Saints

(sancti,) in the Romish church, holy persons deceased, and, since their decease, canonized by the pope, after several informations and ceremonies. One of the points wherein the Roman catholics and protestants differ, is, that the former addre , invoke, and supplicate saints, . to intercede for them; whereas the latter hold it sufficient to propose their good examples for our imitation. Cardinal Bellarmine, and other popish writers, have pleaded, that by praying to the saints, they only intend to expre a desire of their interce ion, and that their invocation of the saints terminates ultimately in God. Accordingly they have distinguished two sorts of worship, one called daéria, appropriate to God, and another dudia, which, being of an inferior nature, is paid to angels and saints. However, many of their own writers have exploded this distinction, and others have owned that it is unscriptural. There is another sort of worship, which is of a higher degree than that ce to saints in common, and which is pecuiar to the Virgin Mary: this they call hyperdulia. After all, those who read their books of deyotion, their hours, their offices, their rosaries, their breviaries, and their mi als, will find many direct addre es to the saints, which are very different from those prayers whose object is merely to supplicate their interce ion, Besides, the council of Trent, se . 25. directs to apply to the saints for their help and a istance, -as well as their prayers; and condemns aiff who think, that it is not good and profitable to offer prayers to saints, as chargeable with implous sentiments. And the creed of pope Pius 1V. expre ly insists upon it as an article of faith, that the saints reigning together with Christ are to be invocated, As to the antiquity of this practice, the council of Trent, se . 25. speaks of it as the usage of the apostolic and catholic church from the beginning of Christianity. As to the doctrine of the interce ion of saints and angels, there is not the least intimation of it in the writings of the two first centuries; though it must be allowed to have been introduced in the next century, and that Origen and Cyprian expre ly favour this superstition. The worship of saints and ange]s is of a much later date; especially as a standing generally received doctrine of the church. For though A than as i us was for worshipping the saints, yet Cyril, who lived in the next century, says, we neither call the holy martyrs gods, nor are we used to worship them. St. Austin affirms, that neither saints nor angels will be worshipped. Archbishop Usher says, that as to the first four hundred years after Christ, for nine parts of that time, not one true testimony can be produced out of any father in favour of this doctrine; and cardinal Perron, Richlieu, and other learned writers among the Romanists own, that the invoéation of saints was not practised for the three first centuries. The first symptoms of this worship did not appear till towards the end of the fourth century, and it seems to have sprung out of the regard which the Christians at that time manifested to the memory of the martyrs. They frequented their tombs, and erected altars there, praying to God, and engaging themselves to a strict imitation of the virtues and piety of the departed martyrs; by degrees this veneration degenerated into praises and eulogiums of the saints themselves, in which they used some apostrophes and rhetorical addre es; whence proceeded a superstitious regard to them, and, at length, a direct invocation and worship of them. Nor does it appear, that any public prayers to saints were established till A. D.788, by the second council of Nice; and this council was condemned by another held at Franc fort, A.D, 794; and the invocation of saints was likewise condemned by a former council held at Constantinople, A. D. 755, consisting of three hundred and eighty-eight bishops. In the seventh century, Gregory expre ly says, that angels refused to be worshipped since the appearance of Christ. In order to convey some idea of the extravagance to which veneration for reputed saints hath arrived in the Romish church, we shall only mention one instance out of many that might be alleged. It is well known that there were three altars in the cathedral church of Canterbury, one erected to the honour of Christ, another to the Virgin Mary, and a third to St. Thomas & Becket; and the offerings at his shrine amounted to about 10000. when those to the Virgin did not amount to 5!. and those to Christ were nothing; and Rapin informs us, that in one year, viz. A. D, 1420, there were no le than fifty you sand foreigners who came in pilgrimages to pay their homage at this tomb. The number of saints, allowed as such, in the Romish church, is prodigious. Father Pape broche reckons seventeen or eighteen hundred to have died on the first of June, only. Indeed the crowd of saints, wherewith their martyrologies are stocked, is scandalous, even ‘to the more sober of their own communion, Father Mabillon, in an expre di ertation on the worship of unknown saints, observes, that honours are given to saints, who, perhaps, were not Christians, and whose very names were never known. Hence, being under a nece ity of giving them names, they are therefore called baptised saints. He adds, that they every day beseech saints to intercede for them with God, when it is much doubted whether they themselves be in heaven. Father Pape broche and his a ociates have been a long time employed in writing: the lives and acts of the saints; they range them each on the day of the year wherein they died: for the first six months they have published twenty-four volumes in folio; and since Pape broche’s death, in 1714, his succe ors have published more, 386