here treated upon earth, who are disposed, we know, to suffer for the truth of the Gospel. When they have suffered, and have conquered, our veneration is more devoted and more firm, as they are translated from a state of conflict to a state of permanent happiness. But with that worship, which the Greeks call λargua, and which in Latin cannot be expressed by one word—as it is a worship properly due only to the Divinity-with that worship we worship God alone. To this belongs the offering of sacrifice; whence they are idolaters, who sacrifice to idols. We offer no sacrifice to any martyr, nor to any saint, nor to any angel; and should any one fall into the error, sound doctrine will so raise its voice, that he be corrected, or condemned, or avoided."* Before making a few remarks on these passages, I will quote one more from this great Father, which confirms as well the doctrine of purgatory:—" It is a proof," he writes, "of kind regard towards the dead, when their bodies are deposited near the monuments of saints. But hereby what are they aided, unless in this, that, recollecting the place where they lie, we be induced to recommend them to the patronage of those saints for their prayers with God? Calling therefore to mind the grave of a departed friend, and the near monument of the venerable martyr, we naturally commend the soul to his prayers. And that the souls of those will be thereby benefited, who so lived as to deserve it, there can be no doubt." The distinction drawn in the two passages just quoted, and in many others, is precisely the same as we make; that sacrifice and supreme homage are reserved to God alone, but that the saints are intercessors for us, and that we may invoke them as such. What are we to say to these testimonies? Nothing can be more manifest, than that the doctrine of these fathers is precisely the same as I have laid down, and just what is declared in the Council of Trent, or in the Catechisms taught to our children. Are we to say that they were involved *L. xx. c. xxi. contra Faustum. T. viii. p. 347. in the same idolatry as ourselves? For it is not with this dogma as with some others: the consequences of error here are most serious. It might have been said in other circumstances, that some errors were allowed to creep into the Church; but when it is maintained that the entire Church was or is all involved in idolatry, it is a fatal charge. Will you venture to say that the whole of the Church, in the first, second, third, and fourth centuries, in Italy, in Greece, in Syria, in Mesopotamia, and in every other part of the world, was universally plunged into idolatry? Is it not a fearful venture in any man to assert that a few individuals in one country,—that a small Church, or rather a collection of conflicting religious communities, in one island of the globe, and perhaps a comparatively small number of Christians in some other parts, are alone the possessors, after a lapse of eighteen hundred years, of the true faith of Christ? and that to such an extent, as to suppose that from this deep morass of frightful and fetid corruption, it did not emerge until the superior illumination of this small portion of mankind enabled them to see the light of truth; to such an extent as to imagine that they who were ready to die for Him, and who were actuated by the purest zeal for his glory, were idolaters! Who will refuse to call Basil, Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose, and Irenæus, saints? Who will refuse to give them that title? Read their works, and will you venture to say that such men, such chosen, favoured spirits, were immersed in that damnable idolatry in which all men were plunged for eight hundred years and more, according to the stern declaration of the Book of Homilies. Is it not on their testimony that many dogmas, most essential to Christianity now rest? Is it not on their authority, and on that of others like them, that we mainly receive the doctrine of the Trinity and of Christ's Divinity? Can they have preserved these doctrines pure and uncontaminated as they came from God; and shall it yet be said that they themselves were so grossly corrupted in faith, as to be wallowing in what must be considered the lowest abyss of sinful idola try? Here is a solemn problem to be solved, not only by those who charge us with this crime, but by all who deny ours to be the true doctrine of the true Church of Christ. Then their difficulties increase at every step; for I further ask, what will they say of the worth and power of Christ, who came to establish His religion on the ruins of idolatry, if in less than one or two hundred years it triumphed again over His work: yea, if even while the martyr's blood flowed, it could have been written, that in behalf of idolatry it was shed; and that they, indeed, died for refusing to give homage to the false gods of the heathens, yet at the very time were showing honour to their deceased fellow-men, and thereby perpetrating the enormous crime which they were slaughtered for refusing to commit! Surely these are difficulties that must be overcome; for is it not mocking, deriding Christ to believe, that He came down to cast a fire upon earth, saying, "I will that it be enkindled;"* that is, the fire of charity, and faith, and the true light of God, and that after this expression of His will and determination, it should have been extinguished so soon; that the truth should have been trodden out by that very monster whose head He came to crush; that the idolatry which he came to uproot was of so powerful a growth, and the seed of His word was so feeble, that the latter should have been choked by the former before it came to maturity? Is it not an insult to the son of God, and to His saving power, to suppose His religion so soon sunk into this degraded state: and yet this must be asserted if you allow the fathers who held our doctrine to be involved, as they must be, in the same charge, which is flung upon us. Nor could it be said that they did not understand the popular and trite objection, that through such doctrine, the merits and mediatorship of Christ are annihilated. They must have known that the entreaty for the prayers of one man by another could not interfere with that mediatorship—on the contrary, they must have felt what we feel, that there cannot be a *Luke xii. 49. greater homage paid to God than to consider it necessary that His saints, after being received into final happiness, should still appear before Him as intercessors and suppliants. So far from feeling any of that delicacy which is so common now about applying the same words to God and the saints, we, have the two joined without scruple under the same expression. I will only cite one example of this; an inscription discovered two years ago, which was erected by a person of considerable consequence, being governor of the district around Rome. The inscription is in these words:- "Anicius Auchenius Bassus, who had enjoyed the consular dignity, and his wife Honorata, with their children devout to God and the saints."* We find God and the saints here joined together; nor does it appear that any apprehension was entertained of thereby derogating from the honour of the Deity. Thus far then, my brethren, regarding the saints themselves; such as you have heard is the Catholic doctrine, such its consistency, and such its proofs. Another point intimately connected with it, is the respect paid by us to the relics of the saints. The Catholic believes that any thing which has belonged to men distinguished by their love of God, and by what they have done and suffered in His cause, deserves that respect and honour which is constantly shown, in ordinary life, to whatever has belonged to any great, or celebrated, or very good man. Nothing is more common than to see such objects receive marks of respect. We meet with such feelings shown even in the established Church; for we are told that in the Church of Lutterworth there is preserved the chair of Wycliffe, his desk, and a portion of his cloak. Wherefore are they kept? They are relics; precisely what the Catholic means by relics: for they are kept by those who consider him to have been a very great and good man; intending thereby to honour him, and feeling that a sort of connexion or link ANICIVS AVCHENIVS BASSVS VC ET TVRRENIA HONORATA CF. EIVS CVM FILIIS DEO SANCTISQVE DEVOTI.-See Letter to J. Poynder. Esq., p. 38. is kept up between him and those who come in after times, by the possession of these remembrances of him. Catholics, however, go further; for they believe that they please God by showing respect to these objects, and that by honouring these relics of the saints, they are incited to imitate their example. This, many exclaim, is rank superstition! My brethren, there is no word more common than this, and yet there are few more difficult to be defined. What is superstition? It is the believing that any virtue, energy, or supernatural power exists in any thing independent of God's voluntary and free gift of such virtue to that thing. The moment you, sincerely and from conviction, introduce God-the moment you hope or believe, because you are intimately persuaded that God has been pleased to make use of any thing as an instrument in His hands, superstition ceases. And it matters not whether you speak of the natural or of the supernatural order of things. If any man believe, that by carrying a charm about him, it will do him some good, will cure him or preserve him from danger, because of some innate virtue or power of its own, or because he chuses to imagine that God has given it such a power, without any solid reason, this is superstitious. But if I take a medicine, persuaded of its natural power, resulting from the laws by which God has been pleased to regulate His creation, there is no superstition. In the same manner, whatever is practised from a sincere and well-grounded conviction that God has appointed it or approved of it, is not superstitious. It would have been a superstition in the Jews to believe that by looking on a brazen serpent, they could be healed from the bite of fiery serpents; but the moment God ordered such a symbol to be erected, with a promise of such an effect, superstition ceased. The instant He has given the command, every glance at it becomes, as it were, a look towards God, who has given it that virtue and efficacy; and what of its own nature would have been superstitious, becomes not only lawful, but most salutary. Had man raised two images of cherubim on the ark of the covenant, and bowed down before them |