Here and there indeed attempts have been
made to raise some mounds and barriers of human structure, in order to
arrest its progress, and turn it from its straight course, but in vain;
unchecked by any such endeavours, it rolls on in one full, steady,
strong, and resistless current. Until we have long passed the Nicene
Council, we find no one writer of the Christian Church, whose remains
tell us, that he either himself invoked saints and angels, and the
Virgin Mary, or was at all aware of any such practice prevailing in
Christendom. Suppose, for one moment, that our doctrine is right; and
then we find the whole tenour of the Old and New Testaments, and the
ancient writers, in their plain meaning, agreeably to the interpretation
of the most learned and unbiassed critics, fully coinciding in every
respect with our view of God being the sole object of invocation, {395}
and of the exclusive character of Christ's intercession, mediation, and
advocacy. Suppose, for another moment, the Roman Catholic theory to be
correct, then the whole general tenour and drift of Scripture must be
evaded; the clearest statements and announcements must be explained away
by subtle distinctions, gratuitous definitions, and casuistical
refinements, altogether foreign from the broad and simple truths of
Revelation; then, too, in ascertaining the sentiments of an author, not
his general and pervading principles, evidenced throughout his writings,
must be appealed to; but casual and insulated expressions must be
contracted or expanded as may best seem to counteract the impression
made by the testimony of those principles.
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