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in the balance, our modern accusers would, I suspect, fly up and kick the beam, though they were to take with them as make-weights, the book of homilies and the statute of Charles the Second.* In his Charge, the Bishop made, but did not take the trouble to prove, the accusation. The author of the Remarks was content in reply to refer him to the following question and answer in the Catholic catechism. Q. "Do "Catholics pray to images?" A. “ "No, by no means, for they can neither see, nor hear, nor help us.' He had flattered himself that the testimony of an authorised catechism would have subdued the scepticism of the most incredulous. But he was disappointed. The prejudices of education are stubborn things: they frequently refuse to yield even to the clearest evidence. The dispute is not to be decided, replies the Durham clergyman, by an answer which may be given by rote, but by the practice of those who give it. Now this answer appears to me no very favourable sample of his boasted sincerity. I should rather consider it as the trick of a controversial juggler, the artifice of some theological Proteus,

Mille adde catenas

Effugiet tamen hæc sceleratus vincula Proteus.

Few of my readers will, I conceive, be inclined to think that any church can teach her disciples to believe one doctrine in theory, and to follow the contrary in practice; can launch her anathemas against those who approve, and yet countenance the conduct of those who adopt, the idolatrous worship of images.

"They which profess the only true Christ, and therefore the only "true God, do necessarily profess to detest all idolatry. And so doth "the Church of Rome still as seriously profess, as they who charge "them to be idolaters. And therefore cannot easily be convinced to profess idolatry. For without expressly renouncing this profession, they cannot expressly be idolaters." Just Weights, p. 6.

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he infers: "Should this church (as the Bishop of Durham has done) "declare that the change which we call reformation, is grounded on "this supposition, I then must acknowledge that we be the schis"matics.' P. 7.

* Homily 2, on the peril of idolatry. 30 Charles ii. c. 1.

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An ingenuous opponent would rather have said, "I " acknowledge that your church condemns idolatry as forcibly as our own: nor have I yet discovered 66 any traces of that impiety among the Catholics of "this country. Yet, if we may believe the testimony "of travellers, there is reason to fear that foreign Ca"tholics cannot be entirely exempted from the impu"tation." To such an opponent I would answer, that in the testimony of travellers much must be allowed to the prejudices of education: that a person who leaves this country with the conviction that Catholics worship images, will naturally conclude that the first Catholic whom he sees kneeling before a crucifix, is addressing his prayers not to Christ but to the image that in foreign countries, expressions and demonstrations of respect have not the same value or import as in England: and that if some should be found, whose conduct it would be difficult to justify, yet candour would forbid that their guilt should be imputed to those by whom it is abhorred and condemned. Where are superstitions more prevalent, than among the vulgar in many parts of England? Yet he would be an unjust critic, who should impute them as a crime to the established clergy.

The incredulity of the Durham clergyman has induced me to examine with greater accuracy the contents of the Catholic catechisms. With this view I have consulted not only those which are in use among the English Catholics, but also many of those which are adopted in France, Spain, Italy, Flanders, and Germany and in all without exception have I found every species of idolatry condemned in the most pointed terms. Now if he will consider the earnestness with which the Catholic clergy are generally accustomed to impress on the minds of children the doctrine of the catechism, the familiar manner in which they study to explain it, and the diligence with which they repeat their instructions every week, and often several times in the week, I think he will be induced to pause before he again ventures to charge Catholics with a practice, which they so emphatically reprobate. But from catechisms, let me lead him to an authority

which he cannot refuse, to the decree of the council of Trent. He himself appears to acknowledge that he would free the Catholics from the guilt of idolatry, were they exempt from the impious persuasion that there exists any inherent power or divinity in their images. Now in the very chapter to which he refers his reader, the council expressly declares that in images there does not reside any divinity, or power on account of which they ought to be worshipped: that nothing ought to be asked from them: and that no confidence should be placed in them. If this declaration do not satisfy him, I beg he will have the goodness to compose one for us, more explicit and more intelligible.

Here, perhaps, it may not be improper to point out the origin of this accusation. It is our doctrine that pious pictures and images ought not to be treated with disrespect, under the false pretence that they are idols and this doctrine, reprobated as it formerly was with contempt and detestation, is now, I observe, gradually making its way into the creed of the Established Church, in proportion as the fanaticism of the first reformers subsides, and reason and common sense recover their authority. The piety of our fathers, two centuries ago, would have condemned the works of Raphael and Michael Angelo to the flames and the mattock, had they discovered them in their churches: but modern Protestants have learned that they can pray in the presence of a painting or a statue without experiencing any impediment to their devotion, or any temptation to idolatry. It is unfortunate that similar sentiments did not animate their progenitors. We should not now have to lament our inferiority in the elegant productions of the chisel and the pencil; nor would our native artists be compelled to visit foreign countries that they may study the master-pieces of the painter and the statuary. It is, indeed, true, that besides the pro

*The Clergyman's Letter, p. 11.

+ Non quod credatur inesse aliqua in eis divinitas, vel virtus propter quam sint colendæ vel quod ab eis sit aliquid petendum; vel quod fiducia in imaginibus sit figenda. Con. Trid. Sess. 25.

hibition of disrespect, our church also maintains it to be lawful to treat them with respect, in as much as they are the representations of our Blessed Redeemer, and of his faithful followers; and this respect has been by our adversaries, with as much injustice as ingenuity, transubstantiated into an idolatrous worship. I could, however, wish they would, once at least, inform us in what idolatry consists. Is it in paying divine worship to images? Such worship we condemn as sincerely as themselves. The respect which we allow is of a much inferior, a very different, description. It is the same as a subject may pay to the effigy of his sovereign, such as nature prompts a child to pay to the portrait of a deceased parent. Or is any respect

*

whatever idolatrous? Then the Christians of the east were idolaters, when they were accustomed to burn incense before the statues of the Christian emperors: the peers of the united kingdom are idolaters, as often as they make a reverence to the vacant throne; the Protestants of the Established Church are idolaters, as often as they kneel before the consecrated bread and wine. For what are the consecrated bread and wine? "Mere bodily elements of earthly manufacture,” replies the Bishop of Durham. But if the Protestant may kneel before these "bodily elements of earthly manufacture," without committing idolatry because he directs his attention to the worship of God, I hope the Catholic, for the same reason, may kneel before a crucifix of earthly manufacture, and be equally free from guilt. With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.+

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*

According to the council of Nice, τιμητικήν προσκύνησιν, ου μεν την κατα πιστιν ημών αληθινην λατρείαν, η πρεπει μόνη τη θεία φύσει. Bin. Con. tom. v. p. 198.

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+ I shall here add the opinion of Bishop Montague. "The pictures of Christ, the blessed Virgin and saints, may be made, had in houses, "set up in churches. The Protestants use them: they despight them "not. Respect and honour may be given unto them. The Protes"tants do it, and use them for helps of piety." Gagger, p. 318. In almost every language the words which denote veneration and respect, are of ambiguous signification, and their purport must frequently be fixed by the nature of the object, and the intention of the agent. Thus, 1 Chron. xxix. 20, it is said that all the congregation

I shall moreover observe, that in the sacred writings occur many instances of a respect paid to inanimate objects, which cannot, without impiety, be termed idolatrous. Thus, in the Old Testament, God commanded Moses to walk barefoot on Mount Horeb, because it was holy ground. From the period of the fabrication of the ark, to the time in which it was placed in the temple, we have several instances of the respect which the Israelites were ordered to bear it, and of the severe punishments which God inflicted on those who either touched it, or looked on it, with irreverence or inattention. Yet what was this ark, the object of so much veneration to the children of Israel? A square chest of wood, in which were contained the tables of the law, and perhaps the rod of Aaron, and the golden pot of Manna. In the New Testament, we are commanded to bow the knee at the name of Jesus; and in the injunctions of Queen Elizabeth, and the eighteenth canon of the second year of James I., it is ordered, that "at the name of Jesus due reverence be "made of all persons, young and old, with lowness of "courtesie, and uncovering of the heads of mankind, "as thereunto doth necessarily belong."* Now it

will, in my opinion, require some ingenuity to explain, why it should be a duty to bow when I hear the sound of his name, and a crime to bow when I see the representation of his sufferings. In both instances the real object of my respect is the same,-the only difference is in the organ of perception. In the former the ear is affected by the motion of the fluid, which is the vehicle of sound; in the latter the eye is affected by the impulse of the rays of light. By both I mean to honour the Redeemer of mankind; and if the first mode be lawful and pious, the other cannot be unlawful and impious.

worshipped God and the king. Now this ambiguity has furnished an ample field for the invectives of our adversaries. Because the word worship is now generally confined to the honour due to the Divine Being, many controversialists argue as if it had never had any other meaning: yet some vestiges of its ancient signification still remain in the title of worshipful, which we give to magistrates, and in the marriage ceremony, when the husband addresses the bride with these solemn words,-With my body I thee worship.

* Wilkin's Con. vol. iv. p. 188, 382.