her decrees of the same Council, forces the remark upon us, That
the Council does not assert that the practice of invoking saints has any
foundation in Holy Scripture. The absence of all such declaration is the
more striking and important, because in the very decree immediately
preceding this, {232} which establishes Purgatory as a doctrine of the
Church of Rome, the Council declares that doctrine to be drawn from the
Holy Scriptures. In the present instance the Council proceeds no further
than to charge with impiety those who maintain the invocation of saints
to be contrary to the word of God. Many a doctrine or practice, not
found in Scripture, may nevertheless be not contrary to the word of God;
but here the Council abstains from affirming any thing whatever as to
the scriptural origin of the doctrine and practice which it
authoritatively enforces. In this respect the framers of the decree
acted with far more caution and wisdom than they had shown in wording
the decree on Purgatory; and with far more caution and wisdom too than
they exercised in this decree, when they affirmed that the doctrine of
the invocation of saints was to be taught the people according to the
usage of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, received from the primitive
times of the Christian religion, and the consent of the holy fathers. I
have good hope that these pages have already proved beyond gainsaying,
that the invocation of saints is a manifest departure from the usage of
the Primitive Church, and contrary to the testimony of "the holy
fathers." However, the fact of the Council not having professed to trace
the doctrine, or its promulgation, to any authority of Holy Scripture,
is of very serious import, and deserves to be well weighed in all its
bearings.

With regard to the condemnatory clauses of this decree, I would for
myself observe, that I should never have engaged in preparing this
volume, had I not believed, "that it was neither good nor profitable to
invoke the saints, or to fly to their prayers, their assistance, and
succour." I am bound, with this decree {233} before me, to pronounce,
that it is a vain thing to offer supplications, either by the voice or
in the mind, to the saints, even if they be reigning in heaven; and that
it is also in vain for Christians to frequent the shrines of the saints
for the purpose of obtaining their succour.

I am, moreover, under a deep conviction, that the invocation of them is
both at variance w