*

matins, and their vespers, and their ave marias.‡" Ah! how plainly did these words reveal that the speaker's heart was not right with God. Better, far better were it, to be a sincere and earnest though misguided Papist, than an ignorant, slothful, heartless Protestant. Boast not of yours as a spiritual service, unless it is such in your own experience. If you render but an external worship, then as far as you are concerned, it might as well be the performance of a ceremonial pageant. Be not content, we entreat you, merely to attend a service that you are able to comprehend; but let the fact that you are so privileged, be to you an additional motive to pray with the spirit as well as with the understanding.

VII. AS TO ITS WORSHIP, IT IS AN IDOLATROUS

AND BLASPHEMOUS CHURCH.

The prayers of the Romanists are not all addressed to God. They have saints innumerable to whom they think it right to offer supplications. While Scripture teaches, "Thou

* Morning prayers.

+ Evening prayers.

Prayers to the Virgin.

shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve," Matt. iv. 10, all the members of the church of Rome devote themselves to some favourite patron; and, for preservation from every separate disease or calamity, may invoke the special assistance of a separate saint. They tell us, indeed, that they do not render to saints the same kind of worship they pay to God; they admit that the Divine Being alone is the fountain of every good gift, and maintain that they only entreat the saints to pray for them. Suppose it to be so; yet even on this view of the matter, how can we approve of the invocation of saints?

Is it necessary? The Romanists tell us we need a mediator, for that we are unworthy to approach God ourselves. True; and therefore we read that there is "one Mediator between God and men," even Christ Jesus, 1 Tim. ii. 5 But, say the Papists, Christ himself is the Son of God, and therefore we, as sinful men, are unfit even to present our petitions to him. while he is our Mediator to redeem us, we need saints as mediators to intercede for us. The text we have already adverted to meets this objection also; for it tells us that this Mediator

is "the man Christ Jesus," and it speaks of his mediatorship expressly as a warrant for our prayers, "I will therefore that men pray everywhere," 1 Tim. ii. 1-8. "We have not," says Paul elsewhere, "an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities;-let us therefore come" not to seek the intercession of saints, but "boldly unto the throne of grace," Heb. iv. 15, 16; x. 19-22. The want of such holy boldness is reproved by the same apostle, when he speaks of some who would beguile by "a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels," Col. ii. 18. To be too modest to take God at his word, to shrink back when he says, Draw near, is not humility, but unbelief. "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you," said the Saviour, John xvi. 23.

Further, Is the invocation of saints scriptural? We have many instances on record in which the prayers of good men yet on earth are requested; but none which intimate that departed saints offer intercession. In Jeremiah's time, indeed, the Lord said, “ Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people," xv. 1.

Here is evidently a mere supposition, founded on the former prevalence of Moses and Samuel as intercessors for the people: thus the idea is, Though Moses and Samuel were still on earth and pleading as they once did, they should not now prevail. If the passage proved anything to the point, it would best prove that they had not any longer power to intercede ; had they possessed it they would surely have exerted it, in which case the words would have been, Though Moses and Samuel are standing before me, etc. It is clear that Elijah looked forward to no such office after death as that of intercessor; for he said to Elisha, "Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee," 2 Kings ii. 9. Paul, too, could hardly have said to the Philippians, (i. 24,) for me "to abide in the flesh is more needful for you," if he had believed that he could be thus employed after his decease; with such an anticipation, his language would rather have resembled that of the Saviour, "It is expedient for you that I go away," for 'I will pray the Father, and he will send you down many more blessings than I can obtain for you while I am still in the world.' Not once do we read of

prayer

offered to any angel, or offered for man by an angel, except in the case of the angel of the covenant, who was Christ himself, Gen. xlviii. 16; Zech. i. 12. We read (Rev. v. 8) of the four living creatures and four-and-twenty elders before the throne, as having harps in their hands, and "golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints." But without going into the difficult question as to whether these symbolical beings denote those on earth or those in heaven, we take this simple ground; their song shows that they themselves were saints. With this key the passage becomes clear. The "harps" denoted their own praises, and the "vials full of odours" represented their own prayers. To Christ is reserved the honour of standing before the golden altar, and there offering with much incense "the prayers of ALL saints," Rev. viii. 3, 4.

Again, we ask, Is it possible to secure the intercessions of saints? The Romish church affirms it; but, if it were true, we should have to believe that departed spirits possess omniscience and omnipresence. Let petitions be addressed to one saint at the same moment by suppliants in Manchester, Madras, and