"No Saint doth love us so well as Christ": avant garde and Laudian critique of the invocation of Saints

Below, examples of the consistently robust nature of the rejection of the invocation of the Saints by avant garde and Laudian figures:

Lancelot Andrewes

And therefore St. Augustine often denies temples, altars, and sacrifices inward and outward, visible and invisible, to all martyrs and saints, as being proper and peculiar to God only. And I trust prayers and invocation be in this number. For as 'praying and praising, we direct our signifying words to Him to Whom we offer the things signified in our hearts; so sacrificing, we know the visible sacrifice is to be offered to no other but to Him Whose invisible sacrifice in our hearts we ourselves ought to be'. And then ... : 'The true Mediator, inasmuch as taking upon Him the form of a servant the Man Jesus Christ became a Mediator of God and man, whereas in the form of God He takes sacrifice with His Father, yet in the form of a servant, He chose rather to be a sacrifice than to receive sacrifice, lest even by this occasion any man might think he might sacrifice to a creature. By this (nature) He is a Priest, the same the offerer, and the same the thing offered ... of which things He would have the daily sacrifice of the Church to be a sacrament, which Church being the body of our Head Himself, doth learn to offer itself, that is, the Church, by Him, that is, by Christ'. Here the body of the Head is the mystical body of Christ, and therefore the daily sacrifice of the Church is not the natural body of Christ, but the mystical body that offers itself to God by Christ. This made St. Augustine to say of angels, and elect and glorious saints, ‘Let us not sacrifice to them, but let us be a sacrifice to God together with them.'

John Cosin

Neither shall their distinction of 'oblique' and 'relative/ of indirect and transitory, of secondary and mediate prayers serve their turn, for the world can never be got to believe that oblique and relative prayers (such as we would use to holy men here upon earth) is all that is sought for, seeing it is most evident, both by their practice abroad, and their continual use here at home, to pray directly, absolutely, and finally to their saints, as to them that had as much power as God Himself, to give and forgive them what they will ask ... Insomuch that we may be bold to conclude and to assure you all, that whoever they be that practise themselves, or persuade any other to use this kind of religion, they do it by some other precept, for precept of God have they none. Nay this precept, this command of His, is directly set up against them; and though the memory of the saints be precious among us, and ought so to be, though we honour their glorified persons, though we sing, and praise, and magnify their virtues, though we teach all generations to call them blessed, yet for all this, the commandment of God, and the glory of God, of their God and ours, is precious to us above them all, and so let it be for ever; and let all the people say Amen.

John Bramhall

If your Invocation of Saints were not such as it is, to request of them Patronage of Invocation and Protestion, spiritual graces, and celestial joys, by their prayers, and by their merits (alas the wisest Virgins have oil in their Lamps little enough for themselves). Yet it is not necessary for Two Reasons; First, no Saint doth love us so well as Christ. No Saint hath given us such assurance of his love, or done so much for us as Christ. No Saint is so willing, or able to help us as Christ. And Secondly, we have no command from God to invocate them ... But we have another command, 'Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will bear thee'. We have no promise to be heard, when we do invocate them; But we have another promise, 'Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, ye shall receive it'. We have no example in holy Scripture of any that did invocate them, but rather the contrary; 'See thou do it not; I am thy fellow-servant, worship God'. We have no certainty that they do hear our particular prayers, especially mental prayers, yea, a thousand prayers poured out at one instant in several parts of the world.