Excerpt from The Angel of the Church: A Sermon Preached in Quebec Cathedral, on Sunday, June 21, 1863, at the Consecration of the Right Rev. James Williams, D.D., Lord Bishop of Quebec The word then is one which does not interpret itself, and We are left to fall back upon such internal and external svid ence as may be available, if we would fix the nature of the angel to whom the message is sent. Perhaps some one will maintain that angels, properly so called, are here intended, the invisible ministers of the Almighty, and some names of weight may be quoted in defence of this view. But we may ask, why should St. John, a man upon earth, be commissioned to address angels whose place is in' heaven before God's throne Again, this invisible patron or president of the church must assuredly be one of the, holy angels, one of that glorious company who are held up in the Lord's Prayer itself for our encouragement and imitation. But how can the praise and blame bestowed upon those officers suit the character of the holy angels Here are promises of a crown of life, if faithful unto death, rebukes for suffering the unchecked growth of heresy; threats of total and absolute rejection. How could it be said to an angel of heaven I have somewhat against thee because thou hast left thy first love? We may therefore safely dismiss from our enquiry the idea that a guardian angel (so to speak) over the several churches is to be here understood. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.