Hence they believed that he was praying with them as well as for them; that he heard their eulogy on his merits, and was pleased with the honours paid to his memory hence they felt sure of his good-will towards them, and his ability, as when on earth, to promote their welfare. Hence they proceeded, by a fatal step, first, to implore him to give them bodily relief from some present sufferings; and then invoking him to plead their cause with God, and to intercede for the supply of their spiritual wants, and the ultimate salvation of their souls; and, lastly, they prayed to him generally as himself the dispenser of temporal and spiritual blessings.

The following then is the order in which (as it has appeared to me) the innovations in Christian worship took place, being chiefly introduced at the annual celebrations of the martyrs:

1st. In the first ages confession and prayer and praise were offered to the Supreme Being alone, and that for the sake of his Son our only Saviour and Advocate: when mention was made of saint or martyr, it was to thank God for the graces bestowed on his departed holy ones when on earth, and to pray to God for grace that we might follow their good examples, and attain, through Christ, to the same end and crown of our earthly struggles. This act of worship was usually accompanied by a homily setting forth the Christian excellencies of the saint, and encouraging the survivors so to follow him, as he followed Christ.

2nd. The second stage seems to have been a prayer to Almighty God, that he would suffer the supplications and intercessions1 of angels and saints to prevail

The Greek word peoßeía, " embassy," employed on such occasions, is still used in some eastern Churches in the same sense.

with him, and bring down a blessing on their fellowpetitioners on earth; the idea having spread among enthusiastic worshippers, as I have already observed, that the spirits of the saints were suffered to be present around their tombs, and to join with the faithful in their addresses to the throne of grace.

3rd. The third stage seems to have owed its origin to orators constantly dwelling upon the excellencies of the saints in the panegyrics delivered over their remains, representing their constancy and Christian virtues as superhuman and divine, and as having conferred lasting benefits on the Church. By these benefits at first was meant the comfort and encouragement of their good example, and the honour procured to the religion of the cross by their bearing witness to its truth even unto death; but in process of time the habit grew of attaching a sort of mysterious efficacy to their merits; hence this third gradation in religious worship, namely, prayers to God that "he would hear his suppliants, and grant their requests for the sake of his martyred servant, and by the efficacy of his merits.”

4th. Hitherto, unauthorized and objectionable as the two last forms of prayer are, still the petitions in each case were directed to God alone. The next step

departed lamentably from that principle of worship, and the petitioners addressed their requests to angels and sainted men in heaven; at first, however, confining their petitions to the asking for their prayers and intercessions with Almighty God.

5th. The last stage in this progressive degeneracy of Christian worship was to petition the saints and angels, directly and immediately themselves, at first for the temporal, and afterwards for the spiritual benefits which the petitioners desired to obtain from heaven.

For it

is very curious, but not more curious than evident, that the worshippers seem for some time to have petitioned their saints for temporal and bodily benefits, before they proceeded to ask for spiritual blessings at their hands, or by their prayers'.

Of these several gradations and stages we find traces in the records of Christian antiquity, after superstition and corruption had spread through Christian worship, and leavened the whole. Of all of them we have lamentable instances in the present ritual of the Church of Rome, as we shall see somewhat at large when we reach that division of our inquiry. But from the beginning it was not so. In the earliest ages we find only the first of these forms of worship exemplified, and it is the only form now retained in the Anglican Ritual; of which, among other examples, the following passage in the prayer for Christ's Church militant on earth supplies a beautiful specimen: "We bless thy holy name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear; beseeching thee to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom: Grant this, O Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen."

We now proceed to examine the invaluable remains of Christian antiquity, not for the purpose of testing the accuracy of the above catalogue of gradations seriatim and in order of time; but to satisfy ourselves on the question, whether the invocation of saints and angels prevailed from the first in the Christian Church; or whether it was an innovation introduced after pagan superstition had begun to mingle its poisonous corruptions with the pure worship of

1 See Basil. Orat. in Mamanta Martyrem.

Almighty God. And here, I conceive, few persons will be disposed to doubt, that if the primitive believers were taught by the Apostles to address the saints reigning in heaven and the holy angels, and the Virgin Mother of our Lord with adoration and prayers, the earliest Christian records must have contained clear and indisputable references to the fact, and that undesigned allusions to the custom would inevitably be found offering themselves to our notice here and there. I do not mean that we should expect to meet with full and explicit statements either of the doctrine or the practice of the primitive Church in this particular; much less such apologies and elaborate defences of the practice as abound to the overflow in later times. But, what is more satisfactory in proof of the general and established prevalence of any opinions or customs, we should surely find expressions incidentally occurring, which implied an habitual familiarity with such opinions or customs. In every relic, for example, of primitive antiquity, from the very earliest of all, such expressions are constantly meeting us which involve the doctrine of the ever-blessed Trinity, the atoning sacrifice of Christ's death, the influences of the Holy Spirit; habitual prayer and praise offered to the Saviour of the world, as very and eternal God; the holy Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper; with other tenets and practices of the Apostolic Church. It is impossible to study the remains of Christian antiquity without being assured beyond the reach of doubt, that such were the doctrines and practice of the universal Church from the days of the Apostles. Is the invocation of saints and angels and the blessed Virgin to be made an exception to this rule? Can it stand this test? The great anxiety and labour of Roman Catholic

writers to press the authors of every age to bear witness on their side in this behalf, proves that in their judgment no such exception is admissible. It is clearly beyond gainsaying that if the present doctrine of the Church of Rome, with respect to the worship of angels and saints, as propounded by the Council of Trent; and if her present practice as set forth in her authorized liturgies and devotional services, and professed by her popes, bishops, clergy, and people, had been the doctrine and practice of the primitive Church, we should have found evident and indisputable traces of it in the earliest works of primitive antiquity, in the earliest liturgies, and in the forms of prayer and exhortations to prayer with which those works abound. It by no means follows that if some such allusions were partially discoverable, therefore the doctrines and practice must forthwith be pronounced to be apostolical; but if no such traces can be found, their absence bears witness that neither did those doctrines nor that practice exist. If, for example, through the remains of the first three centuries we could have discovered no trace of the doctrine or practice of holy Baptism and the Eucharist, we must have concluded that the doctrine and the practice were the offspring of later years. But when we read everywhere, in those remains, exhortations to approach those holy mysteries with a pure heart and faith unfeigned; when we find rules prescribed for the more orderly administration of the rites; in a word, when we perceive throughout as familiar references to these ordinances as could be now made by Catholics either of Rome or of England, while this would not of itself necessarily prove their divine origin, we should with equal plausibility question the existence of Jerusalem or Constantinople, or of David or Constantine, as we