Apostolic Church. It is impossible to study the remains of Christian
antiquity without being assured beyond the reach of doubt, that such
were the doctrines and practice of the universal Church from the days of
the Apostles. Is the invocation of saints and angels and the blessed
Virgin to be made an exception to this rule? Can it stand this test? The
great anxiety and labour of Roman Catholic {71} writers to press the
authors of every age to bear witness on their side in this behalf,
proves that in their judgment no such exception is admissible. It is
clearly beyond gainsaying, that if the present doctrine of the Church of
Rome, with respect to the worship of angels and saints, as propounded by
the Council of Trent; and if her present practice as set forth in her
authorized liturgies and devotional services, and professed by her
popes, bishops, clergy, and people, had been the doctrine and practice
of the primitive Church, we should have found evident and indisputable
traces of it in the earliest works of primitive antiquity, in the
earliest liturgies, and in the forms of prayer and exhortations to
prayer with which those works abound. It by no means follows that if
some such allusions were partially discoverable, therefore the doctrines
and practice must forthwith be pronounced to be apostolical; but if no
such traces can be found, their absence bears witness that neither did
those doctrines nor that practice exist. If, for example, through the
remains of the first three centuries we could have discovered no trace
of the doctrine or practice of holy Baptism and the Eucharist, we must
have concluded that the doctrine and the practice were the offspring of
later years. But when we read every where, in those remains,
exhortations to approach those holy mysteries with a pure heart and
faith unfeigned; when we find rules prescribed for the more orderly
administration of the rites; in a word, when we perceive throughout as
familiar references to these ordinances as could be now made by
Catholics either of Rome or of England, while this would not of itself