Invocation of Angels, or the act of addressing prayers to angels, especially to the angel-guardian, pre- vails in the Roman and the Greek churches, as well as in all the different Eastern churches. They hold that angels are sharers of the divine nature, though in a somewhat subordinate measure. In the same manner they also permit the invocation of saints (q. v.) even, and designate this worship under the technical term of covXiia, in distinction from the worship of God himself, which they term Xarpda. See Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, i, 141, 142, 338 sq. Compare Angels; Ven-
KUATIO.V.
Invocation of the Holy Ghost. In the prayer of the mediieval canon, retained also iu the Scottish of- iice on the consecration of the elements for the Lord's Supper, the Holy Ghost is thus invoked : '• Vouchsafa 60 to bless and sanctify with thy word and Holy Spirit these thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine that they may be unto us the body and blood of thy most dearly beloveil Son."
Invocation of Saints, a form of idolatry pre- vailing in the Roman, the Greek, and the diffarent Eastern churches. They ignore the doctrine to which the Protestants tenaciously cling, that the renderin"- of divine worship to one Infinite Being must of necessitv exclude the idea of rendering divine worship, no matter how modified and excused, to any other being, depend- ent upon and created by the Supreme Boiiig. Thev also deny that the invocation of the created, instead of the Creator, does in any wise trench upon the honor due only to God, and that it is, as we assert, irreconcilable with Scripture, " wliich lioMs liim forth as the sole ob- ject of worship, and tlic <mfy fountain of mercy." They cannot, of course, disprove these truths from "Scripture, neither can they furnish any authority from the holy book for a practice unknown to the early Cluirch, and expressly condemned by the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 481) anil hy tlie early fathers. The few passages which tliey fretpiontly cite they themselves claim only to im- ply an intercommunion of the two worlds (as Matt, xiii, 3 ; Luke xiv, 17 ; Exod. xxiii, 13), and they are there- fore obliged to have recourse to tradition. To this end they cite some of the Church fathers, such as Origen (0pp. ii, 273), Cyprian (A>. 60, Dodwcll's edition), Ba- sd (0pp. ii, 155), Gregory Nazianzen(6;v). i, 2.s«), Greg- ory of Nyssa (ii, 1017), Ambrose (ii, 200), Chrvsostom (IV, 449), and especially the liturgies of the different ancient churches of Roman, (Jreek, Syrian, and even Egyptian rite. Hut, wliile these testimonies are gener- ally credited, it must be remembered that they are only unscriptural additions, and that thev originated after the infusion into the Church svstciTi of ' Alexandrian
Neoplatonism and Oriental IMagianism, which left it3 traces even in the most orthodox form of Christian wor- ship, and creed also, up to the 4th and 5th centwies, a period in the historj' of the Christian Church when her- esies were, to use a common phrase, almost the order of the day. Nay, even the Roman Catholic Church ad- mits tliat the Avorship of saints was carried to an excess not only in this age, but especially in the medireval pe- riod. The worship of saints and of the Virgin Mary then took the place of the worship of Christ, the only legal intercessor between God and man, and thus virtu- ally ignored the mediatorship of Christ. It is true some of the more enlightened and less bigoted of the Romanists claim that the saints are only invoked, "not for the purpose of obtaining mercy or grace from them- selves directly, but in order to ask their prayers or in- tercession with God on our behalf (see Bellarmine, ControversicB de Sanctorum Beatitudine, lib. i, cap. xvii). But as we have already stated in our article on the im- maculate conception of the Virgin Mary, we repeat also here, that it is not for us to examine only the intent of the Romish liturgy, but also what her commimicants understand it to mean. Here lies the greatest ditlicul- ty, to say the least, against the introduction of a mode of worship wholly unauthorized by the word inspired by God to serve as a guide in all things. It brings home again not only the question of the immaculate conception of Mary, but even the infallibility theory of the vicar of Rome. Protestants are unwilling to take any authority except the word of God ; they refuse to acknowledge as infallible any one except the Infinite Being himself. It was this viev/ that inaugurated the Reformation, however much it may have been hastened by the sale of indulgences (see Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, ii, § 257). " The Church of Rome is justly and scripturally charged with idolatry in the worship, adoration, and invocation which she addresses to saints and angels. Idolatry, in the scriptural application of the term, is of two sorts, and consists (1) either in giv- ing the honor due to the one true God, as maker and governor of the world, to any subordinate being, (2) or in giving the honor due to Christ, as the sole media- tor between God and man, to any subordinate mediator. The farmer is the idolatry forbidden by the Jewish law, and by that of nature. The latter is Christian idolatry, properly so called, and is the abomination condemned in severe terms by the Gospel. This sjiecies of idolatrj- is, without doubt, chargeable on any ( "liristian Church that shall adopt, in its religious addn ssis. niKitlicr me- diator besides Jesus Christ. But the (liunh ol' Rome, not merely in the private writings of her divines, but in the solemn forms of her ritual, publicly professes, and by her canons and councils authoritatively enjoins, the worship of saints and angels, under the idea of media- tors or intercessors ; not, indeed, in exclusion of Christ as the one or chief mediator, but in manifest defiance of his sole mediatorship. This charge is truly and justly brouglit against her, as she now stands, and hath stood for many ages, and cannot by any subterfuge be evaded. Therefore she must be content to have the imputation of dremon-worship, or anti-Christian idolatry, still ad- hering to her" (Elliott).