endeavour to shew any authority for his asser tion. He might perhaps lay stress on the definite article prefixed to the word "angel" in several of these instances in the English ver. sion, (which he cannot do without total disregard to the idiom and use of the Hebrew language) and thereby might attempt to substantiate the identity of one angel with the other. He would however in this case soon perceive his own error, if he should refer to Judges XIII. 13. where the angel (with the definite article in the common version) says to Manoah

46

Many

Though thou detain me I will not eat of thy bread, and if thou wilt offer a burnt-offering, thou must offer it unto the Lord." declaring himself unworthy of the worship due to God alone or if he should turn to 2 Samuel XXIV. 16. where the angel is represented as an obedient messenger of God, a destroying instrument in the hands of Jehovah. other instances might be cited of a similar nature. How then can Jesus, if he be the being termed the angel, speak of himself (as the Editor supposes) as God in one instance, while in others he renounces his own deity, and even declares that he destroys the lives of thousands by the command of a superior being?

Let us now examine whether or not the prophets, as well as the angels of God,

A a

in the delivery of his message and his will,

- did not often speak in behalf of God as if God himself had spoken. I confine my notice to the prophets; for were I to point out any angel speaking in behalf of Jehovah without distinction of persons, the Editor might attempt to deduce from this very circumstance that that angel was God the Son.

Instances similar to the following abound in the old Testament Isaiah X. 4-7. Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. O Assyrian the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation. I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. Howbeit he ineaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy, and cut off nations not a few." Ch. XXIX. 1, "Wo to Ariel, to Ariel the city where David dwelt! add ye year to year; let them kill sacrifices; yet I will distress Ariel and there shall be heaviness and sorrow and it shall be unto me as Ariel. I will camp against thee round about

and will lay siege against thee with a mount and 1 will raise forts against thee." Micah IV. 13.

66

Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion, for I will make" &c. Micah V. 1. "Now gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops: he hath laid siege against us: they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek. But thou Beth-lehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me, that is to be ruler in Israel, &c." Now I presume the Editor will not propose to indentify those prophets with the Deity; yet he must admit that his argument, if it have any weight at all, must force us to submit to that monstrous conclusion.

In the course of this argument the Revd. Editor asserts that "Christ also in John VIII. declares himself to be precisely what Jehovah declares himself in Exodus III. 14. "Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you.". John VIII. 24. "If ye believe not that Iam (he being supplied) ye shall die in your sins" and v. 58. “verily, verily I say unto you, before Abraham was Iam." How is it possible that the Editor a diligent student of the Bible for thirty or forty years can have made such a palpable mistake as to assert that the declaration of Jehovah in Exod. III. and that of

Jesus in John VIII. are precisely the same? It is but his zeal to support the doctrine of the Holy Trinity that can have prevented him from examining the phrases found in these two chapters. In Exod. God says "Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel "UX

אשר אהיה

*""the being who is being" hath sent me unto you; a phrase in Hebrew which implies Him who alone can be described as only mere being or existence, and which is translated in the Greek Septuagint though not very correctly εγω ειμι ο ων I am the being."

66

But in the Gospel of John VIII. 24. the words are "I am" (he or Christ) and in the original Greek" y ""I am" without the addition of """the being," as is found in the Septuagiat: In the Hebrew translation of John VIII. 24. "NT" or "I he" is found. So in v. 58. we find only "eye" or "I am." In John VIII. 24. the word "gros" is of course supplied in comparing with Matthew XXIV. 5. “I am Christ" and with John IV. 25-26. I would then

66

66

* is the future tense of

"I shall be" and is used for "I am"

to be which literally implies that is "I am and I shall be"

equivalent to the "eternal being." The Jews consequently count this term among the names of God as is evident from its being used in agreement with a verb in the third person as in the above-cited verse.

I say not very correctly, because we find in the Sept. the term rendered owy or the being in one instance and eye in lieu

of the same term in the other.

ask, Is or the being who is be

אהיה אשר אהיה

ing" a phrase precisely the same with " εγω ειμα or" I am?" If so, it must require a mode of argument to prove it equally beyond my comprehension with the mysterious doctrine of the Trinity which it is brought to support..

From the circumstance of Jesus' having announced" before Abraham was I am" (v. 58.) the Editor concludes that "the Jews at once understood him to declare himself God and took up stones to stone him nor did Jesus hint that they had mistaken him ;" a silence which the Editor thinks amounts to the tacit acknowledgement by Jesus of his deity. But from the context of verse the 58th. it appears clearly that the indignation of the Jews arose from the idea that Jesus declared himself not merely the cot mporary of Abraham but even gave out that before Abraham, he was; and that it was for this they attempted to stone him. It is not the only instance in which Jesus left the Jews to labour under a misconception of his meaning, for we find the same to have been the case in several other instances. Thus: John II. 19. and 21. "Jesus answered and said unto them: destroy this temple and ia three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews: Forty and six years was this temple in B b