multiply her seed exceedingly, so may we be allowed to comfort those who turn back from their errours with true contrition of heart, by telling them how a godly sorrow works repentance unto salvation. Or it may likewise happen, as the angel, who met Balaam when he was setting out on his unrighteous course, appeared to him with a drawn sword in his hand, so, when we are trying to check those who are more hardened in sin, or whose hearts are more entangled in the meshes of the world, it may become our duty to warn them of the terrours of the Lord, to hold up the sword of judgement before their eyes. It may become the duty of parents to punish their children, as well as to reprove them. It may be the duty of others also, according to their station, to become the ministers of punishment. But then above all is it needful that they, who have this hard duty imposed on them, should make it plain that what they do is not done from any personal anger, but as a duty, and as a painful duty,—that they do it not on their own account, but as the angels and ministers of God, of a God who retains not His anger for ever, but who delights in mercy.

The other appearance of the angel to Hagar may likewise afford us an example, and one which it is much easier and pleasanter to follow. This time Hagar had been sent away by Abraham, her master: therefore this time the angel did not bid her return. But, as she had obeyed God's voice before, He did not forsake her or suffer her to perish in the wilderness. The bottle of water which Abraham had given to her was all spent ; and she had cast her child under a bush, and had gone some way off, that she might not see him die. And the angel of God called to her out of heaven, and said, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear

And God Now this,

not: for God hath heard the voice of the lad: arise; lift up the lad: for God will make him a great nation. opened her eyes; and she saw a well of water. you must all feel, is a mission, on which every Christian is specially sent. Every Christian is sent as one of God's angels, to feed the hungry, and to comfort the mourner. He is to feed the hungry, as, when Elijah was weary and faint in the wilderness, the angel came to him and fed him : and if we do this as God's angels, we shall do it with the same purpose, that they whom we feed may have strength to go on their journey to the mount of God. Words of comfort too, like those of the angel to Hagar, words of comfort spoken to those who are sinking under their sorrows, and giving themselves up to despair,-words of comfort reminding them of God's promises, how He cares for all His servants, reminding them of all that He has done for them, how He has been their Guardian from their mother's womb,--such words will often lift up the heart, and make the mourner look around, and find that there is still hope. His eyes will be opened; and he will see a fountain close by his side, where a moment before he deemed himself utterly forsaken, where he deemed that a barren, parcht wilderness was encompassing him, from which there was no escape. Moreover, as the angel told Hagar that God would make her son a great nation, so are we, if we go forth as His angels, fully empowered to declare, how tribulation is the way whereby God is pleased to work patience in his servants, and how their patience will enable them to gain a livelier and livelier experience of His ever-present aid, and how this experience will afford them a sure rock for hope to build on, and how such hope will never allow them to be ashamed; for that their

afflictions, if they suffer them to bring forth the right fruit of humble, resigned faith, will be the means of leading them to a crown of everlasting glory.

From these examples taken from the story of Hagar, you may see how what you read in the Bible about the holy angels may be turned to profit for the guidance of your own lives, how the messages on which they are sent by God, are of the selfsame kind as those on which every Christian has been sent by Jesus Christ. I would now gladly go on to speak to you of some other things, in which it would well become us to follow the pattern of the angels, as set before us in the Scriptures. But this would carry me too far. So I must conclude for the present with exhorting you to bless God, that He has called us with a holy calling to a fellowship with the angels, and has shewn forth His exceeding mercy and love in making us their partners and companions, in raising us again to a dignity where we are little lower than they are, by sending us forth as His messengers of mercy and love to all mankind.

SERMON XXV.

THE CHARIOTS OF GOD.

PSALM LXVII. 17.

The chariots of God are thousands of angels.

I SPOKE to you last Sunday about the holy angels, of whom we often read in the Bible, and who, we are told, dwell in the immediate presence of God. We were led by our text to consider what the Scripture says concerning the nature of the holy angels, how they excell or surpass all other created beings in strength, or power, or might, and how the main source of this surpassing strength or power lies in this, that they do the commandments of God, hearkening to the voice of His word. We then went on to look at some of the examples which the Bible sets before us, of the manner in which the angels do God's commandments, of the works on which they are employed by Him. This we did in the hope of learning from their examples what we ourselves ought to do, how we ought to live and act, in order that we too may do God's commandments here on earth in the same manner as they are done by the angels in heaven.

For, as God is one, so His Will is ever one Will, one in its principle and purpose, although infinite in its fulness and variety. Everything too that He has made, so far as it does His Will, shews forth what that Will is. All things that God has made, even things without life, declare the Will of God. There is nothing in the world, however

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small and lowly, from which we may not learn some lesson, which does not set forth some truth, which does not utter some parable, shewing forth the Will of God. This is the way in which we should look at the things around us. This is the way to put life into them, or rather to discern the true life that is in them, to which life at other times we are blind, deeming of them as though they were dead, and merely designed to minister to the wants of our carnal, not to those of our spiritual life. This is the way to read the story, which the whole universe tells us, in such manifold ways, if we can but spell them out, of the wisdom and goodness of its Maker. As in all the events which take place in the world, the eye of Faith beholds so many revelations of the Will of God, so in everything that exists should we in like manner endeavour to discern the manifestation of a divine purpose.

Moreover, among God's works, the greatest are more especially rich in lessons. There is no end to the lessons, moral and spiritual, which, when our eyes are opened to perceive them, we may learn from the sun: there is no end to the parables that he preaches to us, if we have only ears to hear them. But if even inanimate things, things without a soul, without a will or reason, teach us lessons whereby we may learn to guide our hearts and lives, inasmuch as they do the Will of God steadily and unchangingly, and inasmuch as God, who is One, and has one Will, shews forth that Will in all His works, much more may we expect to learn from those things that have a soul, that have reason and a will, if so be that they also do the Will of God. Hence are the lives of holy men, the lives of God's saints, so full of wholesome instruction. In them we see, not merely in a type and