Rome prays to saints and angels, not only to pray for them, but to bestow blessings upon them, to give this or that temporal or spiritual good to them, and to help them in this or that particular difficulty or distemper; which is to suppose them to have a most certain power to help them, and to terminate the worship on them. Innumerable instances of this kind may be produced; and the matter of fact is too notorious to be denied. Bonaventure, a cardinal and a saint, has burlesqued the Book of Psalms,* applying whatever is said in them to God the Father, and his Son Christ Jesus, unto the Virgin Mother. And was it true, as they of late do palliate the business, that in whatever words or phrases their prayers to saints are expressed, the meaning of the Church in them all is but an ora pro nobis; yet this would not fetch it off, since it is not so much the matter of the prayer as the nature of the prayer that makes it unlawful to be prayed to them. For,

2. When we are in those texts obliged to desire our fellow Christians to pray for us, that desire is not a praying to them, but a friendly request; but the Church of Rome enjoins to call upon the saints departed, in a most devout manner,† after the manner of supplicants; and we know that it is their constant practice to do it, with all the circumstances of religious worship, in consecrated places, at holy altars, at the same time they worship God with bended knees, with eyes and hands lift up; witness the rosaries, the psalters, the hours, and all other offices of devotion, wherewith they worship the blessed Virgin; witness the oratories and chapels they have erected for her honour and service. Now does it follow, that because I am commanded to desire the prayers of my brethren on earth, I am also commanded after a most religious manner, to invoke the saints in heaven to pray for me?

3. These texts require us to desire our fellow Christians to be only mere supplicants and petitioners for us, to pray for us as they do for themselves. But the Church of Rome teaches and practises more in their invocation of saints, viz. to pray to them to become their advocates and mediators in heaven with God. Now these are two different things, and the one not to be inferred from the other. For in the first, in desiring the prayers of good men on earth, we rely on the goodness of God, and the truth of his promise to hear and answer them. In the latter, praying to saints in heaven as advocates and

*Tom. 6. 478. [ut supra, p. 502, &c.]

+ Suppliciter invocare. [Labbe, Concil. vol. 14. p. 895. Lut. Par.]

mediators, we rely on their merits, the favour and interest they have in God; as if they were more easily prevailed with by our prayers than our God and Saviour; as if they had greater power in the court of heaven than the Son of God; or that God would do more for men at their importunity than from his own infinite love and propensity to do good.

4. These texts require us to desire the prayers of good men on earth, who hear us, and know our condition; but the Church of Rome requires men to pray to saints in heaven, who cannot hear us, and for ought we know, are ignorant of our state. Now does it follow, that because I may desire the prayers of one that is present, I may invoke the prayers of one that is absent? Nothing can be said against the former; but to do the latter, it is either an absurd and foolish, or a sinful and idolatrous action. Foolish, if they believe the saints in heaven do not hear them; idolatrous, if they do for that is to suppose them to be omnipresent, and to ascribe to them one of those perfections that is incommunicably inherent in the nature of God. The truth of which I thus prove. He that prays to a saint departed prays to him in faith, in a belief that he hears and can help him. This faith is founded on something, either that the saint can hear and help him by his own natural power, or by some other means. If by the former, then the point is granted, and that ascribes to him an omnipresence, that is above the condition of a creature; if by the latter, some revelation must be produced from God to that purpose. For it is not enough that God can make known our prayers to the saints one way or other; but if they pray in faith to them, some proof must be produced that God does do it; for guess and conjecture is not a sufficient foundation for faith; it must have for its bottom either a natural power in the saint, or a revelation from God of some other way. But there is no such revelation as to the latter, and therefore the praying in faith to them, necessarily implies the former, and consequently ascribes to them that omnipresence that is inseparable from the Deity. The Church of Rome tells us of many ways (all which I considered before under the second head), but they are not agreed which to fix upon; a true sign they are uncertain of all; and though God may and can do it any of those ways, that is no proof that he does do it by any of them, unless he had told us so.

5. When we desire our fellow-Christians to pray for us, that is a vocal desire; but the Church of Rome allows of mental as well as vocal prayers to be made to the saints

departed, which makes them omniscient, and ascribes to them the knowledge of the heart, and all its most secret motions.*

I shall now produce the several texts of Scripture that make God the only object of prayer, as well as of the other parts of religious worship; but to name them all, would be to transcribe a considerable part both of the Old and New Testament. This every Protestant knows that has been conversant in the Bible, and every Papist would be convinced of that had a licence and will to read it. It shall suffice therefore to set down a few.

No man will deny, but that the tabernacle and temple at Jerusalem were peculiarly consecrated to the honour and worship of the one God Jehovah, maker of heaven and earth. Now here were the Jews appointed to bring and perform all their worship; here they performed their vows, kept their solemn festivals; hither they brought their tithes and offerings, and first-fruits; here their sacrifices were to be offered, Deut. xii. 13, 14, here also their prayers were to be put up. And when it so happened that they could not repair to the temple, being in exile or in war, they were to pray towards the temple. Thus Solomon prayed God to hear the petitions that were put up towards the temple, 1 Kings viii. 30. And Daniel in Babylon, Dan. vi. 10, prayed with his windows open towards Jerusalem. Thus was God the only object of prayer in the Jewish religion.

He is so also in the Christian, Phil. iv. 6, "In everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." And in James i. 5, "If any of

you lack wisdom, let him ask it of God, who gives to all men liberally." "How shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed?" says St. Paul, Rom. x. 14. Which words directly exclude all from being the objects of prayer, that are not the objects of our faith; and consequently, if we believe only in God, we must call upon him only.

Ŏur blessed Saviour has thus taught us to pray, Luke xi. 2, "When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, &c. for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory." Or Matth. vi. 9, "After this manner pray ye, Our Father, &c. thine is the kingdom," &c.

For

Whether this prayer was prescribed by our Saviour as a form to be used, or a pattern to be imitated by us, it is all

* Voce vel mente supplicare. Concil. Trid. Sess. 25. [Labbe, Concil. vol. 14. p. 895. Lut. Par. 1672.] Bell. de Sanct. Beat. 1. 1. c. 20. [ut supra, p. 419. col. 1.]

one; it still directs and obliges us to put up our prayers to our heavenly Father, whose is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. We may observe also that every petition in this prayer is directed to God; "Our Father which art in heaven," being understood, though not repeated, in every one of them; and if, as some tell us, this prayer contains a summary of whatever ought to be the subject-matter of a Christian's prayer; then whatever I ought to pray for, I ought to pray to God for it.

Bellarmine tells us,* that this argument will not hold, because it excludes the second and third Persons in the blessed Trinity from being the object of prayer, as much as it does saints and angels.

I answer: the word Father in this prayer is to be taken essentially, and not personally, and so excludes not the other two Persons of the most holy and undivided Trinity, but only those that are of a different nature from them; now, if the whole three Persons are one in essence, then whenever we pray to, and do honour to God the Father, we must at the same time worship the other two, though not so directly, who are one with him.

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I shall set down but one place more, Matth. xxi. 13, “It is written," says our Lord, my house shall be called the house of prayer;" so essential a part, you see, of God's worship, is prayer, that God thought fit to describe his own house by that name; but if prayer did appertain to any other beside God, the house of prayer would not have been a sure distinguishing sign of God's house.

The second branch is: That there is no proof from Scripture, that we may pray to God to be heard for the sake of the saints, in favour of them and their merits.

The texts they make use of defend this, are many, but not different in their sense and meaning, and therefore one answer will serve them all: they are such as these:

Exod. xxxii. 13: Moses thus prayed in behalf of the Is raelites, when they had highly provoked God by worshipping the golden calf, "Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel thy

So Solomon prayed in the behalf of himself, 2 Chron. vi. 16: "Now therefore, O Lord God of Israel, keep with thy servant David my father, that which thou hast promised."

* C. 20.

↑ See Discourse of Invocation of Saints.

In 1 Kings xv. 4, it is said, "For David's sake did the Lord his God give him a lamp in Jerusalem," when he suffered wicked Abijam to succeed in the throne of Judah.

In 2 Kings xix. 24, God promises for his servant David's sake to defend the city of Jerusalem against Sennacherib's mighty host, in the reign of Hezekiah.

Again, Psalm cxxxii. 1, 10: "Lord, remember David, and all his afflictions; for thy servant David's sake, turn not away the face of thine anointed." And in the Song of the Three Children, that is added to the Apocrypha, ver. 12, they are said thus to pray, "Cause not thy mercy to depart from us, for thy beloved Abraham's sake, for thy servant Isaac's sake, and for thy holy Israel's sake."

Now for the right understanding of all these texts, we are to consider, that these holy men, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David, God was pleased, as a reward to their faithfulness and uprightness, and for the encouragement of religion and virtue in the world, of his mere grace and goodness to enter into a covenant with them, and many times to repeat and ratify it, "that he would be their God, and the God of their seed;" that he would take them under his especial care and patronage, and bestow many blessings and deliverances upon them. Hereupon, in after ages, their posterity were wont in their prayers to mention their great and worthy ancestors; not that they begged to be heard and answered "for their sakes and merits," but that they might (as it were) remember God of his covenant and promise made to their forefathers, and so begged to be heard "for his own sake, his name sake, and his mercy sake." So indeed those places expound themselves, those holy men being seldom or never mentioned in prayer, but God's " promise and covenant" is also added.

In the fore-quoted place, Exod. xxxii. 13, it follows, "To whom thou hast sworn by thyself, and saidst, I will multiply your seed as the stars in heaven.'

In the Song of the Three Children, ver. 13, it is added, "To whom thou hast spoken and promised, that thou wilt multiply their seed as the stars."

And where God promised "for David's sake to defend Jerusalem, to turn away his anger;" the meaning is, for his covenant's sake, and for his promise sake, which he made with and to David.

So God himself teaches us to expound these texts. Exod. vi. 3, 4, 5: "And I appeared unto Abraham, &c. And I