But whilst there is not found a single passage in Athanasius to give the faintest countenance to the invocation of saints, there are various arguments and expressions which go far to demonstrate that such a belief and such practices as are now acknowledged and insisted upon by the Church of Rome, were neither adopted nor sanctioned by him.  Had he adopted that belief and practice for his own, he would scarcely have spoken, as he repeatedly has, of the exclusion of angels and men from any share in the work of man’s restoration, without any expressions to qualify it, and to protect his assertions from being misunderstood.  Again, he bids us look to the holy men and holy fathers as our examples, in whose footsteps we should tread, if we would be safe; but not a hint escapes him that they are to be invoked.

I must detain you by rather a long quotation from this father, and will, therefore, now do nothing more than refer you to two passages expressive of those sentiments to which I have above alluded.  In the thirteenth section of his Treatise on the Incarnation of the Word of God, he argues, that neither could men restore us to the image of God, nor could angels, but the word of God, Jesus Christ, &c. [Vol. i. part i. p. 58.] In his Epistle to Dracontius, he says, “We ought to conduct ourselves agreeably to the principles of the saints and fathers, and to imitate them,—­assured that if we {187} swerve from them, we become alienated also from their communion.” [Vol. i. part i, p. 265.]

The passage, however, to which I would invite the reader’s patient and impartial thoughts, occurs in the third oration against the Arians, when he is proving the unity of the Father and the Son, from the expression of St. Paul in the eleventh verse of the third chapter of his first Epistle to the Thessalonians.

“Thus then again ([Greek:  outo g’ oun palin]), when he is praying for the Thessalonians, and saying, ’Now our God and Father himself and the Lord Jesus Christ direct our way to you,’ he preserves the unity of the Father and the Son.  For he says not ’may THEY direct ([Greek:  kateuthunoien]),’ as though a twofold grace were given from Him AND Him, but ‘may HE direct ([Greek:  katenthunai]),’ to show that the Father giveth this through the Son.  For if there was not an unity, and the Word was not the proper offspring of the Father’s substance, as the eradiation of the light, but the Son was distinct in nature from the Father,—­it had sufficed for the Father alone to have made the gift, no generated being partaking with the Maker in the gifts.  But now such a giving proves the unity of the Father and the Son.  Consequently, no one would pray to receive any thing from God AND the angels, or from any other created being; nor would any one say ’May God AND the angels give it thee;’ but from the Father and the Son, because of their unity and the oneness of the gift.  For whatever is given, is given through the Son,—­nor is there any thing which the Father works except through