Annotatio CLIII
”When I called upon him, the God of my justice heard me,” etc. — Psalm 4:2
Chrysostom, in the preface of the exposition on this psalm, has some things which are brought forward by the Lutherans against the invocation of the saints.1 These are they: “Thou canst not say, ‘I fear to approach and to pray to God’; but thou canst always and assiduously call upon him, and no difficulty is present: for there is no need of doorkeepers to introduce thee, nor of stewards, procurators, guards, or friends; but when thou thyself, through thyself, hast approached, then most of all will he hear thee — then, when thou hast asked no one [to intercede]. For we do not so appease him when entreated through others, as [when] through ourselves; because, when he shall have seen us doing this through ourselves, then most of all does he assent. So he does also in [the case of] the Canaanite woman;2 and when Peter indeed and James approached, he did not assent — but when she herself persevered in that which was asked, he gave [it].” Chrysostom repeats these same things in many other places also the same [things], whose meaning piously explained you have in Annotation 310 of the book which follows next to this.