More than two centuries after his death, his claims to canonization were urged upon Sixtus the Fourth; and that Pope raised him to the dignity of saint; the diploma of his canonization bearing date 18 kalends of May, 1482, the eleventh year of that pope’s reign.

Before a saint is canonized by the Pope, it is usually required, that miracles wrought by him, or upon him, or at his tomb, be proved to the satisfaction of the Roman court[130].  We need not dwell on the nature of an inquiry into a matter-of-fact, alleged to have been done by an individual two hundred years before; and whose memory is said to have lain buried with his corpse.  Among the miracles specified, it is recorded, that on one occasion, when he was filled with solemn awe and fear at the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, God, by an angel, took a particle of the consecrated host from the hands of the priest, and gently placed it in the holy man’s mouth.  But, with these transactions, I am not anxious to interfere, except so far as to ascertain the degree of authority with which any pious Roman Catholic must be induced to invest Bonaventura as a teacher and instructor in the doctrines of Christianity, authorized and appointed by his Church.  The case stands thus:—­Pope Sixtus IV. states in his {356} diploma, that the proctor of the order of Minors, proved by a dissertation on the passage of St. John, “There are three that bear record in heaven,” that the blessed Trinity had borne testimony to the fact of Bonaventura being a saint in heaven:  the Father proving it by the attested miracles; the Son, in the WISDOM OF HIS DOCTRINE; the Holy Spirit, by the goodness of his life.  The pontiff then adds, in his own words, “He so wrote on divine subjects, THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT SEEMS TO HAVE SPOKEN IN HIM.” [Page 831.  “Ea de divinis rebus scripsit, ut in eo Spiritus Sanctus locutus videatur.”] A testimony referred to by Pope Sixtus the Fifth.

    [Footnote 130:  See the canonization of St. Bonaventura in the
    Acta Sanctorum.]

This latter pontiff was crowned May 1, 1585, more than a century after the canonization of Bonaventura, and more than three centuries after his death.  By his order, the works of Bonaventura were “most carefully emendated.”  The decretal letters, A.D. 1588, pronounced him to be an acknowledged doctor of Holy Church, directing his authority to be cited and employed in all places of education, and in all ecclesiastical discussions and studies.  The same act offers plenary indulgence to all who assist at the mass on his feast, in certain specified places, with other minor immunities on the conditions annexed. [Page 837.]

In these documents Bonaventura[131] is called the Seraphic Doctor; and I repeat my doubt, whether it is possible for any human authority to give a more full, entire, and unreserved sanction to the works of any human being than the Church of Rome has given to {357} the writings of Bonaventura.  And what do those works present to us, on the subject of the Invocation and worship of the Virgin Mary?