Whatever may be the advantage of this latitude of interpretation, in one point of view it must be a subject of regret.  Complaints had long been made in Christendom, that other prayers were offered to the saints, besides those which petitioned only for their intercession; and if the Council of Trent had intended it to be a rule of universal application, that in whatever words the invocations of the saints might be couched, they should be taken to mean only requests for their prayers, it may be lamented, that no declaration to that effect was given.

The manner in which writers of the Church of Rome have attempted to reconcile the prayers actually offered in her ritual, with the principle of invoking the saints only for their prayers, is indeed most unsatisfactory.  Whilst to some minds the expedient to which those writers have had recourse carries with it the stamp of mental reservation, and spiritual subterfuge, and moral obliquity; others under the influence of the purest charity will regret in it the absence of that simplicity, and direct openness in word and deed, which we regard as characteristic of the religion of the Gospel; and will deprecate its adoption as tending, in many cases inevitably, to become a most dangerous snare to the conscience.  I will here refer only to the profession of that principle as made by Bellarmin.  Subsequent writers seem to have adopted his sentiments, and to have expressed themselves very much in his words. {237}

Bellarmin unreservedly asserts that Christians are to invoke the saints solely and exclusively for their prayers, and not for any benefits as from the saints themselves.  But then he seems to paralyse that declaration by this refinement:  “It must nevertheless be observed that we have not to do with words, but with the meaning of words; for as far as concerns the words, it is lawful to say, ’Saint Peter, have mercy on me!  Save me!  Open to me the entrance of heaven!’ So also, ’Give to me health of body, Give me patience, Give me fortitude!’ Whilst only we understand ’Save me, and have mercy upon me BY PRAYING for me:  Give me this and that, BY THY PRAYERS AND MERITS.’  For thus Gregory of Nazianzen, in his Oratio in Cyprianum; and the Universal Church, when in the hymn to the Virgin she says,

  Mary, Mother of Grace,
  Mother of Mercy,
  Do thou protect us from the enemy,
  And take us in the hour of death.

“And in that of the Apostles,

  ‘To whose command is subject’
  The health and weakness of all: 
  Heal us who are morally diseased;
  Restore us to virtue.

“And as the Apostle says of himself ‘that I might save some,’ [Rom. xi.] and ‘that he might save all,’ [I Cor. ix.] not as God, but Thy prayer and counsel.”