thing but a positive condemnation of all image worship whatsoever. A second advantage which is procured by thus classing this part of the decalogue is that the precept is more easily kept out of sight. It cannot indeed wholly be suppressed: when the commandments are printed or read at length this clause must appear; but with the ignorant and the unlearned the method usually taken is to use a short form or abbreviation in which the second commandment is made absolutely to disappear. This is or was, I believe, uniformly the case in all Romish countries abroad. It is sometimes the case here at least I have an example of it in a catechism professing to follow that of Pius the 5th, where indeed the second commandment or rather the words of it are commented upon, but in the summary of the commandments it is not founds. This artifice, it must

• See Clinton's Catechism sold by Keating and Co. But it further appears that this is what has actually taken place without any attendant explanation in Ireland, under the very auspices of Dr. Troy, the popish archbishop of Dublin. We have there a book of prayers published "permissu superiorum," entitled, "The poor "Man's Manual of Devotions, &c." Dublin, printed by Richard Cross, No. 28, Bridge Street, 1805, where (at p. 17.) immediately after the apostles' creed (the same as we have it) are their ten commandments. The second is entirely omitted, and to make up the right number, for the ninth we read, "Thou shalt not desire thy neigh "bour's wife," for the tenth, "Thou shalt not desire thy neigh"bour's goods." To this book is prefixed the calendar: so that it is evidently designed to be most emphatically the prayer book for

be owned, is a most gross one; and the more so as in consequence of it much difference arises as to what are the ninth and the tenth commandments. For some give the preference to the first, and some to the second clause of the tenth commandment. According to the former the ninth commandment is, "Thou shalt not "covet thy neighbour's house," or "thy neigh"bour's goods." According to the others it is, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife." By which latter mode manifest violence is done to the text in taking the words out of their order. And by this very difference and uncer tainty, here again as in so many cases, our infallible adversaries are made to bear witness against themselves.

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papists of the lower class. In the catechism of Pius V. it stands thus, Ego sum Dominus Deus tuus qui eduxi te de terra "Egypti, de domo servitutis. Non habebis deos alienos coram me "non facies tibi sculptile &c." and so stops short before the material words, "Thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them." A hint which Mr. Clinton has taken, as we see, or rather improved upon.

• See the preceding note as to what is done in Ireland. Agreeable to that is the London Catechism. Yet in some books it is the reverse. In the primer or office of the virgin Mary, printed for Coghlan 1780, I find them thus stated, "IX. Thou shalt not "covet thy neighbour's house." "X. Thou shalt not covet thy "neighbour's wife, nor servant, nor handmaid, nor ox, nor ass, 66 nor any thing that is his." The Trent Catechism above-mentioned puts them together without any division; but in the expo

I come now to the veneration of relics, for which the arguments that are adduced are so futile, that we may safely pronounce, that they can impose upon none but such as are willing to be deceived. The great advocates for them tell us of St. John the baptist's expression, that he is not "worthy to unloose the latchet of our Sa"viour's shoes;" which shews, they say, that reverence must be paid to such things. In an

sition makes the distinction between coveting our neighbour's wife, and the other things, and so the Dublin and London bishop's division is the more popish. In truth this is a point which must always have puzzled those who chose so to read the commandments. Our editor of the primer however has the authority of aǹ English council to support him. In the council at Lambeth held under John Peckham in 1281, the ninth commandment is stated to be “non concupisces domum proximi tui," which is explained to mean all immoveables, or as we say real estate, particularly that of any catholic. “In quo mandato implicité inhibetur cupiditas “possessionis immobilis, Catholici præcipué cujuscunque.” In the last of course the wife is thrown in with the “moveables" "res "mobiles." Wilkins's Concilia, Vol. ii. p. 55. Such is the way in which that commandment is split and parcelled out, which St. Paul comprehends in two words; 6% entiunoas. “Thou shalt "not covet.” Rom. xiii. 9. It is remarkable that the precept stands differently in Deuteronomy from what it does in Exodus, as in Deuteronomy the wife is put first. I cannot therefore but think that in putting the words as they stand in Exodus, Providence had it in view to confound those who would thus twist the scriptures to serve their particular ends. Compare Deuteronomy v. with Exodus xx. See further Stillingfleet's Answer to a Papist represented and misrepresented. Preserv. against Popery, tit. ix. P. 302.

other place, they urge the miracle which was wrought by the bones of the prophet Elisha, when, by virtue of them, a dead man was restored to life. They tell us too, of the cures which were wrought by the handkerchiefs from the body of St. Paul, and of the sick which were laid in the streets, in order that, at least, the shadow of Peter passing by, might overshadow them. Such is the evidence from Scripture which is adduced, and who can but wonder that such passages should be alleged for such a purpose? For, do we hear of any man having preserved or paid religious honour to the latchet. of our Saviour's shoe? or to the handkerchiefs which came from the body of the apostle? Were the bones of Elisha, which God had pleased in that one instance, to make the instrument of a miracle, kept up or adored, or held in any veneration? So far from it, we never even hear a word of them, not only in the age when the miracle happened, but in those which followed; nor, I believe, was ever the argument drawn from it heard of till after the reformation. Lastly, it must be allowed, that not even any of them, amidst all their thousands of relics, and it must be said to the praise of their modesty, have ever attempted to shew us the shadow of St. Peter. So that to any man who will but reason in this as he does in other matters, these very instances, instead of commending, will ap

pear to involve a plain condemnation of the practice. The legends too, which belong to all these relics are so fabulous upon the face of them, the very manner of their being found, and of their genuineness being ascertained, has, in every instance, so little, not only of reason, but of common sense in it, that no man who is not under the influence of the grossest bigotry can avoid being shocked and disgusted at them, or can see them in any other than the most ridiculous light.

What makes the doctrine not only every way suspicious but abominable, is that we shall find the discovery of these pretended relics to have been in many, I believe, in most instances so timed as evidently to serve a particular purpose, to procure credit to some order, some saint, or some tenet, and at all times to have answered the purpose of laying the credulity of the people under heavy contributions. This last abuse had grown to such a height in the thirteenth century, that it it was formally reproved in the fourth council of Lateran, and certain provi

This traffic began very early; we hear of it in the fourth century. Austin, in complaining of the lazy and vagabond monks of his time, mentions that they went about selling relics. "Alii "membra martyrum, si tamen martyrum, venditant," &c. De opere monachorum, c. xxviii. This abuse, as Fleury observes, has continued ever since, notwithstanding the regulations made in the ivth Lateran on that subject. H. E. B. lxxvii. §. 55.