_Your fourth case is in the following quotations_: "And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel; for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved."--Gen. xxxii, 30. It somehow happens that my good querist in giving this quotation refers me to the 31st chapter, which is wrong again. He says he has taken advice, and has read the contexts. Well, perhaps he has. But this is the second mistake _any way_. The first is reference to the wrong book. The second is reference to the wrong chapter. How is this? Our querist's contrary is, however, in these words, "No man hath seen God at any time."--John's Record i, 18. Our friend, proposing these contradictions for my consideration, says he has "given himself the trouble to investigate;" has "read the context in connection with each quotation, and still they are not clear," yet for the last quotation he refers me to 1 John iv, 12. Well, well; how shall we understand this? And how shall we harmonize the quotations? Well, "No man hath seen _God_ at any time"--this is true, for he is "the King Eternal, immortal, _invisible_, whom no man hath seen" with the literal eye, "_nor can see_." This teaching is positive and pointed, but in ancient times even "those to whom the word of God was sent were called gods." So said Jesus. The one Jacob saw was called a man. And again, there was a messenger--an angel, if you please--that bore Jehovah's name upon him. (See Exodus xxiii, 21, _and context_.) This was the angel of God's presence. "The angel of his presence saved them."--Isaiah lxiii, 9. God's great messenger bore his name. Men saw him, the angel, and seeing him saw God, for this angel was God with them--God's representative bearing his name. This angel God, or angel having God's name in him, talked with Moses. Moses saw him, and it is truthfully said that Moses saw God, that is, saw this angel whose name was that of God. "And when forty years were transpired there appeared to him, Moses, in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush. When Moses saw it he wondered at the sight, and as he drew near to behold it, the voice of the Lord came unto him." * * * * * This (Moses) is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spoke to him in the Mount Sinai and with our fathers, etc. Moses went up into Sinai and saw God, but it was simply the angel that bore his name--the angel of his presence. That is all there is of it. I once sat in a church-house in Logansport when there were present representatives from different states in our Union, and a gentleman made a little address and introduced them to the audience, saying, Ohio is here, Iowa is here, Kentucky is here, Illinois is here, California is here. How was this? Well, those men were messengers from those states, and their presence was the presence of those several states. Just so the angel of God's presence was with Moses; and Stephen said, _with our fathers_. The