manifested in the flesh. The passage from Athanasius will be
quoted at some length, when we come to examine that father's
testimony. For Justin Martyr, see Dial. cum Tryph. ch. 56, &c.
p. 150, &c. (Paris, 1742.)]

The only other instance to which it will be necessary to call your
attention, occurs in the forty-eighth chapter of Genesis. The passage,
however, is so palpably and on the very face of it inapplicable, that
its examination needs not detain us long. "And he [Jacob] blessed
Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did
walk, the God who fed me all my life long unto this day, the ANGEL which
redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads." [Gen. xlviii. 15.] Here the
patriarch speaks of God as the Angel, and the Angel as God: being the
Angel or Messenger of the Covenant--God manifested to man. He speaks not
of Michael or Gabriel, or archangel or seraph, or any created being; but
of the Lord Himself, who appeared to him, agreeably to the revelation of
God Himself recorded in a previous chapter, and thus communicated by the
patriarch to Rachel and Leah: "And the ANGEL of God spake unto me in a
dream, saying, Jacob; and I said, Here am I. And he said ... _I_ am the
GOD of Bethel, where thou anointedst the pillar, and vowedst a vow unto
me." [Gen. xxxi. 11.] The Angel whose blessing he desired for the lads
was the God[12], to whom he had vowed a vow in Bethel, the Lord Himself.

[Footnote 12: It may not be superfluous to add, that this is the
interpretation of the passage adopted by primitive writers,
Among others see Eusebius Demonstr. Evan. lib. v. ch. 10: who
declares that the Angel spoken of by Jacob was God the Son.]

Independently, however, of this conclusive consideration, if the latter
member of this sentence had merely expressed a wish, that an angel might