Note 466 — Chapter IV

‘Ministers are called Angels, because they are God's Messengers, intrusted by Him with a high and heavenly imployment; and it is a title that should put Ministers in mind of their duty, to do God's will on earth as the Angels do it in heaven, in a spiritual and heavenly way, cheerfully, willingly and readily: and it should put people in mind of their duty, to take this word off Ministers hands, as from Angels.’ Durham's Commentarie upon the Book of the Revelation, p. 496. ‘Therefore are Ministers called Angels, and Angels, Ministers,’ p. 596. Cockburn says that this is the reason why ‘we should behave ourselves decently and reverently’ in church; ‘for if the presence of Kings overawe us, how much more should the presence of God and Angels.’ Cockburn's Jacob's Vow, or Man's Felicity and Duty, p. 356. Another Scotch divine asserts that he and his brethren are able to instruct the angels, and free them from their ignorance. See the audacious passage in Fergusson's Exposition of the Epistles of Paul, p. 180: ‘This may commend the ministers of the gospel not a little unto men, and beget reverence in them towards the same, that even the blessed angels are in some sort bettered by it, and that it is therefore respected by them: for Paul commendeth his office from this, that by occasion thereof “unto the principalities and powers, was made known the manifold wisdom of God.” Though angels be most knowing creatures, as enjoying the immediate sight and presence of God, Matt. xviii. 10, yet they are ignorant of some things, which, by God's way of dispensing the Gospel to his church, they come to a more full knowledge off.’ After this, it is a slight matter to find Monro insisting that ‘the people should consider our character as the most difficult and most sacred.’ Monro's Sermons, p. 202.