and the faints; and flying to their help, and making use of their mediation and interceffion with God for finners. That Jefus Chrift is our only mediator and interceffor with God in heaven, by whom we have access to God in any action of religious worship, and that all our prayers and fervices are to be offered up to God only by him, and in his name and mediation, and no other, I have plainly fhewed from scripture; and proved it by an invincible argument, taken likewise from fcripture; namely, because the efficacy and prevalency of his mediation and interceffion is founded in the virtue and merit of his facrifice; and that he is therefore the only mediator between God and men, because he only gave himself a ranfom for all; he is therefore our only advocate with the Father, because he only is the propitiation for our fins, and for the fins of the whole world. I have fhewed likewife, that the scripture excludes angels from being our mediators with God, from the main fcope and defign of the epiftle to the Coloffians; and much more are the faints departed excluded from this office, being inferior to the angels, not only in the dignity and excellency of their beings, but very probably in the degree of their knowledge. In fhort, prayer is a proper act of religious worship, and therefore peculiar to God alone; and we are commanded to worship the Lord our God, and to ferve him only and no where in fcripture are we directed to address our prayers, and fupplications, and thanksgivings, to any but God alone, and only in the name and mediation of Jefus Chrift. Our bleffed Saviour himself hath taught us to put up all our prayers to God our heavenly Father, Luke xi. 2. When je pray, fay, Our Father which art in heaven: which plainly fhews to whom all our prayers are to be addreffed; and ur fs we can call an angel, or the bleffed virgin, or a faint, our Father, we can pray to none of them. And elsewhere he as plainly directs us, by whom we are to apply ourselves to God, and in whofe name and mediation we are to put up all our requefts to him, John xiv. 6. I am the way, and the truth, and the life no man cometh unto the Father but by me: and then it follows, y 13. 14. And whatever ye shall afk in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glo : rified in the Son. If ye shall afk any thing in my name, 1 will do it. Nothing is clearer in the whole Bible, than one mediator between God and men, Chrift Jefus, and that he is our only advocate and interceffor with God in heaven for us. 2. I fhall endeavour to fhew, that the doctrine and practice of the church of Rome in this matter is contrary to that of the Christian church, for feveral of the first ages of it. As for the ages of the Apostles, it hath been already proved out of their writings. That it was not practifed in the three firft ages, we have the acknowledgment of Cardinal Perron, and others of their learned writers; and they give a very remarkable reafon for it, namely, because the worship and invocation of faints and angels, and addreffing our prayers to God by them, might have feemed to have given countenance to the Heathen idolatry. From whence I cannot forbear, by the way, to make these two obfervations. I. That the invocation of faints and angels, and the blessed virgin, and addreffing ourselves to God by their mediation, was not in thofe primitive ages efteemed a duty of the Christian religion; because if it had, it could not have been omitted for fear of the fcandal confequent upon it: and if it was not a duty then, by what authority or law can it be made fo fince? 2. That this practice is very liable to the fufpicion of idolatry; and furely every Chriftian cannot but think it fit, that the church of Chrift should, like a chafte spouse, not only be free from the crime, but from all fufpicion of idolatry. And for the next ages after the Apostles, nothing is plainer, than that both their doctrine and practice were contrary to the doctrine and practice of the prefent church of Rome in this matter, The most ancient fathers of the Christian church do conftantly define prayer to be an addrefs to God, and therefore it cannot be made to any but God only and after the rife of Arianifm, they argued for the divinity of Christ against the Arians, from our praying to him; which argument were of no force, if prayers might be made to any but God: and this was in the beginning of the fourth age. And we no where find any mention of those distincti ons, ons, of gods by nature, and gods by participation, (as Bellarmine calls the angels and faints); or of a fupreme and inferior religious worship; or of a mediator of redemption, and a mediator of interceffion; which are fo commonly made ufe of by the church of Rome in this controverfy. And, which is as confiderable as any of the rest, the ancient fathers were generally of opinion, that the faints were not admitted to the beatifick vision, till after the day of judgment; and this is acknowledged by the most learned of the church of Rome. But this very opinion takes away the foundation of praying to faints; because the church of Rome grounds it upon their reigning with Christ in heaven, and upon the light and knowledge. which is communicated to them in the beatifick vifion; and if fo, then they who believed the faints not yet to be admitted to this vifion, could have no reafon or ground to pray to them. And, laftly, the ancient church prayed for faints departed, and for the bleffed virgin herfelf; and therefore could not pray to them as interceffors for them in heavcn, for whom they themselves interceeded upon earth. And therefore the church of Rome, in compliance with the change which they have made in their doctrine, have changed the miffal in that point; and instead of praying for St. Leo, one of their Popes, as they were wont to do in their ancient miffal, in this form, Grant, O Lord, "that this oblation may be profitable to the foul of thy "fervant Leo; "the collect is now changed in the prefent Roman miffal into this form: "Grant, O Lord, "that by the interceffion of bleffed Leo, this offering "may be profitable to us." And, as the glofs upon the Canon law observes, this change was made in their miffal upon very good reafon ; because anciently they "prayed for Leo, but now they pray to him; " which an ingenuous acknowledgment, that both the doctrine and practice of their church are plainly changed from what they anciently were in this matter. What the doctrines and practices of their church, of Rome, are in this matter, all the world fees; and they themselves are fo afhamed of them, that of late all their endeavours have been, to represent them otherwife than in truth they are, and to obtrude upon us a new Popery, which they think themselves better able to defend than the old; which yet they have not fhewn that they are fo well able to do: and therefore now, instead of defend- › ing the true doctrines and practices of their own church, they would fain mince and disguise them, and change them into something that comes nearer to the Proteftant doctrine in thofe points: as if they had no way to defend their own doctrines, but by seeming to desert them, and by bringing them as near to ours as poffibly they can. But take them as they have mollified them and pared them, to render them more plaufible and tenible; that which still remains of them, I mean the folemn invocation of faints and angels, as mediators and interceffors with God in heaven for us, is plainly contrary both to the doctrine and practice of the primitive ages of Christianity. As for the age of the Apostles, I have already fhewn it and the matter is as clear for feveral of the next following ages; as I shall briefly thew from a few very plain testimonies. In the age next to the Apostles, we have an epistle of one of the feven churches, (I mean the church of Smyrna); in which, in vindication of themselves from that calumny which was raised against them by the Jews, among the Heathen, "that if they permitted the Chri"ftians to have the body of the martyred Polycarp, "they would leave Chrift to worship Polycarp ;" I fay,' in vindication of themselves from this calumny, they declare themselves thus: "Not knowing (fay they) "that we can neither leave Chrift, who fuffered for "the falvation of the world of those that are faved, 66 nor worship any other; (or, as it is in the old La"tin tranflation, nor offer up the fupplication of prayer "to any other perfon): for as for Jefus Chrift, we adore him, as being the Son of God; but as for the 66 martyrs, we love them, as the difciples and imita"tors of the Lord." So that they plainly exclude the faints from any fort of religious worship, of which prayer or invocation was always esteemed a very confiderable part. Irenæus Irenæus likewise tells us, /. 2. that "the church doth "nothing (fpeaking of the miracles which were wrought) "by the invocation of angels, nor by inchantment, nor by any other wicked arts; but by prayers to the "Lord, who made all things, and by calling on the 66 name of our Lord Jefus Chrift." Here all invocation of angels, and, by the fame or greater reason, of the faints, is excluded. And Clemens Alexandrinus delivers it as the doctrine of the church, that "fince "there is but one good God, therefore both we and the "angels pray to him, both for the giving and the con"tinuance of good things." In the next age, Origen is fo full and exprefs in this matter, that it is not poffible for any Proteftant to speak more pofitively and clearly, 1. 8. cont. Gelfum, where he does on fet purpose declare and vindicate the Chriftian doctrine and practice in this matter: "We worship "(fays he) the one only God, and his one only Son, "and Word, and Image, with our utmost fupplications "and honours, bringing our prayers to the God of all "things, through, his only begotten Son." And afterwards, 66 Away (fays he) with Celfus's counsel, that fays, we mult pray to dæmons [or angels]; for we "muft pray only to God, who is above all: we must pray to the only begotten and first born of every 66 creature, and we must befeech him to offer up our 66 prayers which we make to him, to his God and our "God." And again, (fpeaking of angels), "As for "the favour of others, (if that be to be regarded), we "know, that thoufands of thousands ftand before him, "and ten thousand times ten thousand minifter unto "him; these are our brethren and friends, who, when "they fee us imitating their piety towards God, work 66 together to the falvation of those who call upon "God, and pray as they ought to do, that is, to God only." And .5. where Celfus urges him with this, that "the fcriptures call angels gods," he tells him, that "the fcriptures do not call the angels gods, "with any defign to require us to worship and adore "them inftead of God, who are miniftring fpirits, and "bring meffages and bleffings down to us from God: "for (fays he) all fupplications, and prayer, and inter " ceffion, |