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    It is evidently the leading object of the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews to sooth the prejudices of the Jewish converts , and to do awa y the offence which they still seemed disposed to take Against the gospel dispensation from the obscure station and ignominious fate of its leader . They had brought with them to the profession of their new faith many of the

    peculiarities and narrow-minded prejudices of their unbelieving countrymen . Like them , they were possessed with an overweening notion of their exclusive privileges as God's chosen people , an excessive attachment to the ceremonial observances of their law , and a repugnance which they had not as yet been able completely to surmount , to what was always a stumblingblock with the Jews , namely , the idea of a suffering , crucified Messiah .

    In order to remove these prejudices , the writer occupies several chapters in running a sort of parallel between the two dispensations , for the purpose of shewing that in whatever respects the Jews had , or were supposed to have , peculiar advantages from the discoveries , the ceremonies , or covenanted privileges of the Mosaic law , the disciples of this new and better dispensation , both Jews and Gentiles , were admitted either to the same , or to much more important and valuable blessings . He begins , accordingly , by

    pointing out the superiority of the Messiah to any of the old prophets in that he is styled in a peculiar sense the Son of God . In the first verse the comparison is clearly instituted between Christ and the prophets , by whom God had spoken to their fathers , and , therefore , it seems not unreasonable to conclude that the writer continues to have the same object in view , though in the fourth verse he changes the phrase , and speaks of those with whom our Lord is contrasted under the title of ayyeXot , angels or messengers .

    There can be little doubt , I conceive , with those who attentively consider the passage , that the connexion here requires us to apply this term not to any super-human beings over whom Jesus either originally possessed or had obtained a superiority or pre-eminence , but to Moses and the prophets of the old dispensation . The instances in which the equivalent Hebrew term is thus applied in the Old Testament are numerous ; though the

    frequency of their recurrence is somewhat veiled from the English reader by the discretionary power which our translators have generally exercised in rendering it not " angels , " but " messengers . " Mr . Simpson , in his dissertation on the meaning of the word angel in Scripture , has collected a great deal of valuable matter , which may assist us in coming to a satisfactory conclusion ; perhaps , however , it is still a subject worthy of a more careful examination than it has hitherto received .

    If we admit the canonical authority of this Epistle , the manner in which various texts are cited and applied both to the Messiah , and to those , whoever they may be , who are designated by the epithet angels , is attended by very considerable difficulties ; difficulties which can be got over in no other way than by admitting that the writer , though entitled to the character of

    inspiration as far as his doctrine is concerned , was , nevertheless , subject to the influence of Jewish prejudices , and a weak and inconclusive reasoner ; or else , that he was content to work upon the minds of his readers by argumenta ad hominem , appealing to texts which the Jews of that day were probably in the habit of referring to the Messiah , but which had originally a very different meaning . It is not improbable that both these suppositions

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    ON THE MEANING OP THE TERM ANGEL IPf THE FIRST TWO CHAPTERS OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1830, page 596, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2588/page/12/