you, on this prayer. It is not addressed to God; in it there is no
mention made of {43} Christ: having called upon the angels, and on your
own soul in the words of the psalmist, to praise the Lord, you address
your supplication to Michael himself; not even invoking him for his
intercession, but imploring of him his protection. If it be said, that
his intercession is all that is meant, with most unfeigned sincerity I
request you to judge for yourselves, whether any prayer from poor sinful
man, putting his whole trust in the Lord and imploring his help, could
be addressed to our God and Saviour more immediate and direct than this?
In the place of the name of his servant Michael, substitute the highest
and the holiest name ever uttered in heaven or on earth, and can words
form a prayer more direct to God? "O Lord God Almighty, O Lord Jesus our
only Saviour, defend us in battle, that we perish not in the dreadful
judgment. Hallelujah!"--Can this be right? Were the archangel allowed
now, by his Lord and ours, to make his voice heard upon earth by
Christians offering to him this prayer, would he utter any other words,
than the angel, his fellow-servant and ours, once addressed to Saint
John, when he fell down to worship before him, "See thou do it not; for
I am thy fellow-servant: worship God."

Such then is the evidence borne by the writers of the Old Testament. No
prayer to angel or beatified spirit occurs from its first to its last
page. The theory which would have us account for the absence of all
prayer to the saints before the advent of Messiah, by reason of their
not having been then admitted into their everlasting habitations, and
the immediate presence of God proves to be utterly groundless. The holy
angels were confessedly in heaven [Matt. xviii. 10.], beholding the face
of {44} God; but no invocation was ever addressed to them, by patriarch,
or prophet, or people, as mediators or intercessors. God, and God alone,
the one eternal Jehovah, is proclaimed by Himself throughout, and is