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give account to their superiors of the state of | viously to the captivity. It is enough for us to the provinces over which they have charge, and know that after this time the Jewish prophets, of the good or ill conduct of those placed under as acknowledged messengers and ambassadors their government, and are then employed by of God, themselves authorized it, and taught it their superiors, in return, to dispense rewards in their addresses and writings; and that it is and punishments. Now from the resemblance accordingly now to be received by us as a docabove noticed between a king and his servants trine of the ancient Jewish revelation. In bringand God and his angels, whatever was said in re- ing the doctrine concerning angels to a fuller spect to the former was very naturally transferred development, the following circumstances were to the latter. And so God is described as sending made use of by Divine Providence. forth his messengers, bearing good or evil, prosperity or adversity, reward or punishment, to men, according to their deserts. Vide Ps. lxxviii. 49. Hence we may explain the fact that sickness and other calamities inflicted by God are ascribed in the scriptures to the angels, through whom, as his ministers, he inflicts them. Vide Ps. lxxviii. 49; xxxiv. 8; 2 Kings, vi. 16, 17. The angel of God is representod as the author of the pestilence in David's time; 2 Sam. xxiv. 16; coll. Exod. xii. 13, 23.

It should be remarked here that in what is now extant of the writings of the Hebrews before the Babylonian captivity, the title evil angels does not properly denote beings who are morally bad in their own nature; but, on the contrary, spirits whose nature is good, and who on this very account are employed by God, and who, in whatever they perform, act under his will and direction. The reason of this title is to be found, therefore, not in themselves, but in the nature of the work in which they are employed; and the very same angel is called evil or good, according as he has it in commisoion to dispense prosperity or adversity, rewards or punishments. So in Homer, when the deity inflicts misfortune, he is called xaxòs daiμwv, Odys. x. 64, coll. Il. xi. 61, xx. 87. Some have, indeed, attempted to shew that the Satan mentioned in Job, i. and ii., was an evil spirit in his own nature; but this is uncertain. He is not represented as being himself wicked and opposed to the designs of God, but rather as a complainant or accuser. The whole representation contained in these chapters seems to be taken from a human court and transferred to heaven. Vide Michaelis, in loc.

The Persians, and perhaps also the Chaldeans, (though this is more doubtful,) held the doctrine of dualism, which afterwards prevailed so widely in the East. This doctrine is, that there are two coeternal and independent beings, from the one of whom all good, and from the other, all evil proceeds. Now the doctrine of the Hebrews respecting good and bad angels, though it appears at first sight to resemble this, is essentially different, and cannot therefore have been derived from it. But when the Hebrews were brought under the dominion of the Persians it became necessary, in order to prevent them from falling into the wide-spread doctrine of their masters, that they should be instructed more minutely than they had previously been, or needed to be, with regard to good and bad angels. And so the later prophets brought to light the agency of good and bad angels in many events of the early Jewish history, with which angels had never been known to have had any connexion. The fall of man—e. g., had not been ascribed by Moses to the agency of an evil spirit; but this event was afterwards ascribed to the influence of Satan, and of this Christ himself approves in John, viii. Again; the numbering of the people by David is described in 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, as a crime to which he was given up by God, in anger against him; but this same thing is afterwards ascribed in 1 Chron. xxi. 1, to the direct influence of Satan. In the same way many events were afterwards ascribed to good angels, whose agency in them had not before been known. Thus the giving of the law was not ascribed by Moses to the ministry of angels; and this fact is first intimated in Psalm lxviii. 17, and afterwards more clearly taught in the New Testament.

It is not until the time of the exile, or shortly after it, that we find distinct traces of the doc- Some periods of Jewish history were more trine that there are angels who were once good, remarkable than others for the appearance and but who revolted from God, and are now become agency of angels. The patriarchal age is dewicked themselves, and the authors of evil in scribed in the books written before the captivity the world. The probability is, therefore, that this as most distinguished for the visible appearance doctrine was first developed among the Jews of angels among men, both with and without during their residence at Chaldea and shortly dreams and visions. During the age of Moses afterwards. The same thing is true of many and Joshua, although angels are mentioned, other doctrines of the Bible which were not re- they do not seem to have appeared. The comvealed at first, but were gradually made known | munications of God to men were at that time by means of the prophets at later periods. We made mostly through the oracles of the procannot, however, certainly prove that this doc-phets. Angels again appear during the period trine was wholly unknown to the Jews pre- of the Judges. But after the time of Samuel S

they do not again appear in the history of the | his book "De legibus," and in some other writ

Jews before the Babylonian exile; at which
time, and shortly afterwards, they are once
more introduced. Shortly before the birth of
John the Baptist, angels were again very fre-
quently seen, and many communications were
made through their instrumentality. But the
age of Christ and the apostles is distinguished
above all others for the frequent appearance and
interposition of angels, and especially for the
agency of evil spirits upon the minds and bodies
of men.
In view of the whole we may say,
with regard to the appearance of angels, what
Paul said, Heb. i. 1, with regard to revelations
in general, that they were noμspus xai xov-
τρόπως.

ings of his, the traces of a distinction between good and bad demons. But this distinction, as Ficinus justly remarks, was first made by the followers of Plato, and especially by the Jews and Christians, who philosophized according to the principles of the new Platonic school, and was then ascribed by them to their great master. The learned Jews of the first and second centuries of the Christian era, being conversant with the Grecian, and especially with the Platonic philosophy, adopted the doctrines of these different schools, and connected them with the doctrines of the Jewish religion; and many Christian teachers proceeded in the same way, and connected the principles of the Platonic school, with regard to the doctrine of angels among others, with what they were taught from the Bible, and indeed endeavoured to interpret the Bible in accordance with these Platonic principles. Aristotle likewise admitted certain intelligences as intermediate beings between God and men, and his theory on this subject was adopted by the schoolmen. The stoics, too, allowed of some intermediate spirits. Epicurus, on the contrary, denied the existence of angels altogether; and in this he was consistent with himself, since he denied the providence of God, whose instruments these intermediate beings were supposed to be by other philosophers. Among the Jews, the Sadducees denied the existence of angels. Vide Acts, xxiii. 8. They seem to have regarded the passages of the Old Testament in which angels are spoken of as figurative, and the whole account of them as mythological. [The existence of angels has been wholly denied in modern times by Hobbes, Spinoza, and Edelmann.]

4. Other nations, ancient and modern, have entertained opinions respecting some intermediate spirits, and their influence on the world and on man, somewhat resembling those of the Israelites, though not necessarily derived from them. Such were the opinions of the Egyptians, according to the testimony of Diodorus Siculus, and also of the Greeks. The latter, however, do not appear in the early stages of their history to have had the idea of intermediate spirits or angels. The daíuoves of Homer are only Sɛo under a different name, though, indeed, the offices assigned to them and to many of the gods by the Greeks are not more elevated than those assigned by the Hebrews and other nations to their angels or intermediate spirits. The Grecian philosophers, however, for the most part, believed that besides God and the human soul, and intermediate between them, there were other spiritual existences. They proceeded on the supposition, confirmed by so many experiments and observations, that there is in nature a general connexion or chain (dpa), by which Note. We have no great abundance of useful all creatures are most intimately united together; works on the general history of the doctrine of that each class of beings borders upon and runs angels. Most of them take too confined and into others; so that there is no break in the de- narrow a view of the subject. They merely rescending scale from the highest to the lowest. cord the opinions of Jews and Christians, withWhen, therefore, they considered the immense out shewing in what manner these opinions were interval between God and their own souls, they developed and modified. Among these works naturally concluded that it must be occupied by are the following: Dr. Joach. Oporin, Erlaüterte intermediate beings, subordinate to God, but Lehre von den Engeln; Hamburg, 1735, 8vo. superior to man; and that these beings must Jac. Ode, De Angelis, Trajecti ad Rhenum, themselves exist in various degrees of perfection. 1739, 4to, (a book in which everything relative Such appear to have been the opinions of Py- to this subject is brought together, but without thagoras. According to the "Carmina Aurea," judgment or discrimination.) Jo. Fr. Cotta, and Diogenes Laert. viii. segm. 23, he believed Diss. ii. historiam succinctam doctrinæ de anthat besides the Supreme Being there were four gelis exhibentes; Tubingæ, 1765-67, 4to. orders of intelligences-viz., gods, demons, he- Also, Petavius, Theol. Dogm. tom. iii., and roes, and men. To the first three he ascribed Cudworth, Syst. Intellectuale, c. 5, with the about the same offices as were ascribed by the notes of Mosheim. There are some treatises of Hebrews to their angels; so that his theory very unequal value in Eichhorn's "Bibliothek really seems somewhat to resemble the Biblical der bib. Lit." and in Henke's "Magazin für doctrine. Considerably different from these are Exeg. Kirchengesch, u. s. w." The treatise of the views of Plato. Some have indeed thought Ewald, entitled "Die Bibellehre von guten and that they could see in the Phædrus of Plato, in | bösen Engeln," published in his "Christlichen

Monatschrift," for the year 1800, s. 326, f. and 395, f., deserves to be recommended to the perusal of the Christian teacher.

SECTION LIX.

OF THE APPELLATIONS OF ANGELS; THEIR NA-
TURE; PROOFS OF THEIR EXISTENCE; THEIR
THE

CREATION AND ORIGINAL STATE; AND
CLASSES INTO WHICH THEY ARE DIVIDED.

I. Appellations of Angels.

THE most common appellation given them is, , . The correspondent term in Hellenistic Greek is ayyɛños, messenger, servant, envoy, ambassador. This name is sometimes given to men who are engaged in any offices in the employ of others. Est nomen MUNERIS, non naturæ, as is justly remarked by Morus, p. 86. Vide Num. xx. 14, 16; Josh. vi. 17; James, ii. 25. Hence ayyɛño êxxhŋoías, in the Apocalypse, and wo♪n ảyyéñois, (the disciples of Christ, the apostles,) in 1 Tim. iii. 16. The analogy upon which these names are founded has already been exhibited, s. 58, II. 1.

Another name given to angels, besides these and others which are derived from their office and employment, is, o, children of God; Job, xxxviii. 7, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth-when the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy?" Here, indeed, it may be objected, that sons of God may be a poetic expression synonymous with morning stars, with which it is parallel in the construction. But no such objection lies against the passage, Job, i. 6, where a solemn assembly of the sons of God is described. And since even earthly kings were sometimes called sons of God, there can be no doubt that the Hebrew idiom would permit the application of this name to angels, the inhabitants of heaven. Hence they were called by the Jews familia Dei calestis. Cf. Ephes. iii. 15, and Heb. xii. 22, 23, where the souls of the pious dead are included in this heavenly family.

Still another title, which, in the opinion of many, is given to angels, is D. That this title may be given them is certain; since it is given even to rulers, judges, and all those who act as the vicegerents of God upon the earth. But the argument to prove that this title is actually given to angels is mostly founded on the fact that the LXX. render the word o, by ȧyyɛho, in some texts of the Old Testament, where, however, the context does not make this rendering absolutely necessary. The texts cited are Ps. viii. 6, and xcvii. 7, in both of which the original is rendered by the LXX. άyyɛ201— a rendering which is approved and retained by Paul, Heb. i. 6, and ii. 7. I am at present inclined to believe that even the original writer

intended to denote angels by this title in both places, and especially in Psalm viii.

II. The Nature of Angels.

The only conception which we form of angels is, that they are spirits of a higher nature and nobler endowments than men possess. They are described by Morus (p. 94, s. 14) as spiritus deo inferiores, hominibus superiores. In making our estimate of them, we must compare them with the human soul as the measure. The human soul possesses understanding and free will, or, a rational and moral nature. Hence we conclude, viâ eminentiæ, that other spirits-angels and God himself-must possess the same; angels, in a far higher degree than men, and God, in the highest possible perfection. With respect to the nature of angels, we are informed in the Bible (a) that they far excel us in powers and perfections, Matt. xxii. 30, seq.; 2 Pet. ii. 11. (b) They are expressly called spirits (яvɛúμaτa ;) Heb. i. 14, яvɛúμata dɛitovpyixá. And the attributes which belong to spirits-understanding and will, are frequently ascribed to them-e. g., Luke, xv. 10; James, ii. 19.

Note. The question, whether angels have a body, (more refined, indeed, than the human body,) is left undecided in the Bible. And the texts by which it has been supposed to be answered (Ps. civ. 4, and others) have no relation to this question. Still it is not improbable, from the prevailing opinions of the ancient world, that the sacred writers believed that angels sometimes assumed a body in which they became visible to men. Vide Morus, p. 88, n. 2, supra. The arguments à priori which are frequently adduced in behalf of this opinion are unsatisfactory. Thus it is said, that as spirits angels could not act upon the material world without assuming a body. But if God, as a Spirit, may act on matter without a body, why may not other spirits do the same? We cannot in any case determine, à priori, what can or cannot be done by spiritual beings. This question is therefore generally dismissed by modern theologians with the remark, that the body of angels, if they have one, must be very unlike the human body.

The Christian fathers of the Platonic school ascribed to all spirits, the supreme God alone excepted, a subtile body, so subtile as to be invisible to us, and imperceptible by any of our senses. So Justin the Martyr, Irenæus, Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Augustine. They appear to have entertained about the same notion of the bodies of angels as the Greeks had of the bodies of their gods. Vide Homer, Il. v. 339–342. Justin the Martyr, (Dial. cum Tryph. Jud. c. 57,) and some others, believed that angels partook of heavenly nourishment, as the gods of the Greeks partook of nectar and ambrosia; that, like them, they

could at choice become visible or invisible to | Acts, xxiii. 8. The Pharisees believed in the

men, &c. The latter opinion is quite ancient, as appears from the account of Balaam in Num. xxii. 22-34, and from the representation of Homer, in the Odyss. xvi. 160, seq., where Minerva is visible to Ulysses, and not to Telemachus

Οὐ γάρ πω πάντεσσι θεοὶ φαίνονται ἐναργεῖς. The ass, however, in the one case, and the dogs in the other, perceived the apparition, and were frightened. So again in the Iliad, i. 198, Achilles beheld Minerva, who stood before him, τῶν δ' ἄλλων οὔτις ὁρᾶτο.

At the second Nicene Council, in the year 787, it was established as a doctrine of the catholic church, that angels have a thin body of fire or air. Afterwards, however, Peter of Lombardy, (Sent. 1. ii. dist. 8,) and many other schoolmen, maintained the opposite opinion, and held that angels had no body of their own, (corpus proprium,) but could assume one in order to become visible. So Gassendus represents that they assume corpora extraordinaria, when they design to act upon the material world. This opinion of the schoolmen respecting angels was founded upon the philosophy of their great master, Aristotle, who makes his intelligences entirely incorporeal. Vide s. 58, ad finem.

III. Proofs of the Existence of Angels.

1. Some theologians and philosophers have undertaken to prove the existence of angels by aguments à priori. Their most plausible argument is that derived from the unbroken gradation and chain in which all beings are seen to exist-an argument which was employed by many even of the ancient heathen philosophers. Vide s. 58, II. 4. But although the possibility of the existence of angels cannot be disproved by any valid arguments à priori, so neither can the reality of their existence be proved satisfactorily by arguments of this nature. All that such arguments can do is, to render probable that which must depend for proof on different evidence; but to deny the existence of angels on the ground of arguments à priori, is extremely absurd. Cf. Morus, p. 86, s. 3. These proofs are stated, after the method of Wolf, by Reinbeck, in his "Betrachtungen über die Augs. Conf." th. i. s. 298; and also by Ewald, in a treatise on this subject.

2. The sacred writers affirmed the existence of angels so clearly that it is hardly credible that any one should seriously doubt their opinions on this subject. He might as well doubt whether Homer, who speaks of the gods on every page, really believed in them. Jesus and the apostles rejected the doctrine of the Sadducees, that there are no angels, as a gross error,

existence of angels, and contributed by their influence to render this doctrine almost universally prevalent among the Jews. In this particular, Jesus and the apostles agreed fully with the Pharisees, as appears from innumerable texts in the New Testament. In Matt. xxii. 30, Christ expressly and designedly professes his belief in the existence of angels, in the presence of the Sadducees; also in Matt. viii. 28-34. Paul, too, as is very clear from his writings, believed in the real existence of angels, and retained and sanctioned, as a Christian and an apostle, many opinions on this subject which he had learned in the schools of the Pharisees. Thus, for example, both he and Stephen (Acts, vii. 53) held, in common with the Pharisees, that the Mosaic law was given through the ministry of angels, Gal. iii. 19; Heb. ii. 2. And he labours through the whole of the first two chapters of the epistle to the Hebrews to prove that Jesus Christ was superior to the angels, and a messenger of God of a more exalted character than they. His meaning cannot be, as some have strangely supposed, that Christ was superior to beings whom he supposed to exist merely in the fancy of the Jews. He has so interwoven the theory of the Pharisees with his own instructions on this subject, as plainly to shew that while he did not countenance those fabulous representations, with which he must certainly have been acquainted, in their schools, he yet regarded their doctrine as essentially true.

IV. The Creation of Angels; their Perfections, and Number.

1. The Bible teaches us nothing definitely respecting the origin of angels. But when it represents all things as coming from God, it must clearly be understood to imply that angels also derive their existence from him. Paul says expressly, Col. i. 16, "God made all things, visible and invisible." Their creation is not, indeed, mentioned by Moses in his account of the creation. And as he undertakes to describe the creation of only the visible world, their creation did not come within the compass of his plan. Vide s. 49.

The question has been asked, On which day of the creation were the angels made? and at least an historical view of the opinions entertained on this subject must here be exhibited. (a) Some have held, that the angels were created before the visible world, and that this is the reason why Moses does not mention them. Of this opinion were Origen, Chrysostom, Hieronymus, John of Damascus, and others, among the ancients; and among the moderns, Heilmann, Michaelis, and others. (b) Others held that angels were created after man, because the

Creator proceeded in his work from the lower | ver. 14; Matt. xxvi. 53. Cf. s. 58, and Morus, to the higher; and so, as his last upon the earth, p. 89, note. created man. So Gennadius, in the fifth century. But this opinion was opposed by Augustine. It has been advocated in modern times

V. Division of Angels.

Angels are divided into good and evil in reference to their moral condition. There is no distinct mention of apostate angels in the Bible besilence it does not follow that the idea of them fore the Babylonian captivity; though from this Vide s. 58, II. 3. This idea, however, even if was wholly unknown to the ancient Hebrews. it had before existed, was more distinctly re

by Schubert of Helmstädt. (c) Others still maintain that angels were created on the first of the six days, when, as they suppose, the human soul and other simple and incorporeal beings were made, and were stationed as spectators, or employed as assistants, of the remaining work. So Theodoret of Mopsvestia, Augus-vealed and developed at the time of the exile, tine, Peter of Lombardy, and others; and in modern times, Calovius, who appealed to Job, xxxviii. 7, (vide No. I.,) Seiler, and others. Some hold that they were created on the fourth day, because the sun, moon, and stars were then created, in connexion with which angelic spirits are always enumerated.

2. The perfections with which angels were endued can be ascertained only from the analogy of those of the human soul. Vide No II. and Morus, p. 88, s. 9. Their intellectual powers must be greater than our own; they must pos sess more strength of thought and clearness of conception. Their moral powers, the perfections of their will, must also be greater than ours. For them, therefore, to persevere in holiness, must accordingly be easier than for men; and hence the guilt incurred by them in their fall is represented as far greater than that incurred by men in their apostasy. We are unable, however, to determine the exact measure of angelic powers and excellences. From the fact that men have a state of probation (status gratiæ) allowed them, in which their virtue may be ex

ercised and confirmed, and from which they

pass to a state of perfection, enjoyment, and reward, (status gloria,) we conclude, that the case is the same with regard to angels. The New Testament says nothing expressly respect ing the perfections of angels, except that they possess greater strength and power than men; 2 Pet. ii. 11, ἰσχύϊ καὶ δυνάμει μείζονες. Hence the phrase ayyo duvaμews, 2 Thess. i. 7. Hence also the word ayyɛ20s is used adjectively, like ɛós, to denote the excellence of a thing; 2 Sam. xiv. 17, 20, the wisdom of angels; Ps. Ixxviii. 25, the food of angels; Acts, vi. 15, the face of angels.

and afterwards. It was sanctioned by Christ and the apostles, and constituted a part of their faith, as really as it did of the faith of the Jews evil or bad angels, was taken from Ps. lxxviii. who were contemporary with them. The name, 49, the only passage in which it occurs in the Bible; though even in this passage it does not denote disobedient angels, evil in a moral respect; for in this sense the phrase evil angels is never used in the Bible; nor, on the contrary, is the phrase good angels ever used to denote those who are morally good, though indeed they are sometimes called holy in this sense. although this term is not derived from the sacred writers, but from the schoolmen, it should unquestionably be retained, since the meaning of the Bible. The term angel is applied in the it conveys is wholly accordant with the doctrine Bible to evil spirits only in reference to their former state, when they were still the servants of God. Vide 2 Pet. ii. 4. Since they have apostatized, they can no more, strictly speaking, be denominated his angels-i. e., servants, mes

sengers.

But

the Bible, άγγελοι τοῦ διαβόλου, οι τοῦ Σατανᾶ,
Matt. xxv. 41, Rev. xii. 9. The phrase, bad or
unclean spirits (not angels,) occurs frequently in
of Luke. Paul, too, uses the phrase veчuatixà
the New Testament, especially in the writings
sorpías, Eph. vi. 12. Whenever the term
οἱ ἄγγελοι occurs in the New Testament without
qualification, good spirits or holy angels are al-
ways intended; as Matt. iv. 11, where it is op-
these two classes more particularly.
posed to diaẞoros. We proceed now to consider

On the contrary, they are called in

CHAPTER I.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY ANGELS.

SECTION LX.

OF THE PRESENT STATE AND EMPLOYMENT OF
HOLY ANGELS.

3. The number of the angels is by some represented as very great; and they justify this representation by arguments à priori. God has made, they say, a great number of creatures of all the different kinds, even in the material world; and it is therefore just to suppose that in the more exalted sphere of spirit the creatures of his power are still more numerous. And, indeed, the Bible always describes God as sur- 1. ANGELS are properly regarded, according rounded by a great multitude of heavenly ser- to the general remarks, s. 59, IV. 2, as beings vants. Vide Dan. vii. 10; Ps. lxviii. 17; Jude, | possessing great intellectual excellence-intelli

I. Their Present State.

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