]
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 assert 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 God. Many a doctrine or practice, not
found in Scripture, may nevertheless be not contrary to the word of God;
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.
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