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 Isaac,
the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you. This is my name for ever, and
this is my memorial throughout all generations." [Exod. iii. 6. 15.] Did
Moses in his alarm and dread, when he was afraid {26} to look upon God,
call upon those holy and accepted servants to aid him in his perplexity,
and intercede for him and his people with the awful Eternal Being on
whose majesty he dared not to look? Did he teach his people to invoke
Abraham? That was far from him.
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