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 next portion of our proposed inquiry,—­the present state of Roman Catholic worship, with respect to the invocation of saints and angels. {241}

* * * * *

CHAPTER III.

SECTION I.—­PRESENT SERVICE IN THE CHURCH OF ROME.

In submitting to the reader’s consideration the actual state of Roman Catholic worship at the present hour, I disclaim all desire to fasten upon the Church of Rome any of the follies and extravagancies of individual superstition.  Probably many English Roman Catholics have been themselves shocked and scandalized by the scenes which their own eyes have witnessed in various parts of continental Europe.  It would be no less unfair in us to represent the excesses of superstition there forced on our notice as the genuine legitimate fruits of the religion of Rome, than it would be in Roman Catholics to affiliate on the Catholics of the Anglican Church the wild theories and revolting tenets of all who assume the name of opponents to Rome.  Well indeed does it become us of both Churches to watch jealously and adversely as against ourselves the errors into which our doctrines, if not preserved and guarded in their purity and simplicity, might have a tendency to seduce the unwary.  And whilst I am fully alive to the necessity of us Anglican Catholics prescribing to ourselves a {242} practical application of the same rule in various points of faith and discipline, I would with all delicacy and respect invite Roman Catholics to do likewise.  Especially would I entreat them to reflect with more than ordinary scrutiny and solicitude on the vast