LETTER XVIII.

THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS.

DEAR SIR ;—In reading this and the following letter, it will be proper you should refresh your memory with another perusal of the 33d and 34th Letters in The End of Controversy, as also with the Rev. Vicar's 13th chapter, which he publishes as a Reply to them. It is plain that he is weary of his task, as he becomes still more negligent and confused as he advances. He passes by unnoticed the strongest Scriptural evidence, the most positive testimonies of the Fathers, and the most indisputable axioms of natural reason, to misspend his time and ink on a few points of no essential consequence to the main questions at issue. His principal arguments are drawn from the two extravagant and time-serving Books of Homilies, the former composed by Cranmer, the

*The following extracts may serve as samples of their moderation and truth. "Laity and Clergie, learned and unlearned, all ages, sects, and degrees of men, women and children of whole Christendome (a horrible and dreadful thing to think) have been, all at once, drowned in abominable Idolatrie, of all other vices most detested of God, and most damnable to man, and that by the space of 800 years and more." Perils of Idol. P. iii. p. 58.-Speaking of the crying injustice, cruelty, and sacrileges of the tyrant Henry VIII., in seizing and turning to his own profit all the Abbeys and Convents in the Kingdom, to the number of above a thousand, and leaving their unoffending inhabitants to

latter, as is generally supposed, by Jewel, whose respective characters you have seen above. These books never had any authority, even among Protestants, being like an upper garment, or great-coat, says Dr. Fuller,* which men put on or throw off at their pleasure.

The first question at issue between the Rev. Vicar and myself, is the following one: Is he warranted in pronouncing, as he does, in the titlepage of his 13th Chapter, that "The invocation of Saints is Blasphemous and Idolatrous ?"-In refutation of this heinous charge against Catholics, as made by other writers and preachers before him, I proved, in my above-mentioned work, by express quotations from the General Council of Trent, from the large Catechism of that Council, and from the elementary Catechism for the instruction of Catholic children, that it is "an article of Catholic Faith, that, as the Saints have no virtue, merit, or excellence, but what has been gratuitously bestowed upon them by God, for the sake of his Incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, so they can procure no benefit for us, but by means of their prayers to The giver of all good

starve, the unprincipled Cranmer, in his Homily on Good Works, P.iii. p. 38, ascribes all this to an inspiration of God, and compares the unfeeling and sensual monster, who, as Sir Walter Raleigh says: "never spared man in his wrath nor woman in his lust," with the holy Kings of Israel, Josaphat, Josias, and Ezechias.

*Church Hist.

gifts, through their and our common Saviour, Christ."* In short, I proved, that Catholics invoke the intercession and prayers of the Saints in heaven, in no other way than they invoke the intercession of their fellow Christians here upon earth. If the former is blasphemous and idolatrous, the latter is blasphemous and idolatrous also. If the latter is innocent and pious, the former is innocent and pious also. In further proof of this being the unfeigned belief of Catholics on the subject in question, I cited an Anathema from one of our most popular works of controversy, in repeating which, I averred, that every Catholic in the Kingdom will at all times readily join me. This says: "Cursed is he who believes the Saints to be his Redeemers, who prays to them as such, or who gives to them the honour that belongs to God."+ By way of shewing from Scripture that God permits and encourages us to invoke the prayers of his chosen servants, in addition to our own prayers, I cited Jacob's entreating and obtaining the blessing of the Angel with whom he mystically strove; his calling upon his own Angel to bless Joseph's two sons,§ and God's command to Job's unfaithful friends, to engage that holy Patriarch to pray for them,

• End of Controv. Letter xxxiii. p. 17.

+ Papist Mis-represented and Represented by The Rev. I. Gother, abridged by Bishop Challoner.

the Almighty declaring: His face I will accept, that your folly be not imputed to you.*

Such, but in greater detail, were the arguments with which I repelled the less injurious charges of Dr. Porteus, against the Catholic doctrine and practice of praying to the Saints; which, in case they are conclusive, the Vicar's weightier charges of Blasphemy and Idolatry against it must be foul and irreligious calumnies: on the other hand, if they are not conclusive, it was evidently his business to prove this, by shewing that I had not given a true exposition of the Catholic doctrine, or that this doctrine, even thus explained, is still blasphemous and idolatrous. Instead, however, of attempting any thing of this nature, he flies off, at the beginning of his chapter, to a point of quite a secondary nature, and which no way affects the one that he professes, in the title of his chapter to prove. In fact, Sir, if the Council of Trent, instead of leaving the faithful, as I shewed to be the case, to their own devotion in this matter, had commanded them, under pain of Anathema, to pray to the Saints every day of their lives, this would not help him forward in his undertaking of demonstrating that the practice itself is Blasphemous and Idolatrous. In the mean time, the Council speaks for itself, where, instead of declaring that it is necessary to invoke the prayers of the

* Job, xlii. 8.

Saints, it confines itself to saying that it is good and profitable so to do. But let us hear the Vicar out on this his favourite topic. His words are these: "Invocation is said to be more, than simply good and profitable; it is profitable, according to Dr. M.'s gloss, to have recourse to their prayers, help, and assistance, and it is further profitable to obtain favours from God, through his Son Jesus Christ; that is, the Invocation of Saints is profitable to bring about man's salvation! Now if this be not making it an article of faith, and a positive law of the Church, 1 cannot see what an Article of Faith means."* In reading over a second time attentively this chaos of words, the only sense I can extract from them is this: that, Dr. M. having asserted that the Invocation of Saints is profitable to bring about man's salvation, he thereby makes it an article of Faith (which is downright nonsense), and likewise that it is a positive law of the Church, which is clearly false. Thus, for example, I say that, subscribing money to Middlesex Hospital is profitable to salvation, but in saying this I do not create an article of faith, nor do I lay down a positive law of the Church! The Vicar proceeds in his vain attempt to throw a mist round the transparent Decree of the Council, and of the enlarged Catechism for Pastors: their language is clear: his is unintelligible. Speaking

* Reply, p. 300.