A Godly and Learned Treatise of Prayer, Chapter 12
CHAP. XII. That we ought not to invocate any creature.
THus have I shewed in generall, That no creature is to be called upon. Now more specially, That neither Angels nor Saints. Civil honour indeed is due to both, as to our fellow-citizens of the same city: but religious honour done to either is idolatry.
First, for Angels. Our fellow-servants are not toThat Angels ought not to be worshipped. be adored of us: Angels are our fellow-servants, being ministring spirits sent forth into the ministery for their sake that shall be heirs of salvation, Heb. 1. 14.1. Reason. And by this reason the angel, Revel. 19. 10. and 22. 19. disswadeth S. John from adoring him, and in both places appropriateth foreign, adoration, to God. Likewise the Apostle admonisheth the Colossians, chap. 2. 18. to take heed that none bercave them Vide Ambros. in Rom. 1. pag. 177.of their prize (which is their salvation) under shew of humili…ie (as the Papists do, as though it were too much boldnesse to go directly to Christ) commending unto them the worshipping of angels: whereunto those countreys of Phrygia were very much addicted, as Theodoret sheweth in Col. 2. And therefore it was decreed in the councel of Laodicea, the mother-citie of those parts, that no man should pray unto angels.
Moreover, he that is the authour and fountain of2. Reason. all good things, and is onelyonly able of himself to help us, he is to be invocated, and not those who being but his instruments are not able to help us otherwise then he appointeth. But God is the authour and fountain of all good, James 1. 17. Our onelyonly help and refuge, Psal. 46. 1. and 124. 8. The angels are but his instruments, who neither can nor will help us further then God himself appointeth.
Objection out of Jos. 5. 13. and Judg. 13. 20. ThatObject. Joshua and the parents of Samson worshipped the angels which appeared unto them.
He that appeared unto them was not a created angel,Answ. but the Angel of the great covenant, the second Person in Trinity, who oftentimes in assumed forms appeared to the Patriarchs. He that appeared to Joshua calleth himself the Prince of, the Lords armies, Jos. 5. 14. and 6. 2. he is called the Lord. He which appeared to Samsons parents being demanded his name, said it is Wonderfull, which is the name of Christ, Isa. 9. 6. And such was their opinion of him; for Manoah calleth him God, and his wife termeth him Jehovah.
Now that Saints are not to be prayed unto it shallThat Saints departed ought not to be invocated 1. Reason. appear by these reasons:
I. To them which neither heare us nor know us, prayer is made in vain: But the Saints departed neither heare us nor know us. That they do not heare us it is manifest. For what is it which they do heare? the voice of the mouth or the speech of the heart? If the voice of the mouth, then the voice which moveth the aire for a small distance and so vanisheth, shall not onelyonly pierce all the regions of the aire but the heavens also, where the aire, which is the medium, ceaseth. If the speech of the heart; then are they foreign, the searchers of the heart, and therefore gods: for it is a property peculiar to the Lord, 1. Kings 8. 39. Jer. 17. 9. Acts 1. 24. That they know us not it is testified by Isaiah, chap. 63. 16. Abraham is ignorant of us, and Israel knoweth us not: Eccles 9. 5.
The Papists except, First, That the Saints having1. Exception of the Papists. the blessed vision of God, they do see in speculo Trinitatis the things done in earth. By which reason they should know all things which God himself doth know, neither should the day of judgement be hid from them. But this glasse is a forgerie of theirThe glasse of the Trinity forged. own brain: For if they say it is the essence of the whole Deitie, then is it most simple and unvariable; if the glory or splendour of God whereby he enlighteneth the place of the blessed, it will no more follow that they beholding this light should see those things which God beholdeth, then that he which looketh on the sunne should see all that the sunne shineth upon.
Secondly, That God acquainteth them with ourA second pretense of the Papists answered. prayers made to them, which they understanding become intercessours for us unto God. But what a foolish circumstance is this? They will not have us go directly unto God or our Saviour, but (as in Princes courts) to some that are neare unto them, that they may mediate our cause; and in the upshot, we cannot go directly unto them, I mean the Saints, but God himself must be fain to be a mediatour between us and them, to acquaint them with our prayers, that so they may pray unto him for us.
Thirdly, That they do not worship the Saints asA third pretense avoided. gods, but as the friends of God. As if a woman taken in adultery should alledge for her self, that she loved the adulterer not as her husband but as her husbands friend. For religious worship doth as properly belong unto God as conjugall love unto the husband. But do not they give Divine worship to the Saints whom they invocate, prescribing thereby unto them omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotencie, and thereby also professing themselves to repose their trust in them? For when they pray to Saints departed, do they speak unto them as present or as absent? If as to present, they being in heaven & they on the earth dispersed in many places & countreys, then they ascribe unto them omnipresence; if as to absent, they ascribe to them omniscience: Both which are blasphemous. Besides, when they invocate they ascribe omnipotencie to them, and therefore repose their trust in them: But God alone is to be trusted in, because he alone is omnipotent; and cursed is he that trusteth in man, Jer. 17. 5.
II. Again, mere men are not religiously to be2. Reason. adored: It is Peters reason, Acts 10. 26, and Pauls, Acts 14. 15. If Christ himself had been but a mere man or a creature, though a god by creation, yet ought not he religiously to be adored; and much lesse the Saints, who are but the servants of Christ. Therefore the ancient Fathers termed the Arians (who supposed Christ to be God by creation, and yet worshipped him) idolaters; and the Nestorians likewise, who supposed the humanitie of Christ to be a distinct person from the Sonne of God.
III. To leave God, who hath commanded us3. Reason. to call upon him, and hath promised to heare us, and is most willing and onelyonly able to help us, and to run to the Saints, who neither have commanded us, as having no such authoritie, nor have promised to heare and help us, as having no such power, yea are so farre from hearing and helping that they neither know us nor our desires, and so farre from commanding us to call upon them as they have forbidden us so to do, and alwayes directed us to call upon God, Acts 10. 26. and 14. 15. is a thing in-religion impious and in reason absurd.
IV. To call upon Saints is a thing most injurious4. Reason. unto God and Christ our Saviour: derogatorie from the glory of God, as though they were either more ready to heare, or more willing or more able to help us; or that we had more confidence in their love then in the mercies of God and intercession of Christ our Saviour.
But it is lawfull to intreat the Saints upon earthObject. to pray for us; why then may we not desire the Saints in heaven much more to pray to God for us?
To intreat the Saints living on earth to pray forAnsw. 1. us hath warrant in the Scriptures, as having been a dutie injoyned by God, Gen. 20. 7. Job 42. 8. Jam. 5. 14, 16. and also practiced by the faithfull, Rom. 5. 30. Ephes. 6. 19. But praying to Saints departed hath no warrant in the Scriptures, as the Papists themselves are forced to confesse. Nay, it is directly forbidden; and those which do it commit two evils, forsaking God the fountain of living waters, and digging out to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water, Jer. 2. 13. They worship the creature foreign, Rom. 1. 25. praeterito Creatore, passing by the Creatour, ut Hilarius interpretatur De Trinitate lib. 12.
2. The Saints living with us are acquainted with our persons and our wants, and therefore may pray in particular for us, and so cannot the Saints departed.
3. The request made in this behalf to the faithfull living is a civil intreaty of a Christian duty, but as it is made to the Saints departed, it is a religious invocation of them to do that for us which is the peculiar office of the Mediatour. Neither do they onelyonly intreat the Saints to pray for us, and desire God that for the merits & intercession of the Saints he would grant their desires, which is to give the office of Christ to them: But also they desire the Saints themselves to bestow upon them such blessings as they desire both spirituall and temporall, and to avert from them such evils as they fear. Wherein the Papists have made the Saints to succeed the heathen gods, ascribing unto them their severall offices and functions, insomuch that there is no countrey, citie, or town, but hath certain Saints to patronize them, as the heathen had their tutelares deos: no trade or occupation which hath not a peculiar Saint; no kind of cattel or tame fowl which have not their patrones; no kind of disease but some Saint or other is called upon for the curing thereof, as the dii averrunci, or foreign, among the heathen: So that if there were no other fault in Popery, their idolatry were sufficient cause of separation from them.
But the Saints departed do pray for us, thereforeObject. we ought to pray unto them.
It may well be supposed that the Saints departedAnsw. do pray in common for the faithfull upon the earth, as fellow-members of the same bodie. But they are not acquainted with particular persons, or their particular wants or desires; or if they were, yet it would not follow that we should pray to them, no more then we are bound to invocate religiously the Saints upon earth, whom we know according to their dutie do pray for us. August. contra Faust. Manich. lib. 20. c. 21. Colimus martyres …o cultu dilectionis & societatis quo & in hac vita coluntur sancti homines, We worship the martyrs with that worship of love and societie with which even in this life holy men are worshipped. Notwithstanding the Papists think this consequence to be so strong, as they take it for granted, that if the Saints make intercession for us we must pray to them: Insomuch that Bellar…ineIn Apolog. when he would prove against our King, That invocation of Saints was taught by the ancient Fathers, in stead of that he proveth ridiculously the intercession of Saints for us.