SERMON XXIV.

THE ANGELIC MISSION.

PSALM CIII. 21.

Bless the Lord, ye His angels, that excell in strength, that do His commandments, hearkening to the voice of His word.

TODAY, you know, is Michaelmas day: that is, it is the festival which the Church has set apart in honour of St Michael and all the angels, in honour of Michael the Archangel, as he is called by St Jude, and of all the angels, who, as you have just heard in the passage read from the Revelation, joined with him in fighting, under his orders, against the devil and his angels. The word Archangel means Ruler and Prince of the angels. This therefore is the high office and dignity of Michael: he is the Ruler and Prince of the angels: and it has been supposed by some very learned divines, that his name is only one among the many names of the Eternal Son of God, and that Michael the Archangel is no other than that Blessed Word, who came down from the righthand of the Almighty Father, to be the Prince and Saviour of His people.

In the little that is said in the Scriptures about Michael the Archangel, there are several things which seem to pertain more especially to the Son of God. For it is the Son of God, who came down from heaven for the very purpose of overcoming the devil, and who did fight against and overcome him. He came down that He might contend with the devil for the bodies and the souls of His servants,

For

that He might deliver them soul and body from the power of the destroyer, and might raise them soul and body to an everlasting inheritance in the Kingdom of Heaven. In like manner, what we read about Michael in the twelfth chapter of the Book of Daniel, where He is called the Great Prince who standeth for the children of the people, and in whose time the people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book; and many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt; and they that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever;—all this, you will already have thought, seems to belong to the Son of God, and to no other. He alone standeth for the children of the people: He alone can stand for them, as neither man nor angel can: He stands for them in the judgement, and has paid their ransom in their stead: through Him alone can any be delivered and only at the sound of His voice will any one rise to everlasting life. No wisdom but that which He brings, that which He Himself is, will enable any to shine as the brightness of the firmament: nor is there any righteousness except His, to which any one can be turned with profit, either to himself or to the converter. Moreover He is the true Archangel, the Ruler and Lord of the angels wherefore we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews that, when God bringeth in the Firstbegotten into the world, He saith, Let all the angels of God worship Him. To Him too, above all others, do the words of the text apply. He excells in strength, being raised far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to

come.

So does He do the will of God: for this very end He came Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. Thus too has He done the will of God from the beginning, even as God doth His own will, which is one with the will of His Son. Through Him, as through Himself, God made the world, and created whatever was created. Through Him God redeemed mankind, and overcame the power of evil. Through Him God sends His Spirit into the hearts of His servants. Through Him, and by Him, God will judge the world according to His own all-perfect justice and holiness. And along with Him will God be the Eternal Glory and Light of the new heavens and the new earth, which shall be made anew by Him, and where all His redeemed shall dwell.

Thus, whichever way we look, whether into the past, the present, or the future, whether to things on earth, or to things in heaven, to the sinful race of man, or to the saints and angels that dwell in the presence of God, we only see fresh proofs of the glory of the Onlybegotten Son, fresh evidence how He through all eternity is ever One with the Father. To Him too should all our thoughts ever turn, first and last, in love, in thanksgiving, in adoration, in praise, in penitent, contrite humility. Among the many ways however in which it behoves us to glorify God and His eternal Son, one is by the contemplation of His works, by searching out the numberless marks of His wisdom and power and love, so far as He has manifested them to us, whether by placing them before our senses, or by revealing them to us in His sacred Scriptures. And one of these works, to which our attention is especially drawn at this season, is the glorious host of angels, concerning whom divers particulars are declared to us in the

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Bible. Let us look at these things therefore, my brethren, for a little while. Let us try to pick out and put together the scattered pieces of knowledge, which God has given us with regard to His holy angels, taking the text for our guide. For whatever we can learn on such a subject cannot be otherwise than interesting and important; inasmuch as all knowledge increases in dignity and worth in proportion to the dignity and worth of the object to which it relates and, as there is none of God's works, from which we may not draw some useful lesson, none which may not serve as a type or parable to enforce some moral truth, so, we may be sure, whatsoever we can learn concerning the holy angels, may also be profitable to us by way of instruction and example. Indeed, as they dwell for ever in the presence of God, if we desire to be received hereafter into that glorious presence, we should seek to understand what are the tempers and dispositions, the frame of heart and will, which He vouchsafes thus to bless.

Now the text teaches us two things about the angels. It first tells us something about what they are, and then about what they do. The first thing it tells us about them is, that they excell in strength. In these words strength cannot mean precisely what we mean by strength, when we talk of a strong man. By strength, as applied to man, we usually mean bodily strength, unless there is something in the words to give them a different bearing. But the angels are spirits. Strength therefore, as a quality belonging to the angels, and in which they excell, must mean power, might. This agrees exactly with all that we are told of them. They do excell in power, in might. Among all the orders of created beings, the angels are represented as the first, the noblest, the mightiest. They excell or

surpass all others in might. Among earthly beings, that which surpasses all others in might, is man. Man does not surpass all other earthly creatures in strength on the contrary many are stronger. A horse is stronger: a bull is stronger a lion, a tiger, an elephant are much stronger. So is a crocodile so are many large serpents. Yet man is made lord of all these he is more powerful than all these, because he has not merely a body, like other creatures, but an understanding soul, a spirit, which is the seat and source of his power, and by means of which he subdues all other creatures.

Is man however the first and noblest and mightiest of all created beings? In his own eyes he too often is so. Nay, in his own eyes he is often not only the first of all created beings, but the absolute lord and master of all the others, entitled to deal with them as he pleases, to drive them to and fro and make havock of them according to his will and pleasure and he is too ready to forget that there is any other being, created or uncreated, above him he is too ready to believe that he is his own world, and his own god. Yet, what a miserable, dreary thought would it be, if we were driven to suppose that there is nothing greater or higher or more glorious in the world, than this poor, frail, tottering creature, whom we call man, the child of a day, the sport of temptation, a wreck shattered by sin, the prey of the worms! Even when we have been taught to acknowledge that there is an Almighty, Eternal, Allperfect God, the Creator and Governor of all things, yet, so vast is the distance, so immeasurably wide the gulf, which separates such a God from such helpless, feeble, forlorn, broken-down creatures as men are now, we can hardly help fancying that this immeasurable gulf was