. SECTION Ii. 529 jealousy ; Exod. xxxiv. 14. Thou shalt worship no other God, fór the Lord thy God whose name is Jealous is a jealous God; See Exod. xx. 5. Dent. iv. 24. and v. 9. and vi. 15. And }leis resolved he will not give away his name and glory, nor theglory of his name to any other being ; Isai. xlii. S. I am Jehovah, that is my name, and my glory will I not give to another. Man. kind vaho are led by their senses are so prone to idolatry, that they have been always very ready to take occasion to idolize and worship any sensible appearances which have lookedany thing like dil.ine; and the God our Creator knows our infirmity, and therefore he hath declared, that he would not give his name and glory toanother, especially not to any sensible appearance, lest he should give too strong a temptation to men to practise idol-wor- ship, and pay divine honours to a creature. 5. Mr. Hughes in his dispute with Doctor Bennet on this subject, page 53, declares that, " after all that flourish the Doc- tor had made upon this notion of his, that divine angels we're wont to personate the deity, he hath not in reality furnished out one single proof thereof ; his instances among men being mere oversights, and his instances among the angels are by himselfde- clared to be meant only of Christ, the angel of the covenant, the angel of God's presence ; he acknowledges it was Christ who personated the divine majesty at those times, which we do not find, saith lie, that any other angel ever did, though so many of them have been employed as the very or true God's ambassadors to men." 6. The ancient Jews would by no means allow of this notion of a mere angel's assuming the names and titles of God. It is plain by the opinion of Trypho, which Justin Martyr relates, that the ancient Jews supposed God himself to be present with this angel ; for that they never dared to imagine that a mere an- gel would call himself the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and would admit such divine honours as Moses and Abraham, and Joshua paid to him in the name ofGod. f0 Such an opinion was too absurd and horrid for them to entertain," as Bishop Bull expresses it ; and he adds, " it is a sort of impiety to imagine that angels would ever assume such adignity, or that God would communicate his incommunicable name to them, or any authority for such a representation of himself, in which a mere creature . assumed to himself all those things which belonged to God." The learned Camero in his Annotations on the Hebrews, chapter ii. verse 2. very well expresses it, " Though lawyers may put on the 'persons of their clients, yet it was never heard that an ambassador when he delivers the commands ofhis prince, ever spoke otherwise than in the third person, my prince speaks this. 'lire prophets give us an illustrious testimony of this mat- ter, who continually introduce this solemn form, Thus saith the VOL. Vt. L L
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=