blessed assembly pour forth their praises in this appropriate song, " Glory to God in the highest ; peace on earth, good-will toivards men"']
But to contemplate this subject will be of no use, unless we enter fully into it,
II. As a mercy devoutly to be acknowledged —
The angels, though in comparison of us they had no interest in this event, came down from heaven to celebrate and proclaim it. And shall not we celebrate it ? Shall so much as one of us remain indifferent, now that the glad tidings of it are brought to our ears? Consider, I pray you,
1. Your own personal interest in it —
[Where would all of you have been, if God had not devised and executed these means for your restoration to his favour ? You had all participated in the guilt of the fallen angels, and must all have partaken of their misery. What could you have done more than they to avert or mitigate your doom ? You would have lived only to fill up the measure of your iniquities, and would then have been reserved, like those unhappy spirits, in chains of darkness to the judgment of the great day. But, through the substitution of God's only dear Son in your place, and the atonement he has offered in your behalf, there is not so much as one of you that may not be reconciled to God, and made an everlasting object of his favour. In fact, I who speak to you at this moment, am " an ambassador from God to announce to you these glad tidings." To me, as his servant, is " committed the ministry of reconciliation, to declare, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them :" and at this very moment it is as if the Lord Jesus Christ himself addressed you : for, as bearing his commission, and actually represent- ing him, " I now beseech you all in Christ's stead, Be ye reconciled to Godc." Will not ye then adore God for this revelation of his mercy to you? Will ye not all rise as one man to welcome this Saviour, and adore him, and to seek through him the blessings he is come to impart ? What if such a revelation of mercy were sent to the fallen angels, do you think they would hear it with indifference ? Or, if they did hear it with indifference, is there so much as one of you that would not say, " Leave them to themselves ; their damnation is just?" Know then, that in condemning them, you condemn yourselves ; and " out of your own mouth will God condemn
c 2 Cor. v. 18 — 20. This must not be confined to the Apostles.
1472.] the angels' song. 239
you" at the last day. But I hope better things of you, my brethren ; and I call upon you all now at this very moment, in spirit at least, to join the angelic choir, and sing, ' Glory to God in the highest, who has opened such a way for the effect- ing of my reconciliation with him, and for these wonderful displays of good-will to my guilty soul.']
2. The glory that will accrue to God from it to all eternity —
[But for this revelation of God's mercy to us, there would have been little difference between earth and hell : for God would have been no more glorified in the one than in the other. But God is glorified in the midst of us : T trust there are in this very assembly, some at least, who have found peace with God, and can attest from their own experience how sweet are the manifestations of his good-will to their souls. And the time is shortly coming when " all shall know the Lord from the least to the greatest," and " all flesh shall see the salvation of God." And O what a place will this wretched world then be ! What bright manifestations of the Saviour will then be vouchsafed to men ! Methinks, the visions of Mount Tabor will then be common upon earth, and this song of angels will become the common tone of intercourse between man and man throughout the whole world.