Nor have we seen as yet the extent of the mischief. According to tradition St. Hermas was a Christian minister whose holy and useful life highly adorned the religion he professed. Nevertheless, his entire work, the Shepherd, is written under this delusion; and is, moreover, the silliest book that ever exercised an influence over the human understanding.

I think it possible that some of the apocryphal writers may have been deceived in the same manner.—Like Hermas, they were agape for inspiration, and therefore easily imposed upon themselves.

The same passion also originated the desire to be wise above what is written, which characterises the writings of this period.-It was under the influence of this longing after further revelation, that Tertullian supported the pretensions of Montanus to be the paraclete promised by our Saviour; declared that the preceptive part of the Gospel was imperfect, and required alteration, correction, and addition;27 and countenanced, like his cotemporary Clement of Alexandria, the fanciful notion of two doctrines in Christianity; the one obvious and deducible from the simple meaning of the inspired text, the other occult and only to be acquired by the initiated. The same unhallowed and inordinate desire betrayed Clement also, into the aberrations we have already noticed.

We can readily imagine that a period of the Church thus distinguished by a feverish thirst for hidden knowledge, would also be eminently favourable to the success of forged books professing to be inspired, and greatly encourage their appearance. Men were prepossessed on behalf

27 Cetera disciplinæ et conversationis admittunt novitatem correctionis; operante scilicet et proficiente gratiâ Dei.-De Virg. Vel., c. 1.

28 De Pallio, c. 3., de Idol. c. 5.

of their claims, and thereby unfitted for accurately examining and judging of them.29

The consequence of such a state of things was inevitable. The views of Christian doctrine entertained by the early fathers are not the transcripts of that which, having the eyes of their understandings enlightened,3o they discerned in the word of God by the light which itself diffuses, but of that which they discovered there, through the discoloured and distorting medium of a vast mass of apocryphal and uninspired productions. And though all this was speedily overruled to the final purification and establishment of the canon, a process which had commenced even in Tertullian's time,31 yet it is deeply to be regretted that no care whatever was taken to reconstruct the doctrine of the church according to the views of the Christian religion that were then held to be the only inspired ones; but the old errors remained in her traditional creed for many succeeding ages: and in their progress down the stream of time, the worst parts of them were grievously exaggerated.

Our purpose is, carefully to compare the doctrines advanced by these early writers with those we find in Holy Scripture; and thus to discover, if possible, the first germ of that accursed plant which so soon engrafted itself upon the true vine that God had planted in the earth: and which, absorbing the sap and nutriment of its parent stem, spread its boughs unto the sea and its branches unto the river, until the whole of Christendom languished in the shadow of death that brooded beneath it, and all who professed the Christian name fed on the ashes which its deceitful and bitter fruit afforded them.

29 1 John iv. 1.

30 Eph. i. 16.

31 De Pudicitiâ, c. 10.

CHAPTER V.

ANGELS.

THE opinions of the early Christian fathers upon the nature of angels, are so interwoven with their notions upon other doctrinal points, that with them we may very conveniently commence our examination. This is a revealed truth, regarding which it was the evident intention of the Spirit of inspiration, that nothing should be disclosed beyond the fact of its existence. Their name, both in Hebrew and Greek, imports the office in which they are ordinarily found engaged in the sacred history, but gives no definition of their nature.1 It is also remarkable, that nothing concerning them exclusively, is ever made the subject of revelation; they are only mentioned casually, in the accounts of transactions accomplished through their agency.

The following would seem to be all that we really know of this mysterious subject. The angels are created beings, who came into existence before the foundation of the world. Their essence is different both from the divine and human natures; it is immortal, that to which we shall in a future state be assimilated, and spiritual.

4

5

6

1 Angelus officii non naturæ vocabula. Tert. de Carni Christi., c. 14.

2 Nehem. ix. 6. Col. i. 16.

3 Job xxxviii. 4-7.

4 Heb. ii. 16.

5 Luke xx. 26.

6 Psa. civ. 4.

8

As it respects their powers and faculties, they excel in strength, they can assume the external appearance and perform the functions of human beings, and were generally invested with a splendour or brightness, which distinguished their presence from that of a mere man.10 Under this form they have the power of working miracles :11 they can appear and disappear at pleasure, sometimes to all present, at other times only to a part;12 the mode of disappearance being, on one occasion, by ascent into the air.13 Of this power of gliding or flying through the air, we find them to be possessed from other passages.1 They are likewise endowed with the still more incomprehensible faculty of impressing the signs of their presence upon the mental apprehensions of men, without the interposition of the external senses: thereby making known their messages in dreams.15

Of their hierarchies and orders our knowledge is very limited. The celestial beings who guarded the approaches to Paradise after the fall 16 and whose sculptured images overshadowed the mercy-seat," are not angels. These representations, fashioned after the pattern which was shown to Moses in the mount,18 agree in so many particulars with Isaiah's vision in the temple,19 with that which appeared to Ezekiel by the river Chebar,20 and which St. John beheld in the island of Patmos,21 that we cannot doubt but the same scene and the same beings were

revealed to all of them. But they are termed cherubs, seraphs, living creatures,-never angels.

However, that some subordination obtains among the beings who partake of the angelic nature, is frequently hinted at in the Holy Scriptures,22 and is moreover in strict analogy with the arrangement of every other part of God's creation.

One particular concerning it may be deduced from several passages. We read in the visions of Daniel of an exalted being named Michael, who is one of the chief princes;23 and the epistle of St. Jude informs us, that he is an archangel. In the same visions, the name of another celestial personage, Gabriel, is mentioned:24 he is also called the man Gabriel.25 He was afterwards seen by Zacharias in the temple, when he declared his office to be "that he stood in the presence of God:"26 and he again appears in the inspired account of the annunciation, where he is expressly named, the angel Gabriel." Now as we can conceive of no higher office than that of standing in the presence of God, and of no higher honour than that of announcing the incarnation of God, we, without hesitation, assign to him the most elevated rank in the angelic hierarchy. But we have seen that Michael the archangel is likewise one of the chief princes, and we find in the New Testament that he leads forth the hosts of heaven to battle :28 he is moreover an angel of the presence; for he is the angel of Israel,29 who is declared to be of the presence also.30 We cannot, therefore, err in assigning a post of equal elevation to him. The apostle St. John informs us in the Revelations,31 that seven angels stand before God.

22 1 Cor. xv. 39-41. Rom. viii. 38. Eph. i. 31, &c., &c.