After examining the principal passages which speak of the Messenger or
Angel Jehovah, and showing "that they really contain the doctrine of a
distinction between the concealed and the revealed God," pp. 165-182, he
thus concludes, pp. 183-187: "We believe then that we have satisfactorily
shown that by the Angel of Jehovah is to be understood the Revealer of
God, who being a partaker of his Godhead, and united with him in the same
nature, was the mediator in all his relations, first with the patriarchs,
and afterwards with the visible Theocracy. This Revealer of Jehovah then
was expected as a great Restorer in future times. This is evident from
those places in the Old Testament which ascribe to the Messiah Divine
names, attributes, and works; for if the Messiah were God, he could stand,
according to the whole system of the religion of the Old Testament, in no
other relation to the Most High God than that which the Angel of Jehovah
was thought to sustain. Further, the passage in Malachi iii. 1 affords the
most distinct testimony in favor of the identity of both. There the
Messiah bears the name of the Angel of the Covenant, either, according to
the general import of the term covenant, the angel who is the mediator in
every engagement between God and men, or, according to its special
meaning, the angel who established the covenant of Sinai with the people
of Israel. From this appellation, therefore, it appears that the Messiah
is the same as the Angel Jehovah, whose agency in giving the law at Sinai
is not indeed expressly mentioned in the Mosaic account, but it is
rendered sufficiently certain by analogy, and by the positive testimony of
the prophet. As the Angel Jehovah, in those passages where he is expressly
named, bears interchangeably the names Jehovah and Elohim, so must we
often suppose him to be intended, where Jehovah only is spoken of
throughout. Comp. Gen. xxxii. 24, &c., with Hosea xii. 4-6, and Exod. xx.
3, where the angel is not mentioned, and Jehovah says, 'I am the Lord thy
God, who brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.' Allowing it to have
been the office of the Angel Jehovah in general to act as mediator in the
transactions between the invisible God and men, his mediation must be
assumed, in many instances, where it is not expressly mentioned." "This
identity of the Angel of Jehovah and the Messiah was acknowledged also by
the later Jews." "But what renders this identity indubitably certain is
the evidence of the New Testament, in which Christ appears as the Mediator
of the Old Covenant, and every thing is attributed to him which in the Old
Testament is spoken of Jehovah and his Revealer. According to John xii.
41, Isaiah saw the glory of Christ and spake of him; on the other hand, in
the passage referred to, chap. vi., Isaiah saw the glory of Jehovah. 1
Cor. x. 9, it is said, 'Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also
tempted and were destroyed of serpents.' According to this passage,
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