O God, who hast granted the rewards of eternal blessedness[96]
    to the soul of thy servant Gregory, mercifully grant that we who
    are pressed down by the weight of our sins, may, by his prayers
   with Thee, be raised up.  V. 480.

[Footnote 96:  I can never read this, and such passages as this, without asking myself, can such an assertion be in accordance with the inspired teaching?—­“Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts:  and then shall every man have praise of God.”  I Cor. iv. 5.]

IV.  The next form of prayer to which I would invite your serious attention, is one from which my judgment and my feelings revolt far more decidedly even than from the last-mentioned; and I have the most clear denouncement of my conscience, that by offering it I should do a wrong to my Saviour, and ungratefully disparage his inestimable merits, and the full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice and satisfaction of his omnipotent {251} atonement:  I mean those prayers, still addressed to God, which supplicate that our present and future good may be advanced by the merits of departed mortals, that by their merits our sins may be forgiven, and our salvation secured; that by their merits our souls may be made fit for celestial joys, and be finally admitted into heaven.

Of these prayers the Roman Breviary contains a great variety of examples, some exceeding others very much in their apparent forgetfulness and disregard of the merits of the only Saviour, and consequently far more shocking to the reason and affections of us who hold it a point of conscience to make the merits of Christ alone, all in all, exclusive of any other to be joined with them, the only ground of our acceptance with God.

We find an example of this prayer in the collect on the day of St. Saturnine.  “O God, who grantest us to enjoy the birth-day of the blessed Saturnine, thy martyr, grant that we may be aided by his merits, through the Lord.” [Ejus nos tribue meritis adjuvari per Dominum.  A. 544.]

Another example, in which the supplicants plead for deliverance from hell, to be obtained by the merits and prayers of the saint together, is the Collect for December 6th, the day of St. Nicolas.

“O God, who didst adorn the blessed Pontiff Nicolas with unnumbered miracles, grant, we beseech Thee, that by his merits and prayers we may be set free from the fires of hell, through,” &c. [Ut ejus meritis et precibus a gehennae incendiis liberemur.  H. 436.]