PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Angels' Song
Guthrie, Thomas · 20,317 words · 29 reading sections
_Part I._
Produced by Mark C. Orton, Sam W. and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net ALEXANDER STRAHAN 148 _Strand_, London 178 _Grand Street_, New York [Illustration: Publisher's device] ALEXANDER STRAHAN, PUBLISHER LONDON AND NEW YORK 1866 I. THAT REDEMPTION YIELDS THE HIGHEST GLORY TO GOD, 14…
775 wordsSECTION 2_Part I._
The divine glory of that scene is not peculiar to it. For as an eagle, so soon as she has stooped from her realm to the ground, mounts aloft again, soaring into the blue skies of her native heavens, our Lord never descends into the abasement of His meanest circumstances without some act which bespeaks divinity, and bea…
664 wordsSECTION 3That Redemption Yields The Highest Glory To God.
I say the highest; for though His _absolute_ glory, like His eternal being and infinite perfections, admits of no degrees, and is affected by no circumstances whatever, it is otherwise with His _declarative_ glory, as old theologians called it. This, which I speak of, and which angels sung of, consists in the manifesta…
740 wordsSECTION 4That Redemption Yields The Highest Glory To God.
The fact that redemption yields God the highest glory will appear also if we look at-- The Redeemed.--It is in them, in sinners saved, not in the happy and holy angels, that God stands out fully revealed as in a mirror; long and broad enough, if I may say so, to show forth all His attributes. To vary the figure; the c…
743 wordsSECTION 5_Part Ii._
No man hath seen God at any time; so saith the Scriptures. He who is confined to no bounds of space cannot in the nature of things have any visible form. God has however occasionally made revelations of Himself; and such are described in language which seems opposed alike to the declarations of Scripture and the deduct…
764 wordsSECTION 6Redemption Glorifies God In The Sight Of Holy Angels.
They take a lively interest in the affairs of our world, as the Scriptures show, and as Jacob saw in his vision; for what else means that ladder where they appeared to his dreaming eye ascending and descending between earth and heaven? To the care of John our dying Lord committed his mother; but God, when He sent His S…
784 wordsSECTION 7Redemption Glorifies God Throughout All The Universe.
With a small band of fishermen at His side, and no place on earth where to lay His head, Jesus pointed to the sun, riding high in heaven or rising over the hill-tops to bathe the scene in golden splendour, and said, "I am the Light of the world." A bold saying; yet the day is coming, however distant it appears, when th…
731 wordsSECTION 8The Redeemer And Redemption Are Worthy Of Our Highest Praise.
Let us bend the head, and, in company of the shepherds, enter the stable. Heard above the champing of bits, the stroke of hoofs, the rattling of chains, and the lowing of oxen, the feeble wail of an infant turns our steps to a particular stall: here a woman lies stretched on a bed of straw, and her new-born child, hast…
922 wordsSECTION 9_Part Iii._
Some years ago the question which agitated the heart of Europe was, Peace or War? The interests of commerce, the lives of thousands, the fate of kingdoms, trembled in the balance. Navies rode at anchor, and opposing armies, like two black thunder-clouds, waited for statesmen to issue from the council-chamber, bearing t…
662 wordsSECTION 10_Part Iii._
When the king of Babylon, hearing how the shadow had travelled back ten degrees on the dial of Ahaz, sent ambassadors to Hezekiah to inquire about this strange phenomenon, Hezekiah received them with the greatest respect; paid them honours, indeed, which cost both him and his country dear. The news of an embassy having…
250 wordsSECTION 11They Were Men Of A Peaceful Calling.
The highest view of the profession of arms is, that the soldier, deterring evil-doers and maintaining order at home, on the one hand, and prepared, on the other, to resist hostile invasion, is in reality, notwithstanding his deadly weapons and warlike garb, an officer or instrument of peace. A day is coming--alas! with…
864 wordsSECTION 12They Were Men Of Humble Rank.
Many in humble, as well as in more coveted circumstances, are discontented with their position. They repine at their lot, and murmur against the Providence which has assigned it. This is not only wicked but absurd, since true happiness lies much less in changing our condition than in making the best of it, whatever it …
767 wordsSECTION 13They Were Men Engaged In Common Duties.
Mothers cumbered with a load of domestic cares, merchants worried with business, statesmen charged with their country's affairs, and thousands who have a daily fight to keep the wolf from the door, fancy that, if they enjoyed the leisure some have, and could bestow more time on divine things, they would be more religio…
553 wordsSECTION 14_Part Iv._
Mingled with its rattling shingle, the sea-beach bears hazel-nuts and fir-tops--things which once belonged to the blue hills that rise far inland on the horizon. Dropped into the brooks of bosky glens, they have been swept into the river, to arrive, after many windings and long wanderings, at the ocean; to be afterward…
957 wordsSECTION 15_Part Iv._
Of all these venerable legends painted in colours or embalmed in verse, written in story or sculptured on stone, none are more remarkable than those where the serpent appears. Old divines imagined that the creature whose shape Satan borrowed for the temptation had originally no malignant aspect; neither the poisoned fa…
607 wordsSECTION 16Jesus Restores Peace Between God And Man.
There are things which God cannot do--which it were not to honour but dishonour Him to believe He could. He can neither tempt, nor be tempted, to sin. The sinner He may love, but not his sin; that is impossible; as the prophet expresses it, "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." I…
848 wordsSECTION 17Jesus Restores Peace Between God And Man.
The peace which he found all men want, and shall find in Jesus, if they seek it honestly, earnestly. God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He never had. We pronounce him an unnatural father, who, on a breach occurring between him and his child, though he is the injured and not the injurer, does not long to be…
776 wordsSECTION 18Jesus Restores Peace Between God And Man.
In these circumstances, oh for the wisdom of her who showed herself on the city walls in the thick of the assault, crying to Joab, "Hear, hear, come near hither, I pray you, that I may speak with thee!" A woman's figure there, her voice sounding above the thunder of the captains and the shouting, suspends the attack. A…
496 wordsSECTION 19_Part V._
Ahab and Jezebel, two of the worst characters in sacred story, had a son; and with such blood as theirs in his veins, no wonder that Joram, on succeeding to the throne of one parent, exhibited the vices of both. His mother does not seem to have had a drop of human-kindness in her breast. Yet he was not altogether dead …
941 wordsSECTION 20Jesus Brings Peace To The Soul.
Such was the mission of Jehu, the son of Nimshi. How different that of Jesus, the Son of God! They might have been identical; presented at least grounds of comparison rather than grounds of striking contrast. Yet so remarkable is the contrast that Jehu's mission--and therefore have we related the story--forms as effect…
771 wordsSECTION 21Jesus Brings Peace To The Soul.
Happy such as obtain a firm hold of Christ, and, having made their calling and election sure, enjoy unclouded peace! Feeling that there is now no more condemnation for them, because they believe in Jesus, and walk not after the flesh but after the spirit, they see a change come on objects such as imparts pleasure and s…
699 wordsSECTION 22Jesus Shall Bring Peace To The World.
How many pages of history are written with the point of the sword--not with ink, but tears and blood? It is chiefly taken up with the recital of wars. What age has not been the era, what country the scene of bloody strifes? What soil does not hold the dust of thousands that have fallen by brothers' hands? Our glebes ha…
750 wordsSECTION 23_Part Vi._
The vision tarries, but come it shall. In answer to the cry of blood that rises to heaven with a different voice from that of Abel's, peace shall reign and wars shall cease. By the hands that men nailed to a cross God will break the bow, the battle, and the spear--burning the chariot in the fire. And though any peace w…
846 wordsSECTION 24_Part Vi._
Happy messengers indeed! No wonder they hastened their flight to earth, and having announced the good tidings, lingered over the fields of Bethlehem, singing as they hovered on the wing. To announce bad news is the unenviable office often imposed on ministers of the gospel; and recollecting with what slow, reluctant st…
438 wordsSECTION 25The Persons To Whom Good Will Is Expressed.
It is expressed to men--to all men; so that if we are finally lost, the blame as well as the bane is ours. God has no ill will to us, or to any. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked; nor is He willing that any should perish, but that all should come to Him, and live. His good will embraces the world. "When I …
677 wordsSECTION 26The Persons To Whom Good Will Is Expressed.
But we are sinners--sinners by nature as well as practice; polluted; unholy; so unclean that our emblem is that hideous form which, from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet, is wounds and bruises and putrifying sores; and the news that God cherishes good will to such guilty creatures may well evoke the old, …
694 wordsSECTION 27The Person Who Expresses "Good Will."
The person is God--He who spake by holy men of old, speaking here by the lips of angels. Where there is a will, there is a way, is a brave and admirable proverb. Yet, though comparatively true in most cases, to some it is altogether inapplicable. Look, for example, at the women who, when the men had turned cowards, bol…
684 wordsSECTION 28The Person Who Expresses "Good Will."
But what need to ransack old history for examples? How often have our hearts overflowed with good will, yet we could only weep with them that wept--pity sorrows we could not soothe, wants we were powerless to relieve? Tears we might give, but they could not clothe the naked, or feed the hungry, or save the dying, or re…
572 wordsSECTION 29*** End Of The Project Gutenberg Ebook The Angels' Song ***
_Ballantyne, Roberts, & Co., Printers, Edinburgh._ Transcriber's Note: Minor printer errors (omitted letters or punctuation) have been corrected without note. Any variations in spelling or hyphenation have been left as they appeared in the original. Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions wil…
167 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.