h he called with gratitude to his
mind, and expressed with his tongue, the devotedness both of Abraham and
of Isaac to the Almighty, yet we do not find him appealing to them, or
invoking their intercession with Jehovah.

When the conscience-struck Israelites felt that they had exposed
themselves to the wrath of Almighty God, whose sovereign power, put
forth at the prayer of Samuel, they then witnessed, distrusting the
efficacy of their own supplication, and confiding in the intercession of
that man of God, they implored him to intercede for them; and Samuel
emphatically responded to their appeal, with an assurance of his
earnestly undertaking to plead their cause with heaven: "And all the
people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God,
that we die not. And Samuel said unto the people, Fear not.... The Lord
will not forsake his people, for his great name's {25} sake....
Moreover, God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to
pray for you." [1 Sam. (1 Kings Vulg.) xii. 19.] Samuel is one whom the
Holy Spirit numbers among those "who called upon God's name;" and when
Samuel died, all Israel gathered together to lament and to bury
him,--but we read of no petition being offered to him to carry on the
same intercessory office, when he was once removed from them. As long as
he was entabernacled in the flesh and sojourned on earth with his
brethren, they besought him to pray for them, to intercede with their
God and his God for blessings at his hand, (just as among ourselves one
Christian asks another to pray for him,) but when Samuel's body had been
buried in peace, and his soul had returned to God who gave it, the Bible
never records any further application to him; we no where read, "Holy
Samuel, pray for us."

Again, what announcement could God Himself make more expressive of his
acceptance of the persons of any, than He actually and repeatedly made
to Moses with regard to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? How could He more
clearly intimate that if the spirits of the faithful departed could
exercise intercessory or mediatorial influence with Him, those three
holy patriarchs would possess such power above all others who had ever
lived on the earth? "I am the God of your fathers; the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob: and Moses hid his face, for he was
afraid to look upon God." "Thus shalt thou say unto the children of
Israel, The God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of