Part 16 (1/2)
”The Holy Council commands all bishops and others bearing the office and care of instruction, that according to the usage of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, received from the primitive times of the Christian religion, and the consent of holy fathers, and decrees of sacred councils, they in the first place should instruct the faithful concerning the intercession and invocation of saints, the honour of reliques, and the lawful use of images, teaching them, that the SAINTS REIGNING TOGETHER WITH CHRIST, offer their own {231} prayers for men to G.o.d: that it is good and profitable SUPPLIANTLY TO INVOKE THEM: and to fly to their PRAYERS, HELP, and a.s.sISTANCE, for obtaining benefits from G.o.d, by his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who is our only Redeemer and Saviour. But that those who deny that the saints, enjoying everlasting happiness in heaven, are to be invoked; or who a.s.sert either that they do not pray for us; or that the invocation of them to pray for us even as individuals is idolatry, or is repugnant to the word of G.o.d, and is opposed to the honour of the one Mediator of G.o.d and man, Jesus Christ; or that it is folly, by voice or mentally, to supplicate those who reign in heaven, hold impious sentiments.
”That the bodies also of the holy martyrs and others living with Christ, which were living members of Christ, and a temple of the Holy Ghost to be raised by Him to eternal life, and to be glorified, are to be wors.h.i.+pped by the faithful; by means of which many benefits are conferred on men by G.o.d; so that those who affirm that wors.h.i.+p and honour are not due to the reliques of the saints, or that they and other sacred monuments are unprofitably honoured by the faithful; and that the shrines of the saints are frequented in vain for the purpose of obtaining their succour, are altogether to be condemned, as the Church has long ago condemned them, and now also condemns them.”
[Footnote 89: The Latin, which will be found in the Appendix, is a transcript from a printed copy of the Acts of the Council of Trent, preserved in the British Museum, to which are annexed the autograph signatures of the secretaries (notarii), and their seals.]
An examination of this decree, in comparison with the form and language of other decrees of the same Council, forces the remark upon us, That the Council does not a.s.sert 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 G.o.d. Many a doctrine or practice, not found in Scripture, may nevertheless be not contrary to the word of G.o.d; 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 a.s.sistance, and succour.” I am bound, with this decree {233} before me, to p.r.o.nounce, 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 with the word of G.o.d, and contrary to the honour of the one Mediator between G.o.d and man, Jesus Christ.
On this last point, indeed, I am aware of an anxious desire prevailing on the part of many Roman Catholics, to establish a distinction between a mediation of Redemption, and a mediation of Intercession: and thus by limiting the mediation of the saints and angels to intercession, and reserving the mediation of redemption to Christ only, to avoid the setting up of another to share the office of Mediator with Him, who is so solemnly declared in Scripture to be the one Mediator between G.o.d and man. But this distinction has no foundation in the revealed will of G.o.d; on the contrary, it is directly at variance with the words and with the spirit of many portions of the sacred volume. There we find the two offices of redemption and mediation joined together in Christ. ”If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins.” [1 John ii. 1, 2.
Heb. ix. 12. vii. 25.] In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the same Saviour who is declared ”by his own blood to have obtained eternal redemption,”
is announced also as the Mediator of Intercession. ”Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost who come unto G.o.d through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” The {234} redemption wrought by Christ, and the intercession still made in our behalf by Christ, are both equally declared to us by the most sure warrant of Holy Scripture; of any other intercession by saints in glory, by angels, or Virgin, to be sought by our suppliant invocations to them, the covenant of G.o.d speaks not.
It may be observed, that the enactment of this decree by the Council of Trent, has been chiefly lamented by some persons on the ground of its presenting the most formidable barrier against any reconciliation between the Church of Rome, and those who hold the unlawfulness of the invocation of saints. Indeed persons of erudition, judgment, piety, and charity, in communion with Rome, have not been wanting to express openly their regret, that decrees so positive, peremptory, and exclusive, should have been adopted. They would have been better satisfied with the terms of communion in the Church to which they still adhered, had individuals been left to their own responsibility on questions of disputable origin and doubtful antiquity, involving rather the subtilty of metaphysical disquisitions, than agreeable to the simplicity of Gospel truth, and essential Christian doctrine. On this point I would content myself with quoting the sentiments of a Roman Catholic author.
Many of the facts alleged in his interesting comments deserve the patient consideration of every Christian. Here (observes the commentator on Paoli Sarpi's History of the Council of Trent[90]) the Council makes it a duty to pray to saints, though the ancient Church never regarded it as necessary. The practice cannot be proved to be introduced into public wors.h.i.+p {235} before the sixth century; and it is certain, that in the ancient liturgies and sacramentaries no direct invocation is found. Even in our modern missals, being those of our ecclesiastical books in which the ancient form has been longest retained, scarcely is there a collect [those he means in which mention is made of the saints] where the address is not offered directly to G.o.d, imploring Him to hear the prayers of the saints for us; and this is the ancient form of invocation. It is true, that in the Breviaries and other ecclesiastical books, direct prayers to the saints have been subsequently introduced, as in litanies, hymns, and even some collects. But the usage is more modern, and cannot be evidence for ancient tradition. For this [ancient tradition] only some invocations addressed to saints in public harangues are alleged, but which ought to be regarded as figures of rhetoric, _apostrophes_, rather than real invocations; though at the same time some fathers laid the foundation for such a practice by a.s.serting that one could address himself to the saints, and hope for succour from them.
[Footnote 90: Histoire du Conc. de Trent, par Fra. Paoli Sarpi, traduit par Pierre Francois de Courayer. Amsterdam, note 31.
1751. vol. iii. p. 182.]
We have already alluded to the very great lat.i.tude of interpretation which the words of this Council admit. The expressions indeed are most remarkably elastic; capable of being expanded widely enough to justify those of the Church of Rome who allow themselves in the practice of asking for aid and a.s.sistance, temporal and spiritual, to be expected from the saints themselves; and at the same time, the words of the decree admit of being so far contracted as not in appearance palpably to contradict those who allege, that the Church of Rome never addresses a saint with any other pet.i.tion, than purely and simply that the saint would by prayer intercede for the wors.h.i.+ppers. The words ”suppliantly {236} to invoke them,” and ”to fly to their prayers, HELP, and SUCCOUR,”
are sufficiently comprehensive to cover all kinds of prayer for all kinds of benefits, whilst ”the invocation of them to pray for us even individually,” will countenance those who would restrict the faithful to an entreaty for their prayers only.
Whatever may be the advantage of this lat.i.tude of interpretation, in one point of view it must be a subject of regret. Complaints had long been made in Christendom, that other prayers were offered to the saints, besides those which pet.i.tioned only for their intercession; and if the Council of Trent had intended it to be a rule of universal application, that in whatever words the invocations of the saints might be couched, they should be taken to mean only requests for their prayers, it may be lamented, that no declaration to that effect was given.
The manner in which writers of the Church of Rome have attempted to reconcile the prayers actually offered in her ritual, with the principle of invoking the saints only for their prayers, is indeed most unsatisfactory. Whilst to some minds the expedient to which those writers have had recourse carries with it the stamp of mental reservation, and spiritual subterfuge, and moral obliquity; others under the influence of the purest charity will regret in it the absence of that simplicity, and direct openness in word and deed, which we regard as characteristic of the religion of the Gospel; and will deprecate its adoption as tending, in many cases inevitably, to become a most dangerous snare to the conscience. I will here refer only to the profession of that principle as made by Bellarmin. Subsequent writers seem to have adopted his sentiments, and to have expressed themselves very much in his words. {237}
Bellarmin unreservedly a.s.serts that Christians are to invoke the saints solely and exclusively for their prayers, and not for any benefits as from the saints themselves. But then he seems to paralyse that declaration by this refinement: ”It must nevertheless be observed that we have not to do with words, but with the meaning of words; for as far as concerns the words, it is lawful to say, 'Saint Peter, have mercy on me! Save me! Open to me the entrance of heaven!' So also, 'Give to me health of body, Give me patience, Give me fort.i.tude!' Whilst only we understand 'Save me, and have mercy upon me BY PRAYING for me: Give me this and that, BY THY PRAYERS AND MERITS.' For thus Gregory of n.a.z.ianzen, in his Oratio in Cyprianum; and the Universal Church, when in the hymn to the Virgin she says,
Mary, Mother of Grace, Mother of Mercy, Do thou protect us from the enemy, And take us in the hour of death.
”And in that of the Apostles,
'To whose command is subject'
The health and weakness of all: Heal us who are morally diseased; Restore us to virtue.
”And as the Apostle says of himself 'that I might save some,' [Rom. xi.]
and 'that he might save all,' [I Cor. ix.] not as G.o.d, but Thy prayer and counsel.”
I wish not to enter upon the question how far this distinction is consistent with that openness and straightforward undisguised dealing which is alone allowable when we are contending for the truth; nor how far the {238} charge of moral obliquity and double dealing, often brought against it, can be satisfactorily met. But suppose for a moment that we grant (what is not the case) that in the metaphysical disquisitions of the experienced casuist such a distinction might be maintained, how can we expect it to be recognized, and felt, and acted upon by the large body of Christians? Abstractedly considered, such an interpretation in a religious act of daily recurrence by the ma.s.s of unlearned believers would, I conceive, appear to reflecting minds most improbable, if not utterly impossible. And as to its actual _bona-fide_ result in practice, a very brief sojourn in countries where the religion of Rome is dominant, will suffice to convince us, that such subtilties of the casuist are neither received nor understood by the great body of wors.h.i.+ppers; and that the large majority of them, when they pray to an individual saint to deliver them from any evil, or to put them in possession of some good, do in very deed look to the saint himself for the fulfilment of their wishes. It is a snare to the conscience only too evidently successful.
And I regret to add, that in the errors into which such language of their prayers may unhappily betray them, they cannot be otherwise than confirmed as well by the recorded sentiments of men in past years, whom they have been taught to reverence, as by the sentiments which are circulated through the world now, even by what they are accustomed to regard as the highest authority on earth[91].
[Footnote 91: See in subsequent parts of this work the references to Bonaventura, Bernardin Sen., Bernardin de Bust., &c.; and also the encyclical letter of the present (A.D. 1840) reigning pontiff.]
To this point, however, we must repeatedly revert {239} hereafter; at present, I will only add one further consideration. If, as we are now repeatedly told, the utmost sought by the invocation of saints is that they would intercede for the supplicants; that no more is meant than we of the Anglican Church mean when we earnestly entreat our fellow-Christians on earth to pray for us,--why should not the prayers to the saints be confined exclusively to that form of words which would convey the meaning intended? why should other forms of supplicating them be adopted, whose obvious and direct meaning implies a different thing?
If we request a Christian friend to pray for us, that we may be strengthened and supported under a trial and struggle in our spiritual warfare, we do not say, ”Friend, strengthen me; Friend, support me.”