suggestion of Satan, to be honoured with received distinct permission to do so. We may be assured that the spectacle of a hypocrite like Balaam, making use of fish, unprincipled ends, and ready for filthy lucre's sake to call down a curse on God's people, or more effectually to destroy, by alluring them into sin, could not but be unsupportably odious to a holy angel, ever zealous to vindicate the honour of his glorious King; and to such a man, the face of a "ministering spirit" would be fearful indeed, if, like Balaam's, his eyes were opened to meet the indignant gaze of God's true servant. any direct communication: neither was the angel permitted to address him, but through Gad the seer, who had announced the Lord's name to forward his own selthe coming judgment on the land. The angel directed a sacrifice, and continued fully visible in that menacing position, so that the sons of Ornan hid themselves from his terrible appearance. It was not until the smoke of the burnt-offering had ascended before the Lord, at once rendered and pronounced acceptable by the kindling of heavenly fire, that the dreaded sword was sheathed. Yet even so, its terrors remained so powerfully impressed on the mind of the king, that he dare not approach his temporary altar, from fear of the glorious being who still watched his proceedings. This is one of the glimpses afforded us of what is perpetually passing around, but which our eyes are holden from seeing. We talk of casualties, of epidemics, of contagious disorders; but we see not the hand that with unerring fidelity deals forth each mysterious dispensation, according to the Lord's appointment. The same presumptuous folly that has clothed evil spirits with fantastically frightful grimace, has invested the holy angels with a puerile silliness of appearance, wholly at variance with every scriptural representation. Baby faces between a pair of bird's wings, destitute of bodies; slim girls with long, flowing ringlets, and pinions well feathered-these are the imaginary likenesses of things in heaven, which we are warned not to represent to ourselves; and the terribleness with which the Lord, for his own glory, has invested these ministers of his, is wholly lost sight of. The angel who met Balaam in the way, was of a formidable aspect. The poor beast, who showed a better feeling than the mercenary wicked prophet, saw him and turned aside each time, until the narrowness of the way preventing this, she fell down, and was cruelly chastised for it by her senseless rider, whom she was enabled miraculously to reprove. "Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand." Numb. xxii. 31. The angel's address was very severe, and his look so alarming, that all Balaam's thirst for gold could not tempt him to advance, until he Angelic power was put forth to shut the mouths of the hungry lions, among whom Daniel was cast to be devoured. The prophet tells us so. "My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lion's mouths, that they have not hurt me." Dan. vi. 22. Daniel was indeed most peculiarly favoured by the ministry of angels, and by the intimate footing in which Gabriel appeared to place him; while the prophet's deportment toward his celestial interpreter was beautifully humble and respectful; and in his communications, which have more of a colloquial and confidential tone than any recorded in the Old Testament, the angel certainly shows himself to be a powerful warrior and champion, continually engaged in battle. "The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: and now will I return to fight with the prince of Persia." It is for man they fight; for rebel man, who is himself too generally fighting against God, or at least neglecting, with wanton disregard, those interests over which the angels of the Lord tenderly watch. Against us are arrayed principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, and wicked spirits in high places: but in the unequal contest we have great and potent allies, whom the Lord Jesus has commissioned to serve us according to our need, in warding off, no doubt, many bodily dangers not less imminent than the jaws of the hungry lions were to Daniel, though often unseen and unsuspected by us. A simple student of Scripture, unacquainted with the received notions of poets, painters and sculptors, who should undertake to pourtray an angel of God, would probably represent him under a very different aspect from any that we are accustomed to connect with the idea; because we, the bond-slaves of custom ever ready to to be misled by vain traditions received from our fathers, and incapable of independent thought, or rather indisposed to it, adopt the prevailing error that saves us the trouble of reflecting, and content ourselves with grotesque devils, and namby-pamby angels. Surely both are, to mortal gaze, most terrible! There are men upon earth, whose withering scowl of malignant ferocity, treachery, and reckless desolation of heart, may convey to the shrinking observer a faint idea of what must emanate from the countenance of an evil spirit, "seeking rest and finding none," "going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it," for the sole purpose of venting his cruelty on mankind: but where shall we look for the likeness of an angel? Beautiful they must be, because all God's unblemished works are so; and calm they must be, for holiness and happiness are always calm: but this earth, defiled by sin, and broken into helplessness, contains nothing to furnish us with a conception of the character that spotless purity and over-mastering power must impart to those who possess both. The expression of a very young and lovely infant's countenance is the nearest approach that earth can make to heaven but, alas, the taint is there, though as yet comparatively undeveloped; and who could picture the feeble lump of clay arrayed in the terrors of a warrior of heaven? Let us but examine of what class of his works the Lord principally speaks; when answering Job out of the whirlwind, he sets before him a small part of the wonders that, even in this visible world, fling man into such a fearful distance of ignorance, obscurity, and contempt. The ocean with its proud waves, and secret springs, its garment of clouds, and swaddling band of thick darkness; the horse, with his neck clothed in thunder, pawing in the valley, rejoicing in his strength, mocking at fear, and swallowing the ground with fierceness and rage. Behemoth, taking in a river with his eyes, and trusting that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth; Leviathan. making the deep to boil like a pot, with eyes like the eyelids of the morning, esteeming iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood; these are the works of the Almighty on which he chiefly dwells when causing the patriarch to meditate on the greatness of his majesty and glory: and we cannot doubt that he has clothed in more than thunder the forms of his celestial hosts, engaged as they constantly are in battle with myriads of mighty opponents. The effect produced on Daniel by the appearance of an angel, and on the sons of Ornan; on Monoah and his wife, and on the apostle John, who even after the vision of the Lord himself, and all the glories of heaven, was twice so overcome by the greatness of his angelic companion, that he fell down at his feet to worship him, all, with many other instances, tend to impress us with the belief that an angel, however beautiful, is still exceedingly awful. He is the warrior's subject of a king, whose sovereignty is resisted, and his will opposed by the wretches whom he formed out of nothing: how can the servant's aspect be that of repose, so long as his adored Master is resisted, grieved, and wronged by the insolent rebels of earth and hell? No! a victory has to be won, before the holy angels sheath their flaming swords, or lose the terrors of their stern and wrathful looks, now bent on every side to track the mazes of the insidious foe, and to repel him from the invisible boundary of the Lord's inviolable fold. In speaking of angelic power, we must not exclude the property of actual, physical strength. The general opinion as to a celestial being, seems to exclude all that is material: but it is impossible to reconcile this with the facts recorded in Scripture. Shadowy beings could not have made themselves palpable to the touch of mortal hands, as when the angels forcibly drew Lot into the house, or when they led him and his wife and daughters from the city, or when Peter felt himself smitten on the side; or in other instances, to be enlarged on as we proceed. A body perfectly tangible may become invisible, as our Lord, whose body we know to have been truly a human body in every respect, repeatedly proved; and that our insensibility to the presence of these ministering spirits, is the effect of blindness on our more tangible quality than is commonly supposed; that angelic forms are not made of vapour, neither are they when rendered visible to man, optical illusions. We know that "all flesh is not the same flesh; but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, and another of fishes, and another of birds: there are also celestial BODIES, and bodies terrestrial; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another." 1 Cor. xv. 39, 40. That the celestial body is nourished we have many indications in Scripture. Our blessed Lord, speaking of the future state, says to his disciples, "I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom; and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Luke xxii. 29, 30. When we consider into what surpassing fragrance and beauty, the coarsest elements of earth and water are transformed by their mysterious circulation through the delicate frame-work of a plant, we may readily divest our minds of all that pertains to the grosser act of eating and drinking, and the common properties of such nutriment as man is accustomed to take, and believe that in heaven as on earth, the brightest, most perfect of the Lord's works is hourly dependent on his sustaining mercy, formed by his power, upheld by his grace, and nourished by the rich provision of his bountiful care. part, probably the consequences of our sin, we learn from the prayer of Elisha, who desiring to pacify the young man's fears did not ask that a heavenly guard might be sent to assure him, but only that his eyes might be opened to see what was actually present. Our Lord says, that in the resurrection his people shall be "equal unto the angels." Luke xx. 36. Now, we know, to a certainty, that men will rise with their bodies; that this mortal shall put on, not immateriality, but immortality -1 Cor. xv. 53; and if angels are incorporeal spirits, certainly there must be either an inferiority or a superiority to those with whom it is expressly said they shall be equal. Bodies like those which we now inhabit, in substance, they probably have not, although we have sufficient proof that all which we call the laws of nature, may be suspended or reversed at the divine will, without working any change in our natural frames: as in the case of the three Jews, who walked unharmed in the midst of the fiery furnace of Babylon-Dan. iii. 27; and the prophet Ezekiel, who was lifted up and borne through the air-Ezek. iii. 14; and Jonah, who remained uninjured for three days and nights in a place when in much less time, according to those laws of nature, not only would his life have departed, but the framework of his body become decomposed and utterly changed into corruption. Jonah i. 17. The scepticism of the human mind renders us willing rather to explain away the most unequivocal language into shadowy figures, than to submit our vain reason to the omniscience of God, our shallow philosophy to his omnipotence; and though the most delicate petal of a tiny flower, or the tinted particle that our rude touch brushes from the butterfly's wing, cannot subsist without nutriment, conveyed THERE is not, in the whole Bible, an inby divinely-formed mechanism for its sup- stance where an angel appears to act inport, we are unwilling to think that when dependently of the divine command. Perthe Holy Ghost, in reference to the manna, fect submission is the unvaried character says, "Man did eat angel's food," (Psalm of the heavenly host. Our Lord exIxxviii. 25,) there is any ground given for presses this, in the prayer that he has supposing that angels are actually nour-taught us to use: "Thy will be done on ished by substantial aliment. We would earth as it is in heaven." When John start no new theory upon this subject; neither will we receive any, howsoever firmly established on human authority, that will not stand the test of Scripture. We believe that the unseen world is of a much SECTION III. ANGELIC OBEDIENCE. would have worshipped the angel who showed him the wonderful things that he has recorded for us, he was prohibited in these words: "See thou do it not: for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the | erlasting felicity. The variety of commissayings of this book." Rev. xxii. 9. We cannot doubt that the Holy Spirit has so framed the word of truth as to be a perpetual antidote to every form of error that should creep into the world: and the "worshipping of angels," which constitutes a prominent mark of the Romish apostacy, is provided against by continually setting forth their entire dependence and subordination. They never appear but as messengers: "God sent an angel into Jerusalem to destroy it." 1 Chron. xxi. 15. "My God hath sent an angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me." Dan. vi. 22. "The man Gabriel whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation." Dan. ix. 21. "At the beginning of thy supplication the commandment came forth, and I am come." (v. 23.) "And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth." Luke i. 26. "Now I know of a surety that the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews," Acts xii. 11: and in the last instance that is recorded by inspiration of an angelic mission, we read, "I Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the Church." Rev. xxii. 16. However willingly performed to men, it is still a service appointed of God, and by him especially directed; they are "ministering spirits," sent forth to minister to them that shall be heirs of salvation." Heb. i. 14; and it is on this principle of holy obedience that we find them zealously executing God's righteous displeasure against the rebellious. When the way to the tree of life was to be closed against fallen man, cherubim were set to guard the entrance, and with their flaming sword rendered it unapproachable: when that way was again to be thrown open, and the twelve manner of fruits yielded in their season, and the leaves to be applied for the healing of the nations, twelve angels are represented as standing at the gates that are never to be shut, day or night, not armed to bar the passage, but as guards of honour welcoming the happy comers to that scene of ev sions which we know the angels to have executed among men, sufficiently attest their prompt obedience to every command of their glorious King, whom to serve is their privilege and joy: for "he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven." Dan. iv. 35. "Thinkest thou," said our Lord to the disciple who smote the high priest's servant, "thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than ten legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?" Matt. xxvi. 53, 54. We now proceed to review the instarces of angelic interference, not already exhibited in these pages, as they occur in the Holy Scriptures: and as the work of vengeance is in no way consonant to the character of a holy angel, except when executed in loyal obedience to the command of his righteous King, who will punish evil-doers, we may class under the present head all the destructive operations of the heavenly host. In the song of Deborah, we have a curse sternly denounced, in language highly expressive of this feeling. "Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, against the mighty." Judges v. 23. The Lord needs no help of men or of angels; yet the armies of heaven stand around, eager to be employed against the enemies of his name and of his people; and to withhold the hand when such work is to be done, seems to them so hatefully unthankful, as to draw forth the most emphatic anathema against such offenders. To render a recompense to those who afflict Christ in his members, is indeed a part of angelic office, as David shows; when speaking of those who sought to destroy his soul, he says, "Let them be as chaff before the wind: and let the angels of the Lord chase them. Let their way be dark and slippery, and let the angel of the Lord persecute them." Psalm xxxv. 5, 6. In virtue of this office, they will fulfil their terrible commission in the last days of the present dispensation. "The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them that do iniquity; and shall cast them into a mighty angel of God preparing to execute judgment on a city was so terrible to David as we have seen it was, what must have been the rushing to war of myriads in their most tremendous array; the personal encounter of two such hosts, one battling for the continued possession of "high places," where they retained unspeakable advantages, the other nerved to expel those infernal rebels and intruders from the presence of God. furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." Matt. xii. 42. They will come fully prepared for the terrible work of that great day: "It is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." 2 Thess. i. 6, 7, 8. He "who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire, (Psalm civ. 4,) has pre-ordained them to act a most conspicuous part in the transactions of the last days, when they will execute judgment with unerring obedience, and rid the earth of those whose presence upon it is a blemish and a curse. For a more particular description of the part taken by angels in the ministry of wrath, we must turn to the book of Revelations, where a scene of aw-wine-press was trodden without the city, ful magnificence is opened to us, in language of unparalleled grandeur. The apostle saw, amid the mysterious splendours of the heaven which he was permitted to view, seven angels standing before God, having each a trumpet in his hand, the sounding of which was to let loose upon the earth a succession of woes very terrible to experience. In regular order, according to the command that had been given, each angel blew the trumpet; and when it came to the turn of the sixth, he was directed to loose four angels that were bound in the great river Euphrates, and who, of course, were evil spirits, having power given them for an appointed season to destroy men by means of a people over whom they obtained control. Interpreters expound this of the Saracens; but our business is with those who seduce their minds and govern their movements; and these are Satanic spirits, loosed for the purpose by one of the angels of God. Rev. ix. 13-19. After this, the apostle witnessed the great battle, in which Michael and his angels vanquished the dragon and his host, and drove them from heaven. Of the combat no description is given, for however the mind of John might be expanded and strengthened to sustain the tremendous vision, ours are not so fitted; and we should sink under any attempt to realize it. If the sight of one We were told by our Lord, (Matt. xxiii.) that the reapers are angels; one is represented to us here as having a sharp sickle, to whom another angel who had power over fire, cries with a loud voice, "Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great wine-press of the wrath of God. And the and blood came out of the wine-press, even unto the horses' bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs." Rev. xiv. 18—20. But greater judgments remained; and the seven last plagues with which a guilty world should be visited, were committed to seven angels, who are represented as fulfilling their mission with more than passive obedience, if we may judge by the stern interest with which the result of their procedings was watched by their heavenly companions. When the third vial was poured out upon the rivers and fountains of waters and they became blood, John continues, "I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shall be, because thou hast judged thus. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy. And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments." Rev. xvi. 4-7. But in no part of the inspired word do we find such a display of angelic indignation and high displeasure as in the chapters which follow immediately upon this. The occasion of this strong exhibition is the rise of that very system which has exalted the angels into objects of worship; and we must refer to the powerful principles of perfect obe |