212 FREE-WILL AND FREEDOM, WITH CORRELATIVE remarks. heavens; the more numerous the societies, the more perfect the whole; this being the case both with subjects and communities when their parts are in harmony. Hence man consisting of all the degrees of created substance, he is, as to his constitution, the most perfect created being; and when those degrees are opened and fully developed, he is the most perfect being as to existence. Each degree in man is the subject of its own specific life, yet it is not a subject in relation to the whole, but only a part of a subject, and each part exists only in relation to other parts, which together constitute a one. S. S. ANGELIC MINISTRATION. LITTLE as was plainly revealed under the Old Testament dispensation of the immortality of the soul, there were positive evidences and an undoubting faith in the existence and ministration of angels. The evidence of the existence of an order of spiritual beings who were the messengers of God to man-their very name being expressive of the office they performed-was such as best suited the condition of the people. They beheld them with their eyes, they heard them with their ears. The nature of the office, too, which angels performed with regard to men was made known to them by the same sensible means. These heavenly messengers appeared to them chiefly in seasons of danger, of tribulation, of perplexity; and the beneficent purpose of their visit was to warn, to soothe, to deliver. Thus did the angel to Hagar in the wilderness, to Lot in Sodom, to Jacob in Mahanaim, to the children in the fiery furnace The agency of these celestial messengers was not, indeed, confined to this or to any one particular class of circumstances; it entered into the whole economy of the Divine government. Not only were individuals warned and encouraged, but when the children of Israel had swelled into a great multitude, and the patriarchal had been succeeded by the priestly and regal government, the angel of the Lord and the heavenly host acted as guardians over them for their protection and deliverance. This begins with Israel in Egypt, and shews itself in all their subsequent history. The angel of the Lord smites the firstborn of their oppressors; he leads them out of Egypt, and conducts them through the whole of their wanderings in the wilderness by the fiery and cloudy pillar. In their danger in that night when there seemed no way of escape for the people from the vengeance of their pursuing foe, "the angel of God which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud of darkness to ANGELIC MINISTRATION. 213 them, but it gave light by night to these; so that the one came not near the other all night." Long after this period we find the angel of the Lord smiting in the camp of the Assyrians, who had come up against Judah, "an hundred fourscore and five thousand men." And still more illustrative of the doctrine of Angelic Ministration is the circumstance related respecting Elisha and the king of Syria.. When that monarch surrounded Dotham with an army, the servant of the prophet became alarmed for the safety of himself and his master; the prophet prayed, and the eyes of the young man were miraculously opened, and he saw the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha, verifying the assuring words of the prophet-"They that be with us are more than they that be with them." In recounting these out of the many instances of the ministry of angels recorded in the Old Testament, it is not for the purpose simply of affording evidence of the truth of the doctrine, but as the means of spreading out before us the types of a system of angelic guardianship of which we ourselves are the subjects. In the days when those messengers from heaven were on extraordinary occasions made visible, angel visits might seem to have been granted only on some pressing emergency. But when we reflect that these spiritual beings could only be seen by the spiritual eye, and that the spiritual eye, as in the case of Elisha's servant, had to be opened to behold them, we may be satisfied that their appearance and their presence are by no means to be regarded as necessary concomitants. Angelic ministration, as presented in the Old Testament, was in entire concordance with the science and religion of the times. The earth as an extended plain, the heavens as an expanse above it,one the dwelling place of men, the other the residence of God and his angels; the presence of angels, like the immediate presence of God, was considered to be exceptional and occasional. God came down to see; he sent His messengers to execute His will. By the clear light of Christianity, concordant with the light of science, we are privileged to see that space presents no obstacle either to the Divine or to angelic presence. Spirit is untramelled by the laws of matter. It belongs to a universe of its own, in which state is the substitute for space, and by the similarities and dissimilarities of which nearness and distance are determined. Angels have not to travel myriads of miles from beyond the limits of the starry heaven to visit the dwellers upon earth. Our spirits are in their world, and their world is the spirit of ours; and if our state is similar to theirs, we are in the midst of them. They encamp round about those who fear God, because that holy fear places men within their circle; and within that circle 214 ANGELIC MINISTRATION. the righteous are in safety, because they are in the powerful sphere of love and truth, whence all protection and deliverance come. This truth, though not difficult to see, is difficult to realise. Our ideas are so much based upon our senses, that we are liable to think ourselves alone when remote from the sight of living objects. It therefore requires an effort of the mind to sustain a vivid impression of the great Scripture truth that we are always surrounded by spiritual beings, "both when we wake and when we are asleep." Those spiritual beings are indeed of different and even opposite characters. The angel of the Lord encamps only around them that fear Him. Those who have no fear of the Lord are in the midst of spiritual beings who, like themselves, have no reverence for the Divine name. In all cases we are nearest to those we most nearly resemble. Those who are remorselessly wicked are as to their spirits actually present with their like in hell, even while they live in the present world; while those who are established in righteousness are unconsciously, though really, associated with their like in heaven. But there is a state that differs from both of these; it is the state of those who, though they fear God, and have the presence and protection of his angels, are yet subject to the assaults of the spirits of evil, from whose power they desire deliverance. It is a state, therefore, of the Christian while he is yet contending with the evils of his own heart, excited by the spirits of evil which his spiritual corruptions draw around him; and this is a state which is common to most of the faithful while they are passing through the present world, and one from which few of us can hope here to enjoy long cessation. The subject is one, therefore, in which it may be assumed we have all a personal and practical interest. In considering this subject of angelic ministration, it may be useful to endeavour to place it before our minds, so as to present the real nature of our connection with the invisible agents of spiritual good and evil in its personal and practical aspect. Our connection with spiritual beings, without which we could neither live nor be regenerated, is not simply one of personal nearness, nor do angels defend us against evil spirits as personal enemies only. Good has an affinity for good, and evil for evil. Not only, therefore, do good and evil persons attract to themselves good and evil spirits, but the good and evil principles, in whatever person they exist, attract and draw around him the good that makes an angel and the evil that makes a demon, and thus angels and demons themselves; hence the presence of both good and evil spirits with all who have entered, but have not completed, their journey to the land of promise; and hence those oppositions that arise in the mind between good and evil, and so between the spiritual ANGELIC MINISTRATION. 215 Good, beings whom our good and evil bring into fellowship with us. when it has been received from God, dwells in the interiors of the mind, and around this angels encamp; evil dwells in the exterior of the mind, and around this evil spirits congregate; and as it is the very nature of evil to hate and desire the destruction of good, there is always the intention, and sometimes therefore the attempt, on the part of evil spirits to overcome and annihilate the good. This is the origin and mode of operation of all temptation, whether it be great or small,— whether it consist in those slight ebullitions of offended self-love which are so apt to be produced in the mind even from slight causes, or the deeper upheavings of the natural mind when causes act from the centre of the ruling love. While it is the nature of evil and evil spirits to assault, it is the nature of good and good spirits only to defend; and it is in reference to this characteristic of good and of good angels that this law of celestial order was delivered by the Lord-—" Resist not evil.” When the mind is in the condition in which we have now supposed it, a representation of its state may be seen in that striking case of Elisha which we have mentioned among others. The holy principle in the mind, like the man of God in the city of Dotham, may be surrounded and threatened by the hosts of hell; but still nearer and more powerful are the heavenly messengers that encamp upon the mountain of the inner man, where love to God and charity to man afford a ground for their presence and operation, and where it will be found that the Lord "maketh His angels spirits, His ministers a flaming fire." Wherever the fear of the Lord is, there is the heavenly camp, for there is heaven itself; and if that holy fear is persistent, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; nor will it only secure protection, but it will overcome all opposition, and bring all things into subjection to itself. The formation of the kingdom of heaven in the human mind is effected by a process of gradual extension. When right principles are adopted as the central principles of life, they become its only principles by gradually extending their influence till they acquire dominion over the whole mind and life. This is not effected without labour and conflict. Resistance is made by the principles and powers of darkness, which never cease to oppose the mind till they are overcome. In the Scriptures the ministry of angels is invariably spoken of as being limited to the good. The evil, on the other hand, are represented, not only as being deprived of all good and friendly spiritual agencies, but as being persecuted by evil angels, as well as pursued by Divine vengeance. There is an important truth in this, though it is not what appears on the surface. Angels are present with evil men as well as 216 ANGELIC MINISTRATION. with good men, but they are only present with them by the good which is in them. When we know that, in the spiritual sense of the Word, principles are meant by persons, we are able at once to see the meaning and force of the Scripture statements and representations, that the good only are attended by good angels. The spiritual and real sense is, that the good principles that are in us, are the real and only objects of angelic ministration, and which alone angelic influences can surround and defend; evil being the object of attraction for evil spirits, and which they support and defend. There are none in the world so evil as to be utterly destitute of good; and none so good as to be entirely free from evil: so there are none of the evil who are not attended by good spirits, and none of the good who are entirely and at all times free from the presence of evil spirits. Yet it is good in the evil that alone forms the means of their connection with angels, and it is evil in the good that alone forms the point of contact in their minds with evil spirits. Thus in the absolute sense the angel of the Lord encampeth round about the fear itself of the Lord, and delivers the good affections of our hearts that fear God from the power of evil in the day of trial. In viewing the subject in this more interior and elevated aspect, removing our thought from persons and fixing it on principles, we may find the true mode in which angelic agency operates for our deliverance, and receive a solution of some of those difficult points which may present themselves to our minds, in considering angelic ministration as it operates on the plane of natural life. Although in the world the general sum of physical good and evil is undoubtedly exactly proportioned to the sum of moral and spiritual good and evil to which it rightly belongs; yet there can be as little doubt that the purest principles do not always preserve or deliver men from natural calamity, nor do evil principles always expose men to it. Indeed the Lord instructs us that individual misfortune has not always a necessary connection with individual spiritual sinfulness. Yet we are all perhaps led occasionally to ponder upon those awful and indiscriminate calamities-that fall alike on the evil and the good-and for a moment we may feel perplexed, as if the guardian angel had forsaken his charge, or had no power to deliver the God-fearing from the fury of the elements or the wrath of debased and brutalised men. Still more perplexing to us, because we feel them more, are those sudden, unexpected visitations called untimely deaths, that snatch from us the cherished objects of our best affections, by whom we were more cherished in return, and whose very goodness renders the dispensation more afflicting and mysterious. But when we reflect that the end of Divine Providence and the ministry of is to preserve the good that is in man, and to preserve it not for |