We have now examined those works which are regarded by us all, whether of the Roman or Anglican Church, as the remains of apostolical fathers,—Christians who, at the very lowest calculation, lived close upon the Apostles' time, and who, according to the firm conviction of many, had all of them conversed with the Apostles, and heard the word of truth from their mouths. I do from my heart rejoice with you, that these holy men bear direct, clear, and irrefragable testimony to those fundamental truths which the Church of Rome and the Church of England both hold inviolate—the doctrine of the ever-blessed Trinity, with its essential and inseparable concomitants, the atonement by the blood of a crucified Redeemer, and the vivifying and sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit.
Supposing for a moment no trace of such fundamental doctrines could be discovered in these writings, would not the absence of such vestige have been urged by those who differ from us, as a strong argument that the doctrine of the ever-blessed Trinity was an innovation of a later date; and would not such an argument have been urged with reason? How, in plain honesty, can we avoid coming to the same conclusion on the subject of the invocation of saints? If the doctrine and the practice of praying to saints, or to angels, for their succour, or even their intercession, had been known and recognised, and approved and acted upon by the Apostles, and those who were the very disciples of the Apostles, not only deriving the truth from their written works, but having heard it from their own living tongue,—in the nature of things would not some plain, palpable, intelligible, and unequivocal indications of it have appeared in such writings as these; writings in which much is said of prayer, of intercessory prayer, of the one object of prayer, of the subjects of prayer, of the nature of prayer, the time and place of prayer, the spirit in which we are to offer prayer, and the persons for whom we ought to pray? Does it accord with common sense, and common experience, with what we should expect in other cases, with the analogy of history, and the analogy of faith, that we should find a profound and total silence on the subject of any prayer or invocation to saints and angels, if prayer or invocation of saints and angels had been recognised, approved, and practised by the primitive Church?
At the risk of repetition, or surplusage, I would beg to call your attention to one point in this argument. I am far from saying that no practice is apostolical which cannot be proved from the writings of these apostolical fathers: that would be a fallacy of an opposite kind. I ground my inference specifically and directly on the fact, that these writers are full, and copious, and explicit, and cogent on the nature and duty of prayer and supplications, as well for public as for private blessings; and of intercessions by one Christian for another, and for the whole race of mankind no less than for mercy on himself; and yet though openings of every kind palpably offered themselves for a natural introduction of the subject, there is in no one single instance any reference or allusion to the invocation of saint or angel, as a practice either approved or even known.
When indeed I call to mind the general tendency of the natural man to multiply to himself the objects of religious worship, and to create, by the help of superstition, and the delusive workings of the imagination, a variety of unearthly beings whose wrath he must appease, or whose favour he may conciliate; when I reflect how great is the temptation in unenlightened or fraudulent teachers to accommodate the dictates of truth to the prejudices and desires of those whom they instruct, my wonder is rather that Christianity was so long preserved pure and uncontaminated in this respect, than that corruptions should gradually and stealthily have mingled themselves with the simplicity of Gospel worship. That tendency is plainly evinced by the history of every nation under heaven: Greek and Barbarian, Egyptian and Scythian, would have their gods many, and their lords many. From one they would look for one good; on another they would depend for a different benefit, in mind, body, and estate. Some were of the highest grade, and to be worshipped with supreme honours; others were of a lower rank, to whom an inferior homage was addressed; whilst a third class held a sort of middle place, and were approached with reverence as much above the least, as it fell short of the greatest. In the heathen world you will find exact types of the dulia, the hyperdulia, and the latria, with which unhappily the practical theology of modern Christian Rome is burdened. Indeed, my wonder is, that under the Christian dispensation, when the household and local gods, the heathen's tutelary deities, and the genii, had been dislodged by the light of the Gospel, saints and angels had not at a much earlier period been forced by superstition to occupy their room.
We shall be led to refer to some passages in the earliest Christian writers, especially in Origen, which bear immediately on this point, representing in strong but true colours the futility of deeming a multitude of inferior divinities necessary for the dispensation of benefits throughout the universe, whose good offices we must secure by acts of attention and worship. I anticipate the circumstance in this place merely to show that the tendency of the human mind, clinging to a variety of preternatural protectors and benefactors, was among the obstacles with which the first preachers of the Gospel had to struggle. In the proper place I shall beg you to observe how hardly possible it would have been for those early Christian writers, to whom I have referred above, to express themselves in so strong, so sweeping, and so unqualified a manner, had the practice of applying by invocation to saints and angels then been prevalent among the disciples of the Cross.
We may, I believe, safely conclude, that in these primitive writings, which are called the works of the Apostolical Fathers, there is no intimation that the present belief and practice of the Church of Rome were received, or even known by Christians. The evidence is all the other way. Indeed, Bellarmin, though he appeals to these remains for other purposes, and boldly asserts that "all the fathers, Greek and Latin, with unanimous consent, sanction and teach the adoration of saints and angels," yet does not refer to a single passage in any one of these remains for establishing this point. He cites a clause from the spurious work strangely ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite, which was the forged production, as the learned are all agreed, of some centuries later; and he cites a pious sentiment of Ignatius, expressing his hope that by martyrdom he might go to Christ, and thence he infers that Ignatius believed in the immediate transfer of the soul from this life to glory and happiness in heaven, though Ignatius refers there distinctly to the resurrection. [Epist. ad Rom. c. iv. See above, p. 90.] But Bellarmin cites no passage whatever from these remains to countenance the doctrine and practice of the adoration of saints and angels.