o blesse God for his Saints eminent grace while
they were liuing, and exceeding glorie now they be dead. Wherein our
Church ascribes not any diuine worship to the Saints, but all due praise
to the sanctifier: in celebrating their memorie (saith _Augustine_) we
neither adore their honour, nor implore their helpe: but (according to
the tenour of our text) wee praise him alone, [t]who made them both men
and martyrs. In the words of [u]_Hierome_ to _Riparius_: _Honoramus
reliquias martyrum, vt eum cuius sunt martyres adoremus: honoramus
seruos, vt honor seruorum redundet ad dominum:_ If thou desire to doe
right vnto the Saints, esteeme them as paternes, and not as patrones of
thy life; honour them only so farre, [x]that thou maist alway praise God
in them, and praise them in God.

[Sidenote t: _De ciuit. lib._ 8. _cap._ 27.]

[Sidenote u: _Tom._ 2 _fol._ 118]

[Sidenote x: _Philip Mornaeus de missa, lib. 3 cap. 11. See Melanct.
resp. ad art. Bauar. art. 25._]

The gunpowder men erre very much in this one kinde of honouring God,
for either they worship _his Saints_ as himselfe, or else their owne
saintlings, and not _his Saints_. In praying to the dead, in mingling
the blood of their martyrs with the precious blood of their Maker, in
applying their merits, and relying vpon their mercies; it is plaine that
they make the Saints (as _Melancthon_ tels them in his [y]Apologie for
the Confession of _Auspurge_) quartermasters with God, and halfe
mediatours with Christ, I say ioynt mediatours not of incercession only
but of [z]redemption also. Nay they make the blessed Virgin vpon the
poynt their only _mediatrix_ and _aduocate_, so they sing, and so they
say. They sing in their publique seruice, [aa]_Maria mater gratiae, mater
misericordiae_, &c. the which is Gods owne stile, 1. Pet. 1. 10. & 2.
Cor. 1. 3. so they likewise say, _Maria consolatio infirmorum, redemptio
captiuorum, liberatio damnatorum, salus vniuersorum._ [ab]_Giselbertus
in lib. altercationis Synagogae et ecclesiae, cap. 20. Maria quasi maria_,
saith _Augustinus de Leonissa_, sermon 5 vpon _Aue maria_, for as all
riuers come from the seas, and returne to the seas againe, Ecclesiastes
1. 7: [ac]so forsooth (if you will vndertake to beleeue him) all grace
is deriued from _Mary_, and ought to be returned again to _Mary_. We
finde so much _in [ad]Rosario Mariae, reparatrix & saluatrix desperantis
animae_, &c. That which is worse, their owne Pope (who cannot, a