The latter were also charitable omens, and good wishes of the faithful living, as it were accompanying the soul of the deceased to the joys of paradise, of which they believed it already possessed, as the ancient author of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, in the last chapter of that book, plainly informs us. In a word, let any understanding and unprejudiced person attentively observe the prayers for the dead in the most undoubtedly ancient Liturgies, especially those in the Clementine Liturgy, and those mentioned in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy; and he will be so far from believing the Roman purgatory upon the account of those prayers, that he must needs see they make directly against it. For they all run (as even that prayer for the dead which is unadvisedly left by the Romanists in their own canon of the Mass, as a testimony against themselves) in this form: "For all that are in peace or at rest in the Lord." Now how can they be said to be "in peace or at rest in the Lord," who are supposed to be in a state of misery and torment? The next article is this: "As also that the saints reigning together with Christ are to be venerated and invoked, and that they offer up prayers to God for us; and that their relics are to be venerateds." Now, for the worship and invocation of saints deceased, there is no ground or foundation in the Holy Scriptures, no precept, no example. Nay, it is by evident consequence forbidden, in the prohibition of the worship and invocation of angels, Col. ii. 18, with which text compare the 35th canon of the Council of Laodicca, and the judgment of the learned Father Theodoret, concerning it, who flourished shortly after that Council. He, in his notes upon that text of St. Paul, hath these express words; "The Synod, met at Laodicea in Phrygia, made a law forbidding men to pray even to the angels'." See also Zonaras upon the same canon. He, as well as Theodoret long before him, rightly judged, that both in the text of St. Paul, and in the Laodicean Canon, all prayers to angels are forbidden. Now if we must not pray to angels, then much less may we pray to saints. The angels are "ministering spirits, sent forth to • Similiter et sanctos una cum Christo regnantes venerandos et invocandos esse, eosque orationes Deo pro nobis offerre, corumque reliquias esse venerandas. * Η σύνοδος συνελθοῦσα ἐν Λαοδικεία τῆς Φρυγίας νόμῳ κεκώλυκε καὶ τοῖς ἀγγέλοις προσεύχεσθαι. minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation:" they watch over us, and are frequently present with us, nay, they are internuncii, messengers between God and us, conveying God's blessings to us, and our prayers to God", none of which things are any where affirmed of the deceased saints. And yet we must not pray even to the angels. Hear also Origen, who lived long before the Laodicean Council, delivering the sense of the Church of his time in this matter, where he excellently discourseth against the religious worship and invocation of angels: in opposition to which, he first lays down this as a received doctrine among all Catholic Christians, "That all prayers, all supplications, deprecations, and thanksgivings, are to be offered to God, the Lord of all, by the chief High-Priest, who is above all angels, the living Word, and God." And presently after he shews the folly and unreasonableness of praying to angels upon several accounts. As first, because the particular knowledge of angels, and what offices they severally perform, is a secret which we cannot reach to; which is the very reason which St. Paul suggests in the text before mentioned, that whosoever worships and invocates the angels, doth "intrude into those things which he hath not seen"." From whence we may easily gather, that Origen, in this discourse of his, had an eye to that text of St. Paul, and understood it, as we do, to be a prohibition of all prayer to angels. 2. He argues, that if we should suppose that we could attain such particular knowledge of the angels, yet it would not be lawful for us to pray to them, or any other, save to God, the Lord of all, who alone is all-sufficient, abundantly able to supply all our wants and necessities, through our Saviour Jesus Christ, the Son of God, His word, wisdom, and truth. Lastly, he reasons to this effect; that the best way to gain the good-will of those blessed spirits, is not to pray to them, but to imitate them by paying our devotions to God alone, as they do. Hear the same Origen, where to Celsus talking of those spirits that preside over the affairs of men here below, who u Acts x. 4; Apoc. viii. 3. * Lib. v. contra Cels. p. 233. edit. Cantab. [c. 4. p. 580.] • Πᾶσαν μὲν γὰρ δέησιν, καὶ προσευχὴν, καὶ ἔντευξιν, καὶ εὐχαριστίαν, ἀνα πεμπτέον τῷ ἐπὶ πᾶσι Θεῷ, διὰ τοῦ ἐπὶ πάντων ἀγγέλων ἀρχιερέως, εμψύχου Λόγου καὶ Θεοῦ. 2 Α μὴ ἑώρακεν ἐμβατεύων. Lib. viii p. 402. [c. 37. p. 769.] were thought to be appeased only by prayers to them in a barbarous language, he answers with derision, and tells him he forgot with whom he had to do, and that he was speaking to Christians," who pray to God alone through Jesus." And then he adds, that the genuine Christians, in their prayers to God, used no barbarous words, but prayed to Him in the language of their respective countries, the Greek Christians in the Greek tongue, the Romans in the Roman language, as knowing that the God to whom they prayed understood all tongues and languages, and heard and accepted their prayers in their several languages, as well as if they had addressed themselves to Him in one and the same language. Again in the same book, to Celsus discoursing much after the same rate, he gives this excellent answer: "The one God is to be atoned by us, the Lord of all, and must be entreated to be propitious to us, piety and prayers being the best means of appeasing Him. And if Celsus would have others applied to after Him, let him assure himself, that as the body's motion unavoidably moves its shadow, so likewise, when God is once become propitious to any, all His angels, souls, and spirits, will become friends to such an one." From these testimonies of Origen, to which more might be added, it is very evident that the Catholic Christians of his time made no prayers either to angels or saints, but directed all their prayers to God, through the alone mediation of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Indeed, against the invocation of angels and saints, we have the concurrent testimonies of all the Catholic Fathers of the first three centuries at least. For as to that testimony of Justin Martyr, in his second (or rather first) Apology for the Christians, alleged by Bellarmine, and others of his party, for the worshipping of angels as practised in the primitive times of the Church, I have given a clear account of it, where I have evidently proved that place of Justin to be so far from giving any countenance to the religious wor » Τοῖς μόνῳ τῷ Θεῷ διὰ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ Θεὸν, κατανοησάτω, ὅτι ὥσπερ τῷ κινουεὐχομένοις. P. 420. [c. 64. p. 789.] 4 Ενα οὖν τὸν ἐπὶ πᾶσι Θεὸν ἡμῖν ἐξευμενιστέον, καὶ τοῦτον ἵλεω ἔχειν εὐκτέον, ἐξευμενιζόμενον εὐσεβείᾳ καὶ πάσῃ ἀρετῇ· εἰ δὲ καὶ ἄλλους τινὰς βούλεται μετὰ τὸν ἐπὶ πᾶσιν ἐξευμενίζεσθαι μένῳ σώματι ἀκολουθεῖ ἡ τῆς σκίας αὐτ ship of angels, that it makes directly against it. And the like may be easily shewn of the other allegations of Bellarmine out of the primitive Fathers. To conclude: Look into the most ancient Liturgies, as particularly that described in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, and the Clementine Liturgy, contained in the book entitled The Apostolical Constitutions; and you will not find in thein one prayer of any sort to angels or saints, no, not so much as an oblique prayer, (as they term it,) i. e. a prayer directed to God that He would hear the intercession of angels and saints for us. And yet after all this, they are for ever damned by the Trent Creed, who do not hold and practise the invocation of the saints deceased. For this is one of the articles of that creed, without the belief whereof, they tell us, "none can be saved:" that is, all are damned who pray unto God alone through Christ the Mediator, as the Scripture directs, and the Catholic Church of the first and best ages hath practised. As to what follows, "that the saints departed do offer up their prayers to God for us;" if it be understood of the intercession of the saints in general, we deny it not. But this is no reason why we should pray to them to pray for us. Nay, on the contrary, if the deceased saints do of their own accord, and out of their perfect charity, pray for us, what need we be so solicitous to call upon them for their prayers, especially when our reason and Scripture also tell us that we are out of their hearing, and that they do not, cannot know, our particular wants and necessities? For as to what the Romanists tell us of the glass of the Trinity, and extraordinary revelations, they are bold presumptuous conjectures, destitute of any ground or colour from reason or Scripture, and indeed are inconsistent with one another. To be sure, that conceit of the glass of the Trinity would never have passed with the Fathers of the first ages; for they generally held that the souls of the righteous" (some indeed excepted of the souls of the Martyrs) "do not presently after death ascend to the third heaven, but go to a place and state of inferior bliss and happiness," (which they commonly call by the name of paradise, though where it is situated they do not Nemo salvus esse potest. all agree,) "and there remain till the resurrection of their bodies; after which they shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, and there for ever enjoy that consummate bliss and happiness which consists in that clear vision of God which the Holy Scripture calls 'seeing Him face to face."" And indeed, their distinction of paradise (the receptacle of holy souls presently after death) from the third heaven, seems to have firm ground in the New Testament; and was undoubtedly received in the Church of God before the coming of the Lord in the flesh. However, this was a current doctrine in the Christian Church for many ages; till at length the Popish Council of Florence boldly determined the contrary, defining, "That those souls which having contracted the blemish of sin, being either in their bodies, or out of them, purged from it, are presently received into heaven, and there clearly behold God Himself, one God in three Persons, as He is." This decree they craftily made, partly to establish the superstition of praying to saints deceased, whom they would make us to believe to see and know all our necessities and concerns in speculo Trinitatis, as was said before, and so to be fit objects of our religious invocation, partly and chiefly to confirm the doctrine of purgatory, and that the prayers of the ancient Church for the dead might be thought to be founded upon a supposition that the souls of some, nay, most faithful persons, after death, go into a place of grievous torment, out of which they may be delivered by the prayers, masses, and alms of the living. But this by the way. It is added in the creed, "that not only the saints themselves, but also their relics, are to be worshipped." A strange definition of the Trent Fathers, especially if we consider the time when it was made; a time when the best and wisest men in the Roman communion sadly complained of the vile cheat put upon the poor ignorant people, by shewing them I know not what relics of saints, and drawing them to the worship of them, only for gain's sake, and to pick their pockets. Hear the judgment of the learned and pious Cassander as to this article: "Seeing there are a small number |