so the good are no less active to reduce us to, and assist us in it.

VI. Another instance of the ministry of angels in the kingdom of Christ, is their conducting the separated spirits of his faithful subjects to the mansions of glory. It was an ancient tradition among the Jews, that the souls of the faithful were conducted by angels into paradise, of which the Chaldee Paraphrase makes mention on Cant. ii. 12. and this tradition of theirs is confirmed by our Saviour, Luke xvi. 22. where he tells us, that when Lazarus died, he was carried by angels into Abraham's bosom, i. e. into that place of refreshment where the soul of Abraham, who was the father of the faithful, dwells; and in all probability that fiery chariot and horses, wherein Elias was mounted up to heaven, 2 Kings ii. 11. was nothing but a convoy of angels; and accordingly Tertullian, de Anima, c. 52. styles the angels evocatores animarum, i. e. the messengers of God, that call forth the lingering souls out of their bodies, and shew them the paraturam diversorii, the preparation of those blessed mansions where they are to abide till the resurrection. And this office the good angels do perform to the souls of the faithful, not merely to congratulate their safe arrival into the world of blessedness, though there is no doubt but that they, who do so heartily rejoice in the conversion of sinners, are ready enough to congratulate their glorification; but that which seems to be the great reason of this ministration of theirs, is to guard holy souls, when they leave their bodies, through those lower regions of the air, which are the seat and principality of the apostate angels, who may therefore be very reasonably supposed to be conti

nually lying in wait there, like birds of prey, to seize upon the souls of men, as soon as they are escaped out of the cage of their bodies into the open air, and either to scare and terrify them in their passage to heaven, or to lead them away captive into their dark prisons of endless horror and despair; and therefore, to prevent their affrighting good souls (which is all the hurt they can do them) as they pass along through their territories, they are no sooner parted from their bodies, but they are taken into the custody of some good angel or angels, who guard them safe through the enemies' quarters, and beat off those evil spirits from them that would fain be infesting and assaulting them: and it is not at all improbable, but that by this very thing those evil spirits do distinguish what souls do belong to them from what do not, viz. their being destitute of or attended with this holy guard of angels. When they behold a separated spirit under this heavenly convoy, they fly away from it with infinite rage and envy to see it irrecoverably rescued out of their power to make it miserable; but when they perceive one destitute and abandoned of this angelic guard, they immediately seize it as their own, and so commit it to their chains of darkness. And as the good angels do guard good souls, as they pass through the air, against the power and malice of the prince of the power of the air, so they also conduct and guide them to their mansions of blessedness. For when the departed soul is wafted through the air into those immense tracts of ether, wherein the sun and all the heavenly bodies swim, how would it be possible for it, in such a vast and unknown continent, ever to find its way to the seat of the blessed, without the conduct of

some experienced guide? And who can be better experienced in that celestial road, than those winged messengers of the Almighty King, who in the execution of his high behests are always travelling to and fro between heaven and earth? And therefore our Saviour hath committed the separated spirits of his faithful subjects to these most skilful and faithful guides, who, in pursuance of his commission, are some or other of them still attending upon every good man's decease, to receive his soul into their custody, as soon as ever it is expired, and to guard it against evil spirits, as it passes through the air, and thence to conduct it through all those spacious fields of ether, which extend themselves far and wide beyond all the visible lights of heaven, to those happy abodes which the divine goodness hath prepared for glorified spirits.

VII. And lastly, another instance of the ministry of angels to our Saviour in his kingdom, is their attending and assisting him in the great solemnity of the day of judgment: for thus in all his most solemn and conspicuous works of providence our Saviour hath still been pleased to make use of the ministry of his holy angels: so when he came to ratify his covenant with Jacob, the mysterious preface of that great solemnity was a ladder reaching from heaven to earth, and the angels ascending and descending upon it; which was doubtless intended for an emblem of that everlasting covenant by which man was to ascend to God, and God to descend to man: so also when the law was delivered by him upon the mount, the angels descended with him, and pitched their tents about it in circles of flaming fire, to signify to the people those flames of venge

ance that would certainly pursue and seize them, if they were not obedient to those words that were thence delivered to them: so also when he was born into the world, the holy angels came down to sing his Christmas carol, and at once to proclaim and celebrate his nativity; and it is the opinion of some learned men, that that multitude of the heavenly host, which St. Luke speaks of, and who sang that anthem of Glory be to God on high at our Saviour's nativity, Luke ii. 13. contained the whole nation of angels, because in Heb. i. 6. it is said, that when God brought in the first begotten into the world, he said, Let all the angels worship him; that is, as they understand it, when our Saviour was born, God gave order to all the angels of heaven to come down and do homage to him, who was ere long to be their sovereign Lord under the most high Father. Thus also a little before Jerusalem was destroyed, Josephus tells us, that the heavens were spread with troops of armed men, who without doubt were the blessed angels, that by their fantastic combats in the air did presignify the ensuing tragedy of that bloody city. It is no wonder then, if the great solemnity of doomsday, of which Jerusalem's desolation was only a mournful type, shall also be adorned and illustrated with the presence and attendance of the holy angels : for this great transaction is to be the winding up of the vast bottom of divine Providence over the whole race of fallen and degenerate mankind, and the close and conclusion of the mediatorial kingdom of our Lord and Saviour; and therefore will without doubt be performed with the greatest grandeur and magnificence. This is to be the great day of our Saviour's triumph, wherein his friends shall be crowned, and

his enemies made his footstool: and such a solemnity may well deserve the attendance and ministry of all the heavenly angels, who accordingly shall then descend with our Saviour from the highest heavens in bright ethereal bodies, such as shall render them gloriously conspicuous to all the lower world, and so fit to adorn the triumphs of that glorious day: for so the scripture assures us, not only that he shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, 1 Thess. iv. 16. but also that he shall come in his glory, and all his holy angels with him, Matth. xxv. 31. and that he shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, and that he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of his holy angels, Luke ix. 26. and in a word, that he shall come in the glory of his Father with the holy angels, Mark viii. 38. But what their ministry is to be in that great day, I shall hereafter have occasion to shew, when I come to discourse of that solemn transaction.

And now having explained the ministry of the good angels under Christ, I proceed to treat of the ministry of the evil angels to him, which principally consists in these four particulars :

First, In trying and exercising the virtues of his subjects.

Secondly, In chastening and correcting their faults and miscarriages.

Thirdly, In searing and hardening his incorrigible rebels.

Fourthly, In executing his vengeance on them in another world.

I. The ministry of evil angels to Christ consists