1

enthusiasts vain and ridiculous, without any great help of rhetorical flourishes or logical confutations.

And much of the fame nature is that disparity of the hypothefes of the learned philofophers in relation to the origination of the world and man, after a great deal of dust raised and fanciful explications and unintelligible hypotheses. The plain, but divine narrative by the hand of Moses, full of senfe and congruity, and clearness, and reasonableness in itself, doth at the fame moment give us a true and clear discovery of this great myftery, and renders all the effays of the generality of the heathen philofophers to be vain, inevident, and indeed inexplicable theories, the creatures of phantasy and imagination, and nothing elfe*.” I am, Sir, &c.

INVESTIGATOR.

* Hale's Primitive Origination of Mankind, folio, p. 340,

ON GUARDIAN ANGELS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S

SIR,

WHE

MAGAZINE.

WHEN the judicious Hooker lay on his death bed, he was vifited by his friend Dr. Saravia, who finding him deep in contemplation and not inclinable to discourse, afked what his thoughts were then fet upon to which the dying faint replied," that he was meditating the number and nature of angels, and their bleffed obedience and order, without which, peace could not be in Heaven; and oh!" faid he, "that it might be fo on earth!"

I was led to a recollection of this pleafing and inftructive anecdote, by a perufal of the poftscript to the letter of a Country Vicar in your last number; where I am respectfully called upon to give my opinion upon this question, "Whether there be fuch beings as guardian angels under the prefent difpenfation of the Gospel ?"

I might

I might, however, wonder at this invitation to discuss a point of fome difficulty and obfcurity, when your correfpondent himself decides it rather peremptorily in the affirmative by faying in a parenthefis that, "there indifputably were fuch beings under the difpenfation of Mofes, and till our Saviour's appearance upon earth, and for fome time after it."

If fo, then there can be no need of my obfervations on the subject; for it is by no means reasonable to suppose that what was neceffary to the moral government of the world under the Mofaic difpenfation and immediately after the Christian æra, fhould have ceased to be fo in our time. If it can be shewn that there ever were Guardian Angels, in the sense understood by your correfpondent, I must then admit that they have ftill an existence and a fimilar agency. But this I must beg leave to fay is the very matter to be inquired into and proved. What was obferved by me, in the hafty communication referred to, certainly goes no farther than to the general employment of spiritual beings in our world. At least nothing more than this was in my intention at the time; for fo far am I from thinking, that there are particular Angels affigned to particular perfons or things, the notion does appear to me calculated to debase the mind to a degree of flavish fuperftition, to draw it off from a due estimate of its own powers, and to fink it down from an elevated fentiment of dependence upon the Almighty, into a kind of idolatrous reverence for imaginary intelli gences.

A learned prelate of our church, in a discourse on the miniftry of Angels, has the following obfervation, very well worth attending to.

"Wherever God hath created any faculty or power," faith he "we always fuppofe there is fome fuitable object created with it. The power would otherwise be given in vain. By the fame kind of reasoning, we may infer, where an object is created, there must be some suitable powers which it was intended to gratify: and fince the objects of knowledge do abundantly exceed human understanding, we cannot but conclude, that there is exifting an higher order of beings more capable of fearching out the works of God, and of difcerning the wifdom of Nature.*"

This reafoning is perfectly juft, but though the bishop

Conybeare's Sermons, vol. ii. 275.

allows

allows that thefe superior beings are the "immediate at tendants on God, and the minifters that execute his pleafure," he very judiciously avoids the question of Guardian Angels, confcious, I fuppofe, that it would not bear the touchstone of this argument, for I fhall contend that the affigning the care of particular perfons or communities to certain of those beings, "is unfuitable to the powers and objects of both." The Chriftian doctrine is this, that the good Angels have had their season of probation, and " kept their firft eftate, in confequence of which their happiness is permanently fecured;" but man in this world is on the flage of trial, and a candidate for immortality. His powers are proportioned to the fervice in which he is engaged, and the object which he has in view. Now it is effentially neceffary to the very nature of a probationary state, that the candidate be a free agent, having the entire management of all the faculties on the due ufe of which his future condition depends. But, if man has a particular divine intelligence, or a good genius allotted to him on whofe fuggeftions he is to rely, he becomes a machine, or at the best a being who gives up the powers of his mind to the direction of fome invisible agent of whofe nature and qualities he is ignorant.

It may here be faid that man may refift the good counsel he receives and reject the guide fo graciously given to him; but this to my apprehenfion, only multiplies the objections that may be advanced against the notion of Guardian Spirits. For if man after all has the power to obey or disobey the monitor appointed him, and may choose for himself, what courfe of life to purfue, then the appointment of a Guardian Angel appears totally ufelefs. As man hath already a power to determine his own actions, there can be no reason given for affigning to him an external intelligence, which muft either destroy the freedom of his will by gaining the afcendancy over it; or be overthrown and expelled from its charge by the powers of darkness.

So far is this doctrine from having any good practical tendency that there does appear much in it of a dangerous nature to the interefts of morality and religion. In the first place it is calculated to weaken that fenfe of personal refponfibility which is effential to the character of a probationary being, furnished by the Almighty with a judgment, will, and every other means adapted to his present state, and to his future profpects.

And in a religious view, this notion is no less mischievous;

for

for it seems to countenance the Manichean and Gnoftic errors; to make man the sport of contending powers; and to leffen his conceptions of the omnipotence, goodness and wisdom of the Deity. It certainly has a direct tendency to destroy the idea of the Divine ubiquity, and by introducing a monstrous fyftem of polytheifm, to make the Deity a quiefcent fpectator of the world which he has made.

Two corruptions in the Chriftian Church have been foftered by this notion, that there are particular official angels, fet apart for the charge of individuals and provinces. The Arian scheme has hence received its principal support; and from the appellation of JEHOVAH ANGEL given to our Lord in the Old Teftament, and from its being said that " he was the first born of every creature, &c." in the New, the advocates of that herefy have advanced the doctrine, that the Meffiah is at the head of the Angels who have the miniftration of this world in their charge *,

The Church of Rome expreffly maintains this doctrine of Guardian Angels, and has incorporated it into her devotional offices. The invocation of angels forms a part of the regular public worship of that. Church; and in their private manuals there are express devotional addreffes which the people are directed to offer daily to their tutelar angels.

I do not, however, reject this or any other fpeculative tenet, merely because it has been perverted to heretical purposes, and to unfcriptural ufages; my objections to the notion arise from its narrow and degrading principle, and from its evident oppofition to the enlarged view of redemption opened to us in the Gospel.

It is true we read much in both parts of the Bible, concerning the agency, powers, and apparitions of angelical beings. Something, alfo, we are told of their nature, employment, and general economy. But nothing, I apprehend, can be gathered from any of those paffages of Holy Writ to establish the doctrine of an appointment of certain angels as the guardians of individual men, or of particular states and countries. The only text in the New Testament which describes expreffly, the nature and office of angels is the laft verse of the first chapter of the epiftle to the Hebrews, but it proves nothing more than that they are " the special

* See Essay on Spirit; and Clayton's Answer to Bolingbroke, part iii. 8vo. 1751.

VOL. XIV.

Chm. Mag. June 1808.

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fervants

fervants of the Almighty, by whom they are occafionally fent forth to minifter unto them who are the heirs of falvation."

We read in the prophecy of Daniel, indeed, of "Michael, the great prince which ftandeth up for the children of Ifrael;" but that passage has been fully cleared and explained by bishop Horsley in his last published Sermon on "the Watchers and the Holy Ones," and proved to relate folely to the Meffiah.

It is a gratification to me, that my opinion on the fubject of tutelary Angels coincides exactly with what is delivered in that excellent difcourfe, the perufal of which I earnestly recommend to the Country Vicar.

As probably he may not have feen it, I fhall here take the liberty of tranfcribing a paffage or two from it, which must ferve for the exhibition of my fentiments upon this quef

tion.

After giving the ordinary expofition of his text (Dan. iv. 17.) which makes the "Watchers," and the " Holy Ones,' to be Angels; the bifhop proceeds thus:

"This interpretation of thefe words is founded upon a notion, which got ground in the Chriftian Church many ages fince, and unfortunately is not yet exploded; namely, that God's government of this lower world is carried on by the administration of the holy angels; that the different orders (and those who broached this doctrine, could tell us exactly how many orders there are, and how many angels in each order), that the different orders have their different departments in government affigned to them: fome, conftantly attending in the prefence of God, form his cabinet council: others are his principal governors, every kingdom in the world having its appointed guardian angel, to whofe management it is intrusted others again are fuppofed to have the charge and cuftody of individuals. This fyftem is, in truth, nothing better than the Pagan polytheifm, fomewhat dif guifed and qualified, For, in the Pagan fyftem every nation had its tutelar deity, all fubordinate to Jupiter, the fire of gods and men. Some of thofe prodigies of ignorance and folly, the rabbis of the Jews, who lived fince the difperfion of the nation, thought all would be well, if for tutelar deities they fubftituted tutelar angels. From this fubftitution the fyftem, which I have described, arofe; and from the Jews the Chriftians, with other fooleries, adopted it. But by whatever name thefe deputy-gods be called; whether you call them gods, or demi-gods, or demons, or genii, or heroes, or angels; the