e good offices of
the holy dead, or of the angels of light. In their successors the
earliest inspired teachers and pastors of Christ's fold, I seek in vain
for any precept, or example, or suggestion, or incidental allusion
looking that way. Why then should a Christian wish to add to that which
God has been pleased to appoint and to reveal? Why should I attempt to
enter heaven through any other gate than {398} that gate which the Lord
of heaven has opened for me? or why should I seek to reach that gate by
any other way than the way which He has made for me; which He has
Himself plainly prescribed to me; in which He has promised that his word
shall be a lantern unto my feet; and along which those saints and
servants of his, who received the truth from his own lips, and sealed it
by their blood, have gone before?

Whenever a maintainer of the doctrine and practice of invoking the
Saints asks me, as we have lately been asked in these words, "May I not
reasonably hope that their prayers will be more efficacious than my own
and those of my friends? And, under this persuasion, I say to them, as I
just now said to you, holy Mary, holy Peter, holy Paul, pray for me.
What is there in reason or revelation to forbid me to do so?" To this
and similar questions and suggestions, I answer at once, God has
solemnly covenanted to grant the petitions of those who ask HIM for his
mercy, in the name and for the sake of his Son; and in his holy word
has, both by precept and example, taught us in this life to pray for
each other, and to ask each other's prayers [James v. 16; I Tim. ii.
1.]; but that He will favourably answer the prayers which we supplicate
angels to offer, or which we offer to Himself through the merits and by
the intercession of departed mortals, is no where in the covenant.
Moreover, when God invites me and commands me to approach Him myself, in
the name of his Son, and trusting to his merits, it is not Christian
humility, rather it savours of presumption, and intruding into those
things which we have not seen [Coloss. ii. 18.], to seek to prevail with
Him by {399} pleading other merits, and petitioning creatures, however
glorious, to interest themselves with Him in our behalf, angels and
saints, of whose power even to hear us we have no evidence. When Jesus
Himself, who knows both the deep counsels of the Eternal Spirit, and
man's wants and weaknesses and unworthiness, and who loveth his own to
the end, pledges his never-f