Wesley Corpus

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 num ber 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, se condly, 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 pro motes 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