ties and agonies, what tribulations, disturbances, and amazements, the evangelists describe him to have undergone at his passion. These particulars place it beyond all doubt, that he was perfect man, as the passages before cited show that he was perfect God; perfect God, and perfect man of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. His human nature was the true tabernacle, or tent, which the apostle mentions, of a more perfect building than that of old; the Divinity was the GLORY which, descending from heaven, filled it, took possession of it, and dwelled in it. "The word was made flesh, and dwelt among usGod sent forth his Son, made of a woman." "made of a woman;" since every man is weary. He had the various human passions made of a woman, and, in the nature of things, and affections-such as were natural and uncan have no other original? There is no blameable—and these of the most troublesome thing extraordinary in this circumstance; and and afflictive sort, such as zeal, pity, sorrow. in speaking of a mere man, it could never Upon occasion of his friend Lazarus's death, he have been mentioned. But the fact is, that groaned in spirit, and was troubled; he then, the divine person above described appeared in and uponother occasions, did weep; and you our nature, and was "made of a woman.' "all know what excesses of sorrow, what anxieHerein is the wonder of love, the root and fountain of our salvation, pointed out by the apostle, and expressed or implied in so many other passages of Scripture; such as these which follow-"The word being incarnate, that is, made or becoming flesh; the Son of God, being sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, partaking of flesh and blood, his taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, being found in fashion as a man, assuming the seed of Abraham, his descending from heaven, coming forth from the Father, being sent, and coming into the world, the day-spring from on high visiting us, eternal life being manifested." In the name of common sense, if our Saviour be in reality no more And why should this be thought a thing than a mere man, like other men, what can all incredible? If "the reasonable soul, and these expressions signify? They must have flesh," the former a spiritual, the latter a mabeen used (as one should be tempted to think) terial substance, be so united, and that in a only to deceive and mislead mankind in that manner by us unknown and inconceivable, point which of all others is the most impor- as to compose one man ;" why should we tant. No-surely; the result of all taken deny the possibility of such an union between together is, and can be, no other than this- God and man as to render them "one Christ."* There was a blessed and glorious person, who Does reason protest against it? Nay, verily, from all eternity did subsist in the form of but she bears a powerful testimony to it. The God, being the Son of God, one in nature expectation of such a divine Saviour was with his Father, the express image, or apt from the beginning; the notion went out character, of his substance; by a temporal into all the earth. That God should, in some generation he truly became man, taking hu- extraordinary manner, visit and dwell with man nature into an union with the divine; man, is an idea which, as we read the writmade" like unto us in all things," as the apos-ings of the ancient heathens, meets us in a tle saith, "sin only excepted." He had a thousand different forms. It is the voice of body like ours, which was nourished and did grow, which needed and received sustenance, which was tender and sensible, frail and subject to suffering, which was bruised with stripes, torn with scourges, pricked with thorns, pierced with nails, transfixed with a spear, which was mortal, and underwent death, as our mortal bodies do when the breath goes out of them. He had also a soul endued with the same faculties as ours. His understanding was capable of learning and improvement; for, as man, he was ignorant of some things which he might know; and "he grew," it is said, "in wisdom, as well as stature." His will was subject and submissive to the divine will. "Let this cup, if it be possible, pass from me ; nevertheless, not my will but thine be done." He had the several appetites of meat, of drink, of sleep, and rest; for we read that he was hungry, that he thirsted, that he was nature, sickening, languishing, and at her last gasp, under a load of sin and sorrow from which none less than God could deliver her, and crying out, from age to age, with the dying patriarch-"I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD!"—"Lord, in thee, in thee alone have I trusted; let me never be confounded." Such, then, is the Saviour, whose birth at Bethlehem we this day celebrate. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son;" and what love must any person bear to the world who could do this for it? The Son abased himself, that he might be exalted. The Son became a subject, that the subjects—and those subjects in rebellion— Q. The objection, that the cases are not parallel, since in the former there are not two conscious beings united; and that God and the creature should have one and the same consciousness is not concei vable.-See DODDRIGE's Lectures, p 394. might become sons, "heirs of God, and joint | propitiate for our faults, intercede for our heirs with christ." And what more could welfare, pity and aid us in our distresses; have been done by a Son? be tender of our good, sensible of our necessiThe Saviour was God, that he might save ties; "in all things it behoved him to be us by his almighty power; that he might re-made like unto his brethren; that he might move the most stubborn difficulties in the way of our salvation; that he might subdue our enemies, command nature, abolish death, and vanquish hell; that he might satisfy justice, conciliate and appease by dignity of person, value of merit, nearness and dearness to the Father; that on his doctrine, his example, and his laws, might be stamped the character of Divinity, denominating them the coin of heaven, the royal image and superscription, which it is treason to efface. be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people; for in that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted." In a human form he became visible, audible, familiar; less amazing and more obliging. He became a copy for us in behaving, in moderating our appetites, in governing our passions through all conditions, and accommodating ourselves to all events. So lively a patThe Saviour was man, that as man lost his tern, with such power and to such effect, divine favor, man might regain it; that "as could never otherwise have been exhibited. by one man's disobedience many were made O what a comfort it is to think that we shall sinners, so by the obedience of one many be judged by such a person! And with what might be made righteous;" that as man did propriety was he appointed to recapitulate approve, so man "might condemn, sin in the (as the apostle has it) and reconcile all things flesh;" that " as by man came death, by man in heaven and earth, thus allied as he was to might come also the resurrection of the dead;" both parties; Son of God, brother to us; that" as in the first Adam all die, even so in so he might dispense God's grace, and purChrist, the second Adam," who was likewise chase our peace! "Lord, to whom " else, the Lord from heaven, 66 may all be made then, "shall we go? Thou hast "—thou alive" that through sympathy, compassion, only canst have" the words of eternal a fellow-feeling of our infirmities, he might life." that DISCOURSE LVII. THE EXISTENCE AND EMPLOYMENT OF THE HOLY ANGELS. REVELATION, VII. 11. All the angels stood round about the throne. AMONG the festivals of our church, we find one celebrated at this season of the year in honor of the holy angels. To justify such her appointment, and point out to you the many advantages to be obtained from it, is the design of the following discourse; in which some thoughts shall be offered on the existence of angels, their nature and condition, the perfect obedience paid by them to God, and the kind services rendered to man. And, first, respecting the existence of angels. It is needless to trouble you with the opinions of the heathen concerning beings of this kind; because they could utter nothing but what was either merely conjectural, or else derived to them by tradition from an original revelation. We have better guides; we can go to the fountain head. Conjecture is useless where certainty can be had; and tradition of no account when the revelation itself is before us. Nor does it seem at all necessary, by a long series of texts to demonstrate that there are such beings as angels. They who have ever looked into the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, can have no doubt upon this head. The fact is clear: our business shall be to convince you that it is interesting. For it may be said, perhaps, to what purpose discourse to us concerning the inhabitants of a world future, remote, and of which our ideas are very confused and indeterminate? Let us rather attend to the world in which we live, and to them that dwell therein. It would be perfectly right so to do, if the world in which we live were the only one with which we were connected, and death the final period of our existence. But no one person, I dare say, who now hears me, seriously imagines this to be the case. And if there be another world which is to receive us for ever, after our departure hence, the existence of its inhabitants, with whom we are to spend an eternity, becomes a speculation both pleasing and important. This state of our being, you say, is future. It is so to-day; but before to-morrow it may be present to some: a very few years must render it present to all. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the change is effected: every connection with this world is dissolved, and we become at once citizens of another, and members of a society altogether new. You say it is remote. That by no means appears. It may not be "far from every one of us." A man who had lived always in the darkness of a prison, and only heard of the world we now enjoy, might fancy, from all which his own experience taught him, that it must needs be remote; whereas, nothing more would be requisite to convince him of his mistake, than to open the doors of his prison-house, and lead him. forth to liberty and the sun. Could a child in its mother's womb be made sensible it was to be born into a new world, it might entertain the same prejudice respecting the the supposed distance; but when the appointed time for its birth came, a single instant would show that it was only a prejudice. The spiritual and eternal world, into which we are, at a destined hour, to be born, may be, like its Divine Maker and King, near us, and round about us, in a manner of which we are not aware, nor shall be till we enter it; till we burst the intervening shell, and all the glories of the invisible system present themselves to view. But our ideas of this future world are confused and indeterminate. Not more so than those conceived by the man in prison, or the child in the womb, could it conceive any of the present world in which we live: not more so, than the ideas formed of things not seen, by comparison with things seen. We have the divine assurance of God's word that such a world exists; and the pictures there drawn of it, if we considered them as we ought to do, must make us impatient to behold the original. But the truth is, that whatever ideas of a future and invisible world may be, at certain times, impressed upon our minds, they are presently effaced by a tide of business or pleasure, and stand therefore in need of being continually refreshed and renewed. Now, what can do this so effectually as frequent meditations on the blessed inhabitants of that world, the holy angels? We love to recollect a place by the circumstances of those friends we have in it. By thinking of them, we are led to think of the place where they are, and learn to love and desire it the more. An intercourse is by this means opened, a correspondence established, between heaven and earth. And here give me leave to ask, whether we are not often guilty of neglecting and forgetting, in a manner unkind, at least, our friends who are gone before us to a better country? When once they are departed, we suffer the remembrance of them soon to slip our minds, as if we thought they ceased any longer to exist. To pray for the dead seems needless and absurd, unless we supposed their condition in another life still undetermined, and that they were undergoing pains, from which our prayers might contribute to release them. But to commemorate the day of their departure; to think of them, and their salvation; to recollect their virtues, and express our wishes of seeing and being with them again, in God's good time-this surely would be an exercise equally pious and profitable, and to which no good protestant can have any reasonable objection. The spirits of the just, when gone hence, are with the angels; we should think of them together, invigorating at once our faith, our hope, and our charity. Thus much for the instruction and consolation to be derived from the Scripture doctrine of the existence of angels. Still more will be derived, from a consideration, Secondly, of what is revealed concerning their nature and condition. Shut up in this world of matter, we might be apt to imagine there are no creatures of a nature and condition different from our own. But we are informed, upon the best authority, From the nature and condition of angels, let us advert, that there are creatures of a very different salutary purpose, are heaped upon its head. nature and condition. Angels are spirits. The Son of God is with his faithful serNot formed of the same gross materials, vants in the furnace, and will bring them they are free from the inconveniences we safely out; when, transformed to angels, feel, the temptations and sufferings to which they shall sing the song of the redeemed: we are subject. Their appearance is glori-" It is good for us, that we have been afous as the light of heaven, and their motion, flicted." like that, rapid, and, as it were, instantaneous. Pure and active as the most pure and active elements with which we are acquainted, light and fire; strangers equally to sin and sorrow; they live evermore in the presence of God, and enjoy all the felicity which that presence can bestow; ex-pendence. An attempt was once made by pressing continually their sense of such felicity in hymns of praise before the throne. This is the sum and substance of the many descriptions to be met with in sacred writ. The contemplation of so many excellent and happy beings opens our understandings, and enlarges our conceptions of the Creator's power and goodness. But if we ourselves are miserable, what benefit, it will be asked, can result to us from contemplating the happiness of others Will not our misery be rather aggravated than alleviated by it? We do not cease to be wretched upon earth because the angels are otherwise in heaven. Thirdly, to that perfect service, that ready and unlimited obedience, by them paid to the Almighty Creator. Their felicity does not consist in freedom and inde some of them to attain it. "There was war even in heaven" on that account; but Michael prevailed, and the dragon was cast out. The angels that fell, fell by rebellion; they who kept their station, kept it by obedience, and are thus addressed by the Psalmist: "Ye angels of his, ye that excel in strength, ye that fulfil his commandment, hearkening to the voice of his word." Like the lightnings, which say, "Here we are," they are represented as waiting before the throne, ready, at the divine command, to fly to the extremities of the world. Instead of using seditious language against their sovereign, we find Michael the archangel "not bringing a railing accusation" against Redeemed by the Son of God, leave off, the great adversary himself, but mildly sayO man! to complain. Wait but for a little ing, "The Lord rebuke thee!"—a circumwhile in faith and patience, and their hap- stance much to be regarded by all who piness shall be yours. The Redeemer him- have the misfortune to be engaged in disself has said (and shall he not perform it?) putes. Nor are the angels more exact in that, at the resurrection, we shall become loyalty to their king, than in preserving "like the angels of God." Is not the case due subordination in their several ranks, then greatly altered? Is there no pleasure and under their respective leaders, without in contemplating a felicity, the model after which peace could not be in heaven, any which our own will be formed and fash- more than on earth. This was the reflecioned? Surely it is the very consideration, tion of our judicious and admirable Hooker, which, above all others, should cause us to when a friend asked him, just before his forget our uneasiness, and remember our death, on what subject his thoughts might misery no more. Angels are glorious and at that time be employed. The subject happy beings, and we shall be so too! which engaged his dying thoughts ought They are glorious, because they are pure; constantly to engage our living ones; since, and we must therefore be pure, in order to in the prayer composed and delivered out to be glorious. The misery complained of is his disciples by our Lord and Saviour, the the furnace in which we are to be made obedience of the angels is proposed as the pure, that dust and ashes may be changed pattern to be imitated by us; as the copy into transparent glass. Purge away the after which we should diligently write: dross," says the wise man, "and a vessel" Thy will be done on earth, as it is in shall come forth for the finer." Our evil heaven." Were this once the case, then tempers and affections are that dross. With them we cannot enter into the kingdom of God; nor should find any happiness there, if we could enter. They must be separated, and left behind. Severe trials, very severe trials, are often necessary to separate them, and are sent for that purpose. When the metal is stubborn, coals of fire, for the most would "the heavens rejoice, and the earth be glad." The will of God would be sought, in order to be found, and found, in order to be executed. We do not indeed stand in the immediate presence, or receive our orders at once from the throne: but the Scriptures convey them, and, by his gracious Spirit, "God is in the midst of us;" Lord, what is man, that thou art thus mindful of him, and causest him to be visited by celestial spirits? But, in the person of Christ, one far above all created spirits did not disdain to visit him; and the court of heaven is only attendant on its King: "Wherefore, when he bringeth his first begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him." we likewise may fulfil his commandment, | passion, testified of at his resurrection, atby hearkening to the voice of his word." tended at his ascension. They shall again Had we but a due respect to the example attend him on his return to judgment, gather set us by the angels, we should not be so together his elect from the four winds, and careless, as we are, about knowing what celebrate his final triumph over our last the will of the Lord is; much less should enemy. "Even now there is joy among we be averse from knowing it, because them over one sinner that repenteth ;" and averse from doing it. Angels are ever on the apostle says concerning them," Are the watch; eager to do it, and therefore they not all ministering spirits, sent forth eager to know it' We should not presume to minister to them that shall be heirs of to determine which precepts we may ob- salvation?" serve, and which we may neglect: the obedience of an angel is universal. We should not put off our duty from day to day; the obedience of an angel is prompt and ready. We should perform it, not as a task, but as a pleasure the obedience of an angel is hearty and fervent; it is his delight, because he loves God: it would be ours, if we loved God in the same degree. To love, no commandments are grievous. The difficulties remain as they were; but the motive overcomes them with ease. The contest, at first, among angelic spirits in heaven, and since, among the children of Adam, through all the successive generations upon earth, has been, in reality, a contest between price and love. The success and termination of it may direct us where to choose our party. Pride, as displayed in the rebellion of Lucifer, threw angels from the height of heaven, into the bottomless pit: love, as manifested in the obedience of Christ. exalted man, from the dust, to the thrones of angels in heaven. This lead us to consider, Lastly, the benevolence and charity of the holy angels; the love they have always shown for man, and the services by them rendered to him. And here a scene opens, worthy of all admiration, gratitude, and praise. For never do those blessed spirits obey with greater delight the commands of their Maker, than when mankind is the subject of those commands; so deeply, from the beginning, have they interested themselves in our welfare. When the world was created, and man put in possession of it, these "morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy." Angels accompanied those servants of the Most High, the ancient patriarchs, during the course of their pilgrimage. By angels was the law given on Sinai; by them were the armies of Israel directed, on their march through the wilderness, protected after their establishment in Canaan, and their enemies discomfited. By them was the Saviour proclaimed on the night in which he was born, comforted after his temptation, strengthed in his But" are these things indeed so?" Do the holy angels take a decided part in our concerns? Let us, at length, take a part in them ourselves, and not continue wholly indifferent as to what we have been, what we are, and what we shall be. Some little time, surely, should be spent in the inquiry. Spirits above are active to save us; spirits below are active to destroy us; and we sleep, not to be awakened, perhaps, till it is too late. At the creation of the world, did "the morning stars sing together, and all the sons of God shout for joy?" And do men forget to be thankful for it? In a fit of spleen, do they say, they have no reason to be thankful for it? In a fit of infidel ty, do they deny both the creation and the Creator? Such men, alas! there are: shame on them-equal shame on those who have no more sense than to admire and encourage them. "Praise the Lord, all ye works of his, in all places of his dominion ;" and all ye sons of men, for whom those works were wrought: "praise the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, prise his holy name." It is written, "When he bring th his first begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him" and have we lived to hear persons, calling themselves Christians, with Bibles in their hands, telling us, they find themselves obliged in conscience to quit the church, because she is guilty of idolatry in now doing-what she always has done-in paying divine honors to her Lord and Saviour? Such men likewise there are ; and they too have their admirers and followers. The more is the pity! But marvel not: "it is the last time." To conclude-Are angels "ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them that shall be heirs of salvation ;" rejoicing when |