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from its true signification . There is , therefore , nothing unreasonable or inconsistent with what we observe of the writer ' s habit of arguing and expressing himself , in the supposition that the term angel , which is confessedly employed by the Psalmist to denote a superior order of beings , continues to be applied in the citation to the same persons of whom he had before been speaking , namely , the prophets and other accredited messengers under the Mosaic covenant . If this be admitted , it seems to me that the whole passage may be understood somewhat in this manner : " For God bath not committed to such messengers as the prophets of the Jews the succeeding dispensation of which we speak , but to a heavenly messenger , or prophet of a higher order , namely , the blessed Messiah . Applying to him words which I have read somewhere in Scripture , " ( it is evident from the form of quotation that he had only a general recollection of them as they arose in his mind while he was writing , and that he introduced them in the way of adaptation , much in the same manner as many of our writers and preachers do , familiar scriptural phraseology , which may be employed suitably to express what they have in view , without thinking of , or even at the time Tecollecting or knowing , any thing about the connexion or tTue meaning of the passage , ) " what is man that thou art mindful of him , or the son of man that thou \ isitest him ? Thou madest him for a short time * less than the angels , yet thou hast crowned him with glory and honour , and hast put all things under his feet - All things , it is true , are not as yet sub * jected to him , nevertheless , we see that Jesus , who was for a while made inferior to the angels , so that he was brought to the suffering of death , is yet crowned with glory and honour , inasmuch as through the grace of God he hath tasted death for every man . Though greatly superior in the true dignity of his character and office , yet for a time he was made less in appearance than the prophets ; being humbled that he might be afterwards exalted ; having taken upon himself the form of a servant or slave , and submitting to the cruel death of the cross that he might become a prince and a saviour , and through the grace of God introduce all mankind to the hope of eternal life . " I do not propose this paraphrase as perfectly satisfactorily ; but , perhaps , Something proceeding upon this idea might be at once intelligible and consistent with the writer ' s general argument throughout this part of his Epistle . And I think there can be little doubt that the difficulty is considerably less of supposing ( as this scheme of interpretation undoubtedly requires ) , that he took the quotation from the eighth psalm , merely because the words were capable of expressing his own meaning , without caring , perhaps without knowing , any thing about their original signification , than of supposing , with several learned commentators , that the term angel has one meaning in the first chapter and the first four verses of the second , and then in the iifth and following verses is employed in a sense entirely different . Halifax . W . T .
* That the expression # pa % u r * equally admits of this sense is evident ; see , for example , Acts v . 34 . This rendering in the passage before us is Approved by Schleusner , and seems , indeed , to .-be-required by the ttee which the writer makes of it in the ninth verse . That it is differently understood in its proper place in the psalm is true , but no objection , if our view of pie mode in which the writer has accommodated it to his purpose be admitted .
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598 On the Meaning of the Term Angel .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1830, page 598, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2588/page/14/
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