with them we may be partakers of Thy heavenly kingdom: Grant this, O
Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen."

We now proceed to examine the invaluable remains of Christian antiquity,
not for the purpose of testing the accuracy of the above catalogue of
gradations _seriatim_ and in order of time; but to satisfy ourselves on
the question, whether the invocation of saints and angels prevailed from
the first in the Christian Church; or whether it was an innovation
introduced after pagan superstition had begun to mingle its poisonous
corruptions with the pure worship of {70} Almighty God. And here, I
conceive, few persons will be disposed to doubt, that if the primitive
believers were taught by the Apostles to address the saints reigning in
heaven and the holy angels, and the Virgin Mother of our Lord, with
adoration and prayers, the earliest Christian records must have
contained clear and indisputable references to the fact, and that
undesigned allusions to the custom would inevitably be found offering
themselves to our notice here and there. I do not mean that we should
expect to meet with full and explicit statements either of the doctrine
or the practice of the primitive Church in this particular; much less
such apologies and elaborate defences of the practice as abound to the
overflow in later times. But, what is more satisfactory in proof of the
general and established prevalence of any opinions or customs, we should
surely find expressions incidentally occurring, which implied an
habitual familiarity with such opinions or customs. In every record, for
example, of primitive antiquity, from the very earliest of all,
expressions are constantly meeting us which involve the doctrine of the
ever-blessed Trinity, the atoning sacrifice of Christ's death, the
influences of the Holy Spirit; habitual prayer and praise offered to the
Saviour of the world, as very and eternal God; the holy Sacraments of
Baptism and the Lord's Supper; with other tenets and practices of the