that we may be favourably received at the hour of our death.

VII. The catechist is not yet satisfied-his piety leads him to apprehend that we charge our great Mediator with imperfection, by applying to the saints. Let me assure him that we do no such thing; we do not recur to the intercession of the saints, from any supposed defect in the mediation of our Redeemer, but from a consciousness of our own defects, imperfections, and miseries; and on this ground we apply to them for their succour, in the same spirit in which the friends of Job were directed by God himself, to seek the interposition of the just man.

VIII. The catechist, in his simplicity, imagines that the saints departed would disavow the honour shown them, could they be suffered to appear on earth. He may quiet his apprehensions on this ground, by remembering that the saints are represented in the book of the Revelations of St. John, as doing the good office which we request them to perform1..

IX. When he says, that it is not the same thing to pray to the saints departed, and to desire a neighbour to pray for us, I beg leave to observe, that these are actions resting on the same foundation, and supported by the same principles. When we request the aid of another's prayer, we

1 See Rev. loc. cit.

desire him to perform an act of charity in our favour; and when we recur to the intercession of the saints, we make the same request, though with more effect, as their interest is greater before God, and their charity more animated and inflamed.

QUESTION XIII.

Why do not you worship or venerate the relics of saints?

ANSWER.

1. Because, if I am not to give religious honour to saints departed, I must give none to relics.

2. There is no command nor example in Scripture for this practice.

3. It is a novelty, for this trade of relics was not known or

heard of till very near four hundred years after Christ. 4. We read indeed that devout men carried St. Stephen to his burial, but there was no stir made with his relics.

5. Some of the wiser sort of Papists confess themselves that there are great cheats in relics, and that bones of thieves and murderers are sometimes honoured and adored for relics of saints.

6. The miracles pretended to be wrought by these relics, have been found often to be nothing but delusions of the devil. 7. By this superstitious veneration of relics, men's minds are diverted and turned away from that rational and spiritual worship the gospel requires.

8. It is evident, from experience, that the people in the Church of Rome put great trust and confidence in their relics, and abuse them into superstition.

OBSERVATIONS.

THE same principles which direct the Catholic Church in showing honour to the saints, are equally applicable to the veneration paid to their relics. All divine worship, denominated by divines cultus latriæ, is studiously and scru

pulously to be reserved for God alone: the veneration manifested to the relics of the saints and martyrs, is of an inferior description, and designed as a memorial of honour towards the servants and peculiar friends of our God and Redeemer. Their bodies which, agreeably to the doctrine of the apostle', were temples of God, and a place of abode for his divine Spirit, are on that account entitled to the veneration of the faithful. Every mark of respect, therefore, thus shown to the relics of the saints, in fact originates in the gratitude which is felt towards Him, who is the real source of every good gift, and from whom all grace and sanctity descend.

Of this veneration paid to inanimate objects, in consequence of the relation which they bore to God, or to individuals who have been highly favoured by God, the whole Scripture is literally full. Both the New and Old Testaments abound with the most distinguished instances of the kind of respect here explained, which God has sanctioned with the broad seal of his divine authority. To this effect may be produced the constant and invariable respect shown by the Israelites to the ark; the miraculous interpositions of Providence by the accident which befel Dagon; the punishment of those who looked curiously into the ark, when fifty thousand perished; the destruction of

11 Cor. iii. 16.

2 1 Sam. v. 4.

3 Ibid. vi. 19.

Uzzah, for his imprudent officiousness1; the miraculous effects performed by the rod of Moses; the supernatural operation achieved by means of the mantle of Elijah3; the restoration of a man from death to life, by applying the corpse to Elisha's bones*. If God thought proper to show such manifest indications of his divine power in the old law, in honour of inanimate objects, and to enforce respect to the bones and other relics of his departed prophets, what prevents the Catholic church from exhibiting proper tokens of honour to the relics of the saints in the new law, particularly as the practice is fully justified by what is recorded in various parts of the New Testament. What is more mean than the latchet of a shoe? yet St. John the Baptist professed himself unworthy to loosen that used by our Redeemer5. The devout woman in the Gospel had confidence, that even the act of touching the hem of our Saviour's garment would restore her to health; and we find this ardent faith honoured with the highest commendation".

The next passages to which I must call the attention of the honest catechist, are from the Acts of the Apostles. In the first passage of this description, it is recorded that the fervent disciples of the primitive teachers brought forward their

1 2 Sam. vi. 6, 7.

3 2 (al. 4) Kings, ii. 14. 3 John, i. 27.

• Exod. 7.

2 Kings, xiii. 21. • Matt. ix. 22.