and the wish expressed here by Eusebius, are widely indeed removed from the act of suppliantly invoking the saints departed, and resorting to them with entreaties for their prayers and intercessions in our behalf.  These two things, although often confounded, are far from being equivalent; and by all who would investigate with fairness the subject of our inquiry, they must be carefully kept distinct.  The invocation of saints being the single point in question, our business is to ascertain, not what opinions Eusebius may have {407} entertained as to the condition, and power, and offices of the saints departed, but whether he invoked them; whether he had recourse to them with supplications for their prayers, or aid and succour.  And keeping this closely in view, even if we admit this passage to be genuine, and interpret it as those who have cited it wish it to be interpreted, we find in it no authority for the invocation of saints.  A Christian would be no more countenanced by this language of Eusebius in suppliantly invoking departed saints, than he would in praying to the angels for their help and mediation be countenanced by the terms of the prayer in regard to them, addressed by the Anglican Church to God, “O everlasting God, who hast ordained and constituted the services of angels and men in a wonderful order; Mercifully grant, that as thy holy angels alway do Thee service in heaven, so by THY appointment they may succour and defend us on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.”  Whoever petitions them, makes them Gods—­Deos qui rogat ille facit.

But whilst, for the sake of the argument, I have admitted this passage to be genuine, and correctly translated, and have shown that whether genuine or not, and even if it be thus correctly translated, it affects not in the least the issue of our inquiry, I do not feel at liberty to withhold the acknowledgment of my persuasion that in this concession I grant too much.  For, in the first place, I am assured, that if the passage came from the pen of Eusebius, no one is justified in confining the desire and wish contained in it to the intercessions and prayers of the saints in heaven; and, secondly, I see reasons for inferring that the last clause was framed and attached to this work, not by Eusebius himself, but by some editor or scribe.

In support of my first persuasion, I would observe that the very language of the writer of these comments on Isaiah and the Psalms precludes us from regarding the Saints departed as exclusively constituting those “holy ones” by whose intercessions and prayers he expresses his desire that our spiritual welfare may be promoted.  In this very comment on Isaiah (ch. vi. 2. p. 376), when he is speaking of the heavenly inhabitants, and illustrates his views by God’s dealings towards the children of men in this world, he employs this expression:  “For as among men the Saints of God partake of more excellent graces.”  On the 67th (68th) Ps. v. 34, having interpreted the words, “his strength