Let this be enough for now. I will have to speak more about
this in the treatise "On Justification" (if God grants me grace).
On the other question as to whether the departed saints intercede
for us. For the present I am only going to give a brief answer as
I am considering publishing a sermon on the beloved angels in
which I will respond more fully on this matter (God willing).
First, you know that under the papacy it is not only taught that
the saints in heaven intercede for us - even though we cannot know
this as the Scripture does not tell us such - but the saints have
been made into gods, and that they are to be our patrons to whom
we should call. Some of them have never existed! To each of these
saints a particular power and might has been given - one over
fire, another over water, another over pestilence, fever and all
sorts of plagues. Indeed, God must have been altogether idle to
have let the saints work in his place. Of this atrocity the
papists themselves are aware, as they quietly take up their pipes
and preen and primp themselves over this doctrine of the
intercession of the saints. I will leave this subject for now -
but you can count on my not forgetting it and allowing this
primping and preening to continue without cost.
And again, you know that there is not a single passage from God
demanding us to call upon either saints or angels to intercede for
us, and that there is no example of such in the Scriptures.
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