"There was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought with the Dragon; and the Dragon fought and his angels." The vision of the war in heaven, in the Apocalypse, represents the vehement struggles between Christianity and the old idolatry in the first ages of the Gospel. The angels of the two opposite armies represent two opposite parties in the Roman state, at the time which the vision more particularly regards. Michael's angels are the party which espoused the side of the Christian religion, the friends of which had for many years been numerous, and became very powerful under Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor: the Dragon's angels are the party which endeavoured to support the old idolatry. And in conformity with this imagery of the Apocalypse, the princes of Persia, in the Book of Daniel, are to be understood, I think, of a party in the Persian state which opposed the return of the captive Jews, first after the death of Cyrus, and again after the death of Darius Hystaspes. And the prince of Græcia is to be understood of a party in the Greek empire which persecuted the Jewish religion after the death of Alexander the Great, particularly in the Greek kingdom of Syria.

We have now considered all the angels and supposed angels of the Book of Daniel, except the personages in my text; and we have found as yet no tutelar angel of any province or kingdom, -no member of any celestial senate or privy council. Indeed, with respect to the latter notion of angels of the presence, although it has often been assumed in exposition of some passages in Daniel, the confirmation of it has never been attempted, to the best of my recollection, by reference to that book. Its advocates have chiefly relied on

Micaiah's vision, related in the twenty-second chapter of the first Book of Kings; in which they say Jehovah is represented as sitting in council with his angels, and advising with them upon measures. But if you read the account of this vision in the Bible, you will find that this is not an accurate recital of it. "Micaiah saw Jehovah sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him, on his right hand and on his left." Observe, the heavenly host are not in the attitude of counsellers, sitting: they are standing, in the attitude of servants, ready to receive commands, and to be sent forth each upon his proper errand. “ And Jehovah said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead?" Here is no consultation: no advice is asked or given: the only question asked is, Who of the whole multitude assembled, will undertake a particular service? The answers were various. "Some spake on this manner, and some on that; " none, as it should seem, showing any readiness for the business, till one more forward than the rest presented himself before the throne, and said, "I will persuade him." He is asked, by way of trial of his qualifications, "How?" He gives a satisfactory answer; and, being both ready for the business and found equal to it, is sent forth. If this can be called a consultation, it is certainly no such consultation as a great monarch holds with his prime ministers, but such as a military commander might hold with privates in the ranks.

Having thus disposed, I think, of all the passages in the Book of Daniel which mention beings of the angelic or of a superior order, except my text, I can now proceed to the exposition of that upon very safe and certain grounds.

Among those who understand the titles of "Watchers" and "Holy Ones" of angelic beings, it is not quite agreed whether they are angels of the cabinet, or the provincial governors, the tutelar angels, to whom these appellations belong. The majority, I think, are for the former. But it is agreed by all that they must be principal angels angels of the highest orders; which, if they are angels at all, must certainly be supposed for it is to be observed, that it is not the mere execution of the judgment upon Nebuchadnezzar, but the decree itself, which is ascribed to them: the whole matter originated in their decree; and at their command the decree was executed. "The Holy Ones" are not said to hew down the tree, but to give command for the hewing of it down. Of how high order, indeed, must these "Watchers and Holy Ones" have been, on whose decrees the judgments of God himself are founded, and by whom the warrant for the excution is finally issued! It is surprising, that such men as Calvin among the Protestants of the Continent *, such as Wells and the elder Lowth in our own church, and such as Calmet in the church of Rome, -should not have their eyes open to the error and impiety, indeed, of such an exposition as this, which makes them angels; especially when the learned Grotius, in the extraordinary manner in which he recommends it, had set forth its merits, as it should seem, in the true light, when he says that

*

Calvin, indeed, seems to have had some apprehension that this exposition (which, however, he adopted,) makes too much of angels, and to have been embarrassed with the difficulty, He has recourse to an admirable expedient to get over it: he says the whole vision was accommodated to the capacity of a heathen king, who had but a confined knowledge of God, and could not distinguish between him and the angels.

it represents God as acting like a great monarch

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upon a decree of his senate," — and when another of the most learned of its advocates imagines something might pass in the celestial senate bearing some analogy to the forms of legislation used in the assemblies of the people at Rome, in the times of the republic. It might have been expected that the exposition would have needed no other confutation, in the judgment of men of piety and sober minds, than this fair statement of its principles by its ablest advocates. The plain truth is, and some learned men, though but few, have seen it, -that these appellations, "Watchers" and " Holy Ones" denote the Persons in the Godhead; the first describing them by the vigilance of their universal providence, the second,

by the transcendent sanctity of their nature. The word rendered " Holy Ones" is so applied in other texts of Scripture, which make the sense of the other word coupled with it here indisputable. In perfect consistency with this exposition, and with no other, we find, in the twenty-fourth verse, that this decree of the "Watchers" and the " Holy Ones" is the decree of the Most High God; and in a verse preceding my text, God, who, in regard to the plurality of the Persons is afterwards described by these two plural nouns, "Watchers" and "Holy Ones," is, in regard to the unity of the essence, described by the same nouns in the singular number, "Watcher" and Holy One." And this is a fuller confirmation of the truth of this exposition for God is the only being to whom the same name in the singular and in the plural may be indiscriminately applied; and this change from the one number to the other, without any thing in the principles of language to account for it, is frequent,

in speaking of God, in the Hebrew tongue, but unexampled in the case of any other being.

The assertion, therefore, in my text, is, that God had decreed to execute a signal judgment upon Nebuchadnezzar for his pride and impiety, in order to prove, by the example of that mighty monarch, that "the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men." To make the declaration the more solemn and striking, the terms in which it is conceived distinctly express that consent and concurrence of all the Persons in the Trinity in the design and execution of this judgment, which must be understood, indeed, in every act of the Godhead. And, in truth, we shall not find in history a more awful example and monument of Providence than the vicissitudes of Nebuchadnezzar's life afford. Raised gradually to the pinnacle of power and human glory, by a long train of those brilliant actions and successes which man is too apt to ascribe entirely to himself, (the proximate causes being indeed in himself and in the instruments he uses, although Providence is always the prime efficient,) he was suddenly cast down from it, and, after a time, as suddenly restored, without any natural or human means. His humiliation was not the effect of any reverse of fortune, of any public disaster, or any mismanagement of the affairs of his empire. At the expiration of a twelvemonth from his dream, the king, still at rest in his house and flourishing in his palace, surveying his city, and exulting in the monuments of his own greatness which it presented to his eye, was smitten by an invisible hand. As the event stood unconnected with any known natural cause, it must have been beyond the ken of any fore