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to such devices, our opponents have betrayed the hopelessness of their position, and, as it happens, not unfrequently, when bad men are hard pressed by siege or famine, they have rendered their fortunes still more desperate by turning their arms against each other:

"Nor needeth him no longer labour spend,

His foes have slain themselves with whom he should contend."

Secondly. The evidence on which we base our assertion, that the Hebrews believed in the personality of holy angels, as well before as after the date of the captivity, will be found to be no less impregnable. "Phileleutherus" has indeed stated, that, "whenever an angelophany is described in those parts of the sacred volume, which are antecedent to the captivity, it is expressly represented as a manifestation of God Himself, and not as the appearance of some independent and created intelligence;" that is, if we understand him rightly, the later Jews fell into the universal error of regarding "the heavenly host" as distinct from the "Lord of hosts," instead of holding fast the patriarchal creed, to which all personal angels were unknown. We will not dwell upon the antecedent improbability which attaches to this novel speculation, nor upon the fact, on all hands admitted, that the Jews at this period of the captivity were effectually cured of their polytheistic tendencies: our best course, as before, will be to collect a few of those passages from the historical and earlier prophetical books, where the doctrine of personal angels is as clearly (if not as minutely) avowed, as in the age of our Lord and His Apostles.

"Angel-appearances" (we are translating Dr. Winer) " are represented most frequently in the legendary history of Genesis, and become less frequent as we advance." (Realw. i. 328.) "The only historical books which are quite free from angelology are those of Ezra and Nehemiah, written after the captivity." (Ibid.) This, we beg to remind our readers, is the testimony of an adversary, and tells with a peculiar force in favour of our own position. It directs us for the facts, which we are seeking, to that very quarter wherein, according to the theory of its author, we should be least likely to have found them; while it spares us the pains of examining those books, which we should naturally suspect, upon his hypothesis, to be full of the phenomena in question.

But are those early indications of angelic beings sufficiently precise and personal? "Phileleutherus," we have heard, would answer in the negative; and here, as in other cases, he is but echoing his German master, the author of the "Leben Jesu." If we turn, however, to the sacred volume, we shall not fail to be

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amazed at the flippancy of writers, who could gratuitously put forth so weak a cavillation. When our first parents were expelled from Paradise, it is recorded that the Lord God "placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword, which turned every way;" or, if we adopt the exposition of Kennicott, to which "Phileleutherus does not seem averse, the passage would still affirm that the Almighty stationed "angels in a fiery appearance." Could language in either case be chosen more apt to inculcate the belief that the holy angels are distinct beings, personal and ministerial? And is not the same even more predicable of the "two angels," who were sent to Sodom (Gen. xix. 1), who, in fact, say expressly of their errand, "the Lord hath sent us to destroy it?" (ver. 13.) Or, again, in that wonderful vision of Jacob, (xxviii. 12,) where angels ascended and descended on the ladder, while "the Lord stood above it," do we not witness the ministrations of the self-same blessed spirits, who afterwards ascended and descended upon the Son of Man (John i. 51) in His temptation, and agony, and death, and resurrection, and ascension? Or, if we revert to the ancient book of Job, where we have already seen the prince of darkness prowling up and down in the earth, (ii. 2,) who, we ask, are those "sons of God," presenting themselves before the Lord, but personally distinct intelligences, who, on the birthday of this lower world, had shouted in joyful chorus, (xxxviii. 7,) and who still "execute God's commandment, and hearken unto the voice of His words?" (Ps. ciii. 20.) Or, if we pass over a long interval, which is no less fruitful in the materials we are collecting, our thoughts are still raised to the contemplation of Jehovah riding upon the cherubims, as in a triumphal chariot, with all the hosts of heaven, "even thousands of angels" encircling His glorious presence. (Ps. lxviii. 17.) In the vision of the prophet Isaiah, (vi. 1-7,) nearly two centuries before the exile, he beholds the Great King, the Lord of hosts, sitting upon a throne surmounted by the six-winged seraphim; while one of that blessed company, issuing forth on a message to the prophet, attests in the same act both his independent subsistence, and the nature of angelic ministrations. Or if, lastly, we consult the vision of Micaiah, not less anterior to the age when the Hebrews are said to have imbibed the sacred learning of the magi, we still find the same doctrine of the angelic hierarchy, which re-appears after the captivity, in the books of Daniel and Zechariah: "I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the hosts of heaven standing

The Vindicator of "Protestant Principles" speaking of the " phantasmagoria of Jacob's dream," conjectures that it was no more than "a bright stream of light glancing from heaven to earth."-p. 166. Credat Judæus!

by Him, on His right hand and on His left." (1 Kings xxii. 19-22. 2 Chron. xviii. 18-21.)

We would fain have expanded these remarks more fully, but our space is warning us to desist. Enough, however, has been advanced to refute the particular objections, which we have here undertaken to combat, viz., the absence of all precise teaching in the ante-Babylonic Scriptures, respecting the doctrine of good and evil angels, as held in the age of our Saviour; for we have shown that, in respect to both classes of superhuman intelligences, the chain of testimony, which extends to the very last vision of the Apocalypse, has its origin at the gates of Paradise. If any should still object,-that we have rather relieved the difficulty than removed it altogether, and have rather evinced the weakness of our opponents, than established an absolute identity of language in the several intimations of angels afforded by the Old Testament, let them consider that even should the latest prophets have made some additions to the previous discoveries on this subject, such a gradual revelation of the truth should give no cause for perplexity to the pious student of the Scriptures, who in the whole order of the Divine economy, will observe the twilight ever deepening until the advent of the "Sun of righteousness."

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In conclusion, we would recur, for a moment, to the writers who have more especially called forth the preceding observations. As was stated, in the outset, they both manifest a settled contempt for all ecclesiastical tradition; having realized, what the Germans would describe as an absolute "autonomy," -a persuasion that truth is either yet undiscovered, or that, if it exist on earth, it has sprung from their own bosoms. We have, accordingly, little hope that our arguments will produce any salutary fruit in them; but we nevertheless feel it our solemn duty to warn all their readers of the poison which lies hid under their plausible pretences of "asserting the rights of educated manhood." Especially has the author of the "Vindication established his previous claims to the distrust of every churchman; for, besides the incurable heterodoxy of his book, he has added sin to sin by putting it forth under a mendacious title. What he calls a "Vindication of Protestant Principles," is a vindication of no principle whatsoever it is a profane assault upon all religion, if religion is aught more than a string of loose negations, or than a cluster of shifting nebulæ.

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A "Vindication of Protestant Principles" forsooth! by an admirer of the "rationalistic" Melancthon! Had Melancthon left no other record of his principles than the "Augsburg Confession," to which "Phileleutherus" refers, he left enough to

convince all sober people of the horror with which he would have regarded the new generation of reformers. "Non enim aspernamur consensum Catholicæ Ecclesiæ," was his avowal for himself and his coadjutors, "nec est animus nobis ullum novum dogma et ignotum Sanctae Ecclesiae invehere in Ecclesiam." (Art. xxi. apud Corpus Confess. ed. Genev. 1612.) One reformer, indeed, there was, whom the vindicator does resemble; we mean, the fanatical Carlstadt, who, as early as the year 1520, (says Ranke,) "entertained doubts whether Moses was really the author of the books which bear his name, and whether the Gospels have come down to us in their genuine form." (Cf. Vindication of Protestant Principles, pp. 139. 168.) We must not, however, confound the hallucinations of this worthy with the principles of the reformers at large, any more than we should identify our own soi-disant champion with the cause of the English Church. As her Prayer Book protests daily against his errors in the "Te Deum," and weekly in the Preface to the "Ter Sanctus," and yearly in the "Festival of St. Michael and all Angels," so did his hero, Melancthon, by anticipation, repudiate his hollow homage, and denounce his narrow-minded self-idolatry. When the throes of the earlier Reformation had subsided, and Melancthon was left in his ripe old age to survey both the past and future, his apprehensions were transferred from the reviving struggle of the papacy to the seeds of neological unbelief, which even then were beginning to germinate. It was the sight of this lawless monster, threatening to uproot his labours, and to devastate the whole Church, which wrung from the great reformer the ever-memorable ejaculation": "Video multo intolerabiliorem esse tyrannidem quam unquam fuit antea."

7 We are indebted for this passage to a series of articles which have just appeared in the "Evangelische Kirchen-Zeitung." Their tone, notwithstanding its despondency here and there, gives us strong reason to hope that the theology of our German neighbours may even yet regain somewhat of healthiness and

ancient truth.

ART. III.-An Appeal to the Scottish Bishops and Clergy, and generally to the Church of their Communion. Edinburgh: Alex. Lairne and Co.

ALTHOUGH the volume before us appears anonymously, so far as its title-page is concerned, the contents of the work itself, as well as the advertisements which have appeared in the public prints, enable us to ascribe the authorship to the Rev. W. Palmer, of Magdalen College, Oxford, deacon, whose name is already well known to the public in connexion with his publication on the Jerusalem bishopric, and his works on the doctrine of the Russian Church. The work before us is one of a somewhat multifarious character, amounting to 740 pages, octavo, considerable portions of which are printed in a very minute type; and comprising the contents of the author's journal, with large masses of correspondence extending over a period of about nine years, 1840-1849; during which, this deacon has been engaged in a series of conferences and negotiations, bearing on the question of the relations of the English and the Russian Church.

To enter in this place into any detailed account of these matters would be impossible; and were it possible, might be somewhat tedious: we shall however attempt a brief outline of the principal features of the transactions, as far as we can gather them from the complicated narrative before us.

It appears, then, that in 1840 Mr. Palmer went to St. Petersburg for the purpose of studying the character and tenets of the Russian Church, and, if practicable, of being admitted to the communion of that Church, without forsaking the Church of England. During his residence at St. Petersburg, he became acquainted with some Russian families of distinction, and amongst the rest, with a nobleman, who is designated as "Mr. A." Now, it so happened, that while Mr. Palmer was seeking communion with the Russian Church, on the ground that the English and the Russian Churches were one in faith, and branches of the same Catholic Church, the wife and daughters of this "Mr. A." had just separated from the communion of the Russian Church, and joined themselves to that of the Church of England; professing, moreover, doctrines very inconsistent with those which Mr. Palmer was announcing in Russia as the true doctrines of the Church of England; so that his position became

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