SERMON XV.

GOOD ANGELS.

HEB. i. 14.

Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?

FROM a consciousness of our own spiritual nature, we might be led to imagine that there were other intelligent creatures in the universe, unincumbered, as we are, with bodily imperfections, and forming a higher link in that wonderful chain of being, which, ascending by degrees innumerable, connects the material earth with reasonable man, and which might well be supposed to continue to ascend still, through nobler gradations of existence, until it reached its termination at the footstool of the throne of God. Such ideas, however, could only be matter of conjecture. But the holy Scriptures furnish us with much authentic instruction concerning the inhabitants of the invisible world, and instruction too of such a nature, as is calculated not more to

interest a rational curiosity, than it is to raise and refine our moral character. It is to this subject that I propose to invite your attention now, so far as to consider what the substance is of that knowledge, which it hath pleased God to reveal to us concerning good angels. I shall distribute the enquiry under the following heads.

I. The nature, number, and character of the angels.

II. Their office as connected with mankind. III. The practical importance of the subject.

I. We have to consider the nature, number, and character of the angels.

'

The word angel' properly signifies a messenger, and it is chiefly in their character of messengers from God to man, that we have been made acquainted with them in the Scriptures. Still incidentally much information is conveyed concerning the rank which they hold among the creatures of God. Their nature is described as being superior to the human nature, even when most free from sin. We were made originally inferior to the angels; so that when our blessed Lord took upon him the seed of Abraham, he became for a while lower than the angels, though by inheritance their Lord, and the object of their adoration. Their number is incalculable. More than twelve legions were ready to obey our

Lord's command,' had he chosen to require it, in the garden of Gethsemane. Thousand thousands are they that minister to the Ancient of days, and ten thousand times ten thousand who stand before him".

This "innumerable company of angels" is no less remarkable for holiness than for the multitude of its hosts. Possessing from the first a nobler nature than ours, they have never polluted it by sin, but have been continually advancing it to still higher perfection by a course of the most zealous and holy obedience. So acceptable are their services to Almighty God, that our Saviour directs us to pray for nothing more in this respect, than that we may do the will of God in earth as it is done in heaven.' Their only law is the will of the Most High; they are the ministers of God, that do his pleasure, executing his commandments, and hearkening unto the voice of his word; and that with an energy, which the most powerful agents in nature are the best calculated to represent. For the angels of God are in activity like the winds, or like a flame of fire. But their zeal, though full of energy, is under the guidance of the most enlightened wisdom. To be wise as an angel of God, is a proverbial expression applied in Scripture to extraordinary and more

a Dan. vii. 10. d Heb. i. 7.

Heb. xii. 22.

c Ps. ciii. 19, 20.

than human discernment. They are in fact “angels of light'," as distinguished for wisdom as for holiness.

Among these holy and elect angels of light, who all so far excel mankind in righteousness and wisdom, as also in strength, there are doubtless gradations as amongst men; even "thrones and dominions, principalities and powers," in the invisible as well as in the visible world; and perhaps among the archangelic princes there may be some who as much excel an ordinary angel, as the lowest individual in the heavenly hosts excels mankinds. Oh! what a world must that be which is peopled by such inhabitants! How great that glory, the distant radiance of which, shed occasionally and sparingly upon us, is sufficient to entrance the soul with admiration, and to fill it with ardent longings for a more intimate acquaintance with such excellence! But above all, how great must He be who created such glorious beings, and before whom even they are chargeable "with folly!" How inconceivably holy and wise and powerful the Son of God, our gracious Redeemer, who made the angels! "For by Him," the apostle assures us," were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or

e 2 Sam. xiv. 17, &c. Dan. xii. 1.

12 Cor. xi. 14.

8 Col. i. 16.