king them, would
he have avoided the introduction of some words to prevent his
expressions from being misunderstood and misapplied, as subsequent
writers did long before the time when the denial of the doctrine might
seem to have made such precaution more necessary?

I close then the catalogue of our witnesses before the Council of Nicaea
with the testimony of St. Athanasius; whose genuine and acknowledged
works afford not one jot or tittle in support of the doctrine and
practice of the invocation of angels and saints, as now insisted upon by
the Church of Rome; and the direct {190} tendency of whose evidence is
decidedly hostile both to that doctrine and that practice.

I have seen it observed by some who are satisfied, that the records of
primitive antiquity do not contain such references to the invocation of
saints and angels, as we might have expected to find had the custom then
prevailed, that the earliest Christians kept back the doctrine and
concealed it, though they held it; fearing lest their heathen neighbours
should upbraid them with being as much polytheists as themselves[66].
This is altogether a gratuitous assumption, directly contrary to
evidence, and totally inconsistent with their conduct. Had those first
Christians acted upon such a debasing principle, they would have kept
back and concealed their worship of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, as
exposing them to a similar charge. They were constantly upbraided with
worshipping a crucified {191} mortal; but instead of either meeting that
charge by denying that they worshipped Jesus as their God, or of
concealing the worship of Him, lest they should expose themselves again
to such upbraidings, they publicly professed, that He whom the Jews had
murdered, they believed in as the Son of God, Himself their God. They
gloried in the doctrine of the ever-blessed Trinity, and did not fear
what men might do to them, or say of them in consequence. Had they
believed in the duty of invoking saints and angels, the high principle
of Christian integrity would not have suffered them to be ashamed to
confess it, or to practise openly what they believed.

[Footnote 66: Bishop Morley, (London, 1683,) in a letter written
whilst he was in exile at Breda, to J. Ulitius, refers to
Cardinal Perron, "Replique a la Resp. du Roy de la Grande Bret."
p. 1402 and 4, for this sentiment: "The Fathers do not always
speak what they think, but conceal their real sentimen