HOMILETICS. Ver. 14.-The ministry of angels. Without intruding it on the reader's attention, Isaiah is continually implying the interest which angels take in all God's dealings with bis Church, and the assistance which they render. Voices fil! the heavenly sphere around him and about him, which can only be angelic utterances, and from time to time he records the sayings. Sometimes he records them openly as angelic; e.g. the seraph's words, when he took the live coal from the altar in the court of heaven, and therewith touched the prophet's lips (eh. vi. 7). But more often he names no speaker, but simply gives the words or introduces them impersonally with the phrase, "and one said" (see eh. xxi. 11; xxvi. 2; xl. 6, etc.). It is sometimes said that the Jews
~- first learnt to believe in the existence of angels from the Babylonians. But Isaiah's writings furnish a proof, if proof were needed, that this was not so. Isaiah shows us l. As MINISTRANT TO Goo IN BEAVEN. Above the throne of God ID . heaven were seen by Isaiah, in vision, a number of seraphim, or wingeu creatures of the angelic class, attendant upon the great King, and ready at each moment to do his pleasure (eh. vi. 2). '!'hey "stood," to show respect and reverence; they had two of their wings outspread, to show readiness to fly at once whithersoever God should send them; they had two others veiling their faces, to indicate a sense of their unworthiness to look on tbe face of the Almighty. As they stood, they praised God, saying, "Holy, holy, holy, is tha Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory" (eh. vi. 3). The scene drawn ren,inds us of St. John's vision in Patmos (Rev. iv. 1-11), and also, to some extent, of the vision of Micniah the son of lmlah, in the First Book of Kings (xxii. 19-22). The teaching of all these passages is consentient. God has always attenuant upon him, in the courts of heaven, angelic beings of varied powers and capacities, who stanu before him in adoration, and at the same time are eager to go whithersoever he may sen,1 them, and carry into effect his purposes. II. As DOING SERVICE TO MEN o:. EARTH. Angels are represented by Isaiah as interested in the life of God's faithful ones, as watching God's dealings with them, and occasionally showing their sympathy. Christians are expressly taught that all angels are "ministering spir:tR, sent forth to minister to them who are heirs of salvation " (Heb. i. 14). Isaiah seems to have divined their functions in this respect. He "sees indeed through a glass darkly," and not yet" face to face" (1 Cor. xiii. 12); but still he not obscurely intimates from time to time their close relationship to man. God places them upon the walls of the new Jerusalem to watch (eh. lxii. 6). They stand there, and "take no rest." They are Jehovah's "remembre.ncers," not reminding him of human sin or human shortcomings, but of his promises to his people, and of their need that he should give them succour (see Mr. Cheyne on eh. lxii. 6). It is, perhaps, a cry of the angels that rings out in the "splendid apostrophe," "Awake, a.wake, put 860 'rHl!': :MOK OF THE PROPHET tSA.IAlt. [ctt. LVII, 1-2l.
on strength, 0 arm of the Lord l awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old" (eh. Ii. 9). Angels exchange "cries" when the promise of Christ's coming is given (eh. xl. 6-8). Angels are interested in a path being made by which the faithful ones may reach God's holy city (eh. !vii. 14). Angels call on their fellows to open to ihe saints the gates of heaven (eh. xxvi. 2). The dwellers in the empyrean are joined with the believers on earth in the bonds of charity and love, and form with them one be>mmunity in the city of the living God (eh. lxii. 6; comp. Heh. xii, 22-24), Ver. 15.-The humility of God. An ancient Jewish writer says, "Wherever the Scripture bears witness to the Divine mightiness, it brings out side by side with it the Divine humbleness" (' Megilla,' 31, a); and this is nowhere more strikingly mani- fested than in the present passage. God "dwells in the high and holy place "-in the most exalted sphere to which human thought can possibly mount; and yet at the same time he dwells with the human spirit that is humble and crushed. .As Delitzsch says, "The heaven of hea.<ens is not too great for him, and a human heart is not too small for him, to dwell in." He who sits upou the cherubim, and hears the seraphim praise him with ce:\Sele.,s voice, does not scorn also to "dwell among the sighs of a poor human soul." Note, in connection with this theme- I. THAT ALL Gon's PROVIDENTIAL DEALINGS WITH THE THINGS THAT HE BAB CREATED ARE A co~'DESCENSION, It is necessary that he should" humble himself" even to "behold the things which are in heaven and earth" (Ps. cxiii. 5). He is infinitely above these things-their " goodness extendeth not to him " (Ps. xvi. 2). .All contact with them is contact of the higher with the lower, and involves necessarily the higher stooping from his high estate. The distance between him and the highest of the angels is an infinite dist.ance. His condescending to accept the praises of the angels is an infinite condescension. II. THAT IT IS A GREATER CO~'DEBCENSION FOR Gon TO HAVE DEALINGS WITH MEN TH.AN WITH ANGELS. .Angels are pure, at any rate, from the taint of sin. God may "tax them with folly" (Job iv. 12), but he does not tax them with sin. There is no barrier of iniquity or impurity between God and the lowest angel. But with man the case is different. Man is "very far gone from original righteousness." He has cor- rupted his way before God. The best man " has sinned, and come short of God's glory " (Rom. iii. 23). "What then is man, that God should be mindful of him? or the son of man, that he should visit him?" (Ps. viii. 4). It is an extraordinary condescension and humility that God should bring himself down tc the level of man, hold communion with him, "dwell" with him, "heal" him. Yet he does this. .Although his throne is in heaven," yet his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men" (Ps. xi. 4). He "looks down from heaven upon them " (Ps. xiv. 2). " From the place of his habitation he beholdeth all the dwellers on the earth" (Ps. xxxiii, 14). The gratitude of men Bhould correspond t.o the condescension of God.