6. God useth the ministry of angels to avenge his elect of their enemies and persecutors, to render unto them a recompense and vengeance even in this world, in the due and appointed season. Thus by an angel he destroyed the army of Sennacherib, when he intended and threatened the destruction of Jerusalem; and by an augel he smote Herod, in the midst of his pride and persecution, Acts xii, And this ‘ministry of theirs is in an especial manner pointed unto in several places of the Revelation, where the judg- ments of God are foretold to be executed on the persecutors of the world. And this work they wait for in a holy admiration of the patience of God towards many a provoking generation, and are in a continual readiness to discharge it unto the uttermost when they shall receive their commission so to do, Dan. vii.
7. They carry the souls departed into Abraham’s bosom, Luke xvi. 22.
- 8. Lastly, The ministry of angels respects the general resurrec- tion and day of judgment. The Lord Christ is everywhere described coming to judgment at the last day attended with all his holy and glorious angels, Matt. xxiv. 31, xxv. 31; 2 Thess. i. 7,8; Jude 14, 15. And great shall be their work towards the elect in that day, when the Lord Christ “shall be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe;” for although the work of the resurrection, like that of the creation, is to be effected by the immediate operation of almighty power, without the interveniency of any secondary, finite agents,
254 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [CHAP. I.
limited in their power and operation, yet many things preparatory thereunto and consequent thereon shall be committed unto the ministry of angels. By them are the signs and tokens of it to be proclaimed unto the world; to them is the sounding of the last trumpet and general summons given out unto all flesh to appear before Jesus Christ committed, with all the glorious solemnity of the judgment itself. And as they bear and accompany the depart- ing souls of the saints into the receptacles of their rest in heaven, so doubtless also shall they accompany them in their joyful return unto their beloved old habitations. By them also will the Lord Christ gather them together from all parts wherein their redeemed bodies have been reduced into dust; and so also at length by them bring all the heirs of salvation triumphantly into the full possession of their inheritance.
And thus much may suffice to have spoken about the ministry of angels, here mentioned by the apostle; by all which it further ap- pears how neither in their nature nor their office they are any way to be compared with the Son of God in his ministry towards the church. Some deductions also, for our special use and instruction, may here be added from what hath been spoken; as,—
1. That we ought to be very careful to use sobriety in our specu- lations and meditations about this matter. Herein doth the caution of the apostle take place in an especial manner, that we should be wise unto sobriety, Rom, xii. 8, and not to think ourselves wise above that which is written. This some neglecting. of old, and endeavouring to intrude themselves into the things which they had not seen, Col. ii. 18,—that is, boasting of the knowledge and ac- quaintance with angels, which they had no ground for nor any safe instruction in,—fell into pride, curiosity, superstition, and idolatry, as the apostle in that place declareth. And almost in all ages of the church men have failed on this account. The curiosity of the Jews we did in some measure before manifest. To them in their imaginations succeeded the Gnostics, whose portentous sons and genealogies of inferior deities, recounted by Irenzeus, Origen, Ter- tullian, Epiphanius, and others of the ancients, were nothing but wicked and foolish imaginations about angels) Unto them suc- ceeded those about the beginning of the fourth century, who flatly worshipped angels, and had conventicles, or private meetings, for that purpose, who are expressly condemned in the 35th canon of the council of Laodicea, anno 864, in these words: “Orr ob de? Xproriavods eynxararsinew rhv exxrnoiav rod Osov, xo corievorr, nad ayye- roug bvomalew xa) ouvd&ers wrosel, daep drmyopebercu €/ rig ov eipedn radrn rH nenpuusevn eldwrorurpelg oyordlav torw dvddemar br sykartrrme ry Kipiov quay Inootv Xprordy riv Tidy rod sod xual eldwrorarpig mpoonrdove wherein they plainly adjudge that practice to be idolatry and apos-
VER. 14.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 255
tasy from Jesus Christ. After these, about the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century, he vented his curious speculations about their hierarchy, orders, and operations, who personated Dio- nysius the Areopagite; of whom we spake before. From them all did that sink of idolatry, superstition, and heresies, the church of Rome, derive her present speculations, adoration, worship, and in- vocation of angels. But as these things are all of them without, beside, and against the word in general, so they are in particular expressly prejudged and condemned by the apostle, in the place to the Colossians before mentioned. And of such kind of needless, useless, unprofitable, dangerous speculations we are to beware; and many of them I could in particular recite, but that I would not teach them unto any by condemning them before all. But yet,—