ents, if any seem to think otherwise, among whom must be
numbered Origen." [Origen's Works, vol. iv. part 2, p. 156.]

In this address, however, we take for granted that the reader is open to
conviction, desirous of arriving at the truth, and, with that view,
ready to examine and sift the evidence of primitive antiquity.

In that investigation our attention is very soon called to the
remarkable fact, that, whereas in the case of the invocation of saints
and angels, the defenders of that doctrine and practice bring forward a
great variety of passages, in which mention is supposed to be made of
{289} those beings as objects of honour and reverential and grateful
remembrance, the passages quoted with a similar view, as regards the
Virgin Mary, are very few indeed: whilst the passages which intimate
that the early Christians paid her no extraordinary honour (certainly
not more than we of the Anglican Church do now) are innumerable.

I have thought that it might be satisfactory here to refer to each
separately of those earliest writers, whose testimony we have already
examined on the general question of the invocation of saints and angels,
and, as nearly as may be, in the same order.

In the former department of our investigation we first endeavoured to
ascertain the evidence of those five primitive writers, who are called
the Apostolical Fathers; and, with regard to the subject now before us,
the result of our inquiry into the same works is this:

1. In the Epistle ascribed to BARNABAS we find no allusion to Mary.

2. The same must be affirmed of the book called The Shepherd of HERMAS.

3. In CLEMENT of Rome, who speaks of the Lord Jesus having descended
from Abraham according to the flesh, no mention is made of that daughter
of Abraham of whom he was born.

4. IGNATIUS in a passage already quoted (Ad Eph. vii. p. 13 and 16)
speaks of Christ both in his divine and human nature as Son of God and
man, and he mentions the name of Mary, but it is without any adjunct or
observation whatever, "both of Mary and of God." In another place he
speaks of her virgin state, and the fruit of her womb; and of her having
borne our God Jesus the Christ; but he adds no {290} more; not even
calling her "The blessed," or "The Virgin." In the interpolated Epistle
to the Ephesians, the former passage adds "the Virgin" after "Mary," but
nothing more.

5. In the Epistle of POLYCARP we find an admonition to virgins (Page
186), how they ough