Just as reasonably would a pagan justify his
worship of the sun, the moon, and the stars, by this passage of
Scripture, as our Roman Catholic brethren would justify themselves by
the former passage in their ascription of praise and glory to the holy
angels, and saints, and the blessed Virgin. We honour the holy angels,
we praise God for the glory which He has imparted to them, and for the
share which He has been pleased to assign 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 worship. By
offering thanks and praise to God 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 gods. {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 Assumption of the Virgin, we have limited our
researches to the writers who lived before the Nicene Council.
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