do. Hear the same Origen, lib. 8, p. 402, where to Celsus talking of those Spirits that preside over the affairs of men here below, who 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, p. 420, 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 di

rected 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, p. 56, alleged by Bellarmin, 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, Def. Fid. Nic. § 2, c. 4. § 8, where I have evidently proved that place of Justin to be so far from giving any countenance to the religious worship of Angels, that it makes directly against it. And the like may be easily shewn of the other allegations of Bellarmin out of the primitive Fathers.

To conclude: look into the most antient Liturgies, as particularly that described in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, and the Clementine Liturgy, contained in the book, intituled the Apostolical Constitutions ; and will not find in them one prayer you 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 Scrip

ture directs, and the Catholick 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. Bu tthis 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 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

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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. Vid. Luke, 23, 43, 2 Cor. 12, and 2, 3, 4, and Grot. in loca; 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 Reliques are to be worshipped. A strange definition of the Trent Fathers, es

pecially 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 reliques of Saints, and drawing them to the worship of them, only for gains 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 of true and approved "reliques, especially in these provinces, and many "of those which are made shew of, are too appa

rently liable to suspicion, and the frequenting and " veneration of them is of little service to true piety "and devotion, though of very much to supersti"tion or gain; it seems to me much more proper, "that all such ostentation of miracles were forborn, "and the people were invited to worship the true "reliques of Saints; that is, the examples of piety "and virtue they have left behind them for our imi"tation, as is recorded in what has been written either by them, or of them."

The next article of the Trent Creed, is this:"I most firmly assert, that the images of Christ, " and the ever Virgin Mother of God, and other "Saints, are to be had and retained, and that due "honour and veneration are to be given them." A doughty article indeed, worthy to be ushered in with a firmissimè assero! But is this really an article of the Catholick Christian Faith, without the belief whereof their is no salvation? What then is become again of the Catholick Church of the first three cen