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,