XXII. argument that he was neither made nor created; since they ART. did not pray to angels, or any other creatures; from whence they concluded that Christ was God. These are convincing proofs of the doctrine of the three first, and of a good part of the fourth century. Serm. Ar. It is true, as was confessed upon the former head, they began with martyrs in the end of the fourth century. They fancied they heard those that called to them; and upon that it was no wonder if they invocated them, and so private prayers to them began. But, as appears both by the Constitutions, and several of the writers of that time, the public offices were yet preserved pure. St. Austin says plainly, The Aug.con. Gentiles built temples, raised altars, ordained priests, and c. 29. con. offered sacrifices to their gods: but we do not erect temples to Max. 1.13. our martyrs, as if they were gods; but memories as to dead c. 4. men, whose spirits live with God; nor do we erect altars, upon Civ. Dei, Aug. de which we sacrifice to martyrs; but to one God only do we offer, 1.22. c. 10. to the God of martyrs, and our God; at which sacrifice they 1.8. c. 27. are named in their place and order, as men of God, who in confessing him have overcome the world; but they are not invocated by the priest that sacrifices. It seems the form of praying for the saints mentioned in the Constitutions, was not used in the churches of Afric in St. Austin's time: he says very positively, that they did not pray for them, but did praise God for them: and he says in express words, Let not Aug.de the worship of dead men be any part of our religion; they c. 55. ought so to be honoured, that we may imitate them, but not worshipped. God was indeed prayed to, in the fifth century, to hear the intercession of the saints and martyrs; but there is a great difference between praying to God to favour us on their account, and praying immediately to them to hear us. The praying to them imports either their being every where, or their knowing all things; and as it is a blasphemous piece of idolatry to ascribe that to them without a divine communication; so it is a great presumption in any man to fancy that they may be prayed to, and to build so many parts of worship upon it, barely upon some probabilities and inferences, without an express revelation about it. For the saints may be perfectly happy in the enjoyment of God without seeing all things in him; nor have we any reason to carry that further than the scripture has done. But as the invocating of martyrs grew from a calling to them at their memories, to a general calling to them in all places; so from the invocating martyrs, they went on to pray to other saints; yet that was at first ventured on doubtfully, and only in funeral orations; where an address to the dead person to pray for those that were then honouring his memory, might, perhaps, come in as a figure of pompous eloquence; in which Nazianzen, one of the first that uses it, did often give himself a very great compass; yet he and others vera Rel. ART. soften such figures with this, If there is any sense or knowXXII. ledge of what we do below. From prayers to God to receive the intercessions of martyrs and saints, it came in later ages to be usual to have litanies to them, and to pray immediately to them; but at first this was only a desire to them to pray for those who did thus invocate them, Ora pro nobis. But so impossible is it to restrain superstition, when it has once got head, and has prevailed, that in conclusion all things that were asked either of God or Christ, came to be asked from the saints in the same humility both of gesture and expression; in which if there was any difference made, it seemed to be rather on the side of the blessed Virgin and the saints, as appears by the ten Ave's for one Pater, and that humble prostration in which all fall down every day to worship her: the prayer used constantly to her, Maria, Mater gratiæ, Mater misericordiæ, tu nos ab hoste protege, et hora mortis suscipe, is an immediate acknowledgment of her as the giver of these things; such are, Solve vincla reis, profer lumen cæcis; with many others of that nature. The collection of these swells to a huge bulk, Jure Matris impera Redemptori, is an allowed address to her; not to mention an infinity of most scandalous ones, that are not only tolerated, but encouraged, in that church.* Altars are consecrated to her honour, and to the honour of other saints; but which is more, the sacrifice of the mass is offered up to her honour, and to the honour of the saints: and in the form of absolution, the pardon of sins, the increase of grace, and eternal life, are prayed for to the penitent by the virtue of the passion of Christ, and the merits of the blessed Virgin, and of all the saints. The pardon of sins and eternal life are also prayed for from angels, Angelorum concio sacra, archangelorum turma inclyta, nostra diluant jam peccata, præstando supernam We pass over the many proofs of this idolatry to be found in the writings of papal divines; and extract two from works in which we are sure to find the most moderate statement of their views on this subject. The first, from the catechism of the council of Trent, is as follows: Jure autem sancta Dei ecclesia huic gratiarum actioni preces etiam et implorationem sanctissimæ Dei Matris adjunxit, qua pie atque suppliciter ad eam confugere. mus, ut nobis peccatoribus sua intercessione conciliaret Deum, bonaque tum ad hanc, tum ad æternam vitam necessaria impetraret. Ergo nos exules, filii Evæ, qui hanc lacrymarum vallem incolimus, assidue misericordiæ matrem, ac fidelis populi advocatam invocare debemus, ut oret pro nobis peccatoribus, ab eaque hac prece opem et auxilium implorare, cujus et præstantissima merita apud Deum esse, et summam voluntatem juvandi humanum genus, nemo, nisi impie et nefarie, dubitare potest.' Cat. ad Paroch. De oratione, Pro quibus orandum sit. The other is given according to the translation in the Laity's Directory (a popish publication) for the year 1833. We select for the date of our letter this most joyful day on which we celebrate the solemn festival of the most blessed Virgin's triumphant assumption into heaven, that she who has been through every great calamity our patroness and protectress, may watch over us writing to you, and lead our mind by her heavenly influence to those counsels which may prove most salutary to Christ's flock. But that all may have a successful and happy issue, let us raise our eyes to the most blessed Virgin Mary, who alone destroys heresies, who is our greatest hope, yea, the entire ground of our hope.' Encyclical Letter of pope Gregory XVI. (the present pontiff.)—[ ED.] cœli gloriam. Many strains of this kind are to be found in ART. the hymns and other public offices of that church: and XXII. though in the late corrections of their offices, some of the more scandalous are left out, yet those here cited, with a great many more to the same purpose, are still preserved. And the council of Trent did plainly intend to connive at all these things, for they did not restrain the invocation of saints, only to be an address to them to pray for us, which is the common disguise with which they study to cover this matter: but by the decree of the council, the flying to their help and assistance, as well as to their intercession, is encouraged; which shews that the council would not limit this part of their devotion to a bare Ora pro nobis; that might have seemed flat and low, and so it might have discouraged it; therefore they made use of words that will go as far as superstition can carry them. So that if the invocating them, if the making vows to them, the dedicating themselves to them; if the flying to them in all distresses, in the same acts, and in the same words, that the scriptures teach us to fly to God with; and if all the studied honours of processions and other pompous rites towards their images, that are invented to do them honour; if, I say, all this does amount to idolatry, then we are sure they are guilty of it; since they honour the crea- Rom. i. 25. ture not only besides, but (in the full extent of that phrase) more than the Creator. And now let us see what is the foundation of all these devotions, against which we bring arguments, that, to speak modestly of them, are certainly such that there should be matters of great weight in the other scale to balance them. Nothing is pretended from scripture, nor from any thing that is genuine, for above three hundred and fifty years after Christ. In a word, the practice of the church, since the end of the fourth century, and the authority of tradition, of popes and councils, must bear this burden. These are consequences that do not much affect us; for though we pay great respect to many great men that flourished in the fourth and fifth centuries, yet we cannot compare that age with the three that went before it. Those great men give us a sad account of the corruptions of that time, not only among the laity, but the clergy; and their being so flexible in matters of faith, as they appeared to be in the whole course of the Arian controversy, gives us very just reason to suspect the practices of that age, in which the protection and encouragements that the church received from the first Christian emperors, were not improved to the best advantage. The justest abatement that we can offer for this corruption, which is too manifest to be either denied or justified, is this, they were then engaged with the heathens, and were much set on bringing them over to the Christian religion. In order to that it was very natural for them to think of all methods A RT. possible to accommodate Christianity to their taste. XXII. 1 Cor. ix. 20, 21, 22. Epiph. Hæres. 79. It was, perhaps, observed how far the apostles complied with the Jews, that they might gain them. St. Paul had said, that to 'the Jews he became a Jew;' and 'to them that were without law,' that is, the Gentiles, as one without law; that by all means he might gain some. They might think that if the Jews, who had abused the light of a revealed religion, who had rejected and crucified the Messias, and persecuted his followers, and had in all respects corrupted both their doctrine and their morals, were waited on and complied with, in the observance of that very law which was abrogated by the death of Christ, but was still insisted on by them as of perpetual obligation; and yet that after the apostles had made a solemn decision in the matter, they continued to conform themselves to that law; all this might be applied with some advantages to this matter. The Gentiles had nothing but the light of nature to govern them; they might seem willing to become Christians, but they still despised the nakedness and simplicity of that religion. And it is reasonable enough to think that the emperors and other great men might in a political view, considering the vast strength of heathenism, press the bishops of those times to use all imaginable ways to adorn Christianity with such an exterior form of worship, as might be most acceptable to them, and might most probably bring them over to it. The Christians had long felt the weight of persecution from them, and were, no doubt, much frightened with the danger of a relapse in Julian's time. It is natural to all men to desire to be safe, and to weaken the numbers of their implacable enemies. In that state of things we do plainly see they began to comply in lesser matters: for whereas in the first ages the Christians were often reproached with this, that they had no temples, altars, sacrifices, nor priests, they changed their dialect in all those points: so we have reason to believe that this was carried further. The vulgar are more easily wrought upon in greater points of speculation, than in some small ritual matters; because they do not understand the one, and so are not much concerned about it: but the other is more sensible, and lies within their compass. We find some in Palestine kept images in their houses, as Eusebius tells us; others began in Spain to light candles by daylight, and to paint the walls of their churches and though these things were condemned by the council of Elliberis; yet we see by what St. Jerome has cited out of Vigilantius, that the spirit of superstition did work strongly among them: we hear of none that writ against those abuses besides Vigilantius; yet Jerome tells us, that many bishops were of the same mind with him, with whom he is so angry as to doubt, whether they deserved to be called bishops. Most of these abuses had also specious beginnings, and went on insensibly where they made greater steps, we find an opposition to them. Epiphanius is very severe upon the Colly : ridians, for their worshipping the blessed Virgin. And though ART. they did it by offering up a cake to her, yet if any will read XXII all that he says against that superstition, they will clearly see, that no prayers were then offered up to her by the orthodox; and that he rejects the thought of it with indignation. But the respect paid the martyrs, and the opinion that they were still hovering about their tombs, might make the calling to them for their prayers, seem to be like one man's desiring the prayers of other good men; and when a thing of this kind Of all this we see a paris once begun, it naturally goes on. argument, on this purpose ticular account in a discourse writ of curing the affections and inclinations of the Greeks, by Theodoret, who may be justly reckoned among the greatest Theod. de men of antiquity, and in it he insists upon this particular of proposing to them the saints and martyrs, instead of their gods. de Martyr. And there is no doubt to be made, but that they found the effects of this compliance; many heathens were every day coming over to the Christian religion. And it might then perhaps be intended to lay those aside, when the heathens were once brought over. on To all which this must be added, that the good men of that time had not the spirit of prophecy, and could not foresee what progress this might make, and to what an excess it might grow; they had nothing of that kind in their view: so that between charity and policy, between a desire to bring over multitudes to their faith, and an inclination to secure themselves, it is not at all to be wondered at, by any who considers all the circumstances of those ages, that these corruptions should have got into the church, and much less, having once got in, they should have gone on so fast, and be carried so far. Thus I have offered all the considerations that arise from the state of things at that time, to shew how far we do still preserve the respect due to the fathers of those ages, even when we confess that they were men, and that something of human nature appeared in this piece of their conduct. This can be made no argument for later ages, who having no heathens among them, are under no temptations to comply with any of the parts of heathenism, to gain them. And now that the abuse of these matters is become so scandalous, and has spread itself so far, how much soever we may excuse those ages, in which we discern the first beginnings, and as it were the small heads, of that which has since overflowed Christendom; yet we can by no means bear even with those beginnings, which have had such dismal effects; and therefore we have reduced the worship of God to the simplicity of the scripture times, and of the first three centuries: and for the fourth, we reverence it so much on other accounts, that for the sake of these we are unwilling to reflect too much on this. cur. Gr. affect. 1. 8. |