BUT now that we may lift up our eyes (as it were) from the
footstool and the throne of God, and leaving these natural,
consider a little the state of heavenly and divine creatures ; touching
angels, which are spirits immaterial and intellectual, the
glorious inhabitants of those sacred palaces, where nothing but
light and blessed immortality, no shadow of matter for tears, dis-
contentments, griefs, but all joy, tranquility, and peace, even forever
and ever doth dwell ; as in number and order they are huge,
mighty, and royal armies, so likewise in perfection of obedience
unto that law, which the Highest, whom they adore, love, imitate,
hath imposed upon them, such observance is there of our Savior
Himself being set down as the perfect idea of that which we are to
pray or wish for more than only that here it might be with us, as
with them it is in heaven. God, which moveth more natural agents
as an efficient only, doth otherwise move intellectual creatures,
and especially His holy angels. —Hooker.
Angels ever bright and fair,
Take, oh ! take me to your care ;
Speed to your own courts my flight
Clad in robes of virgin white.
Angels ever bright and fair,
Take, oh! take me to your care. —Pope.
(Music by Handel.)
Go with me like good angels to my end ;
Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice,
And lift my soul to heaven !
—Shakespeare.
His inexpressive eye
Peered round him vacantly,
As if in what'er he did he would be chidden;
He seemed a mere growth of earth ;
Yet even he had mirth,
As the great angels have, untold and hidden.
Thus did he live his life, A kind of passive strife.
Upon the God within hi«f heart relying;
Men left him all alone,
Because he was unknown,
But be beard the angels sing when he was dving.
-F. W. Faber.
