October 2.

Feast of the Holy Angel-Guardians. St. Thomas, Bp. of Hereford, A. D. 1282. St. Leodegarius, or Leger, A. D. 678.

Guardian-Angels.

The festival of “the Holy Angel-Guardians” as they are called by Butler, is this day kept by his church. He says that, “according to St. Thomas,” when the angels were created, the lowest among them were enlightened by those that were supreme in the orders. It is not to be gathered from him how many orders there were; but Holme says, that “after the fall of Lucifer the bright star and his company, there remained still in heaven more angels then ever there was, is, and shall be, men born in the earth.” He adds, that they are “ranked into nine orders or chorus, called the nine quoires of holy angels;” and he ranks them thus:—

  1. The order of seraphims.
  2. The order of cherubims.
  3. The order of archangels.
  4. The order of angels.
  5. The order of thrones.
  6. The order of principalities.
  7. The order of powers.
  8. The order of dominions.
  9. The order of virtues.

Some authors put them in this sequence: 1. seraphims; 2. cherubims; 3. thrones; 4. dominions; 5. virtues; 6. powers; 7. principalities; 8. archangels; 9. angels. Holme adds, that “God never erected any order, rule, or government, but the devil did and will imitate him; for where God hath his church, the devil will have his synagogue.” The latter part of this affirmation is versified by honest Daniel De Foe. He begins his “True-born Englishman” with it:—

Wherever God erects a house of prayer
The devil’s sure to have a chapel there.

Angel, in its primitive sense, denotes a messenger, and frequently signifies men, when, from the common notion of the term, it is conceived to denote ministering spirits. Angels, as celestial intelligences, have been the objects of over curious inquiry, and of worship. Paul prohibits this: “Let no man,” he says, “beguile you of your reward, in a voluntary humility, and the worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen.”[337] An erudite and sincere writer remarks, that “The worship, which so many christians pay to angels and saints, and images and relics, is really a false worship, hardly distinguishable from idolatry. When it is said, in excuse, that ‘they worship these only as mediators,’ that alters the case very little; since to apply to a false mediator is as much a departure from Jesus Christ, our only advocate, as to worship a fictitious deity is withdrawing our faith and allegiance from the true God.”[338]