of them to pray for us even as individuals is idolatry, or is repugnant to the word of God, and is opposed to the honour of the one Mediator of God and man, Jesus Christ; or that it is folly, by voice or mentally, to supplicate those who reign in heaven, hold impious sentiments.

“That the bodies also of the holy martyrs and others living with Christ, which were living members of Christ, and a temple of the Holy Ghost to be raised by Him to eternal life, and to be glorified, are to be worshipped by the faithful; by means of which many benefits are conferred on men by God; so that those who affirm that worship and honour are not due to the reliques of the saints, or that they and other sacred monuments are unprofitably honoured by the faithful; and that the shrines of the saints are frequented in vain for the purpose of obtaining their succour, are altogether to be condemned, as the Church has long ago condemned them, and now also condemns them.”

[Footnote 89:  The Latin, which will be found in the Appendix, is a transcript from a printed copy of the Acts of the Council of Trent, preserved in the British Museum, to which are annexed the autograph signatures of the secretaries (notarii), and their seals.]

An examination of this decree, in comparison with the form and language of other decrees of the same Council, forces the remark upon us, That the Council does not assert that the practice of invoking saints has any foundation in Holy Scripture.  The absence of all such declaration is the more striking and important, because in the very decree immediately preceding this, {232} which establishes Purgatory as a doctrine of the Church of Rome, the Council declares that doctrine to be drawn from the Holy Scriptures.  In the present instance the Council proceeds no further than to charge with impiety those who maintain the invocation of saints to be contrary to the word of God.  Many a doctrine or practice, not found in Scripture, may nevertheless be not contrary to the word of God; but here the Council abstains from affirming any thing whatever as to the scriptural origin of the doctrine and practice which it authoritatively enforces.  In this respect the framers of the decree acted with far more caution and wisdom than they had shown in wording the decree on Purgatory; and with far more caution and wisdom too than they exercised in this decree, when they affirmed that the doctrine of the invocation of saints was to be taught the people according to the usage of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, received from the primitive times of the Christian religion, and the consent of the holy fathers.  I have good hope that these pages have already proved beyond gainsaying, that the invocation of saints is a manifest departure from the usage of the Primitive Church, and contrary to the testimony of “the holy fathers.”  However, the fact of the Council not having professed to trace the doctrine, or its promulgation, to any authority of Holy Scripture, is of very serious import, and deserves to be well weighed in all its bearings.