The Angels Song

The Angels' Song, by Thomas
Guthrie

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Title: The Angels' Song
Author: Thomas Guthrie
Release Date: April 10, 2007 [EBook #21024]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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THE ANGELS' SONG.
ALEXANDER STRAHAN 148 Strand, London 178 Grand Street,
New York

THE ANGELS' SONG
BY THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D.
AUTHOR OF "MAN AND THE GOSPEL," ETC.
[Illustration: Publisher's device]
ALEXANDER STRAHAN, PUBLISHER LONDON AND NEW
YORK 1866

CONTENTS.
PAGE

PART I., 5
I. THAT REDEMPTION YIELDS THE HIGHEST GLORY TO GOD,
14

PART II., 23
II. REDEMPTION GLORIFIES GOD IN THE SIGHT OF HOLY
ANGELS, 30
III. REDEMPTION GLORIFIES GOD THROUGHOUT ALL THE
UNIVERSE, 35
IV. THE REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION ARE WORTHY OF
OUR HIGHEST PRAISE, 40

PART III., 47
V. THEY WERE MEN OF A PEACEFUL CALLING, 55
VI. THEY WERE MEN OF HUMBLE RANK, 60
VII. THEY WERE MEN ENGAGED IN COMMON DUTIES, 65

PART IV., 69
VIII. JESUS RESTORES PEACE BETWEEN GOD AND MAN, 80

PART V., 93
IX. JESUS BRINGS PEACE TO THE SOUL, 102
X. JESUS SHALL BRING PEACE TO THE WORLD, 110

PART VI., 117
XI. THE PERSONS TO WHOM GOOD WILL IS EXPRESSED, 126
XII. THE PERSON WHO EXPRESSES "GOOD WILL," 134


PART I.

The birth of an heir to the throne is usually accompanied by
circumstances befitting so great an event. No place is deemed worthy
of it but a royal palace; and there, at the approach of the expected hour,
high nobles and the great officers of state assemble, while the whole
country, big with hope, waits to welcome a successor to its long line of
kings. Cannons announce the event; seaward, landward, guns flash and
roar from floating batteries and rocky battlements; bonfires blaze on
hill-tops; steeples ring out the news in merry peals; the nation holds
holiday, giving itself up to banqueting and enjoyments, while public
prayers and thanksgivings rise to Him by whom kings reign and princes
decree justice. With such pomp and parade do the heirs of earthly
thrones enter on the stage of life! So came not He who is the King of
kings and Lord of lords. On the eve of His birth the world went on its
usual round. None were moved for His coming; nor was there any
preparation for the event--a chamber, or anything else. No fruit of
unhallowed love, no houseless beggar's child enters life more obscurely
than the Son of God. The very tokens by which the shepherds were
taught to recognise Him were not the majesty but the extreme
meanness of his condition: "This shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find
the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." In fact, the
Lord of heaven was to be recognised by his humiliation, as its heirs are
by their humility. Yet, as we have seen a black and lowering cloud have
its edges touched with living gold by the sun behind it, so all the
darkest scenes of our Lord's life appear more or less irradiated with the
splendours of a strange glory. Take that night on Galilee when a storm
roared over land and lake, enough to wake all but the dead. The boat
with Jesus and His disciples tears through the waves, now whirling on
their foaming crests, now plunging into their yawning hollows; the
winds rave in His ear; the spray falls in cold showers on His naked face;
but He sleeps. I have read of a soldier boy who was found buried in
sleep beneath his gun, amid the cries and carnage of the battle; and the
powers of nature in our Lord seem to be equally exhausted. His
strength is spent with toil; and with wan face and wasted form He lies
stretched out on some rude boards--the picture of one whose candle is
burning away all too fast, and whom excess of zeal is hurrying into
premature old age and an untimely grave. Was the sight such as to
suggest the question, Where is now thy God?--how soon it changed

into a scene of magnificence and omnipotent power! He wakes--as a
mother, whom louder sounds would not stir, to her infant's feeblest wail,
He wakes to the cry of His alarmed disciples; and standing up, with the
lightning flash illumining His calm, divine face, He