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tioned, we find him discoursing in this manner :-" Where, says some one, is the Holy Spirit now? You do well to speak of his influence then, when miracles were wrought, and the dead were raised, and the lepers were cleansed; but whence shall we now demonstrate that the Holy Spirit is among us?"* Now how does Chrysostom reply to this supposed, or, perhaps, popular, objection? Does he appeal to the wonders wrought at the tombs of saints and martyrs?—wonders which, if acknowledged and notorious, must silence the objector at once. No! he admits the facts of his opponent, and only disputes his inference and then sets himself to prove the presence of the Holy Spirit from his ordinary gifts, after the manner of a Church of England divine. He then winds up his argument by saying that miracles were necessary to convert unbelievers, but are not so to convince Christians; and quotes St. Paul in proof. (1 Cor. xiv. 22.) And this," says he, "is the reason that THERE ARE NO MIRACLES NOW!" If this passage be genuine (and its genuineness we have never heard disputed), could Chrysostom have attributed to relics the powers for which the Irish Gentleman claims his authority?

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With regard to a professed citation from Basil, our Traveller is not more honest. But here Mr. O'Sullivan has left us nothing to do, and we are happy to present our readers with so complete an exposure of modern Papistical shallowness and sophistry as this eloquent, learned, and able Irish Protestant has supplied us withal.

"Basil.—If any one suffer for the name of Christ, his remains are deemed precious; and if any one touch the bones of a martyr he becomes partaker in some degree of his holiness, on account of the grace residing in them. Wherefore precious in the sight of God is the death of his saints. Serm. on Psalm cxv." Travels, Vol. I. p. 60. The doctrine, we may infer, of the Church of Rome is in unison with this superstition, "Any one who touches the bones of a martyr becomes partaker of his holiness." I was of opinion that the privilege of the well-known burying ground in the County of Wicklow was not formally and fully recognized, and when I heard of the eager contentions of rival processions, because each grave could ensure heaven to no more than seven inhabitants, the eighth, perhaps, not touching the bones of the buried martyr, I fondly thought, that the strife, which often gave companions to the departed friend, sprung out of the superstitions of an uninstructed people, not from the acknowledged tenets of their Church. Now the doctrine is avowed. Justly Rome holds the Apostles and Evangelists in disesteem. They gave to the world their dangerous books, when they took away a far surer and more compendious mode of salvation, in burying the first martyr's body. Narrowly, no doubt, the canonized Ignatius escaped excommunication. Had the deacons, who accompanied him, been as uncharitable as he, it would not be proper to say where

Chrysost. Hom. lxxxviii.

† Τοῦτο οὖν αἴτιον τοῦ μὴ γίνεσθαι σημεῖα νῦν.

Or, perhaps, well informed. Whether dishonesty or ignorance be the cause of these errors, is not clear. It is suggested by the Christian Examiner (Dublin) for May, 1833, that the quotations from the Fathers so pompously paraded in these volumes, are mere scissar-extracts from a Popish work by two Jesuits, Fathers Kirk and Berington; and that all their errors are faithfully transcribed.

his criminal prayers and the censure of an offended Church would have conveyed him. So the doctrine of the Church is, that any one who touches the bones of a martyr becomes partaker of his sanctity.

"It is the bright day that brings forth the adder."

The time is not long passed, since to impute to the Church of Rome doctrines such as her advocate challenges old authority to brand upon her, would provoke a pause of silent indignation from her children, or most vehement protestations against the cruel and calumnious misrepresentation. A change has come, and the advocate of the Irish people and the Church of Rome makes it his boast, that they believe, and she teaches, most profane and disgusting superstitions. But Basil was no less superstitious? The relic worship of the Church of Rome would never perhaps have been confessed, if the precedent of the Saint's example could not be pleaded in its favour. It is not upon the practices of modern times censure should fall. The Irish Gentleman, if in error, is wrong with a light of the early Church, and, for his companion's sake, he should be pardoned.

I wish it were as easy to free Basil from all charge of superstition as it is to exculpate him from our young Traveller's unguarded accusation. Indeed it is rather strange, that the editor who corrected his friend's error, in falsely ascribing to that Father the passage immediately following the extract I have transcribed, did not take the trouble to tell him that here also his citation was unfaithful. Every one who has had opportunity to examine editions of Basil's works, has, of course, seen that the reference appended to the citation, bears testimony against it. It is extracted professedly from his sermon on the cxvth Psalm, and no such sermon is to be found. The reader may, perhaps, imagine that by this evasive reference the Irish Gentleman wished to give an air of ridicule to his entire performance, and to insinuate that superstitious tenets are ascribed to the ancient worthies of the Church as one might impute profligacy to Mr. Wilberforce, or inconsistency and want of public principle to Lord Farnham or Sir Robert Harry Inglis. It is not so; our Traveller has been deceived, and has quoted the expressions from Basil as if they should really have been ascribed to him. The facts I apprehend to have been, that the passage, recited in "the Travels," was found in a work which a certain Simon Metaphrastes professed to have compiled from the discourses of Basil-that the scribe who contracted to supply extracts for the defence of the Irish faith, thinking the worker in Mosaic not so creditable an authority as the saint whose opinion he was bound to furnish, having seen in the margin of the scrap sermon a reference which he hastily transcribed, appended it to his extract without further inquiry, for the vindication of the Father's fame, and the exposure of the young Irishman's imprudence. There is no doubt a Homily on the cxvth Psalm, in an edition of Basil's works, but the title, under which it is found, does not prove recommendatory, being as follows: "Appendix to the first volume of the Works of Basil the Great, containing certain works falsely ascribed to him."*—No more on the worship of relics.-Guide, pp. 236-240.

Equally successful is the attempt to support from antiquity the " veneration" of images. On the first passage which he produces in its favour, being an extract from a pretended Epistle of Basil to Julian, he has himself pronounced judgment in the following note, which, like his appeal to St. John's Gospel in favour of the carnal presence, seems to evince some suspension of intellect : —

The fragment from which the above passage is taken, though extant among the Acts of the Second Nicene Council, is given up, I believe, as spurious, by

* Appendix Tomi Primi Operum Basilei Magni complectens opera quædam ei falso adscripta.-Benedictine Edition, Paris, 1730.

the most judicious Catholic writers; and even the zealous Baronius, though he produces the fragment, forbears cautiously from laying any stress upon it, as authority. Vol. I. p. 61, note.

What can be the meaning of thus sporting with his readers,

"Like children, dolls creating with high brags,

Then tearing all their handyworks to rags" ?

Next, we are invited to listen to the voice of

Gregory of Nyssa.-(In his Oration on the Feast of the Martyr Theodorus) "When any one enters such a place as this, where the memory of this just man and his relics are preserved, his mind is first struck, while he views the structure and all its ornaments, with the general magnificence that breaks upon him. The artist has here shown his skill in the figures of animals and the airy sculpture of the stone, while the painter's hand is most conspicuous in delineating the high achievements of the Martyr. The figure of Christ is also

beheld looking down upon the scene.”—Vol. I. p. 63.

It is well that this extract is headed "Relics and Images;" or it would not be very easy to discover what tenet of Popery it could be produced to defend. The word relics occurs in it; this, as we have before intimated, would be quite evidence sufficient to the Irish Gentleman that all the absurdities of the modern reliquary were realized in the Church of St. Theodore. But cooler imaginations may require somewhat more demonstrative. The word figures also appears. But did St. Gregory mean to say that the “ figures of animals" were worshipped? Would the Irish Gentleman, who has manifested a most paradoxical forwardness to identify the observance of Popish and Pagan Rome,* advocate also an alliance with "the brutish gods of Nile?" Yet there is not one word more said by Gregory about “ the figure of Christ," than there is about the " figures of animals." Both were in the Church, and that is all that Gregory says. Why must it follow, because there was a picture of the Saviour, that the picture was " venerated" or adored? If " the high achievements of the martyr" were painted on the walls, must we therefore conclude that the figures in the pictures were worshipped? Are not "the high achievements" of St. Paul painted in the dome of his Cathedral at London ? and is not the figure of Christ to be found in many Protestant Churches ? Yet we do not say prayers to pictures; and though it may be somewhat difficult for a Romanist to comprehend how a picture can exist in a

* So far from denying, I repeat, the source from which these forms have been derived, the Catholics are themselves among the first to avow it; well knowing, however the Protestant may wish to blink such a conclusion, that these occasional resemblances to the forms of Paganism, in the ceremonies of their Church, form one of the countless proofs she can give of the high antiquity of her descent,-even the outward formulary of her devotions being thus traceable to that bright dawn of Christianity, when truth gained upon error gradually, like light upon darkness; and when, if any such lingering mists remained from the night, they were but to be made subservient to the glory of the day.-Vol. I. pp. 186, 187.

church without being adored, we can faithfully assure our readers of that persuasion (if we have any) that the thing is possible.

We bear no inherent spleen against crucifixes. They were originally set up with pious intent; and the enlightened Christian may feel his devotion enlivened by a sensible representation of those sufferings which have purchased his redemption. But, when once an object, however holy in its origin, however divine in its sanctions, becomes so corrupted and perverted by popular abuse as to lose its whole intent and character, and no means remain of restoring it to its proper destination, it is time to remove it.

The brazen serpent was a representation of Christ crucified; but when the people burnt incense to it, Hezekiah destroyed it; and yet had this representation been set up at the command of God himself. The Church of England might therefore surely remove the crucifix, which had no scripture warrant, from the altar, when it was abused to idolatrous purposes. When, therefore, we are met with the quotation from Nilus, "In the chancel of the most sacred temple, towards the east, let there be one, and only one, cross,' "'* we reply, that, for the Irish Gentleman's purpose, it would have been necessary to prove that this one only cross was erected for the purpose of what the Romanists call " a relative worship." The Irish Gentleman, or his Jesuitical authorities, generally know where to stop-but sometimes they seem to act with an infatuation characteristic of those " quos Jupiter vult perdere;" they proceed with their quotations till they tire their own conclusions off their legs—and such is the case in the present instance : after a short break, the extract from Nilus is resumed as follows:

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Let the sacred temple be filled with pictures well executed by the most celebrated artists, representing the most remarkable events of the Old and New Testaments."Vol. I. p. 63.

These are the Irish Gentleman's italics. What follows shall be in our own. But, before we produce the passage, we will just hint to the reader that the purpose of it is to explain why the sacred temple should be thus filled with pictures—and, of course, he will surmise that it is in order that such pictures may be adored. But he would be mistaken. Here then is the reason:

that the unlettered, and those who are incapable of reading the divine Scriptures, may, by the sight of the picture, be instructed in the virtuous deeds of those who have served the true God, according to his own will and command.—Lib. 4. Ep. 61.— Vol. I. pp. 63, 64.

Can human assurance go further than the religious Tourist's? The Ante-popish Church endeavoured ingeniously to provide for the wants of those who were "incapable of reading the divine Scriptures;" the

* Irish Gentleman, Vol. I. p. 63.

Popish would take away those same Scriptures from those who are capable; and designates the free access to them "the main source of all heresy and blasphemy.' The Ante-popish Church used representations" of the most remarkable events of the Old and New Testaments;" the Popish fills its walls with the most puerile and profane legends. The Ante-popish Church used pictures to instruct in the virtuous deeds of those who have served the true God;" the Popish uses them for "relative adoration." And yet all this is one and the same thing! Where does Nilus talk of bleeding, winking, speaking, statues ? What has the Irish Gentleman produced from ancient practice that at all accords with the doctrines of Trent? He would find, did he take the trouble to enter Protestant Churches, pictures of "events recorded in the Old and New Testaments;" but does he mean to say that this is all that is intended by the Popish doctrine of image-worship? If so, after all his research, he has much to learn of the nature of his religion!

As the Irish Gentleman has quoted so much upon images that is not to the purpose, we will endeavour to supply him with a little patristical matter which is. Thus then Origen speaks-not of himself—but of the Church of his day-the beginning of the third century. "Openly do we exhibit the venerable character of our discipline; and do not, as Celsus supposes, conceal it; for, even on their first introduction, do we imbue our converts with a contempt of idols, and of all images; and then, elevating their minds from the service of creatures instead of God (ἐπαίροντες τὰ φρονήματα αὐτῶν ἀπὸ τοῦ δουλεύειν τοῖς κτισθεῖσιν άvтì TOÙ Ôɛov), we fix them aloft on the Creator of the universe: clearly exhibiting to them Him who was the subject of prophecy, both from the prophecies concerning Him (which are many), and from those gospels and apostolical writings, which have been carefully handed down (Tapadıdouévwv) to those who are able to hear with understanding." The opinion of the fourth century we may learn from an authority equally unexceptionable to the Irish Traveller. We will not here disturb by translation the emphatic sententiousness of the ecclesiastical Cicero :"Non est dubium quin relligio nulla sit ubi simulacrum est."`‡ This testimony, like the former, is not to be considered an individual opinion.

See our quotation in
P. 400.

+ Orig. contra Cels. lib. iii. (p. 120. of Spencer's edition.) This passage is very important, for several reasons. 1. It testifies, not the individual opinion of a particular Father, but the public practice of the Church at an early period. 2. It shews that the Disciplina arcani, of which our Traveller makes so much, did not exist then. 3. It is express against images. 4. It strikes at the puerile distinction of Rome between λurpela and dovλela for Tò dovλeve is here applied to the worship due to God. 5. It shews that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament were then taught by the Church as the foundation of faith, and not stigmatized as the fountain of heresy. 6. It shews that the "tradition" of which the Fathers speak is sometimes taken to signify the Scriptures themselves; for here the word is Tapadidoμévwv, the usual expression for tradition.

Lactant. Instit. II. 18.

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