at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.' Here whether it be God, even our Father,' or our Lord Jesus,' who in the former verse is called Lord, in either case there is the same redundance. If the Jews had understood the passages quoted above, and others of the same kind, as implying that there were two persons, both of whom were Jehovah, and both of whom had an equal right to the appellation, there can be no doubt that, seeing the doctrine so frequently enforced by the prophets, they would have adopted the same belief which now prevails among us, or would at least have laboured under considerable scruples on the subject: whereas I suppose no one in his senses will venture to affirm that the Jewish Church ever so understood the passages in question, or believed that there were two persons, each of whom was Jehovah, and had an equal right to assume the title. It would seem, therefore, that they interpreted them in the manner above mentioned. Thus in allusion to a human being, 1 Kings viii. 1. 'then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel....unto king Solomon in Jerusalem.' No one is so absurd as to suppose that the name of Solomon is here applied to two persons in the same sentence. It is evident, therefore, both from the declaration of the sacred writer himself, and from the belief of those very persons to whom the angels appeared, that the name of Jehovah was attributed to an angel; and not to an angel only, but also to the whole Church, Jer. xxxiii. 16.

But as Placæus of Saumur thinks it incredible that an angel should bear the name of Jehovah, and that the dignity of the supreme Deity should be degraded

by being personated, as it were, on a stage, I will produce a passage in which, God himself declares that his name is in an angel. Exod. xxiii. 20, 21. behold, ' I send an angel before thee, to keep thee in the way,' &c. 'beware of him, and obey his voice; provoke him not, for he will not pardon your transgressions; for my name is in him.' The angel who from that time forward addressed the Israelites, and whose voice they were commanded to hear, was always called Jehovah, though the appellation did not properly belong to him. To this they reply, that he was really Jehovah, for that angel was Christ; 1 Cor. x. 9. 'neither let us tempt Christ,' &c. I answer, that it is of no importance to the present question, whether it were Christ or not; the subject of inquiry now is, whether the children of Israel understood that angel to be really Jehovah? If they did so understand, it follows that they must have conceived either that there were two Jehovahs, or that Jehovah and the angel were one in essence; which no rational person will affirm to have been their belief. But even if such an assertion were advanced, it would be refuted by chap. xxxiii. 2, 3, 5. 'I will send an angel before thee....for I will not go up in the midst of thee.... lest I consume thee in the way. And when the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned.' If the people had believed that Jehovah and that angel were one in essence, equal in divinity and glory, why did they mourn, and desire that Jehovah should go up before them, notwithstanding his anger, rather than the angel? who, if he had indeed been Christ, would have acted as a mediator and peace-maker. If, on the contrary, they did not consider the angel as Je

hovah, they must necessarily have understood that he bore the name of Jehovah in the sense in which I suppose him to have borne it, wherein there is nothing either absurd or theatrical. Being at length prevailed upon to go up with them in person, he grants thus much only, v. 14.-' my presence shall go with thee-which can imply nothing else than a representation of his name and glory in the person of some angel. But whoever this was, whether Christ, or some angel different from the preceding, the very words of Jehovah himself show that he was neither one with Jehovah, nor co-equal, for the Israelites are commanded to hear his voice, not on the authority of his own name, but because the name of Jehovah was in him. If on the other hand it is contended that the angel was Christ, this proves no more than that Christ was an angel, according to their interpretation of Gen. xlviii. 16. the angel which redeemed me from all evil;' and Isai. lxiii. 9. the angel of his presence saved them'—that is, he who represented his presence or glory, and bore his character; an angel, as they say, by office, but Jehovah by nature. But to whose satisfaction will they be able to prove this? He is called indeed, Mal. iii. 1. 'the messenger of the covenant:' see also Exod. xxiii. 20, 21. compared with 1 Cor. x. 9. as before. But it does not therefore follow, that whenever an angel is sent from heaven, that angel is to be considered as Christ; nor where Christ is sent, that he is to be considered as one God with the Father. Besides that the obscurity of the law and the prophets ought not to be brought forward to refute the light of the gospel, but on the contrary the light of the gospel ought to be employed

to illustrate the obscurity necessarily arising from the figurative language of the prophets. However this may be, Moses says, prophesying of Christ, Deut. xviii. 15. Jehovah thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken.' It will be answered, that he here predicts the human nature of Christ. I reply that in the following verse he plainly takes away from Christ that divine nature which it is wished to make co-essential with the Father-according to all that thou desiredst of Jehovah thy God in Horeb....saying, Let me not hear again the voice of Jehovah my God,' &c. In hearing Christ therefore, as Moses himself predicts and testifies, they were not to hear the God Jehovah, nor were they to consider Christ as Jehovah.

The style of the prophetical book of Revelations, as respects this subject, must be regarded in the same light. Chap. i. 1, 8, 11. 'he sent and signified it by his angel.' Afterwards this angel (who is described nearly in the same words as the angel, Dan. x. 5, &c.) says, 'I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come.' v. 13. 'like unto the Son of man.' v. 17. I am the first and the last.' ii. 7, &c. 'what the Spirit saith unto the churches.' xxii. 6. the Lord God sent his angel.' v. 8. 'before the feet of the angel which showed me these things.' v. 9. see thou do it not; for I am thy fellow-servant,' &c. Again, the same angel says, v. 12. 'behold I come quickly, and my reward is with me,' &c. and again, v. 13. 'I am Alpha and Omega,' &c. and v. 14. blessed are they that do his com

mandments;' and v. 16. I Jesus have sent my angel,' &c. These passages so perplexed Beza,* that he was compelled to reconcile the imaginary difficulty by supposing that the order of a few verses in the last chapter had been confused and transposed by some Arian, (which he attributed to the circumstance of the book having been acknowledged as canonical by the Church at a comparatively late period, and therefore less carefully preserved,) whence he thought it necessary to restore them to what he considered their proper order. This supposition would have been unnecessary, had he remarked, what may be uniformly observed throughout the Old Testament, that angels are accustomed to assume the name and person, and the very words of God and Jehovah, as their own; and that occasionally an angel represents the person and the very words of God, without taking the name either of Jehovah or God, but only in the character of an angel, or even of a man, as Junius

*Dicam quid mihi videatur, ita ut quod sentio relinquam ecclesiæ atque adeo piis omnibus dijudicandum. Existimo hunc librum, eo negligentius habitum, quod non statim ab omnibus pro apostolico scripto censeretur, fuisse ab Ariano quopiam depravatum, qui Christum Deum non esse, nec proinde adorandum, sic confirmare vellet: idque exortis jam Anomæis post ipsius Arii tempora, alioqui hunc locum minime prætermissuris. Transpositos igitur fuisse arbitror hos versiculos, nempe 12 et 13,' &c. According to the order subsequently proposed by Beza, the verses would stand thus-14, 15, 16, 13, 12, 17, &c. Eusebius classes the Apocalypse among the avriλsyóμva, or disputed books, and it is omitted in the catalogues of canonical books formed by Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem (A. D. 340), and by the council of Laodicea (A. D. 364), and in one or two other early catalogues of the Scriptures; but this omission was probably not owing to any suspicion concerning its authenticity or genuineness, but because its obscurity and mysteriousness were thought to render it less fit to be read publicly and generally. Horne's Introduction, &c. IV. 497. Bp. Tomline's Elements of Christian Theology, Vol. I. 500.