"O Everlasting God, who hast ordained and constituted the services of angels and men in a wonderful order, mercifully grant that as Thy holy angels alway do Thee service in heaven, so by Thy appointment they may succour and defend us on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
Such is the prayer of the Church Catholic, whether of the Roman or the Anglican branch; it is in spirit and in truth a Christian prayer, fit for faithful mortals to offer on earth to the Lord of men and of angels in heaven. Would that the Church of Rome, preserving, as she has preserved, this prayer in all its original purity, had never been successfully tempted to mingle in the same service, supplications, which rob the one only God of his exclusive honour and glory, as the God "who heareth prayer;" and to rob Christ of his exclusive honour and glory, as our only Mediator and Advocate!
Here, though unwilling, by departing from the order of our argument, to anticipate our examination in its place of the Roman ritual, I cannot refrain from contrasting this prayer, the genuine offspring of Christian faith, with some forms of invocation contained in { 42} the Roman service on St. Michael's day, in which I could not join, and the adoption of which I deeply lament. The first is appointed to be said at the part of the Mass called "The Secret:" "We offer to Thee, O Lord, the sacrifice of praise, humbly beseeching Thee, That by the intervention of the prayers of the angels for us, Thou, being appeased, mayest both accept the same, and make them profitable for our salvation. Through ..." The second is offered at the Post Communion: "Supported [propped up, suffulti] by the intercession of Thy blessed archangel Michael, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord, that what with honour we follow[13], we may obtain also in mind. Through ..."
[Footnote 13: I do not understand the exact meaning of these words, which however contain no portion of that sentiment, the presence of which in this prayer I deplore. The original is this: "Beati archangeli tui Michaelis intercessione suffulti, supplices te Domine deprecamur, ut quod honore prosequimur, contingamus et in mente. Per ..." Probably the general sense is, that what we reverently seek we may actually realize.]