With regard to the condemnatory clauses of this decree, I would for myself observe, that I should never have engaged in preparing this volume, had I not believed, “that it was neither good nor profitable to invoke the saints, or to fly to their prayers, their assistance, and succour.”  I am bound, with this decree {233} before me, to pronounce, that it is a vain thing to offer supplications, either by the voice or in the mind, to the saints, even if they be reigning in heaven; and that it is also in vain for Christians to frequent the shrines of the saints for the purpose of obtaining their succour.

I am, moreover, under a deep conviction, that the invocation of them is both at variance with the word of God, and contrary to the honour of the one Mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ.

On this last point, indeed, I am aware of an anxious desire prevailing on the part of many Roman Catholics, to establish a distinction between a mediation of Redemption, and a mediation of Intercession:  and thus by limiting the mediation of the saints and angels to intercession, and reserving the mediation of redemption to Christ only, to avoid the setting up of another to share the office of Mediator with Him, who is so solemnly declared in Scripture to be the one Mediator between God and man.  But this distinction has no foundation in the revealed will of God; on the contrary, it is directly at variance with the words and with the spirit of many portions of the sacred volume.  There we find the two offices of redemption and mediation joined together in Christ.  “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins.” [1 John ii. 1, 2.  Heb. ix. 12. vii. 25.] In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the same Saviour who is declared “by his own blood to have obtained eternal redemption,” is announced also as the Mediator of Intercession.  “Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost who come unto God through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.”  The {234} redemption wrought by Christ, and the intercession still made in our behalf by Christ, are both equally declared to us by the most sure warrant of Holy Scripture; of any other intercession by saints in glory, by angels, or Virgin, to be sought by our suppliant invocations to them, the covenant of God speaks not.

It may be observed, that the enactment of this decree by the Council of Trent, has been chiefly lamented by some persons on the ground of its presenting the most formidable barrier against any reconciliation between the Church of Rome, and those who hold the unlawfulness of the invocation of saints.  Indeed persons of erudition, judgment, piety, and charity, in communion with Rome, have not been wanting to express openly their regret, that decrees so positive, peremptory, and exclusive, should have been adopted.  They would have been better satisfied with the terms of communion in the Church to which they still adhered,