EIGHTH LETTER

TO

N. WISEMAN, D.D.

ON THE

WORSHIP OF IMAGES AND RELICS.

BY THE REV. WILLIAM PALMER, M.A.

OF WORCESTER COLLEGE, oxford.

OXFORD,

JOHN HENRY PARKER;

J. G. F. AND J. RIVINGTON, LONDON.

AN

EIGHTH LETTER,

&c.

SIR,

THERE is no charge which Romanists are more ready to repel with indignation and scorn than that of idolatrous worship of images and relics. When such a subject is even hinted at, we are absolutely overpowered with a torrent of invective, sarcasm, ridicule; with appeals to our common sense, our charity, our decency; with the boldest assertions of innocence; nay even with anathemas against idolatry. This extreme sensibility on the subject of imageworship will, to the discerning mind, indicate the consciousness of some unsoundness, some lurking feeling that all is not as it should be. Were Romanism in truth as free from idolatry as its advocates would have us believe, we should find them more at ease on the subject than they seem to be.

Let us cite a few passages in illustration of what has been said.

I shall first produce your own language. You are quite indignant on the occasion.

"Nor yet, my brethren, is this the worst feature of the case; for a graver and more awful charge is laid upon us in consequence of our belief: we are even denounced as idolaters, because we pay a certain reverence, and, if you please, worship, to the Saints of God, and because we honour their outward emblems and representatives. Idolaters! Know ye, my brethren, the import of this name? that it is the most frightful charge that can be laid to the score of any Christian? Then, gracious God! what must it be when flung as an accusation upon those who have been baptized in the name of Christ, who have tasted the sacred gift of His body, &c. Assuredly they know not what they say who deliberately and directly make this enormous charge; and they have to answer for misrepresentation, yea, for calumny of the blackest dye, who hesitate not again and again to repeat, with heartless earnestness and perseverance, this most odious of accusations, without being fully assured (which they cannot be) in their consciences and before God, that it really can be proved. You will not open a single Catholic writer, from the folio decrees of Councils, down to the smallest catechism placed in the hands of the youngest children, in which you will not find it expressly taught, that it is sinful to pay the same homage or worship to the Saints, or to the greatest of the Saints, or the highest of the Angels in heaven, which we pay to God," &c. &c.

■ Wiseman, Controv. Lectures, vol. ii. pp. 93, 94. I cannot

Let us next hear the Declaration of "the Vicars Apostolic."

66

Ignorance or malice has gone so far as to charge the Catholic Church with idolatry in the worship of the Saints, and of the images of Christ and of the Saints. The Catholic Church teaches that idolatry is one of the greatest crimes that can be committed against the majesty of God; and every true member of this Church shudders at the idea of such a crime, and feels grievously injured by so horrid an imputation. To worship the images of Christ or of the Saints, the word is here again understood by Catholics only of an inferior and relative respect shewn to images. To condemn this relative regard for images or pictures, would be to condemn the very feelings of nature. To charge a Catholic with idolatry because the term worship, meaning only an inferior and relative regard, is found in the ancient and modern Liturgies of his Church, is not consistent with candour or charity. The charge that the Catholic Church sanctions the praying to images is a calumny, and carries with it an imputation of stupidity too gross to be noticed"," &c.

but admire the ingenuity of this disclaimer. You deny that divine honours are due to the Saints or their images; but you forget to notice our charge, that divine honours are paid to Images of Christ and to the cross.

b Declaration of Vicars Apostolic, 1826, Section iv.