The exact number of angels is no where mentioned in Scripture; but it is always represented as very great. Daniel, vii, 10, says of the Ancient of Days, “A fiery stream came from before him; thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.” Jesus Christ says, that his heavenly Father could have given him more than twelve legions of angels, that is, more than seventy-two thousand, Matt. xxvi, 53; and the Psalmist declares, that the chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels, lxviii, 17, These are all intended not to express any exact number, but indefinitely a very large one. Though all the angels were created alike good, yet Jude informs us, verse 6, that some of them “kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation,” and these God hath “reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day.” Speculations on the cause and occasion of their fall are all vain and trifling. Milton is to be read on this subject, as on others, not as a divine, but as a poet. All we know, is, that they are not in their first “estate,” or in their original place; that this was their own fault, for “they left their own habitation;” that they are in chains, yet with liberty to tempt; and that they are reserved to the general judgment. Dr. Prideaux observes, that the minister of the synagogue, who officiated in offering the public prayers, being the mouth of the congregation, delegated by them, as their representative, messenger, or angel, to address God in prayer for them, was in Hebrew called _sheliack-zibbor_, that is, the _angel of the church_; and that from hence the chief ministers of the seven churches of Asia are in the Revelation, by a name borrowed from the synagogue, called angels of those churches. THE ANGEL OF THE LORD, or _the Angel Jehovah_, a title given to Christ in his different appearances to the patriarchs and others in the Old Testament.