(or, as the distinction {12} is sometimes made, into prayer
direct, absolute, final, sovereign, confined to the Supreme Being on the
one hand; and prayer oblique, relative, transitory, subordinate, offered
to saints on the other,) would have appeared to me the ingenious and
finely-drawn inventions of an advocate, not such a sound process of
Christian simplicity as the mind could rest upon, with an undoubting
persuasion that all was right.

This, however, involves the very point at issue; and I now invite you,
my Christian Brethren, to join with me, step by step, in a review of
those several positions which have left on my mind the indelible
conviction that I could never have passed my life in communion with that
Church whose articles of fellowship maintained the duty of invoking
saints and angels; and whose public offices were inseparably interwoven
with addresses in prayer to other beings, than the Holy and undivided
Trinity, the one only God.

In pursuing this inquiry I have thought the most convenient and
satisfactory division of our work would be--

First, to ascertain what inference an unprejudiced study of the revealed
will of God would lead us to make; both in the times of the elder
covenant, when "holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost," and in that "fulness of time" when God spoke to us by his Son.

Secondly, to examine into the belief and practice of the Primitive
Church, beginning with the inspired Apostles of our Lord.

Thirdly, to compare the results of those inquiries with the tenets and
practice of the Church of Rome, with reference to three periods; the
first immediately {13} preceding the Reformation; the second comprising
the Reformation, and the proceedings of the Council of Trent; the third
embracing the belief and practice of the present day.

In this investigation, I purpose to reserve the worship of the Virgin
Mary, called by Roman Catholic writers "Hyperdulia," and for various
reasons the most important and interesting portion of the whole inquiry,
for separate and distinct examination; except only so far as our review
of any of the primitive writers may occasion some incidental departure
from that rule.

May God guide us to his truth! {14}

* * * * *

CHAPTER II.

SECTION I.--THE EVIDENCE OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

Here, Christian Brethren, bear with me if I briefly, but freely, recall
to our thoughts on this first entrance up