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can show, we should form but a faint idea of that feeling spoken of in the text-where the joy of those holy beings is referred to, whose existence is an existence of joy, who know nothing of sorrow-of those blessed spirits who are for ever employed in singing the praises of Him who has redeemed them, in union with angels and archangels who have never sinned, but whose happiness it is to unite in the worship of Him whose name is above every name, both in heaven and earth, who hath created all things, and for whose pleasure they are and were created.

But we shall proceed, in the second place, to consider, the cause of this feeling -Over one sinner that repenteth.

All the knowledge we possess of the nature of angels is derived from scripture, and to its pages we must therefore go for any information we desire. We find that they are there described as the highest order of intelligent beings, that they stand in the immediate presence of God: thus, "I am Gabriel," said the angel, who appeared

to Zachariah. "I am Gabriel who stand in the presence of God." That they are endowed with wonderful power: thus an angel destroyed, in three days, three score and ten thousand persons out of Judah and Israel, in consequence of the sin of David in numbering the people, and an angel destroyed in one night of the army of Sennacherib, a hundred fourscore and five thousand men. They are possessed too of wonderful activity: a proof of this may be seen in the 9th chapter of the Book of Daniel, where we find that some time in the day Daniel set himself to seek the Lord in fasting and prayer; that after his prayer was begun, the commandment was given to Gabriel to explain to him the vision and prophecy. Gabriel came to Daniel while he was yet speaking; and thus, during the time that he was employed in uttering his prayer, Gabriel came from the supreme heaven to this world. Angels are possessed, too, of consummate holiness. This is shown by their joy and praise at the creation, their transport

at the birth of the Redeemer, and the union of glory to God in the highest, and good will towards men, disclosed by that wonderful event, and more especially by this declaration of our Lord of their noble and disinterested exultation in the repentance of ruined sinners; for if we for a moment consider, we must be struck with the difference which exists between these holy and pure beings, and the children of sinful man. Look at that poor miserable outcast, the child of the beggar, from his birth trained to suffering and hardihood-nursed, if he can be said to be nursed at all, on a coarse, scanty, and precarious pittance, holding life only as a tenant at will, combating, from the first dawnings of intellect, with insolence, cold, and nakedness-originally taught to beg and steal, driven from the doors of men by the porter or the housedog; he is regarded as an alien from the family of Adam; like his kindred worms, he creeps through life in the dust, and is at last, perhaps, shut up in a prison, and terminates his existence on the gallows, or

may

buried by some stranger, who remembers that although a beggar he was still a man. The proud Pharisee, when he meets him, may turn away from the wretch with disgust, the worshipper of mammon may avoid him as he would the pestilence, and the officers of justice think that they are doing their country good and God service, by removing such nuisances out of the pale of society. But, let us ask, what angels, and those who are around the throne of God feel? They weep not over the wretched outcast, because there is no room there for tears and lamentations, but heaven is in expectation to hear, if from the prison's gloom there be the sigh of contrition or the tear of penitence, and if so, the news at once spreads through the conclave of heaven. Renewed joy occupies the breasts of those beings who are ever happy, and thus is fulfilled the declaration of the text, There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth; and lest that should be supposed to be merely a strong mode of ex

pression, it is twice repeated, as if our Lord intended to say, "As surely as a man finding a sheep which he has lost, rejoices; as surely as a woman rejoices if she find money which she has lost; so surely do the angels of God rejoice, so surely is their joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth."

And why is this? In the first place, they know what the happiness of heaven is; they have ever dwelt in the immediate presence of God, and know the joy there is in serving and worshipping him— they know too, that when a man repents, he has made the first step towards that happy place, and that when he has spent a few short years, at most, in this lower world, he will then join the blessed spirits above, in hymning the praises of their Redeemer. They rejoice when a sinner repenteth.

In the second place, because they know the miseries from which he has escaped : they know, too, that the angels who kept not their first state, are reserved in ever

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