they may receive it-this would be idolatry. But it is offered to God to their honour; and so far from this being derogatory to the honour of Christ, or against his institutions, it is calculated to promote his honour, and in conformity with his institutions; for when we honour the saints, we only pay to God the homage of our praise for their perfections, we praise his work in them, and their glory redounds to Him who created them and sanctified them: and surely it was to procure them honour, and glory, and salvation, that he sacrificed himself on Calvary, and we only repeat the offering for the purpose of commemorating and fulfilling his institutions. Nay, he distinctly declares,* For them do 1 sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth, and its consequence, honoured in glory. Thus the sacrifice is offered to the Trinity, but not to the saints: and, though they are honoured, that respect redounds to the greater glory of the Lord. Catholics to be, (paragraph 10,) as regards invoke them, and ask their help, in obtainprayer to the angels and saints, 'only to ing benefits which God alone can confer," the writer with the contradictory name, represented truly the second kind of prayer above described, and which Catholics hold it lawful to use towards any of our fellowYet creatures, who can hear and help us. this same correspondent of yours, unqualifiedly calls such invocation and demand of help, idolatry. We now agree in the facts; and our difference is upon principle. Let us see a specimen of his theology, and of its necessary consequences. He lays down the principle, that """ prayer offered to a creature, whether visible or invisible, is idolatry. 7." To invoke, means no more than to call upon, and generally for a favour; to invoke and ask help, means that the person is called upon to grant that help, as a matter of courtesy or favour, not as claimed of right: and this is prayer; by his own statement, such prayer can be offered to visible, equally as to invisible creatures; and your correspondent informs us that it is equally idolatry, in one case, as in the But why, it is said, need we ask to have our other. I agree perfectly with him in the sacrifice received, if that sacrifice be Christ, who principle, though I widely differ from him must necessarily be acceptable? Because we are in my results. He would assert that, in not necessarily acceptable, and the object is to each case, it would be idolatry: I say it is apply to us the benefit of this offering, by grant-not so in either. He admits as a fact, that ing to us those dispositions which will qualify Protestants ask the prayers of the faithful, us to profit by that which in itself is excellent. "This prayer was originally said only on the festivals of saints, and special mention then was made of that saint, whose festival was celebrated: but, during the latter seven hundred or eight hundred years, the special name has been omitted, and the general form used as now. Many of the ancient Missals style it the prayer of St. Ambrose: we, however, have no better evidence to attribute its formation to him.' (MISSAL, Explic. lvii.) The third part of the prayer is a request, that those saints whose memory we celebrate on earth, may intercede for us in heaven. Here, then, we distinctly point out how far they can assist us, by intercession,' to be again subordinate to that of the Redeemer, and only available through his merits; for the prayer concludes by the words, which clearly prove those merits to be the foundation on which we rest all our hope, by those words: Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.' Thus no part of our office, no tenet, no practice of ours, will for a moment countenance the notion that we pray to the created spirits, in the same manner that we do to God: and every attempt to impute this to us, is a misrepresentation; and your correspondent has garbled, changed, added, I may properly say, interpolated and equivocated, in his vain efforts to attain this object. Roman Catholics have at least so much common sense as to know, that God is the Creator of angels and saints, and that these blessed spirits are not their own creators: Catholics know that Jesus Christ is the only Redeemer, and to the Creator, and Redeemer, and Sanctifier only, do they look for mercy at its source. Having stated the doctrine of Roman * John xvii. 19. or those they consider so on earth, in the body, that God will comfort them in sorrow, sustain them in trial, and save them from danger." Thus they entreat the faithful in the body, they invoke them: they ask their help, by the ora pro nobis, "pray for us," with a view to benefits which God alone can confer; and thus Protestants, according to this theologian, are guilty of idolatry. No, no, for the persons whom they invoke, are in the body:-upon earth. I answer, "they are visible." If they were disembodied spirits, and not upon earth, they would, it is true, be invisible to us, but not the less really in existence: and, whether visible or invisible, the contradictory writer took good care to make his principle embrace both. It is very true, that another question will fairly offer itself, respecting the wisdom of addressing ourselves to intercessors invisible to us, who have departed from the body: but the questions of idolatry and inutility are very different. To invoke and pray, in our second meaning of prayer, to an angel or a saint, is then no more idolatry, than to invoke and ask the aid of a creature upon earth; and if Catholics are guilty of this crime, by invoking those spirits, Protestants are equally guilty, by in voking each other. So far, the two cases resemble each other in principle. But here the similarity ceases. He, with apparent triumph, asks whether the cases resemble each other? I say that, in principle, to this extent, they do. Before I take up the point of difference, it might not be amiss for me to remind you of one who certainly besought earnestly the prayers of persons, who, though visible, and on earth, and in the body, yet were to him as perfectly invisible at the time, as any of those blessed spirits, whom I presume you will admit he occasionally saw. "30. Now, I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me; 31. That I may be delivered from them that do not believe in Judea; and that my service which I have for Jerusalem, may be accepted of the saints; 32. That I may come among you with joy by the will of God, and may with you be refreshed." (St. Paul, Ep. to Rom., chap. xv.) The allegation upon which the charge of idolatry was founded, being, that Roman Catholics prayed to angels and saints, in such a manner as to commit this crime, I apprehend that I should have sufficiently vindicated my denial of the charge, by what I have written; but your correspondent has chosen to go much farther, and it perhaps will be as well to follow him. We have seen that it would not be idolatry to invoke, or call upon one of the faithful in the body, to unite with us in prayer to God. It remains to examine, whether the mere circumstance of making a similar request of an invisible or spiritual creature, would thereby become idolatry. I will at once say, it would not: because, to constitute that crime, we must give to some creature, visible or invisible, corporeal or spiritual, the homage due to God alone: the mere circumstance of invisibility, or spirituality, will not change the principle. The jet of the crime consists, in giving to a creature, what belongs only to the Creator. Now, we never worship God by asking him to join us in prayer, by asking him "to pray for us," by asking him "to make intercession for us." Hence, to address a fellowcreature in this manner, is not to treat it as we treat God, but in a way in which no rational or religious being would act towards the Creator. To address to God such prayers as those which we address to angels and saints, would be to derogate from his honour, and to blaspheme. When, therefore, we thus address the blessed spirits, we do not pay to them the homage which we pay to God. The other differences alluded to in the tenth paragraph, are: first, a doubt as to whether the being whom we ask to pray for us, is in heaven. Suppose he is not: then the worst will be, that our labour will be just as much lost, as would be that of a good Protestant who should write to a friend in a distant place to pray for him, and the friend dies before the letter arrives. We believe, however, upon grounds which satisfy ourselves, that we can know, in some instances, that God has admitted particular individuals to his presence, and we address ourselves only to them: but, if even here we should, being deluded, ask the prayers of one who is a reprobate, we are in no worse plight, than probably are many of our Protestant friends themselves, who have often been imposed upon by hypocrites, whose prayers they have besought, under the impression of their being virtuous; but surely this mistake is not idolatry. Your correspondent next states a new difference to be, that we know not that those blessed spirits are accessible, and we can surely have access to the faithful in the body on earth. This I call begging the question: for we assert that there is equally certain access to those blessed spirits. Yet, still were there no access to them, it would only be folly, not idolatry, to ask their prayers. In the same tenth paragraph, which indeed contains the chief part of his argument, he asserts another difference between the blessed in heaven and the faithful in the body to be, that we know not that the former can pray for us, or help us; whilst we do know that the latter can. This also is assuming what we deny; and such ignorance, if it even existed on our part, would not constitute idolatry. Upon those grounds, I then state: that idolatry being the giving to any creature the worship due only to God, in order to prove us guilty thereof, in praying to angels and saints, it must be shown that we pray to them in such a way as is due only to God. But we do not pray to them in that manner, but only in that manner in which Protestants pray to just men on earth, in the body; and as this is not on their part idolatry, so neither is our conduct idolatrous. In another place, I shall show that it is neither foolish nor irreligious. We now come to another point. "Catholics ask salvation through the merits of the angels and saints." No attempt having been made to produce any evidence whatever to sustain the charge of our asking salvation ("to save them") through the merits of the angels, and the proposition being conjunc tive, I might, upon this single ground, claim to have the whole assertion rejected as not proved. I shall, however, not use this advantage. I shall merely say that we deny, and our impugner has not attempted to show that denial to be unfounded, that we do pray to the angels to save us by their merits. The only proof adduced is a prayer to the guardian angel, paragraph 4, in which not one syllable of or regarding merits is to be found. I do not, of course, admit the unfounded assertions and repetitions of your correspondent to be proofs. In paragraph 7, he adduces the documents regarding the merits of the saints; after four prayers, in which mention is made of their merits and one of intercession only, the writer concludes, in paragraph 8: "It is then a fact, that Roman Catholics do pray to angels and saints to save them by their merits." So far as the angels are concerned, it is obviously not a fuct. Now, to understand the question properly, we must be clear as to the meaning of the terms used; we should have no quarrel merely about words. Doctrines, and not expressions, form the subject of our inquiry. I shall first state what I conceive is meant by the expression (6 save them." I am under the impression that, amongst Protestants, it means, to bring a person from a state of sin, whereby he is exposed to eternal punishment, to a state of justification wherein he becomes entitled to heaven, that is, "save them from hell," which is the place of punishment for sin. The word merits, I believe, is at present, by the great bulk of Protestants in this Union, considered as implying a claim of pure and strict justice on the part of the meritorious, which gives them a complete right to demand an equivalent from the person against whom they have this claim. Thus, the impression conveyed to the Protestant mind by the expression, "A Catholic believes that he can be saved by the merits of the saints," is, that we believe the saints have some demand of strict justice upon God, by reason of some service they have done him, independently of any claim of his upon them: and by virtue of which demand, they can, in strict right, save sinners from hell and bring them to heaven. Now, Roman Catholics consider it a heresy to make any such assertion. They condemn the Pelagians as erring from the faith, for asserting that a man can, by the proper use of his own faculties, merit heaven for himself, which is much less than is implied in the above assertion. Hence it is a misrepresentation of Catholic doctrine to assert, that it teaches that we can be so saved either by our own merits, or by the merits of angels and saints. It is also, of course, a misrepresentation to assert, that we pray to saints in this sense, or in any other like this, to save us by their merits. Thus, the Catholic doctrine, as laid down in the sixth session of the Council of Trent, on the 13th of January, 1547, is "That man cannot, by his own works, which are done either according to the teaching of human nature or of the law, without divine grace through Jesus Christ, be justified before God. Canon 1. "That divine grace is not given through Jesus Christ, merely that a man might with more ease live justly, and merit eternal life; as if he might be able to do so in any manner by free will, culty.-Canon 11. without grace; but yet hardly, and with diffi "That a man cannot, without the preventing inspiration of the Holy Ghost and his help, be lieve, hope, love or repent as he ought, so that the grace of justification should be conferred upon him.-Canon III. "That men are not justified without the jus tice of Christ, by which he merited for us. Canon X. In the decree concerning original sin, passed on the 17th of June, 1546, in the third paragraph, it is distinctly stated as Catholic doctrine, that this sin cannot be removed by the strength of human nature, nor by any other remedy "but by the merit of the only mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, who reconciled us to God, in his blood." Thus, the only mode by which we can be saved from sin, be justified before God, live justly, believe, hope, love, and repent as we ought, so that the grace of justification should be conferred upon us, and, of course, eternal life procured, is through the divine grace of Jesus Christ, our only reconciling mediator, by and through whose merits only this can be obtained. I could multiply evidences of this being the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, and cite the various texts of Scripture, passages from the fathers, and decisions of previous Councils to which the Council of Trent refers, for the purpose of showing that this was always the doctrine of the Church: but it is unnecessary, for I presume it will be conceded that the Canons of this Council itself will be admitted as sufficient evidence of the fact that such is our doctrine. How, then, are we to reconcile the collects of the Missal, in which we pray to the saints to save us by their merits, with this doctrine? Does not the Missal contradict the Council? By no means. The reconciliation is easy between the prayers and the decrees. The meaning of the passage, "save us by his merits," if applied to Jesus Christ in the sense in which those words are understood by Protestants, as above explained, will give the exact meaning of the Council. Now, when Roman Catholics apply the word merit to a creature as regards God, it could not, without a contradiction to their doctrine, have this same meaning: and they declare that such is not the meaning which they attach to the expression; but they explain it in altogether a different sense. Now, every good writer upon logic, as well as every honest man, will tell us that, when we inquire as to a man's belief, we must take his own meaning of his own words, in order to understand what, in fact, he does believe; but if we force upon his words a sense which he disclaims, we do not correctly exhibit his belief, but our own imputation. I shall, in my next letter, explain what we understand by the merits of the saints: it is enough for my present purpose to state, that we do not, in our prayers or other formularies or documents, by any means give to it the meaning which is forced upon us by our opponents. Now, no one of the prayers "asks salvation" through the merits of the saints. Let us examine them. "Graciously receive, O Lord, we beseech thee, our offerings, and grant, by the merits of blessed Anastasia the martyr, that they may avail to our salvation. Thro'." The prayer is addressed to God, and the grace is asked from him, the only fountain of mercy that grace is, that the offerings (instituted by Jesus Christ) may avail us to salvation, by the merits of a holy martyr. The previous collect, p. 25, asked that "we may be sensible of the effects of her prayers to thee in our behalf;" and this was asked "through" the only way in which her prayer could avail or be received, "Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee in Unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen." Those merits are, in our sense of the word, no more than what eminent Protestant writers, as I shall show, mean by a state of righteousness; and the way in which we believe her merits would be regarded, is found in the meaning which Protestants attach to this text, as read in your version, James v. 16. "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." We believe, that a person who, through the merits of Jesus Christ, is justified, and continues to serve God by the practice of virtue, is thereby meritorious before God through his mercy and the merits of the Saviour; and we believe that the Almighty, in regard to this secondary and derived merit, which is [of] a very different kind from that of our Saviour, will more kindly and graciously hear the prayer and grant the request of this righteous person, than the prayer of a sinner, or of a reprobate person. Yet, still, to show whence this merit, such as it is, derives its value, the prayer always concludes with the statement of its foundation "Thro.'" "our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the Unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen." Catholics are so well accustomed to hear these forms of the conclusion, that, generally, only the word "Thro." is printed, for the sake of abbreviation. Thus, Catholics do not pray to St. Anastasia to be saved by her merits, in the sense in which Protestants understand the phrase; nor do they pray at all "to be saved" by her merits. But they pray to be saved by the institutions of our Lord Jesus Christ; and they ask of God, through the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous or meritorious martyr, that those institutions of Jesus Christ might be made of avail to them, by his bestowing upon them his grace, and creating in them those dispositions without which even the merits and institutions of our only Saviour and Redeemer and Mediator Christ Jesus will not save us. Hence, to represent Catholics as asking to be saved by the merits of the saints, is doing them a gross injustice, and stating that which is not the fact. In the collect of St. Scholastica and others, your very generous and honourable correspondent stops, as usual, so as to garble the prayer. I give in italics what he omitted. "O God, who to recommend to us innocence of life, wast pleased to let the soul of thy blessed Virgin Scholastica ascend to heaven in the shape of a dove: grant by her merits and prayers, that we may lead innocent lives here, and ascend to eternal joys hereafter. Thro'." O God, who didst grant thy servant John, being inflamed with the fire of thy love, to walk without hurt through the midst of flames, and by him institute a new order in thy church: grant by his merits, that the fire of thy charity may cure our diseased souls, and obtain for us eternal remedies. Thro'." "O God, who wast pleased to send blessed Patrick, thy bishop and confessor, to preach thy glory to the Gentiles: grant, that by his merits and intercession we may, through thy grace, be enabled to keep thy commandments. Thro'." These prayers are all addressed to God, calling upon him to save us by his mercy; and the meaning of the merits is the same as that above, in the collect of St. Anastasia. I must return to this topic in my next. I remain, gentlemen, Your obedient, humble servant, B. C. Charleston, S. C., June 15, 1829. not then be done by any other agent, there would exist a just ground of claim.. No created being can stand in such a relation as this to God, because all our works are due to him, by reason of our creation and conservation; we have nothing to bestow upon him which he cannot justly claim by several previous titles. Thus, neither are we independent, nor are we exempt from his just claims. Hence, though the works of creatures could in their own nature be of sufficient value to make atonement for our fallen race, men and angels united could not offer anything which was truly their own, and free from the claim of the Creator. Thus, the united efforts of angels and saints could not, by their merits, save one sinner. But the works of the incarnate Son of God, being free from claim, and his person independent, so too were his acts; they were also, by reason of his infinite perfections, of infinite value; and by them we are freely and fully saved from ruin, and justified, when through the divine mercy we are made partakers thereof. GENTLEMEN: In my last letter I stated that the great difficulty as to a proper understanding of the question here at issue between your correspondent with the contradictory name, and me, existed in the equivocal nature of the word merit. No Roman Catholic expects to be saved either by his own merits or by the merits of any angel or of any saint; neither does he ask either of them or of God "to be saved by their merits," but only by the merits of Jesus Christ. The prayers to which reference has been made, do ask, indeed, of God, that he, having regard to the merits of the saints, would be more kind and merciful to us, and grant to us an increase of that grace, which is alto- When a man is thus justified by the apgether derived from the merits and satisfac-plication of Christ's merits to his soul, we tion of our Redeemer. But we do not give the same meaning to the phrase merits of Christ, that we do to merits of the blessed Virgin Mary, or of any other saint. And my present object is to exhibit the different senses in which this word merit is used. I shall send to the editors of the Miscellany a translation of such of the doctrinal chapters of the Council of Trent, as may be necessary to exhibit our belief regarding the manner in which justification is obtained by the sinner. This will show to whom we look for salvation, because when we become justified, we are saved from hell, unless we should relapse into sin; and it will be seen that this justification is derived solely and exclusively from the merits of Christ, and in no way from the merits of angels or saints. Let us now proceed to state our doctrine regarding merit. Merit is a claim to a recompense, by reason of some work which is worthy thereof. This claim is of several kinds. I shall notice only two. The first is that between equals, where one has done for another a work which this latter needs or accepts; the agent was free and independent, under no real or implied obligation to him whom he served, but the service was done upon the express or implied condition of obtaining a just recompense. In this case the agent has fully and justly merited, and the recompense cannot, without palpable injustice, be refused. Even though there should have been no covenant, yet if the service was necessary, and could say that he may thereafter, for the first time, become meritorious by observing the law of God; but the nature of his merits will differ essentially from that of the Saviour's merits. In the first place, the righteous or justified man is acceptable only by reason of the merits of the Son of God: hence his are not independent merits. Next, he cannot of strict justice claim any recompense, but what is freely promised by God; thus his claim is founded upon the merits of Christ, and the covenant by which the Creator freely bound himself to give a reward to those works, and not upon any intrinsic natural value of his own deeds. Thus it is clear, that when we say persons in a state of sanctity or justification have merit for their good works, we always understand that those works are raised to this grade of excellence through the free mercy of God, and by the free merits of Christ, and that they create no demand upon God, farther than in virtue of his own voluntary covenant. That the Almighty could claim them by several previous titles, but having mercifully waived those claims, he has promised us that he would give to us a recompense or reward for deeds, to perform which he even now aids us by the grace of Jesus Christ, without which we could not do those works as we ought; and that when he thus rewards the saints, he by this recompense crowns his own gifts in them. This is the only merit which Catholics believe the saints can have in his sight. |