him that there were several considerations which, more or less, militated against his friend's supposition, that the angels he had specially referred to, appeared to Abraham in their own proper nature. He said he would, with his permission, state some of them :

1. It seems probable that angels visiting the earth in their own nature alone, would be invisible to the human eye. The angels who are "sent forth to minister" to the saints are not more visible than "the angel of the Lord who encampeth round about them."

2. On the supposition that the angels had appeared in their own glorious forms, and that they had been, in those forms, visible to the human eye, he thought it probable the consternation and terror inspired by their appearance would sometimes have tended to defeat the object of their mission.

3. It was antecedently probable, if angels were sent on a mission which would require personal intercourse with men, or oral communications to be made to them, that they would be invested with bodies suitably adapted to such an embassy.

4. That the appearance of the three celestial visitants, who came to Abraham's tent, was that of men; they ate and drank, and walked and talked, as men; and it seems, therefore, reason

able to conclude, that they were all of them invested with human bodies.

5. It cannot reasonably be supposed that the senses of Abraham and Sarah were deceived; that what they believed to be human persons were, in fact, not such; that what they supposed to be bodies like their own, were only the appearances of such bodies.

6. On the supposition of illusion, it is plain the appearance, whatever it was, affords no evidence as to the real nature of the bodies of the visitants, and consequently no evidence as to their nature as angels.

7. It is certain that, of the three heavenly visitants, ONE did not belong to the angelic order, nor to any other order of created beings that might be supposed to be naturally invested with bodies; a body must therefore have been assumed by Him.

8. It is reasonable to suppose that the body provided for this infinitely-illustrious Personage, was of a nature suited to the character of the embassy in which he had condescended to engage; adapted not to communication with angelic intelligencies in heaven, but with men upon the earth; and like that which He afterwards assumed when the object of his mission required that He should continue on the earth, and hold frequent personal intercourse with its inhabitants.

9. If the opinion of those divines be correct, who regard this as an anticipation of our Lord's incarnation, it, of course follows, that He was arrayed in a human body. Their opinion, at least, shows, that they believed the body in which the most illustrious of the three guests was invested, to be human.

10. That as, to Abraham and his wife all the persons appeared to be alike men, and as the two angelic attendants were associated in the same mission to men on this earth, as their illustrious Companion, it seems highly probable that they were invested with bodies of a kind similar to his; and it is plain that the impression, received by Abraham and Sarah, was, that each of the three celestial visitants was, as to his exterior, a

man.

His MILLENNARIAN FRIEND admitted that there was considerable weight in the observations just advanced by our Inquirer; but other Scriptures had occurred to his mind, bearing on the point immediately in question, which, while they appeared to him to militate against our Inquirer's views generally, afforded, he thought, an easy and familiar solution of the particular difficulties which appertain to this branch of their Conference. He then adverted to the descent of the manna in the

wilderness, and to the designations given to it in the Scriptures, viz., "angels' food" "satisfied them with the bread of heaven”—“ bread from hea¬ ven," &c.; and said, that such expressions appeared to him to imply the following things:— 1. That food was provided for the angels in heaven. 2. That their natures required it, (otherwise he thought it would not be provided,) and that they eat of the food so provided for them; and, consequently, 3. That they are furnished with such organs as are necessary to render it the means of sustentation. Now, (continued he,) as the Scriptures inform us that men have ate the food of angels, it cannot be deemed incredible that angels, on the other hand, should have ate the food of man. Our INQUIRER said he could not possibly admit his friend's conclusion as to angels requiring food as a means of sustentation, however naturally it might appear to flow from his premises. The nature of angels cannot be regarded as inferior to that of the glorified saints, and even of these it would surely be unreasonable to suppose that they require sustentation, by means of food, how much more so to imagine such a thing as to the angelic orders. His MILLENNARIAN FRIEND said, that although angels might not so much resemble men as to require food for their sustentation, they might, nevertheless, partake of it as a means of enjoyment.

C

Our INQUIRER said, in reply, that there was certainly less improbability in this supposition than in the former; but he thought this supposition also was highly improbable, and that it savoured too much of the imaginary paradise of Mahomet to retain a place in the mind of any person whose ideas of celestial happiness have been derived from the Inspired Volume only. Our Inquirer then said, as it cannot for a moment be supposed that the glorious body of Christ is so constituted as to require or to receive food; so neither can it be reasonably supposed that the glorified bodies of the saints, which are to be "made like unto his glorious body," are themselves so constituted. But then, if an order of intelligent beings in heaven, inferior to that of the angels, cannot, consistently with Scripture testimony, be regarded as dependant on such sources, either for sustentation or enjoyment, is it a probable supposition that the angelic orders themselves should derive from such sources either strength or gratification? The idea, involved in the suggestion of some persons, of thousands of thousands of the most exalted intelligencies being endowed with organs capable of eating and digesting food, although not requiring it, he regarded not only as highly improbable in itself, but at variance with all analogy.