He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. Psalm xci. 11. One would think it scarcely possible that a man, even through the wantonness of wealth, power, or glory, should forget the very condition of his nature that we are weak, helpless, miserable creatures, totally unequal to those many and great dangers that continually surround us, and threaten not only our souls (for these, men seem little to regard) with indelible guilt, but our darling bodies too with a total dissolution. The meanest object of our scorn, a beast, an insect, nay even things that have no life, are sufficient either to take away ours, or render it a curse rather than a blessing. Pangs yet sharper than these can inflict, we may often feel from the perverse injustice or malice of our brethren ; encouraged therein by these wicked spirits, our fiercest enemies, who dailyrange in quest of prey, and when they are not permitted to effect it themselves, rejoice in seeing us devour one another. "But where then," will the infidel say, "is the boasted goodness of the Creator, if he delivers over his impotent helpless creatures to their numerous, powerful, and cruel enemies ?" God forbid that he should deliver us to them ! It is true that, to humble our natural pride and self-sufficiency, he suffers them to surround us on every side : it is also true " that we are unable of ourselves to help ourselves," yet hath he not given us over "a prey unto their teeth;" on the contrary, he hath established a law, and ordained it shall never be broken, that, unless by our own positive voluntary act, they shall have no advantage over us ; for all who do not wilfully, obstinately, refuse to accept it, he hath appointed an inviolable refuge, beautifully described at large in that psalm, a portion of which you have heard repeated, " They may dwell in the secret place of the Most High ; they may abide under the shadow of the Almighty." That while the afflictions which befall

the rest of mankind increase ever more and more, while a thousand fall into various troubles at their side, and " ten thousand at their right hand," yet no evil shall approach them, unless for good, " no plague come nigh their dwelling." We cannot doubt, if we consider what peculiar care our heavenly Father hath taken for their protection, that " He hath given his angels charge over them, to keep them in all their ways." A stronger proof of the truth of this general proposition we cannot have, than the authority of Him who proposes it : a clearer view of the sense of it we may obtain by making a particular inquiry, First, when the angels of God attend their charge; at what seasons they are peculiarly employed in keeping good men in their ways ? Secondly, how they attend upon it ; what methods they take (as we may naturally suppose) thus to keep them ? Thirdly, why this charge is assigned them ; for what reasons we may presume that the omnipotent and omnipresent God does not exert his own immediate power, but employs these his servants to do his pleasure? To these inquiries, that they may not appear matter of mere speculation, an inference or two naturally resulting from them may not unfitly be subjoined. First, as to the seasons or times when the holy angels attend this their charge : Of this we may in general be assured, that they are always ready to assist us when we need their assistance ; always present when their presence may be of benefit ; in every circumstance of life wherein is danger of any sort, or would be if they were absent. The commission which they bear plainly extends thus far. They are to keep us in all our ways, and we know when those ministering spirits are employed here by God his will is done on earth, as it is in heaven. In particular, when our bodies are in danger of pain or sickness, or our souls with violent passion or sin, then are they especially watchful over us, to ward off the approaching evil ; and those no doubt approach often when we are sensible of no impending evil, which is frequently nearest when we apprehend it farthest off. Destruction does not always waste

at noon-day, more often it walks in darkness ; and our being delivered from it then is wholly attributable to their timely interposition, though neither the attack nor the repulse falls under the notice of our imperfect senses. Other seasons there are at which we are sensible of our danger, but not of the means of our escape ; which we suppose to be either the natural effect of material causes, or what we call chance, or the effect of our own strength and wisdom. But were we left alone, left to these or to ourselves, we should soon find how little resistance we could make against the enemies that daily besiege us, without those on our side who are more skilful to save than these to destroy. And unquestionably they would save us whenever assaulted by any evil, whether visible or invisible, but that this exceeds the commission which they have received from their Heavenly Father and ours. This He did not appoint, could not permit, as his wisdom knows it would not benefit but injure us. He knows of what infinite service afflictions are to creatures in our station, and therefore, that to be delivered from them all while on earth

would be the greatest evil that could befall us. Such an undistinguishing tenderness to the body would be an irreparable injury to the soul : if the one were continually comforted here, both might hereafter he tormented. Neither would it be kindness thus to exempt us from spiritual, any more than from temporal danger to deliver the soul from all temptation, any more than the body from all pain. Were the angels of God enjoined to do this, as we should be without trial so should we be without choice, and we are commanded " to choose whom we will serve." " Behold I have set before thee life and death, therefore choose life." Had we been without the power of choice, we must have been content with some lower happiness than that we now may hope to be partakers of, and which is the natural necessary result of virtue of obedience to the divine law, which divine grace will enable every soul to keep who sincerely implores this aid. But although for these reasons (and who knows how many others the divine wisdom may have in view ?) the blessed angels may not always prevent sin

or affliction from assaulting the soul or body, yet when either approach, they may prevent us from being totally overcome ; they may preserve us from sinking under temporal misfortunes, from being enslaved by spiritual adversaries : they may likewise recover us out of that trouble which they might not hinder us from falling into, nay, and often assist us to rise by our fall ; by having been defeated to obtain a nobler conquest. In what manner it is that the angels of God do this, by what particular methods they may be supposed to keep us, I proceed under my second head to inquire. Little of certainty, you are sensible, can be expected on a subject of this nature, unless where there is the express warrant of His revelation, who made all things, and therefore knows them all. Revelation expressly assures us, that these his servants excel in strength ; which we also may infer from the works ascribed to them, in many places of Holy Writ. That one of them shut the lion's mouth, which would otherwise have devoured Daniel : that at the word of another, the chains fell off St. Peter's hands, and the prison gates

unfolded, seems an inconsiderable exertion of that strength, when we are informed what is in another place related of the tasks assigned them by their Sovereign Lord ; " I saw," saith St. John, " four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that they should not blow." Of four others who seem to have been of that number which probably lost much of their strength with their purity, the same Apostle records that they were loosed from their bonds in the river Euphrates, u to slay the third part of men." What then cannot these effect, whose strength is still entire when they are permitted to exert it; especially since, secondly, they excel equally in wisdom, as we have the highest reason to believe. They, like man, were undoubtedly created upright, though with superior powers, as they are beings of a superior order; but they fell not like him, and have therefore retained them unimpaired, at least, ever since the world began, if not many ages before : but we may be assured they neither would nor could retain them without continually improving them. At what degree. then, of knowledge and wisdom may we not suppose they are now arrived ? If a creature of so confined, so depraved an understanding as man, can improve it so much in threescore years, what bounds can imagination place to the understanding of an angel, which, with so vast a grasp, and so just and unbiassed an apprehension, hath been travelling onward towards perfection for probably many thousands of ages ? especially considering whose face they continually behold, even His of whose understanding there is no number ; and that to imitate him, as far as the noblest creature can, is their vocation, and pleasure, and glory ! By these perfections, strength, and wisdom, they are well able to preserve us either from the approach (if that be more profitable for us) or in the attack of any evil. By their wisdom they discern whatever either obstructs or promotes our real advantage; by their strength they effectually repel the one and secure a free course to the other : by the first, they choose means conducive to these ends ; by the second, they put them in execution. One particular method of preserving good men, which we

may reasonably suppose these wise beings sometimes choose, and by their strength put in execution, is the altering some material cause that would have a pernicious effect ; the purifying (for instance) tainted air, which would otherwise produce a contagious distemper. And this they may easily do, either by increasing the current of it, so as naturally to cleanse its putridity ; or, by mixing with it some other substance, so to correct its hurtful qualities, and render it salubrious to human bodies. Another method they may be supposed to adopt when their commission is not so general; when they are authorized to preserve some few persons from a common calamity. It then is probable that they do not alter the cause, but the subject on which it is to work ; that they do not lessen the strength of the one, but increase that of the other. Thus too, where they are not allowed to prevent, they may remove, pain or sickness; thus the angel restored Daniel in a moment when neither strength or breath remained in him. These means, by changing either our bodies or the material causes that use to affect

them, they may easily defend us from all bodily evils, so far as is expedient for us. A third method they maybe conceived to employ to defend us from spiritual dangers, by applying themselves immediately to the soul to raise or allay our passions ; and indeed this province seems more natural to them than either of the former. How a spiritual being can act upon matter seems more unaccountable than how it can act on spirit: that one immaterial being by touching another, should increase or lessen its motion, that an angel should retard or quicken the channel wherein the passions of angelic substance flow, no more excites our astonishment than that one piece of matter should have the same effect on its kindred substance ; or that a flood-gate or other material instrument should affect the course of a river : rather, considering how contagious the nature of the passions is, the wonder is on the other side ; not how they can avoid to affect him at all, but how they can avoid affecting them more ; how they can continue so near us, who are so subject to catch them, without spreading the flames which burn in themselves. And a plain instance of their power to allay human passions is afforded us in the case of Daniel, when he beheld that gloriously terrible minister, whose " face was as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, his arms and feet like polished brass, and his voice as the voice of a multitude," (x. 6;) when the tears and sorrows of the Prophet were turned so strong upon him, that he was in a deep sleep, void of sense and motion. Yet this fear, these turbulent passions, the angel allayed in a moment ; when they were hurrying on with the utmost impetuosity, he checked them in their course; so that immediately after we find Daniel desiring the continuance of that converse which before he was utterly unable to sustain. The same effect was doubtless wrought on all those to whom these superior beings, on their first appearance, used this salutation, " Fear not" - which would have been a mere insult and cruel mockery upon human weakness, had they not with that advice given the power to follow it. Nearly allied to this method of influencing

the passions is the last I intend to mention, by which the angels (it is probable) preserve good men; especially in or from spiritual dangers. And this is by applying themselves to their reason, by instilling good thoughts into their hearts; either such as are good in their own nature and tend to God's improvement in virtue; or such as are contrary to the suggestions of flesh and blood by which we are tempted to vice. It is not unlikely that we are indebted to them, not only for most of those inflections which suddenly dart into our minds we know not how, having no connexion with any thing that went before them; but for many of these also which seem entirely our own and naturally consequent from the preceding. It were easy to demonstrate that to some of these heads all those actions are reducible which we can conceive our guardian angels to perform in execution of this their charge. But we come to our third inquiry, why this charge was assigned them ; for what reasons we may suppose He who is omnipresent and omnipotent does not use his own immediate power, but of these his servants to execute his pleasure. I am not ignorant that this is usually thought a knowledge too wonderful for us that man cannot attain a view of these ways of God, these hidden treasures of his providence. It cannot, however, be unlawful to extend our searches far as our limited faculties will permit, provided we approach with due reverence and humility, and offer nothing contrary to the analogy of our faith. Consistently with these, we may presume that, one reason wherefore our gracious Creator assigns this charge to his holy angels is, because they delight in it ; because they have additional happiness therein, besides what results from being employed in the service of God ;- seeing the more benevolent any being is, the more pleasure he enjoys in doing good. And that these are benevolent in the highest degree we cannot but infer, by their holding the highest rank among creatures, inasmuch as God always favours and honours them most who are most like him ; for God is love, and to conduct others in the paths of hap

piness must be particularly pleasing in his sight, and enhance their own happiness. Nor is it a barren useless pleasure which these sons of God reap from their attendance on the children of men, but joined with improvement : in doing good to us, they accumulate good to themselves also ; and this perhaps is a second reason why the most High hath allotted this province to them, that by exercising the goodness they already possess they continually acquire more, and swiftly too. Even we, fettered as we are in this tabernacle of earth, and weighed down by original corruption even we can perceive that the more acts of any virtue we perform, the stronger habit we slowly acquire : much more swiftly, then, must exercise improve those blessed spirits who have neither of these our impediments: much more sensibly, by the acts of benevolence which they perform, must they advance in this godlike virtue. And thirdly, as by this exercise of it they are more benevolent and happy, so thereby they treasure up to themselves an augmenting fund of future happiness. The greater good will they bear to men, the greater must be their joy when these men, in the fulness of time, are received into the glory appointed for them ; the more exquisitely will they sympathize with them when all their sorrows are done away, when the days of sickness and pain and sin are passed for ever, and swallowed up in blissful immortality, and they are admitted with these glorious spirits to drink those rivers of pleasure which flow from the presence of God for evermore ! In those days we shall evidently perceive a fourth reason why these ministering spirits are now so constantly sent forth to guard those who are heirs of salvation ; namely, that when entered into their inheritance they might be gratefully sensible of their benefits ; that when they experience the inestimable value of them, this gratitude might ripen into love ; that this love might be a means of increasing their happiness by seeing those whom they loved, and seeing them so happy, and by reflecting that themselves, unworthy as they were, while in these earthly tabernacles of clay, had in some degree contributed to its augmentation.

SERMON II. From that little we have been able to conjecture respecting this one dispensation of Providence as the time when, the manner how, and the reasons why, the blessed angels have charge to keep good men may we not naturally infer that we should adore his wisdom and goodness, who hath instituted the services of men and angels in so wonderful an order ! How great is that goodness which hath not left without defence his weak and helpless creatures! How great is that wisdom which hath so well proportioned the powers of our defenders to their office ! How infinitely great are these divine attributes which have made man serviceable to them, and that such impotent, miserable creatures should be the means of conveying a benefit to beings only not almighty. Hence we may, secondly, infer the weakness of that objection which men who pretended to believe a God have often made against his Providence that it is beneath the Supreme Being, the Mighty Creator, to concern himself in our little concerns. Now supposing this (though it be palpably absurd to believe it of Him who is omnipresent as well as omnipotent), how would it prove that chance governed the world ? since there is a particular order of beings (which the Scriptures attest there is), that attend upon this very thing ; who are ready on all occasions to assist such as God and will accept of their assistance, by the powers wherewith he hath endued them (are capable (were that the will of their heavenly Master) to preserve both the natural and moral world in order, without the interposition of his mighty power. We hence, in the third place, to condemn the folly and error of those who intrude into the Christian church their own doctrines and commandments of men namely, the worshipping of angels; the paying to the creature the incommunicable honour of the Creator. "Let no man beguile us of our reward " in this " shew of wisdom in will worship and humility." (Colossians, ii. 23.) They keep us in all our ways it is true, but we know who hath given them this gracious charge. The Lord our God is but one, therefore their obeying his pleasure; and if their obeying this, if their obeying his order were a sufficient reason for us to worship them,

the sun, the moon, fire and hail, storms and tempest, which alike fulfil his word, alike may claim our adoration. It is God himself, as we may fourthly collect from what has been said, to whom our prayers and praises are due, to whom we ought to return our sincerest acknowledgments, whom we should implore with the deepest humility, that we may reap the fruits of his wisdom and goodness, from the constant ministry of his servants. To Him our petitions should be addressed, according to the wise direction our church has given us, " that as His holy angels do him service in heaven, so they may succour and defend us upon earth;" that their general commission to inspect human affairs may affect us in particular, and secure to us such a degree of present ease as best accords with our future happiness. Happy is the man even now, as he can be upon earth, who is in such a case! who enjoys such a protection ! happy in having the greatest possible security that he never shall be unhappy unprotected unblessed! that even the greatest temporal evil cannot befall