But, if such a man as Bonaventura, one of the most learned and celebrated men of his age, could be tempted by the views cherished by the Church of Rome, to indulge in such language, what can be fairly expected of the large mass of persons who find that language published to the world with the highest sanction which their religion can give, as the work of a man whom the Almighty declared when on earth, by miracles, to be a chosen vessel, and to be under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; and of whom they are taught by the infallible testimony[134] of his canonization, that he is now reigning with Christ in heaven, and is himself the lawful and appointed object of religious invocation.  I profess to you that I see no way by which Christians can hold and encourage this doctrine of the Invocation of Saints, without at the same time countenancing and cherishing what, were I to join in such invocation, would stain my soul with the guilt of idolatry.  If the doctrine were confessedly Scriptural, come what would come, our duty would be to maintain it at all hazards, {366} and to brave every danger rather than from fear of consequences to renounce what we believe to have come from God; securing the doctrine at all events, and then putting forth our very best to guard against its perversion and abuse.  But surely, it well becomes our brethren of the Church of Rome, to examine with most rigid and unsparing scrutiny into the very foundation of such a doctrine as this; a doctrine which in its mildest and most guarded form is considered by a very large number of their fellow Christians, as a dishonouring of God and of his Son, our Saviour; and which in its excess, an excess witnessed in the books of learned and sainted authors, and in the every day practice of worshippers, seems to be in no wise distinguishable from the practices of acknowledged polytheism, and pagan worship.  If that foundation, after honest and persevering examination, approves itself as based sure and deep on the word of God, and the faith and practice of the apostles and the Church founded by them from the first, I have not another word to say, beyond a fervent prayer that the God in whom we trust would pour the bright beams of his Gospel abundantly into the hearts of all who receive that Gospel as the word of life.  But were they my dying words to my dearest friend who had espoused that doctrine, I would say to him, Look well yourself to the foundation, because I am, after long examination, convinced, beyond a shadow of doubt that the doctrine and practice of the Invocation of Saints and Angels is as contrary to the doctrine and practice of the primitive Church, as it is in direct opposition to the express words of Scripture, and totally abhorrent from the spirit which pervades the whole of the Old, and the whole of the New Testament of God’s eternal truth.

    [Footnote 134:  Bellarmin, in his Church Triumphant, maintains
    that in the act of Canonization, the Church is infallible.  Vol.
    ii. p. 871.] {367}