Part 140

_Direct._ III. Understand our near affinity or relation to the angels, and how they and we are concerned in each others' condition and affairs. As to our nature our immortal souls are kin or like unto the angels, though our bodies are but like the brutes. Those souls that are created after the image of God, in their very natural essence, (as rational and free agents,) besides his moral image of sanctity, Gen. ix. 6, may well be said to be like the angels: "He made us a little lower than the angels," Psal. viii. 5. And God hath made us their charge and care; and therefore no doubt hath given them a special love unto us, to fit them to the due performance of their trust. As ministers have a special paternal love to their flocks, and as christians are to have a special love to one another to enable and engage them to the duties appointed them by God towards each other; so these excellent spirits have no doubt a far purer and greater love, to the image of God upon the saints, and to the saints for the image and sake of God, than the dearest friends and holiest persons on earth can have. For they are more holy, and they are more perfectly conformed to the mind of God, and they love God himself more perfectly than we, and therefore for his sake do love his people much more perfectly than we. And therefore they are more to be loved by us than any mortals are; both because they are more excellent, pure, and amiable, and because they have more love to us. Moreover the angels are servants of the same God, and members of the same society which we belong to. They are the inhabitants of the heavenly Jerusalem, of which we are heirs: they have possession, and we have title, and shall in time possess it. We are called to much of the same employment with them; we must love the same God, and glorify him by obedience, thanks, and praise, and so do they. Therefore they are ministers for our good, and rejoice in the success of their labours, as the ministers of Christ on earth do, Heb. i. 14. There is not a sinner converted, but it is the angels' joy, Luke xv. 10, which showeth us how much they attend that work. "We are come to mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels," &c. Heb. xii. 22-24. They are especially present and attendant on us in our holy assemblies and services of God; and therefore we are admonished to reverence their presence, and do nothing before them that is sinful or unseemly, 1 Cor. xi. 10; Eccles. v. 6. The presence of God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, must continually awe us into exact obedience, 1 Tim. v. 21. With the church they pry into the mystery of the dispensations of the Spirit to the church, 1 Pet. i. 12. And so "by the church," that is, by God's dealings with the church, is "made known the manifold wisdom of God," even to these "heavenly principalities and powers," Eph. iii. 10. In conclusion, Christ telleth us that in our state of blessedness we shall "be equal to the angels," Luke xx. 36, and so shall live with them for ever.