Let us first look to the language and conduct of our blessed Lord, whose prayers to his Father are upon record for our instruction and comfort, and whose precepts and example form the best rule of a Christian's {48} life. So far from repealing the ancient law, he repeats in his own person its solemn announcement, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." [Mark xii. 29.] While the same heavenly Teacher commands us with authority, "When thou prayest, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father, who seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly." [Matt. vi. 6.] No allusion in any word of His do we find to any prayer from a mortal on this earth to an angel or saint in heaven. And yet occasions were multiplied on which a reference to the invocation of angels would have been natural, and apparently called for. He again and again places beyond all doubt the reality of their good services towards mankind, but it is as God's servants, and at God's bidding; not in answer to any supplication or invoking of ours. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus has been cited [Bellarmin, p. 895.] to bear contrary evidence; but, in the first place, that parable does not offer a case in point; in the second place, were it in point, it might be fairly and strongly urged against the practice of invoking the spirit of any departed mortal, even the father of the faithful himself. For what are the circumstances of the parabolic representation? A lost spirit in the regions of torment prays to Abraham in the regions of the blessed, and the spirit of the departed patriarch professes himself to have no power to grant the request of the departed and condemned spirit. [Luke xvi. 19.] The practice indeed of our Roman Catholic brethren would have been exemplified, had our blessed Lord represented the rich man's five brethren still on earth as pious men, and as supplicating Abraham in heaven to pray for themselves, or to mitigate {49} their lost brother's punishment and his woes. But then it would have afforded Christians little encouragement to follow their example, when they found Abraham declaring himself unable to aid them in attaining the object of their prayer, or in any way to assist them at all. Without one single exception, we find our blessed Lord's example, precepts, and doctrines to be decidedly against the practice of invoking saint or angel; whilst not one solitary act or word of His can be cited to countenance or palliate it.