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 latitude 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 petitioned 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.
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