This, however, seems to be the proper place for entertaining the first consideration, Why did not the holy men of old, under the elder covenant, invoke angels and archangels, as the Roman Church now does?  Writers, indeed, who have declared themselves the defenders of that doctrine and practice, refer us to passages, which they cite, as affording examples of the worship of angels; and we will not knowingly allow any one of those sections of Holy Writ to remain unexamined.  We must first endeavour to ascertain the testimony borne by the books of the Old Testament:  and that presents to us such a body of evidence as greatly increases our surprise at the perseverance with which the invocation of angels has been maintained by any community of men acknowledging the inspiration of the sacred volume.

The inspired writers of the Old Testament, and those to whom through their mouth and pen the Divine word was addressed, were as fully as ourselves acquainted with the existence of angelic beings.  They were aware of the station of those angels in the court of heaven, of their power as God’s ambassadors, and agents for good.  Either their own eyes had seen the mighty operations of God by the hands of those celestial messengers; or their ears had heard their fathers tell what he had done by their instrumentality in times of old.  Why then did not God’s chosen people offer to the angels the same worship and invocation which the Church of Rome now addresses to them in common with the patriarchs and prophets of the elder covenant, and with saints and martyrs under the new?  In the condition of the holy angels no one ever suggests that {35} any change, affecting the argument, has taken place since the time when man was created and made.  And as the angels of heaven were in themselves the same, equally in the presence of God, and equally able to succour men through that long space of four thousand years, which intervened between Adam’s creation and the birth of him who was Son of Adam and Son of God, so was man in the same dependent state, needing the guidance and protection of a power above his own.  Nay, surely, if there was in man any difference affecting the argument, it would all add weight to the reason against the invocation of angels by Christians.  The Israelites of old had no clear knowledge, as we have, of one great Mediator, who is ever making intercession for us; and yet they sought not the mediation and intercession and good offices of those superhuman beings, of whose existence and power, and employment in works of blessing to man, they had no doubt[8].  This is a point of great importance to our argument, and I will refer to a few passages in support of it.