Popery condemned by scripture and the fathers - End Time Deception

OPERY
S66
•
CONDEMNED BY
says Novatian upon the same subject,
" If Christ
" be only man, why is he invoked in. prayer
"... This is not the prerogative of man, but of
" God*."
If the R .
would shew the worship of saints and
angels to be an apostoUc doctrine, let him produce
his proofs from these
more early writers,
and not from persons who wrote when this abominable
practice had begun to creep into the
Church.
In consulting the works of the Fathers,
he ought also to distinguish oratorical and poetical
apostrophes, from what is written coolly to
illustrate the doctrines of religion. The former,
Theodoret assures us,
ought not to be considered
as a rule of faith f ;
and even Sixtus Senensis,
a Papist, acknowledges, that many things,
which the Fathers have said in their public discourses,
proceeded from the passions, and cannot
be justified |. A cursory view of modem
writers will show him the
propriety of making
this discrimination. No person ever imagined
Shakespeare a Papist, though he said, *' Angels
*'
and ministers of grace defend us;" nor the
British poets heathens, though they have invoked
the muses.
When the R. has controverted these
authorities
from the Fathers, he may perhaps be furnished
with a fresh supply. As an antidote a-
gainst
* De Trjnit. c. 14. f
.t
Biblioth. Lib. 6. Annot. 152.
Dial. 3.