Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Catholic Christian Instructed in the Sacraments, Sacrifice, Ceremonies, and Observances of the Church
And certainly a person that has been but moderately versed in the sacred writings, will be surprised to find the use of incense ranked by the Doctor amongst heathenish rites, since it is so frequently mentioned with honor in God's holy word; as when the psalm ist desires that his prayer may ascend as incense in the sight of God, Psalm cxli. 2, as when the prophet Malachias (as his words are rendered in the Protes tant Bible) 'foretells, chap. I. 11, that in the Church of Christ, incense shall be offered in every place to God's holy name; as when St. John in the Revela tion, chap. V. 8, and chap. Viii. 4, 8m. Represents to us odors and incense burning before God in the heavenly Jerusalem. For, allowing these texts to be figurative, yet we are not to suppose that the sa cred penmen would describe to us the service either of the militant or triumphant Church, by figures bor rowed from heathenish superstition. As for what the Doctor has alleged against the use of incense out of the acts of the martyrs, who chose rather to die than to offer incense to false gods, and out of the law of Theodosius, which confiscates the places in which the Pagans had offered incense to their dei ties, he could not but know, that all this was utterly foreign to his purpose: but if he had a mind to be informed of the antiquity of the ceremonial use of incense amongst the Christians, he might have found it in the most ancient liturgies, and even in the very canons attributed to the Apostles, can. 3.
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