SERMON CCLXXIII.

THE ANGELS' CHRISTMAS HYMN.

FOR CHRISTMAS DAY.

ST. LUKE ii. 14.

"Glory to GOD in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.' I SUPPOSE there are scarce any words in the Bible better known than these are, except perhaps the LORD's Prayer itself. They are the regular Christmas words; the Angels brought them from Heaven on the night when our LORD was born. No doubt they were remembered in the Holy Family: Mary kept all the things which happened, and pondered them in her heart: she would not, of course, forget so very remarkable a thing, so great a token of mercy, as the very hymn which God's Angels brought from Heaven. No doubt, year by year, as the birthday of the Holy Child came round, those blessed words were repeated, with wonder and thankfulness ever increasing, by those among whom GOD the SON was abiding visible on earth.

As His glory became more and more manifest, their meaning would open itself more and more, till at last when the Blessed COMFORTER had come down, and the Kingdom of Heaven was fully come, every Christian might know and understand them. Then the Church began to put them into her hymns: they were used especially as part of a morning hymn: every morning, to their devout and loving hearts, was as it were a Christmas morning every time they saw the light of a new day, they reminded themselves by this hymn, of CHRIST, the Sun of Righteousness, coming forth from His mother's womb, as a bride

groom out of his chamber, and of their own deliverance through HIM from darkness and the shadow of death.

By and by the same hymn began to be used in the service for the Holy Communion, being that which the blessed Angels chanted on earth; as well as the other hymn," Holy, holy, holy," which is what they repeat without resting, day and night, around the throne of GOD. Both these hymns we are permitted to use in the office for that blessed Sacrament, because in that office we communicate with the whole exalted host of Angels, whether serving God in Heaven, or waiting on us in earth.

But there is also another use, a very well-known use, which men make every year of this Christmas hymn of the angels. We hear it all round us in the very air on Christmas eve: the little children come singing it to our doors: GoD in this way, among others, ordaining to HIMSELF praise out of the mouth of babes and sucklings.

The words being thus familiar, perhaps, to most of us, let us now set ourselves seriously to consider their meaning, that we may not go on like mere children, one Christmas after another, repeating them, and rejoicing to do so, but hardly knowing why.

Glory," so the Angels began, "to GoD in the highest!" Why was the birth of CHRIST "glory to GoD in the highest?" Besides other deep mysteries which there may be in that saying, God did thus begin to make known to the holy Angels, to those who serve HIM in the highest, His manifold wisdom in respect of " the eternal purpose which He purposed in CHRIST JESUS Our LORD." For four thousand years the Angels had known how man, being made pure and in GoD's image, had spoiled and forfeited that image, and had enslaved himself to sin: they had known also that God had promised with an oath, over and over, to redeem His poor fallen creatures from their sad captivity: they had been watching to see the gradual preparation for that great and eternal work: they had waited on it: it was their joy and glory to help it forward; they were ever desiring to lean down over it, and look closer into it; and that out of their overflowing, heavenly charity; the same charity which causes them to rejoice over one sinner that repenteth, much more causing them one and all to sing together, and as sons of God to shout for joy to their

heavenly FATHER, when they saw the great work actually begun, which was to be the spring of all repentance and pardon.

:

One of their number nine months before had announced to the blessed Virgin Mary, that the Son of GOD was preparing to take HIMSELF a body of her body, to be conceived in her sacred womb and they had been waiting, as anxious and faithful guardians, when He should come forth as a bridegroom out of that His chamber, and show HIMSELF, for the first time since eternal ages, to the very eyes of His creatures, bodily and outwardly, as one of us. Since that time HE appears to them, and will appear to all eternity, clothed, as it were, in that human nature, that soul and body, which He took of the blessed Virgin : they can never contemplate HIM apart from that, which at His Incarnation HE received from her.

And this is evermore His special glory amongst them, as any condescending act of a great and beloved King is His glory among His subjects: namely, that He is now man as well as GOD: He hath lowered, abased, emptied HIMSELF, so unspeakably, as to have taken our nature into His own, and in it to have suffered for us the worst of pain and shame, love taking on itself what sin deserved.

This is His glory, this ever will be His glory, in the highest,: the Angels will never cease praising HIM for it; and after His resurrection began another set of voices, there in Heaven, to praise HIM also. His glorified Saints redeemed by His blood, as they one by one are admitted there, take up also one by one their part in the Divine anthem, “THOU wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood." Still the voices swell higher and higher, as the number of the Saints increases: but the choir will not be quite full, until the great day when the dead in CHRIST, together with those which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together, and added to it. Thus is the birth of CHRIST, more and more every year, glory to God in the highest."

It is also peace on earth, peace between GoD and man, the blessed way to His favour, which is better than life. Many of us may know something of the heartfelt, extreme, unutterable delight, when parents, or brethren, or dear friends whom we depend upon, are reconciled to us after any kind of falling out: how the whole soul, before unquiet and restless, is restored to

sweet assurance of safety and repose: how people say to themselves over and over, Come what will now, we have that which we most craved for: we have the heart which we thought we had lost we know now that we are still dear to him, whom we feared we had affronted for ever. Like to this, only unspeakably more than this, is the sense of being reconciled to Gon, the knowledge that how grievously soever we have fallen from HIM, HE still cares for us as our FATHER; and this blessing is solemnly renewed to us as often as Christmas comes round, in the very words of the Angel: "On Earth Peace."

As if it were said, "You children of men had rebelled against your GOD: He had turned to be your enemy, and had fought against you; but from this day forward HE is your friend again. How should it be otherwise, since His dear Son is become one of you? GOD is now made man: how, then, can He choose but love man? how can you doubt henceforth that you may be at peace with HIM, since HE has taken your nature to be part of HIMSELF, to sanctify it here by doing and suffering all His adorable will, and then to carry it up with HIM to the highest Heaven, and set it at His FATHER's right hand, far above all of us Angels, and every name that is named of created things?"

Again, they sang, On Earth Peace :" on earth, where ever since the fall has been hardly any thing but confusion and misery. Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Jews and Gentiles, divided one against another: their languages confounded, that there might be no mutual understanding, and themselves bred up, even from their childhood, to hate and despise each his fellow. But now in that miserable and divided world shall be peace: Jew and Gentile, Greek and Barbarian, shall be one: rich and poor, master and slave, shall forget their jealousies:

Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim :" "the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;""nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. And no wonder: for in this HOLY CHILD, Who is born unto them this day, they all, how far apart soever, are truly made one. Once make them Members of HIM, that is, Christians, and they are members also of all other Christians: one bread and one body: no more fit to vex and hurt one another, than the eye to

do harm to the hand, or the hand to the foot. Thus is the Incarnation of the SoN made "peace on earth."

And it is also "good will towards men;" not peace only, but grace; not forgiveness only, but every blessing, flows from it. There is nothing too good or too great to be expected, hoped, and prayed for, by those whom the Eternal Son owns for Brethren, and the Eternal FATHER for Children, and into whom the Eternal SPIRIT has entered, to join them as true Members to the SON.

But as it is best to speak of GOD in His own words, so also of this our blessedness, which is wholly with and in GoD. Thus, then, an Apostle speaks of it: "There are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the Divine Nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world through lust." Partakers of the Divine Nature! What angel could say more than that?

Too plain, alas! it is, that the outward face of God's Kingdom is very far from seeming to answer to these wonderful and gracious words. Look which way we will, every year almost we seem to behold the holy Name more and more dishonoured, instead of "glory to God in the highest ;" and instead of "peace on earth, good will towards men," Christians more wilful in resolving to have each his own way, and to be divided one against another.

But what then? it is equally plain that the failure is all on our own part. "He hath done all things well:" He hath entirely fulfilled the work which His FATHER gave HIM to do: His FATHER hath glorified HIM with the promised glory, and HE hath sent down the promised COMFORTER: His sound is gone out into all lands, and His Church, bearing His Word, unto the ends of the world: He hath done all, and His Saints, faithful and obedient Christians, know that He hath done it: they know it more and more by a blessed experience: and we, too, will hope in His Name, for they, His Saints, like it well: they are not shaken or staggered by the seeming power of evil in the world, or even in the Church, knowing, as they do, His Power for good in themselves: and what have we to do, but strive to be like them, that we may be strong in their faith, and while all around seems darkening, may yet have the LORD for a light unto us?

Well may we understand how the coming of our LORD should