Primitive Christian Worship: Or, The Evidence of Holy Scripture and the Church, Against the Invocation of Saints and Angels, and the Blessed Virgin MaryTyler, James Endell
Religion
Primitive Christian Worship: Or, The Evidence of Holy Scripture and the Church, Against the Invocation of Saints and Angels, and the Blessed Virgin Mary
Tyler, James Endell
Christian saints -- Cult; Mary, Blessed Virgin, Saint -- Devotion to; Worship -- History -- Early church, ca. 30-600
In his Apology, sect. 30, we read this very remarkable passage, "We
invoke the eternal God, the true God, the living God, for the safety of
the emperor.... {130} Thither (heavenward) looking up, with hands
extended, because they are innocent; with our head bare, because we are
not ashamed; in fine, without a prompter, because it is from the heart;
we Christians pray for all rulers a long life, a secure government, a
safe home, brave armies, a faithful senate, a good people, a quiet
world.... For these things I cannot ask in prayer from any other except
Him from whom I know that I shall obtain; because both He is the one who
alone grants, and I am the one whom it behoveth to obtain by
prayer;--his servant, who looks to him alone, who for the sake of his
religion am put to death, who offer to him a rich and a greater victim,
which He has commanded; prayer from a chaste frame, from a harmless
soul, from a holy spirit.... So, let hoofs dig into us, thus stretched
forward to God, let crosses suspend us, let fires embrace us, let swords
sever our necks from the body, let beasts rush upon us,--the very frame
of mind of a praying Christian is prepared for every torment. This do,
ye good presidents; tear ye away the soul that is praying for the
emperor." [Page 27.]
In the opening of his reflections on the Lord's Prayer, he says,--
"Let us consider therefore, beloved, in the first place, the heavenly
wisdom in the precept of praying in secret, by which he required, in a
man, faith to believe that both the sight and the hearing of the
Omnipotent God is present under our roofs and in our secret places; and
desired the lowliness of faith, that to Him alone, whom he believed to
hear and to see every where, he would offer his worship." [Page 129.]
The only other reference which I will make, is to {131} the solemn
declaration of Tertullian's Creed; the last clause of which, though in
perfect accordance with the sentiments of his contemporaries, seems to
have been regarded with hostile eyes by modern writers of the Church of
Rome, because it decidedly bids us look to the day of judgment for the
saints being taken to the enjoyment of heaven; and consequently implies
that they cannot be properly invoked now.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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