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"We worship," saith he, "the Creator of this universe, declaring, as we have been taught, that He requires not sacrifices of blood, and libations and incense; and we praise Him to the utmost of our power, with words of prayer and thanksgiving, for all things which we enjoy. Again, we have learned that He who taught us these things, and for this end was born, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, the procurator of Judea, in the time of Tiberius Cesar, was the Son of Him who is truly God, and we esteem Him in the second place. And that we with reason honor the Prophetic Spirit in the third place, we shall hereafter show." And again Justin saith: "Wherefore we worship God only; but in all other matters we joyfully serve you” (namely, the Roman emperor and Senate, to whom his apology was addressed)," confessing that ye are kings and rulers, and praying that ye may be found to possess, together with your royal power, a sound and discerning mind." Here, therefore, this witness to whom Dr. Milner so boldly appeals in his support, is found to testify, when honestly quoted, directly against him.

And his third pretended authority from Basil, "the light of the fourth century," is not a whit more reliable. For, strange to say, the identical copy which he quotes, viz., the Parisian edition of the Benedictines, places this epistle in the third class, numbers it ccclx., and sets down the number 205, by which Bishop Milner chose to refer to it, with an Alias, in the margin only, while the whole class of which it forms a part is put out of the list of Basil's genuine writings, as dateless, doubtful and spurious, and the heading of the very page on which it stands presents the title, Epistole Spurie! And hence I was gratified to find that, in the copious index which closes the volume, the learned editors, though devoted to the Church of Rome, were too honest

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insert the statements of this forgery amongst the sentiments of St. Basil, but passed it wholly by, as unworthy of their notice. Nor was I able, after the most careful searching of the index, to discover the source of Dr. Milner's statement anywhere, until, on recurring to the notes which I had made for my own use, many years ago, upon this and the other fathers, I found the reference, and then I turned to the place and saw, with renewed surprise, that this Apostolic Vicar had descended to cite the false and pretended testimony of Basil, with the title Spurious Epistles staring him in the face!

Such, then, is the value of your advocate's appeals to Christian antiquity. Such is the Jesuitical morality which deems it no sin to use a pious fraud, for the sake of proselyting. And so powerful is the real evidence, both positive and negative, which the primitive Church pronounces against your modern doctrine, in this important matter of the Virgin and the saints, that the audacity which claims for it an Apostolic origin can only be supported by an irrelevant passage of one father, a false translation of another, and a downright forgery of a third!

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The End of Controversy, Controverted.

LETTER XXXII.

MOST REVEREND SIR:

THE next topic which Dr. Milner undertakes to clear from misrepresentation, is the veneration which his Church pays to images and relics, or, as he calls them, "the memorials of Christ and his saints, viz., crucifixes, relics, pious pictures and images." He quotes the Council of Trent, Gother and Challoner, to prove that the Church of Rome does not authorize prayer or worship to images; and then proceeds to show, from the Bible, the reverence which the religious Jews rendered to the Ark of the Covenant, how the handkerchiefs and aprons were brought from the body of St. Paul to heal the sick, and especially how a dead man was restored to life, when the corpse was accidentally brought into contact with the bones of the Prophet Elisha.

He endeavors, also, to prove that the members of the Church of England do acts equally open to censure, on their ground, with the alleged practice of Rome, by bowing reverently at the name of Jesus, by kneeling to the king, by bowing to the empty throne in the House of Lords, and by kissing the Bible at the taking of an oath. And he concludes by asserting that "the end for which pious pictures and images are made and retained by Catholics is the same for which pictures and images are made and retained by mankind in general, to put us in mind of the persons and things they represent. They are not primarily intended for the purpose of being venerated; nevertheless, as they

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bear a certain relation to holy persons and things, by representing them, they become entitled to a relative or secondary consideration." He also specifies an important use of pious pictures, viz., "that they help to instruct the ignorant." 66 "Still," continues he, "it is a point agreed upon among Catholic doctors and divines, that the memorials of religion form no essential part of it."*

The first duty which I have to discharge in reference to the foregoing part of Dr. Milner's work, is to supply his omissions as to the real doctrine of your Church, since that which he has stated is so far below the truth, that if his book had not been written for the purpose of deluding Protestants, it would have been very likely to incur the Papal censure. We have already seen how deceptive was his representation on the subject of the Virgin Mary and the saints, and he pursued precisely the same policy on the obnoxious point of the worship of images and relics.

The evidence on this part of the case shall be taken from the Council of Trent, the second Council of Nice, and the Roman Breviary, three sources which no Romanist can dispute, for they are of the highest authority.

Thus, in the Twenty-fifth Session of the Council of Trent,† we read as follows: The holy bodies also of the martyrs and others, living with Christ, are to be venerated by the faithful, for they were, when living, the members of Christ, and the temples of the Holy Ghost, and shall be raised again and glorified; and through them, many favors are bestowed on man by the Almighty: so that those who affirm that veneration and honor are not due to the relics of the saints, or that it is useless for the faithful to honor these and other sacred memorials, and that it is vain to visit the sepulchres of

* P. 237.

+ Hard. Concil. Gen., Tom. 10, p. 168.

the saints in order to ask their help, are to be altogether condemned, as the Church has already condemned, and does also now condemn them."

"Moreover," continues this Council, "the images of Christ, of the Virgin, the Mother of God, and of the other saints, are to be had and retained, especially in Churches, and due honor and veneration are to be rendered to them; not because it may be supposed that there is in them any divinity or virtue on account of which they are to be worshipped, or that anything is to be asked of them, or that confidence is to be placed in images, as was formerly the case amongst the heathen, who rested their hope on idols: but because the honor which is exhibited to them is referred to the prototype which they represent; so that through the image which we kiss, and before which we uncover our heads and bow down, we adore Christ, and venerate the saints whose similitude those images do bear. The same doctrine is sanctioned by the decrees of the Councils, especially the second Council of Nice, against the opposers of images." At the end, the Council pronounces, "If any one shall teach or think contrary to these decrees, let him be anathema."

I pass next to the second Council of Nice, which the Council of Trent here endorses and ratifies, and this will give us some further details upon the subject. The reader will bear in mind, however, that the second Council of Nice was held A. D. 787, more than four and a half centuries later than the first Council of that name, and that the Church had by this time admitted a large amount of unscriptural, unprimitive and superstitious innovation. The Greek Emperor Leo, whom Roman influence stigmatized as the Iconoclast, or the Image-breaker, had warmly opposed the new corruption of image worship a considerable time before, and a Council had been called, A. D. 754, which unanimously

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