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is certain, on the other hand, that they are most frequently applied in the New Testament to some particular ranks of spiritual creatures. That they are applied to good angels, and (if the expression may be allowed) to the constituted authorities of Heaven, the following passages will shew. In the first chapter of this same Epistle to the Ephesians ', our Lord is described as set at God's " right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come." Again, in a catalogue of those beings who were made by God through His Son, we find "things that are in Heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers?" But it would have been a grievous anti-climax in the former sentence, after describing our Lord as set at God's right hand in Heaven, to have added that, thus exalted, he was higher than the emperor of Rome, or the provincial governor of Asia; and it would have been utterly preposterous, in recounting the visible and invisible works of creation, to reckon as distinct species those few individuals who are only distinguished from the weakness and misery of their fellows by a purple garment and a circle of gold. I do not praise, I will not even justify, the vain curiosity of those speculative men who have pretended to describe the titles and precedence of the court of Heaven, no less mi2 Coloss. I. 16.

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Ephes. i. 20, 21.

nutely than the formalities of the Byzantine palace. But that there is some difference of rank among the sons of God may be inferred from the different rewards assigned to the different servants in the parable of the talents; from our Saviour's assurance that some should be great and others inferior in His kingdom; and from the manner in which, as we have seen, St. Paul affixes names expressive of gradations in rank to individuals or classes of the angelic hierarchy. And as, the fact being true, the names employed were indifferent, no names could be more proper than those which were already applied no less familiarly to angels than to men, by the Jewish and Grecian Christians 1.

Nor were they the chieftains of the faithful cherubim only, who were designated by the ancients under titles corresponding with those of earth. The devils, as well as the attendants on the Divine Majesty, were believed to be under regular discipline; and either to have retained these marks of distinction in memory of their first estate, or to have assumed them in fruitless emulation of the honours which God bestows on the leaders of the angelic army. The corresponding terms of" princes" and prefects" of the devils, are of very frequent occurrence in the Rabbinical authors. The name of

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prince" is assigned by the Jews in St. Matthew's Gospel to him whom they call Beelzebub, and,

Schleusner's Lexicon, voc. Aúvaμis.

2 Schöttgen, Hor. Hebr. p. 382.

3 St. Matt. ix. 34.

what is still more to the purpose, St. Paul himself complies with, and apparently sanctions, this form of speaking, by using the very names in.question under circumstances where evil spirits only can be intended.

When, in his Epistle to the Romans', he boasts that no created thing can separate us from the love which is in Christ, he enumerates, among the circumstances by which our continuance in that love is endangered, the malignant endeavours of "angels, principalities, and powers." They are " principalities" and "powers" which Christ is said to have "spoiled and made a show of" in His glorious triumph over death and hell. But, how cold is that exposition which would resolve these glowing descriptions into an allegorical account of the superseding of the Mosaic Law, by which our Lord reduced its rulers and scribes to insignificance and obscurity? Or why should we hesitate to conclude that, as in these passages, so also in my text, St. Paul is speaking of those rebellious angels, whose chief aspired to tempt the Son of God, and whose armies, like roaring lions, range about, seeking whom they may devour?

No less familiarly applied to evil spirits are the terms, "rulers of this world" and " of darkness.” The very name of коσμокρáтwp, under this meaning, is usual and technical with the Rabbins; and it is hard to say how, with their known and pre-con

1 Rom. viii. 38, 39.

2 Coloss. ii. 15.

ceived opinions of demons and their residence, the persons whom St. Paul addressed could understand τὰ πνευματικὰ τῆς πονηρίας ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις any otherwise than of “ the spirits of wickedness in the air1."

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The text, accordingly, in its literal and obvious meaning, can only be supposed to refer to spiritual enemies. And it is almost needless to bring to your recollection the conformity of this interpretation with the general tenour of the New Testament, or how often those enemies are mentioned or alluded to in the preaching of Christ and His apostles. The ministry of our Lord Himself was commenced by a personal contention with the chief of their number; and to dislodge them from their human victims was one of the most frequent of those marvellous works whereby He asserted His claim to Divine authority2.

1 Schir Hoscherim Rabba, fol. 32. 3. "Deus S. B. vocavit angelum mortis, et dixit ipsi, Quamvis te feci коσμокρáτopa super homines, &c." Ibid. "Angelus mortis-dicitur Tenebra." Also in the book of prayers quoted by Wetstein, ad h. 1. "Satanas Princeps Tenebrarum." Hammond, ad h. 1. works, vol. iii. p. 631. "What iπovρávia signifies here will be soon discerned, first, by remembering that the several regions of the air, and all above the globe of the earth, is in the Hebrew styled 'D, and in the Greek of these books οὐρανοὶ, heavens ; and so ἐπουράνια will signify those places, the several regions of the air; secondly, that, the Syriac reading, for πνευματικά, πνεύματα, and the phrase spirits of wickedness in heavenly places will be no more than the powers of the air under their apxwv, or prince, that is, the devils under Beelzebub." To the same effect see Grotius, ad h. 1., and Eph. ii. 2.; Whitby, Eph. ii. 2.; Schleusner, voc. 'Erovρávia, &c. &c. 2 St. Matt. iv. 24. viii. 16. 28. ix. 32. xvii. 18. St. Mark i. 23. 32. v. 12. St. Luke iv. 2. 33. 41. viii. 2. ix. 1.

xiii. 32, &c.

To "destroy the works of the devil," and subvert his authority among mankind, was the avowed and leading object of Christ's mission, and He Himself describes the prince of the wicked spirits as it were cast down from Heaven in consequence of the triumph of His Gospel'. To the envy and influence of the same malicious being we are taught by St. John to ascribe the transgression of our first parents, and all the misery which their disobedience has entailed on their posterity. Cain, who slew his brother, was under the power of " that wicked one.” It is he who soweth tares in the spiritual field of Christ's Church; he who taketh out the words of life from the hearts of men, lest they should believe and escape destruction. It was the devil who prompted the treason of Judas, and the hypocrisy of Ananias and Sapphira; the wicked who follow his pleasures are called his children; it was he who aspired to tempt the Son of God Himself by offering to His mortal view the power and pleasures of a worldly sovereign; and St. John expressly speaks of him as the fountain of all evil, when he tells us that "he that committeth sin is of the devil"."

Nor is it only as the seducer of mankind from the paths of holiness that he approves himself our deadly enemy: in several remarkable passages of Scripture he is represented as accusing the saints

1 1 St. John iii. 8. St. Luke x. 18.

2 Rev. xii. 9. 1 St. John iii. 12. St. Matt. xiii. 39. St. Mark iv. 15. St. John xiii. 2. Acts v. 3. St. John viii. 44. Acts

xiii. 10. St. Matt. iv. 1.

1 St. John i. 8.

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