The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1880-11-17

prayer is, ana That L want st. Lucy to
present it to Him, and intercede for me;
and then st. Lucy can take my prayer as
God tells it to her, and tell it back to
Him again, and ask II i'm to grant it..
Well that is certainly very roundabout
process l think our Protestant way is
much the most direct, to go to the Sa-
viour who is infinite, who knows all from
the beginning, who reads to the very
bottom my heart, who is infinitely loving
and compassionate, and to ask Him to
intercede for me. know Him. l don t
know St. Lucy and St. Catherine, and ST..
Gervase, and st. Protase. They might
take interest in my case and they mig ht
not. l know that Jesus will. He is in
tercessor enough for me.
5. But finally is not all such creature
intercession utterly excluded by that
passage, l Tim. ii: 5, "There is one God,
and one Mediator between God and man,
the man Christ Jesus? 1t will be seen
at glance that the emphasis in each of
these two clauses is upon the word one
there is ONE God, to the exclusion of all
others. There is ONE Mediator to the
exclusion of all others If the text for
bids having more than one God, it equal
ly forbids having more than one Media
tor. 1t will not answer to say that the
saints are mediators only in subordi-
nate sense This text excludes them in
any sense. If man cannot have another
God even in a subordinate sense he can
not have another mediator even in sub
ordinate sense, and this whole business of
the invocation of saints is convicted of
idolatry T. D. WITHERsPooN.
P. S. Since the above was forwarded
to your office I have seen the Catholic
VaSator of the 9th inst, in which DR..
OConnell returns to the subject of "idol-
airy, and complains that in my refer
ence to Catholic authors 1 interpret
their language only by Protestant rules.
interpret by the plain rules of common
sense which govern the use of all Ian
guage. If these are Protestant rules, so
much the worse for DR.. O'Connell. If
when man says Mary is omnipotent,
he does not mean that she Isl if when he
says she is "our only refuge" he does not
mean that she is; if when he vows to be
" blessing and praising her for all eter-
nifty" he does not mean it; he had better
quit talking altogether A note in the
preface" (Which not one in a hundred
reads) to guard against the plainest and
most uniform rules of Interpretation will
not answer. If the worshippers are to
understand them differently the language
should be changed. The fact that it is
retained shows that this, which is the OBJ
vious sense, is the one intended.
But he says some of the earlier fathers
have used as strong language as that to
which take exception-and he quotes
several. But as l have already remarked
in the body of the letter, there have been
so many interpretations of the text of the
fathers by later writers, that the genuine
ness of most of these passages is extreme
ly doubtful-and even those, if any,
which are genuine, are extravaganza ut
terances, the use OF which as Support"
for this superstitious worship, would make
these old fathers turn over in their
graves, if that precious dust" had been
permitted to rest there and had not been
dug up by Catholics that the bones, as
relics, might be exposed to the gaze of
the curious, and foster the superstition of
the credulous. He says, ~ have not in
herited the faith of the fathers I re-
ply that have inherited the faith of the
apostles, which is far better The differ
ence between him and nae is that I build
upon the foundation of the apostles and
prophets, and he builds upon che, founda-
ton of the fathers and schoolmen. I
would rather be a Protestant like Paul
and have one mediator, than Catholic
like ST. Alphonsus and have hundred.
T. D. w.
For tho Cantro1 prosb,,toio,