the morning;’ therefore, unless God would appear inconsistent with Himself, He will not keep back the reward of his saints to the end of the world.”  How strange, that in the same treatise [Ibid. p. 833.] this author should expressly maintain, that the reward of Abel and Abraham, and the holy prophet and lawgiver Moses, the very man who was commanded to write that law in Leviticus, was kept back,—­the last for a longer period than a thousand years; the first well nigh four thousand years.

I mention these particulars merely to point out how very unsatisfactory and unsound is the attempted solution of the difficulties which surround on every side the theory of those who maintain, that the reason why we have no instance of the righteous departed being invoked in the times of the elder covenant is, that they were not as yet admitted into heaven, but were kept in prison till the resurrection of Christ.  I would also observe, even at the risk {33} of repetition, that I am here not maintaining any opinion as to the appointed abiding-place, the condition, and circumstances, the powers of consciousness, volition or enjoyment of the departed, before Christ’s resurrection; on the contrary, I am rather urging the consideration of the great and serious caution requisite before we espouse, as an article of faith, any opinion which rests on so questionable a foundation, and which involves such interminable difficulties.

But while we need not dwell longer on this immediate point, yet there are two considerations which appear to be altogether decisive as to the evidence borne against the Invocation of Saints by the writers of the Old Testament.  If the spirits of the saints departed were not invoked before the resurrection of Christ, purely because they were not then admitted into heaven; the first consideration I would suggest is this:  Why did the faithful and inspired servants of Jehovah not invoke the angels and archangels who were in heaven?  The second is this:  Why did not the inspired Apostles and faithful disciples of our Lord invoke the spirits of those saints after his resurrection; that is (according to the theory before us), after those saints had been taken by Christ with him into his Father’s presence?  I wish not to anticipate here our inquiry into the testimony borne by the writers of the New Testament as to the doctrine and practice of the Roman Church in this particular; and I will only add, that whatever be the cause of the absence from the Old Testament of all worship and invocation of Abel and Abraham, whom the Roman Church now invokes, the alleged reason that it was because they were not in heaven till after Christ’s resurrection, is utterly set aside by the conduct of the Apostles and disciples of our Lord recorded in the New {34} Testament, for more than half a century after his return to his Father’s glory.