The faith of our fathers - Carmel Apologetics

"236 THE FAITH OF OUR FATHERS.gence or power to hear and help them. But thevpay it a relative respect; that is, their reverencefor the copy is proportioned to the venerationwhich they entertain for the heavenly original, towhich it is also referred.For the sake of my Protestant readers, I mayhere quote their own great Leibnitz on the reverence paid to sacred images. He says,in his SystemaTheologicum, p.142 :Though we speak ofthe honor paid to images, yet this is only a manner of speaking, which really means that we honornot the senseless thing which is incapable of understanding such honor, but the which rep^totype,ceives honor throughits representation, accordingto the teaching of the Council of Trent. It is inthis sense, I take it,that scholastic writers havespoken of the same worship being paid to imagesof Christ as to Christ our Lord himself; for theact which is called the worship of an image isreally the worship of Christ himself, through andin the presence of the image and by occasion ofit ; by the inclination of the body towards it as toChrist himself, as rendering Him more manifestlypresent, and raising the mind more actively to thecontemplation of Him. Certainly, no* sane manthinks, under such circumstances, of praying inthis wise : Give me, O image, what I ask ;to tiiee,O marble or wood, I give thanks ;but * Thee, OLord, I adore; to Thee I give thanks, and singsongs of praise. Given, then, that there is no