o Bonaventura, Bernardin Sen., Bernardin de Bust.,
&c.; and also the encyclical letter of the present (A.D. 1840)
reigning pontiff.]

To this point, however, we must repeatedly revert {239} hereafter; at
present, I will only add one further consideration. If, as we are now
repeatedly told, the utmost sought by the invocation of saints is that
they would intercede for the supplicants; that no more is meant than we
of the Anglican Church mean when we earnestly entreat our
fellow-Christians on earth to pray for us,--why should not the prayers
to the saints be confined exclusively to that form of words which would
convey the meaning intended? why should other forms of supplicating them
be adopted, whose obvious and direct meaning implies a different thing?
If we request a Christian friend to pray for us, that we may be
strengthened and supported under a trial and struggle in our spiritual
warfare, we do not say, "Friend, strengthen me; Friend, support me."
That entreaty would imply our desire to be, that he would visit us
himself, and comfort and strengthen us by his own kind words and
cheering offices of consolation and encouragement. To convey our
meaning, our words would be, "Pray for me; remember me in your
supplications to the throne of grace. Implore God, of his mercy, to give
me the strength and comfort of his Holy Spirit." If nothing more is ever
intended to be conveyed, than a similar request for their prayers, when
the saints are "suppliantly invoked," in a case of such delicacy, and
where there is so much danger of words misleading, why have other
expressions of every variety been employed in the Roman Liturgies, as
well as in the devotions of individuals, which in words appeal to the
saints, not for their prayers, but for their own immediate exertion in
our behalf, their assistance, succour, defence, and comfort,--"Protect
us from our enemies--Heal the diseases of our minds--Release us from our
sin--Receive us at the hour of death?" {240}

In the present work, however, were it not for the example and warning
set us by this still greater departure from Scripture and the primitive
Church, we need not have dwelt on this immediate point; because we
maintain that any invocation of saint or angel, even if it were confined
to a petitioning for their prayers and intercessions, is contrary both
to God's word and to the faith and practice of the primitive, Catholic,
and Apostolic Church. We now proceed to the nex