and the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming of the year. And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, behold they fpied a band of men, and they caft the man into the fepulchre of the Prophet Elifeus; and when the man was let down and touched the bones of Elifeus, he revived and food upon his feet. (c. xiii. 20, 21.) Here is another ftupendous miracle wrought, even to the raifing a dead man to life, only by touching the fepulchre and bones of the dead Prophet. Does not this authorife our veneration of the Saints Relicks and fepulchres, when we fee fuch a miracle recorded in holy Writ, as done at the fepulchre of a Saint, even before the gates of Heaven were opened by Chrift, and before the foul of the Saint was admitted to blifs?

In

In the earliest days of Christianity great veneration was paid to the Relicks of the Saints and Martyrs. The ancient Fathers and Doctors of the Church defended it; and none but hereticks and infidels ever opposed and condemned it; fuch as Julian the Apoftate, Eunomius, Vigilantius, as may be feen in the writings of St. Hierom and St. Auguftin. St. Hierom in particular, attacked Vigilantius, who gave the Catholicks of his time the appellation of dust-worshippers. "Vigilantius, fays he, "fights with an unclean spirit against the Spirit of Christ, by afferting that the tombs of the Mar

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tyrs are not to be venerated. The devils with "whom Vigilantius is poffeffed, roar at the Relicks, "and confefs they cannot bear the prefence of the "Martyrs." (con. Vigil.)

In a word; innumerable undoubted miracles have been wrought, in favour of fuch as came with Faith, to vifit the tombs and Relicks of the Martyrs: An ample relation hereof may be read in the epiftle of St. Ambrofe to his fifter, recounting the miracles done at the translation of the Relicks of St. Gervafius and Protafius: And in the twenty-fecond book of the City of God, chapter the eighth, by St. Auguftin of the prodigies done at the Relicks of St. Stephen in Africa: And in St. Chryfoftom, on the translation of the Relicks of St. Babylas, at Antioch.

If you reply; There may be abuses in taking false for true Relicks; ftill the doctrine of the Church is true; That the Relicks of the Saints are to be venerated. This is all fhe teaches: and feeing fhe lays no tye upon the Faithful, of believing every pretended Relick to be true; the members of the Church are obliged to give no further credit to them, than as far as they fee them authenticated by the Prelates, and have fufficient grounds to merit their refpect. (Coun