highly, than the individual who is now soliciting your attention to the
conclusions which he has himself drawn from it. When Scripture is
silent, or where its meaning is doubtful, Catholic tradition is to me a
guide, which I feel myself bound to follow with watchful care and
submissive reverence.

Now let it be for the present supposed, that instead of the oracles of
God having spoken, as we believe them to have spoken, with a voice
clear, strong, and uniform against the doctrine and practice of the
invocation of saints and angels, their voices had been weak, doubtful,
and vague; in other words, suppose in this case the question had been
left by the Holy Scriptures an open question, then what evidence would
have been deducible from the writings of the primitive Church? What
testimony do the first years and the first ages after the canon of
Scripture was closed, bear upon this point? And here I would repeat the
principle of inquiry, proposed above for our adoption in the more
important and solemn examination of the Holy Volume itself.--We ought to
endeavour to ascertain what may {63} fairly and honestly be regarded as
the real bearing of each author's remains, and not suffer the general
tone and spirit of a writer to be counterbalanced by single expressions,
which may be so interpreted as to convey an opposite meaning. Rather we
should endeavour to reconcile with that general spirit and pervading
tendency of a writer's sentiments any casual expressions which may admit
of two acceptations. We adopt this principle in our researches into the
remains of classical antiquity; we adopt the same principle in
estimating the testimony of a living witness. In the latter case,
indeed, the ingenuity of the adverse advocate is often exercised in
magnifying the discrepancies between some minor facts or incidental
expressions with the broad and leading assertions of the witness, with a
view to invalidate his testimony altogether, or at least to weaken the