and certain hope that these two
fellow-creatures, once sinners, but by God's grace afterwards saints,
have found mercy with God, and will live with Christ for ever; but to
pray for the same mercy at his gracious hands for the sake of their
merits is repugnant to our first principles of Christian faith. When we
think of merits, for which to plead for mercy, we can think of Christ's,
and of Christ's alone.

V. Our thoughts are next invited to that class of prayers which the
Church of Rome authorizes and directs to be addressed immediately to the
Saints themselves. {257} Of these there are different kinds, some far
more objectionable than others, though all are directly at variance with
that one single and simple principle, to which, as we believe, a
disciple of the cross can alone safely adhere--prayer to God, and only
to God. The words of the Council of Trent are, as we have already
observed, very comprehensive on this subject. They not only declare it
to be a good and useful thing supplicantly to invoke the saints reigning
with Christ: but also for the obtaining of benefits from God, through
Jesus Christ our Lord, who is our only Redeemer and Saviour, to fly to
their prayers, HELP, and ASSISTANCE. Whether these last words can be
interpreted as merely words of surplusage, or whether they must be
understood to mean that the faithful must have recourse to some help and
assistance of the saints beyond their intercession, is a question to
which we need not again revert. If it had been intended to embrace other
kinds of beneficial succour, and other help and assistance, perhaps it
would be difficult to find words more expressive of such general aid and
support as a human being might hope to derive, in answer to prayer from
the Giver of all good. And certainly they are words employed by the
Church, when addressing prayers directly to God. Be this as it may, the
public service-books of the Church of Rome unquestionably, by no means
adhere exclusively to such addresses to the saints, as supplicate them
to pray for the faithful on earth. Many a prayer is couched in language
which can be interpreted only as conveying a petition to them
immediately for their assistance, temporal and spiritual.

But let us calmly review some of the prayers, supplications,
invocations, or by whatever name religious addresses now offered to the
saints may be called; and {258} first, we will examine that class in
which the petitioners ask merely for t