ith the word of God, and contrary to the honour of the
one Mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ.

On this last point, indeed, I am aware of an anxious desire prevailing
on the part of many Roman Catholics, to establish a distinction between
a mediation of Redemption, and a mediation of Intercession: and thus by
limiting the mediation of the saints and angels to intercession, and
reserving the mediation of redemption to Christ only, to avoid the
setting up of another to share the office of Mediator with Him, who is
so solemnly declared in Scripture to be the one Mediator between God and
man. But this distinction has no foundation in the revealed will of God;
on the contrary, it is directly at variance with the words and with the
spirit of many portions of the sacred volume. There we find the two
offices of redemption and mediation joined together in Christ. "If any
man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
Righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins." [1 John ii. 1, 2.
Heb. ix. 12. vii. 25.] In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the same Saviour
who is declared "by his own blood to have obtained eternal redemption,"
is announced also as the Mediator of Intercession. "Wherefore he is able
to save them to the uttermost who come unto God through him, seeing he
ever liveth to make intercession for them." The {234} redemption wrought
by Christ, and the intercession still made in our behalf by Christ, are
both equally declared to us by the most sure warrant of Holy Scripture;
of any other intercession by saints in glory, by angels, or Virgin, to
be sought by our suppliant invocations to them, the covenant of God
speaks not.

It may be observed, that the enactment of this decree by the Council of
Trent, has been chiefly lamented by some persons on the ground of its
presenting the most formidable barrier against any reconciliation
between the Church of Rome, and those who hold the unlawfulness of the
invocation of saints. Indeed persons of erudition, judgment, piety, and
charity, in communion with Rome, have not been wanting to express openly
their regret, that decrees so positive, peremptory, and exclusive,
should have been adopted. They would have been better satisfied with the
terms of communion in the Church to which they still adhered, had
individuals been left to their own responsibility on questions of
disputable origin and doubtful antiquity, involving rather the subtilty
of metaphysical disqu