(Coun. Trent, Seff. 25.) As for falfe Relicks and miracles, the Catholick Church has taken all poffible care to detect and discountenance them, and has ordered that they be ftrictly examined into by the Bishop of every diocefe, before they are proposed to the veneration of the public. (Coun. Trent, Seff. 25. towards the end.) There may be false as well as true gospels: Falfe as well as true Prophets Falfe as well as true Preachers: Muft all be branded for impoftors because fome are fo? And true Relicks be despised, because some are counterfeited? It is plain, that it is not the intention of those who govern the Church, to encourage the Faithful to the veneration of falfe Relicks: Join then with the Church, in the veneration of such as are of undoubted credit; and fhe preffes you no farther. Private abuses being all reproved, and ordered to be reformed by the Prelates in their feveral diftricts, cannot furnish new reformers with fufficient grounds to abolish a pious practice; recommended in the word of God, and by the univerfal tradition and authority of the primitive and prefent Church.

EXHORTATION. O Chriftian foul, pay a due veneration to all holy Relicks, as your pious. ancestors have done before you. Praise God in his Saints: Let not their memory ever die: The memory of the just fhall remain for ever. (Pfal. cxi. 7.)

Their facred remains are ftill allied, and hold an afinity to their fouls in glory; and will at the refurrection be re-united to them. Venerate them as you do all holy things that belong to God. Great wonders have been done in all times at the tombs of the Saints and Martyrs, which fufficiently attest for our veneration of them. But ftill remember to imitate their holy lives, that you may become Saints with them, by the fame virtues which made them Saints. SECT.

SEC T. VII.

On the Monuments of the Saints.

The memory of the Just shall remain for ever. (Pfal. cxi. 7.)

2. WHAT is the end of erecting monuments

to Saints and Martyrs ?

A. To perpetuate the memory of holy men. 2. What other intent have you in them?

A. To excite devotion, and to encourage our felves and others to follow fuch great examples.

INSTRUCTION. The Scripture declares, that the memory of the juft fhall remain for ever: Is the wonder then great, if we erect rich and coftly monuments to perpetuate their fame? But the Scripture again fays, The finners memory fhall rot.

Now, if even worldly men raife fuch coftly monuments to perpetuate the memory of finners, (and have even intruded fuch monuments into places confecrated to God), men famed only for war, arts, or fcience; muft the Church be condemned of fuperftition, for erecting monuments to holy men renowned for their heroic virtues and propagation of Chriftianity, and the working of miracles by the power of God? Who but an infidel, a Mahometan, a heathen, or a Calvin, can hold fuch facred monuments in contempt ?

Yet fome who profefs themselves Chriftians have acted still worse, in not only pillaging thofe facred fhrines, but even burnt the bodies and Relicks of the Saints, difperfing their ashes in the air and the waters, to the fcandal of all Chriftendom. Even the fign of our redemption has been caft forth of the

Sanc

Sanctuary. Well may be applied the prophecy of David to Calvin and his followers: O God, the Gentiles have come into thine inheritance: They have polluted thy holy temple.--They have made the dead bodies of thy fervants meat for the fowls of the air; the flesh of thy Saints for the beasts of the earth. They have poured out as water their blood round Jerufalem, and there was none to bury them. (Pfal. lxxviii. 1, 2, & 3.)

EXHORTATION. Let Chriftians then look on the monuments of the Saints with a better eye than their adverfaries do. Let not their memories ever die in your heart, as well for the great good they have done for the world, as for you. What! muft we forget thofe holy Apoftles, Martyrs, Doctors, to whom under God we owe our converfion and falvation? Muft their memory perish who were fo eminent in fanctity and all virtue, and have left fo great an example for us to follow? No: Their monuments are ever facred, as well as their memories. are in benediction.---Away then with thofe pompous trophies of prophane heroes, and let them give way and due honour to thofe that are facred in God. The memory of the one will rot, but the other will remain for ever. Give honour where God gives honour. Thy friends, O God, are honoured exceedingly to me, fays the Pfalmift. (Pfal. cxxxviii. 17.) All facred things ought to be held as facred, as being the inftruments of God's power to work wonders upon earth.

SECT

SECT. VIII.

On pious Pilgrimages.

The ground thou ftandeft on is holy, put off thy shoes. (Exod. iii. 5.)

2:

S it not fuperftition to go on pilgrimage to vifit the Relicks of the Saints, and holy

Is

places?

A. I cannor fee the leaft room to cenfure fuch a pious practice.

INSTRUCTION. Even in the time of the Old Law, many came to vifit the holy place in Jerufalem; and why muft it now be deemed fuperftition to vifit the holy land, the place of our redemption, and to trace with devotion the footsteps of our bleffed Redeemer, who was born and fuffered there? With like devotion many pious Chriftians have gone on pilgrimage to the fhrines of the Apoftles and Saints, where they knew many well-attefted miracles have been wrought. And are not these journies of devotion to be preferred to those which many take to feed their curiofity and fancy, in travelling over mountains and vaft tracts of country both by fea and land, to improve themselves in all vain and worldly knowledge? If the one is to make them fit for the world, the other is to make them fit for heaven.

EXHORTATION. Shall thefe pious journies then be cried down, which have no other end but to promote God's honour, and all fanctity and devotion? Alas! none but thofe, who want faith and religion, oppose them. Nothing torments fome pec ple more, than virtue flying in the face of vice.

As for you who profefs yourself God's fervant, praise and glorify him in all things that redound to his honour, and your own falvation. Honour thofe holy places in which he has been fo highly honoured. Go then, if not in body, at leaft in fpirit, to the holy land where your Redeemer was born, lived, and died. O venerate the ground he trod upon, and the print of his feet. Go alfo in fpirit to thofe holy places renowned for the Relicks of the Apoftles, Martyrs, and other Saints, the establishers of our holy faith and religion. Their very duft is ftill facred, and will rife in glory. Praife ye our Lord in bis Saints. (Pfal. cl. i.)

CHA P. XIV.

On the Fafts of the Church.

Turn to me with all your hearts, in fafting, and weeping, and mourning. (Joel ii. 12.)

2. A

RE not your Church-fafts fuperfluous, ard works of fuperrerogation?

A. No: They are most pleasing to God, and beneficial to our fouls.

2. What warrant have ན

you for this?

"Tis a holy practice much recommended both in the Old and New Teftament.

2. What is the end and intent of fo many fafts? A. To punish our fins paft: Fafting is a work of penance, it appeases God, and prevents heavier judgments falling upon finners.

2. But is it not sufficient to faft from fin.

A. Fafting caufes us to repent for fin, and is a means to make us more eafily overcome fin for the future. 2. Die Chrift teach his followers to faft? A. Yes: And fet the firft example himself, with leffons how to faft. (Matth. vi. 16.)

2. But