Primitive Christian Worship Part 28

In these sentiments of the present Pope there is no allusion (as there is in the other clause) to Mary's prayers and intercessions. Looking to and weighing the words employed, and as far as words can be relied upon as interpreters of the thoughts, looking to the spirit of his profession, only one inference can be fairly drawn. However direct and immediate the prayers of the suppliants may be to the Virgin for her protection and defence from all dangers, spiritual and bodily, and for the guidance of the inmost thoughts in the right way, (blessings which we of the Anglican Catholic Church, following the footsteps of the primitive flock of Christ, have always looked for at the hand of G.o.d Almighty only, to be granted by Him for the sake of his blessed Son,) such pet.i.tioners to Mary would be sanctioned to the utmost by the principles and example of the present Roman Pontiff.

We have already, when examining the records of {383} the Council of Chalcedon, compared the closing words of this encyclical letter with the more holy and primitive aspirations of the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople in those earlier days; and the comparison is striking between the sentiments now expressed in the opening parts of the same letter, and the spirit of the collects which were adopted for the use of the faithful, before the invocation of saints and of the Virgin had gained its present strong hold in the Church of Rome. For example, a collect at Vespers teaches us to pray to G.o.d as the source from whom all holy desires and all good counsels proceed [Hiem. 149.]; and on the fifth Sunday after Easter this prayer is offered: "O G.o.d, from whom all good things do come, grant, we pray Thee, that by thy inspiration we may think those things that be good; and by thy guidance may perform the same;" whilst on the fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, in a collect, the spirit of which is strongly contrasted with the sentiments in both parts of this encyclical letter, G.o.d is thus addressed: "We beseech thee, O Lord, with thy continual pity, guard thy family, that, leaning on the sole hope of heavenly grace, it may ever be defended by thy protection."

[Ut quae in _sola_ spe gratiae coelestis innit.i.tur, tua semper protectione muniatur.--Hiem, 364. "Let us raise our eyes to the Blessed Virgin, who is our greatest hope, yea, the entire ground of our hope."]

Similar materials are abundant. A whole volume, indeed, might readily be composed consisting solely of rules and instructions, confessions and forms of prayer, appertaining to the Virgin and the Saints, published by authority at the present day, both in our country and on the Continent, for the use of our Roman Catholic {384} brethren; but to which the word of G.o.d, and the doctrine and practice of the primitive Church, are in our estimation as much opposed as to the prayers of Bonaventura, or to the doctrine of either of the Bernardins. It would, however, be unprofitable to dwell on this subject at any great length. I will, therefore, only briefly refer to two publications of this sort, to which my own attention has been accidentally drawn: "The Imitation of the Blessed Virgin,"[144] and "The Little Testament of the Holy Virgin."[145]

[Footnote 144: "The Imitation of the Blessed Virgin, composed on the plan of the Imitation of Christ. London, 1816. Approved by T.R. a.s.selini, Doctor of Sorbonne, last Bishop of Boulogne. From the French."]

[Footnote 145: "The Little Testament of the Holy Virgin, translated from the French, and revised by a Catholic Priest.

Third Edition. Dublin, 1836."]

The first professes to be "composed on the plan of the 'Imitation of Christ.'" This is, in itself, highly objectionable; its tendency is to exalt Mary, by a.s.sociation, to the same place in our hearts and minds, which Thomas a Kempis had laboured, in his "Imitation of Christ," to secure for the Saviour; and it reminds us of the proceedings of Bonaventura, who wrote psalms to the honour of the Virgin after the manner which David used in his hymns to the Lord of Glory. In this work we read the following prayer to the Virgin, which seems to be stained with the error, the existence of which elsewhere we have already noticed, of contrasting the justice and the stern dealings even of the Saviour, with the mercy, and loving-kindness, and fellow-feeling of Mary; making G.o.d an object of fear, Mary an object of love.

"Mother of my Redeemer, O Mary, in the last moments {385} of my life, I implore thy a.s.sistance with more earnestness than ever. I find myself, as it were, placed between heaven and h.e.l.l. Alas! what will become of me, if thou do not exert, in my behalf, thy powerful influence with Jesus?... I die with SUBMISSION since JESUS has ORDAINED it; but notwithstanding the natural horror which I have of death, I die with PLEASURE, because I die under THY protection." [Chap. xiii. p. 344.]

In the fourteenth chapter the following pa.s.sage occurs: "It is giving to the blessed Virgin a testimony of love particularly dear and precious to her, to make her holy spouse Joseph the first object of our devotion, next to that which consecrates us to her service.... The name of Joseph is invoked with singular devotion by all the true faithful. They frequently join it with the sacred names of Jesus and Mary. Whilst Jesus and Mary lived at Nazareth, if we had wished to obtain some favour from them, could we have employed a more powerful protector than St. Joseph?

Will he now have less power and credit? GO THEREFORE TO JOSEPH, (Gen.

xli. 55.) that he may intercede for you. Whatever favour you ask, G.o.d will grant it you at his request.... Go to Joseph in all your necessities; but especially to obtain the grace of a happy death. The general opinion that he died in the arms of Jesus and Mary has inspired the faithful with great confidence, that, through his intercession, they will have an end as happy and consoling as his. In effect, it has been remarked, that it is particularly at the hour of death that those who have been during their life careful to honour this great saint, reap the fruit of their devotion." [P. 347.]

In this pa.s.sage the unworthy idea, itself formed on a groundless tradition, is introduced of paying reverence {386} to one saint, in order to gratify and conciliate another. Joseph must be especially honoured in order to do what is most acceptable to Mary. Surely this tends to withdraw the mind from that habitual reference of all our actions immediately to G.o.d, which the primitive teachers were so anxious to cultivate in all Christians.

In the "Little Testament of the Holy Virgin," the following (p. 46) is called, "A Prayer to the blessed Virgin." Can any words place more on an entire level with each other, the eternal Son of G.o.d and the Virgin?

"Jesus and Mary?!"

"O Mary! what would be our poverty and misery if the Father of Mercies had not drawn you from his treasury to give you to earth! Oh! my Life and Consolation, I trust and confide in your holy name. My heart wishes to love you; my mouth to praise you; my mind to contemplate you; my soul sighs to be yours. Receive me, defend me, preserve me; I cannot perish in your hands. Let the demons tremble when I p.r.o.nounce your holy name, since you have ruined their empire; but we shall say with Saint Anselm, that he does not know G.o.d, who has not an idea sufficiently high of your greatness and glory. We shall esteem it the greatest honour to be of the number of your servants. Let your glory, blessed Mother, be equal to the extent of your name; reign, after G.o.d, over all that is beneath G.o.d; but, above all, reign in my heart; you will be my consolation in suffering, my strength in weakness, my counsel in doubt. At the name of Mary my hope shall be enlightened, my love inflamed. Oh! that I could deeply engrave the dear name on every heart, suggest it to every tongue, and make all celebrate it with me. Mary! sacred name, under which no one {387} should despair. Mary! sacred name, often a.s.saulted, but always victorious. Mary! it shall be my life, my strength, my comfort! Every day shall I envoke IT AND THE DIVINE NAME OF JESUS. The Son will awake the recollection of the mother, and the mother that of the Son. JESUS AND MARY! this is what my heart shall say at the last hour, if my tongue cannot; I shall hear them on my death bed,--they shall be wafted on my expiring breath, and I with them, to see THEM, know THEM, bless and love THEM for eternity. Amen."

There may, perhaps, be a reasonable ground for our hoping that these are not the sentiments entertained by the enlightened Roman Catholics of our country and age. Any one has a full right to say, "These are productions of individuals for which we and the Church to which we belong are not responsible, any more than the Church of England is responsible for all doctrines and sentiments expressed by writers in her communion! Even the sentiments above referred to of the present reigning pope, you have no right to allege as the doctrines of the Church!" But I would again venture to suggest to every one, who would thus speak, the duty of ascertaining for himself, whether the sentiments of those who at present fill the highest places, and which fully justify these devotional exercises and prayers to the Virgin and the Saints, be not themselves fully justified by the authorized ritual of the Roman Church. On this point are supplied, even in this volume, materials sufficiently diversified and abundant in quant.i.ty to enable any one to form a correct judgment.

By two brief extracts I will now bring this branch of our inquiry to a close. The first is from the concluding paragraphs of a discourse lately delivered and {388} published. In principle, the sentiments here professed apparently admit not only of being identified with those of the authorized services of the Church of Rome, but also, though not so naked and revolting in appearance as the doctrines of Bonaventura, Biel, and the two Bernardins, yet in reality they equally depart from the simplicity of the Gospel, and are equally at direct variance with that, its first and its last principle, ONE G.o.d AND ONE MEDIATOR BETWEEN G.o.d AND MEN, THE MAN CHRIST JESUS.

"Remember that this day you have put yourselves and your families under the protection of the ever-blessed Mother of G.o.d, and Her chaste Spouse, St. Joseph; of those who were chosen of G.o.d to protect the infancy of Jesus from the danger by a persecuting world. ENTREAT THEM TO PROTECT YOU AND YOURS FROM THE PERILS of a seducing and ensnaring world; to plead your interests in heaven, and secure by their intercession your everlasting crown. Loudly proclaim the praises of your heavenly Queen, but at the same time turn Her power to your everlasting advantage by your earnest supplications to HER." (See Appendix.)

The other extract, which sanctions to the full whatever offerings of praise and ascriptions of glory we have found individuals making to the Virgin and to Saints, is from an announcement in, I believe, the last English edition of the Roman Breviary published, in its present form, under the sanction of the Pope himself.

"To those who devoutly recite the following prayer after the office, Pope Leo the Tenth hath granted pardon (indulsit) for the defects and faults in celebrating it, contracted by human frailty.

"To the most holy and undivided Trinity; to the manhood {389} of our crucified Lord Jesus Christ; to the fruitful spotlessness of the most blessed and most glorious and ever-Virgin Mary; and to the entire body of all the Saints, be eternal praise, honour, virtue, and glory, from every creature, and to us remission of all sins, through endless ages of ages. Amen." [Norwich, 1830. aest.]

On the indulgence for pardon given by Pope Leo the Tenth, more than 300 years ago, for such defects and faults in celebrating a religious service as may be contracted by human frailty; and on the fact of the notification of that indulgence being retained, and set forth so prominently in the service books at the present day, I will say nothing.

Whatever a.s.sociations may be raised in our minds by these circ.u.mstances, the subject does not fall within our present field of inquiry. But to join the Holy Trinity with the Virgin Mother, and all the Saints in one and the same ascription of ETERNAL PRAISE, HONOUR, and GLORY, is as utterly subversive of the integrity of primitive Christian Wors.h.i.+p, as it is repugnant to the plainest sense of holy Scripture, and derogatory to the dignity of that Supreme Being, who declares Himself to be a jealous G.o.d.

It has, indeed, been maintained that such ascriptions of glory and praise jointly to G.o.d and his Saints, is sanctioned by the language of our blessed Saviour Himself when He speaks of his having given his glory to his disciples [John xvii. 22.], and of his second advent, when He shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels. [Luke ix. 26.] But between the two cases there is no a.n.a.logy whatever; the inference is utterly fallacious. We know that the Lord of Hosts is the King of glory, and that his eternal Son shared the glory of his Father before the foundations {390} of the world were laid. We know, too, that the Almighty has been pleased to create beings of various degrees and orders, differing from each other in kind or in excellence according to his supreme will. Among those creatures of his hand are the angels whom we reverence and love, as his faithful servants and his ministers to us for good. But when we speak and think of religious adoration; of giving thanks; and ascribing eternal glory and honour, we have only one object in our minds,--the supreme Sovereign Lord of all.

With regard to the gracious words of our Saviour in his prayer to the Father, on the eve of his death, St. Peter's acts and words supply us with a plain and conclusive comment. He was himself one of those to whom Christ had declared that He had given the glory which his Father had given to Him; and yet when Cornelius fell down at his feet to wors.h.i.+p him, he took him up, saying, "Stand up; I myself also am a man." [Acts x. 26.] The Saviour was pleased to impart his glory to his Apostles, dividing to them his heavenly gifts severally as He willed. We praise Him for those graces which shone so brightly in them, and we pray to Him to enable us by his grace to follow them, as they followed his blessed steps. We reverence their memory, but we give G.o.d alone the praise.

As to the other instance, the words of our Lord (a.s.suring us that the angels should accompany Him at his second advent in their glory, the glory which He a.s.signed to them in the order of creation,) no more authorize us to ascribe praise and glory by a religious act to them, when we praise the G.o.d of angels and men, than would {391} the a.s.surance of an inspired apostle, that "there is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars," sanction us in joining those luminaries in the same ascription of glory with their Almighty Creator and ours. Just as reasonably would a pagan justify his wors.h.i.+p of the sun, the moon, and the stars, by this pa.s.sage of Scripture, as our Roman Catholic brethren would justify themselves by the former pa.s.sage in their ascription of praise and glory to the holy angels, and saints, and the blessed Virgin. We honour the holy angels, we praise G.o.d for the glory which He has imparted to them, and for the share which He has been pleased to a.s.sign to them in executing his decrees of mercy in the heavenly work of our salvation; and we pray to HIM to grant that they may by his appointment succour and defend us on earth, through Jesus Christ our Lord. But we address no invocation to them; we ascribe no glory to them as an act of religious wors.h.i.+p. By offering thanks and praise to G.o.d He declares that we honour HIM; by offering thanks and praise, and by ascribing glory and honour to angel, saint, or virgin, we make them G.o.ds. {392}

CONCLUSION.

We have now, my fellow Christians, arrived at the conclusion of the task which I proposed to undertake. I have laid before you, to the utmost of my abilities and means, the result of my inquiry into the evidence of holy Scripture and primitive antiquity, on the invocation of saints and angels, and the blessed Virgin Mary. In this inquiry, excepting so far as was necessary to elucidate the origin and history of the Roman Catholic tenet of the a.s.sumption of the Virgin, we have limited our researches to the writers who lived before the Nicene Council. That Council has always been considered a cardinal point,--a sort of climacteric in the history of the early Church. It was the first Council to which all the bishops of Christendom were summoned; and the influence of its decrees is felt beneficially in the Catholic Church to this very day. In fixing upon this Council as our present boundary line, I was influenced by a conviction, that the large body of Christians, whether of the Roman, the Anglican, or any other branch of the Church Catholic, would consent to this as an indisputable axiom,--that what the Church Catholic did not believe or practise up to {393} that date of her existence upon earth, cannot be regarded as either Catholic or primitive, or apostolical. Ending with St. Athanasius, (who, though he was present at that Council, yet brings his testimony down through almost another half century, his death not having taken place till A.D.

873, on the verge of his eightieth year,) we have examined the remains of Christian antiquity, reckoning forward to that Council from the times of the Apostles. We have searched diligently into the writings, the sentiments, and the conduct of those first disciples of our Lord. We have contemplated the words of our blessed Saviour himself, and the inspired narrative of his life and teaching. With the same object in view we have studied the prophets of the Old Testament, and the works of Moses; and we have endeavoured, at the fountainhead, to ascertain what is the mind and will of G.o.d, as revealed to the world from the day when He made man, on the question of our invoking the angels and saints to intercede with Him in our behalf, or to a.s.sist and succour us on the earth. And the result is this:--From first to last, the voice of G.o.d Himself, and the voices of the inspired messengers of heaven, whether under the patriarchal, the Mosaic, or the Christian dispensations, the voices too of those maintainers of our common faith in Christ, who prayed, and taught, in the Church, before the corruptions of a degenerate world had mingled themselves with the purity of Christian wors.h.i.+p, combine all, in publis.h.i.+ng, throughout the earth, one and the self-same principle, "Pray only to G.o.d; draw nigh to Him alone; invoke no other; seek no other in the world of spirits, neither angel, nor beatified saint; seek Him, and He will favourably, with mercy, hear your prayers." To this one {394} principle, when the Gospel announced the whole counsel of G.o.d in the salvation of man, our Lord himself, his Apostles, and his Church, unite in adding another principle of eternal obligation,--There is one Mediator between G.o.d and men, the man Christ Jesus; whatsoever the faithful shall ask the Father in the name of that Mediator, He will grant it to them: He is ever living to make intercession for those who believe in Him: Invoke we no other intercessor, apply we neither to saint nor angel, plead we the merits of no other. Let us lift up our hearts to G.o.d Almighty himself, and make our requests known to Him in the name, and through the mediation of Christ, and He will fulfil our desires and pet.i.tions as may be most expedient for us; He will grant to us, in this world, a knowledge of his truth, and in the world to come life everlasting!

Watching the tide of evidence through its whole progress, we find it to flow all in this one direction. Here and there indeed attempts have been made to raise some mounds and barriers of human structure, in order to arrest its progress, and turn it from its straight course, but in vain; unchecked by any such endeavours, it rolls on in one full, steady, strong, and resistless current. Until we have long pa.s.sed the Nicene Council, we find no one writer of the Christian Church, whose remains tell us, that he either himself invoked saints and angels, and the Virgin Mary, or was at all aware of any such practice prevailing in Christendom. Suppose, for one moment, that our doctrine is right; and then we find the whole tenour of the Old and New Testaments, and the ancient writers, in their plain meaning, agreeably to the interpretation of the most learned and unbia.s.sed critics, fully coinciding in every respect with our view of G.o.d being the sole object of invocation, {395} and of the exclusive character of Christ's intercession, mediation, and advocacy. Suppose, for another moment, the Roman Catholic theory to be correct, then the whole general tenour and drift of Scripture must be evaded; the clearest statements and announcements must be explained away by subtle distinctions, gratuitous definitions, and casuistical refinements, altogether foreign from the broad and simple truths of Revelation; then, too, in ascertaining the sentiments of an author, not his general and pervading principles, evidenced throughout his writings, must be appealed to; but casual and insulated expressions must be contracted or expanded as may best seem to counteract the impression made by the testimony of those principles. We may safely ask, Is there such evidence, that the primitive Church offered invocations to saints and angels, and the Virgin, as would satisfy us in the case of any secular dispute with regard to ancient usage? On the contrary, is not the evidence clear to a moral demonstration, that the offering of such addresses is an innovation of later days, unknown to the primitive Christians till after the middle of the fourth century, and never p.r.o.nounced to be an article of faith, until the Council of Trent, more than a thousand years after its first appearance in Christendom, so decreed it.

The tendency, indeed, of some Roman Catholic writings, especially of late years, is to draw off our minds on these points from the written word of G.o.d, and the testimony of the earliest Church, and to dwell upon the possibility, the reasonableness of the doctrines of the Church of Rome in this respect, their accordance with our natural feelings, and their charitableness. But in points of such vast moment, in things concerning the soul's salvation, we can depend with satisfaction and {396} without misgiving, only on the sure word of promise; nothing short of G.o.d's own pledge of his own eternal truth can a.s.sure us, that all is safe. Such subst.i.tution of what may appear to us reasonable, and agreeable to our natural sentiments, and desirable if true, in place of the a.s.surances of G.o.d's revealed Will, may correspond with the arguments of a heathen philosopher unacquainted with the truth as it is in Jesus, but cannot satisfy disciples of Him who brought life and immortality to light by his Gospel. Such questions as these, "Is there any thing unreasonable in this? Would not this be a welcome tenet, if true?" well became the lips of Socrates in his defence before his judges, but are in the strict sense of the word preposterous in a Christian. With the Christian the first question is, What is the truth? What is revealed?

What has G.o.d promised? What has He taught man to hope for? What has He commanded man to do? By his own words, by the words and by the example of his inspired messengers, by the doctrine and practice of his Church, the witness and interpreter of the truth, how has He directed us to sue for his mercy and all its blessings? On what foundation, sure and certain, can we build our hopes that "He will favourably with mercy hear our prayers?" For in this matter, a matter of spiritual life and death, we can anchor our hope on no other rock than his sure word of promise.

That sure word of promise, if I am a faithful believer, I have; but it is exclusive of any invocation by me of saint, or angel, or virgin. The pledge of heaven is most solemnly and repeatedly given; G.o.d, who cannot lie, has, in language so plain, that he may run who readeth it, a.s.sured me that if I come to HIMSELF by HIS SON, my prayer shall not be cast out, my suit shall {397} not be denied, I shall not be sent empty away.

In every variety of form which language can a.s.sume, this a.s.surance is ratified and confirmed. His own revealed will directs me to pray for my fellow-creatures, and to expect a beneficial effect from the prayers of the faithful upon earth in my behalf. To pray for them, therefore, and to seek their prayers, and to wait patiently for an answer to both, are acts of faith and of duty. And were it also appointed by G.o.d's will to be an act of faith and duty in a Christian to seek the prayers, and aid, and a.s.sistance, of saints and angels by supplicatingly invoking them, surely the same word of truth would have revealed that also. Whereas the reverse shows itself under every diversified state of things, from the opening of the sacred book to its very last page. The subtle distinction of religious wors.h.i.+p into latria, dulia, and hyperdulia, the refined cla.s.sification of prayer under the two heads of direct, absolute, final, sovereign, on the one hand, and of oblique, relative, transitory, subaltern, on the other, swell indeed many elaborate works of casuistry, but are not discoverable in the remains of primitive Christians, nor in the writings of G.o.d's word have they any place. I cannot find in the inspired Apostles any reference to the necessity, the duty, the lawfulness, the expediency of our seeking by prayer the good offices of the holy dead, or of the angels of light. In their successors the earliest inspired teachers and pastors of Christ's fold, I seek in vain for any precept, or example, or suggestion, or incidental allusion looking that way. Why then should a Christian wish to add to that which G.o.d has been pleased to appoint and to reveal? Why should I attempt to enter heaven through any other gate than {398} that gate which the Lord of heaven has opened for me? or why should I seek to reach that gate by any other way than the way which He has made for me; which He has Himself plainly prescribed to me; in which He has promised that his word shall be a lantern unto my feet; and along which those saints and servants of his, who received the truth from his own lips, and sealed it by their blood, have gone before?

Whenever a maintainer of the doctrine and practice of invoking the Saints asks me, as we have lately been asked in these words, "May I not reasonably hope that their prayers will be more efficacious than my own and those of my friends? And, under this persuasion, I say to them, as I just now said to you, holy Mary, holy Peter, holy Paul, pray for me.

What is there in reason or revelation to forbid me to do so?" To this and similar questions and suggestions, I answer at once, G.o.d has solemnly covenanted to grant the pet.i.tions of those who ask HIM for his mercy, in the name and for the sake of his Son; and in his holy word has, both by precept and example, taught us in this life to pray for each other, and to ask each other's prayers [James v. 16; I Tim. ii.

1.]; but that He will favourably answer the prayers which we supplicate angels to offer, or which we offer to Himself through the merits and by the intercession of departed mortals, is no where in the covenant.

Moreover, when G.o.d invites me and commands me to approach Him myself, in the name of his Son, and trusting to his merits, it is not Christian humility, rather it savours of presumption, and intruding into those things which we have not seen [Coloss. ii. 18.], to seek to prevail with Him by {399} pleading other merits, and pet.i.tioning creatures, however glorious, to interest themselves with Him in our behalf, angels and saints, of whose power even to hear us we have no evidence. When Jesus Himself, who knows both the deep counsels of the Eternal Spirit, and man's wants and weaknesses and unworthiness, and who loveth his own to the end, pledges his never-failing word, that whatsoever we ask the Father in his name, He will give it us, can it be less than an unworthy distrust of his truth and faithfulness to ask the Father for the merits and by the intercession of another? and as though in fear lest G.o.d should fail of his promise, or be unmindful of us Himself, to invoke angels and the good departed to make our wants known unto HIM, and prevail with HIM to relieve us?

Surely it were wiser and safer to adhere religiously to that one way which cannot fail, than to adopt for ourselves methods and systems, for the success of which we have no guarantee; which may be unacceptable in his sight; and the tendency of which may be to bring down a curse and not a blessing.

May the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls pour down upon his Church the abundance of his mercy, preserving those in the truth who now possess it, restoring it to those by whom it has been lost, and imparting it to all who are yet in darkness. And, whilst we speak the truth in love, and endeavour to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, may HE, for his own glory, and for the safety and comfort of his people, shed this truth abroad in our hearts, and enlighten us to receive it in all its fulness and integrity, and in the very sense in which the Holy Spirit, when He guided {400} the pen of St. Paul, willed the Church to interpret it, "There is one G.o.d and one Mediator between G.o.d and men, the man Christ Jesus."

O everlasting G.o.d, who hast ordained and const.i.tuted the services of Angels and men in a wonderful order; Mercifully grant, that as thy holy Angels alway do Thee service in heaven, so by thy appointment they may succour and defend us on earth, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

O Almighty G.o.d, who hast built thy Church upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the head corner-stone; Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their doctrine, that we may be made an holy temple, acceptable unto Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

O Almighty G.o.d, who hast knit together thine elect in one communion and fellows.h.i.+p, in the mystical body of thy Son Christ our Lord; Grant us grace, so to follow thy blessed Saints in all virtuous and G.o.dly living, that we may come to those unspeakable joys, which Thou hast prepared for them that unfeignedly love Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

{401}

APPENDIX.

Note.--Pages 107 and 110.

The following is the original of the pa.s.sages discussed in the text.

Justin Martyr, Apol. I. p. 47. -- vi. Benedictine Edition by P. Maran.

Paris, A.D. 1742.

[Greek: Enthende kai atheoi keklaemetha; kai h.o.m.ologoumen ton toiouton nomizomenon theon atheoi einai, all' ouchi tou alaethestatou, kai patros dikaiosunaes kai sophrosunaes, kai ton allon areton, anepimiktou te kakias Theou; all' ekeinon te, kai ton par' autou huion elthonta kai didaxanta haemas tauta, kai ton ton allon hepomenon kai exomoioumenon agathon angelon straton, pneuma te to prophaetikon sebometha, kai proskunoumen, logoi kai alaetheiai timontes, kai panti boulomenoi mathein, hos edidachthaemen, aphthonos paradidontes.]