+III. The reason why Christ's mediation ought to minister such confidence to us.+--His incomparable fitness for the performance of that work. Considering Him: 1. In respect to God, with whom He has to mediate. God sustains a double capacity of Father and Judge. Christ appears not only as an Advocate, but as a Surety, paying down the utmost justice can exact. 2. In reference to men for whom He mediates. He is a friend, brother, surety, lord or master. 3. In respect to Himself. (1) He is perfectly acquainted with all our wants and necessities. (2) He is heartily sensible of and concerned about them. (3) He is best able to express and set them before the Father. +IV. Whether there is any other ground that may rationally embolden us in our addresses to Him.+--If there is, it must be either: 1. Something within us as the merit of our good actions. But this cannot be--(1) because none can merit but by doing something absolutely by his own power for the advantage of him from whom he merits; (2) because to merit is to do something over and above what is due. 2. Something without us. This must be the help and intercession either of angels or saints. Angels cannot mediate for us--(1) because it is impossible for them to know and perfectly discern the thoughts; (2) because no angel can know at once all the prayers that are even uttered in words throughout the world. These arguments are still more forcible against the intercession of saints. The invocation of saints supposed to arise: 1. From the solemn meetings used by the primitive Christians at the saints' sepulchres, and there celebrating the memory of their martyrdom. 2. From those seeds of the Platonic philosophy that so much leavened many of the primitive Christians. 3. From the people being bred in idolatry. But the primitive fathers held no such thing; and the Council of Trent, that pretended to determine the case, put the world off with an ambiguity. Christ is the only true way.--_R. South._