But how, I would ask, is this position to be defended?  Surely not by contradicting almost every part of the inspired volumes, in which such frequent mention occurs of different and distinct angels appearing to the Patriarchs and Prophets, sometimes in groups, and sometimes in limited numbers * *.  It is, indeed, so wholly repugnant to the general tenor of the Sacred Writings, and so abhorrent from the piety of both Jew and Christian, that the learned author himself, either forgetting what he had before advanced, or else postponing his philosophy to his religion, has absolutely maintained the contrary in his explication of the Cherubim, &c.

I am so far from agreeing with Mr. Oxlee on these points, that I not only doubt whether before the Captivity any fair proof of the existence of Angels, in the present sense, can be produced from the inspired Scriptures,—­but think also that a strong argument for the divinity of Christ, and for his presence to the Patriarchs and under the Law, rests on the contrary, namely, that the Seraphim were images no less symbolical than the Cherubim.  Surely it is not presuming too much of a Clergyman of the Church of England to expect that he would measure the importance of a theological tenet by its bearings on our moral and spiritual duties, by its practical tendencies.  What is it to us whether Angels are the spirits of just men made perfect, or a distinct class of moral and rational creatures?  Augustine has well and wisely observed that reason recognizes only three essential kinds;—­God, man, beast.  Try as long as you will, you can never make an Angel anything but a man with wings on his shoulders.

Ib. ch.  III. p. 58.

But this deficiency in the Mosaic account of the creation is amply supplied by early tradition, which inculcates not only that the angels were created, but that they were created, either on the second day, according to R. Jochanan, or on the fifth, according to R. Chanania.

Inspired Scripture amply supplied by the Talmudic and Rabbinical traditions!—­This from a Clergyman of the Church of England!

I am, I confess, greatly disappointed.  I had expected, I scarce know why, to have had some light thrown on the existence of the Cabala in its present form, from Ezekiel to Paul and John.  But Mr. Oxlee takes it as he finds it, and gravely ascribes this patch-work of corrupt Platonism or Plotinism, with Chaldean, Persian, and Judaic fables and fancies, to the Jewish Doctors, as an original, profound, and pious philosophy in its fountain-head!  The indispensable requisite not only to a profitable but even to a safe study of the Cabala is a familiar knowledge of the docimastic philosophy, that is, a philosophy, which has for its object the trial and testing of the weights and measures themselves, the first principles, definitions, postulates, axioms of logic and metaphysics.  But this is in no other way possible but by our enumeration