Wesley Corpus

5, 6.) And suppose the angels or saints intercede for us in heaven; yet may we no more worship them, than, because “there are gods many on earth,” we may worship them as we do the true God. The Romanists allow, “There is only one Mediator of redemption;” but say, “There are many mediators of inter cession.” We answer, The Scripture knows no difference between a mediator of intercession and of redemption. He alone “who died and rose again” for us, makes intercession for us at the right hand of God. And he alone has a right to our prayers; nor dare we address them to any other. 4. The worship which the Romanists give to the Virgin Mary, is beyond what they give either to angels or other saints. In one of their public offices, they say, “Command thy Son by the right of a mother.” They pray to her to “loose the bands of the guilty, to bring light to the blind, to make them mild and chaste, and to cause their hearts to burn in love to Christ.” Such worship as this cannot be given to any creature, without gross, palpable idolatry. We honour the blessed Virgin as the mother of the Holy Jesus, and as a person of eminent piety: But we dare not give worship to her; for it belongs to God alone. Meantime, we cannot but wonder at the application which the Church of Rome continually makes to her, of whose acts on earth the Scripture so sparingly speaks. And it says nothing of what they so pompously celebrate, her assumption into heaven, or of her exaltation to a throne above angels or archangels. It says nothing of her being “the mother of grace and mercy, the Queen of the gate of heaven,” or of her “power to destroy all heresies,” and bring “all things to all.” 5. The Romanists pay a regard to the relics of the saints also; which is a kind of worship. By relics, they mean the bodies of the saints, or any remains of them, or particular things belonging or relating to them when they were alive; as an arm or thigh, bones or ashes; or the place where, or the things by which, they suffered. They venerate these, in order to obtain the help of the saints.