"Which Things Angels Desire to Look Into." I. Peter. I. 12
Notes of a sermon preached by the Rev. C. E. Darwent in Union Church, Tientsin, Sunday evening, April 10.
Bishop Hall of Norwich.says,|"'look into it." And he does with that he is a wise man, "who can interest. There is something that see the correspondences of things." even angels feel is almost beyond God has things, so!them. It makes the thought of that one thing illuminates an-! heaven more bearable to know, that other; one thing "'is set over against, there is room for humility even the other." The way to under-there. If we ever get there, which stand divine things is to see if you will be the supreme wonder for any can find their analogy to human! of us, if we know ourselves at all, things. There are correspondences we shall be more at home, if there between the difficulties men have, are things we have known on earth, to contend with and those, that! yet which are so transcendently God has to contend with. Since great that even in heaven we shall all things come from God that was be humble in the presence of them, bound to be the.case. So I think, and feel we still, like the angels, that I have found a feature in the have only to "desire to look into life of to-day, which will illuminate them." hat is Peter's idea of the this beautiful thought of Peter.! thing he is writing about to some But before we come to it, it will scattered Christians. be as well to say something about} And what is it? It is "the things the angels. It is as well to be clear announced to you through them as to whether we are doing with that preached the Gospel -unto you the thoughts and works of real be-by the Holy Ghost sent forth from ings. I believe that there are heaven." Yes; God's great sacrifisuch beings.as angels. The late cing love to us in giving His dear Cardinel Newman's argument for Son to save us; that great "stoop them has to my mind never been con-of the divine nature" by which the futed. He says that there are whole Son of God suffered and died for orders of creatures below us, of! our sins "according to the Scrip-whose real nature we know little or tures." It is what we call the nothing at all; there are thousands; Gospel, the infinite grace of God to of species of them, in the air, on! sinners, such as we are, in Jesus the earth, and in the sea; they run!
Christ, dying, rising, glorified. and fly, and swim; they are deck Peter says that there are so many in gorgeous colours as well as in wonders in it, so much wisdom, so plain drab: we use them, eat some many apparently contradictory of them; decorate hats with others problems and difficulties reconciled, of them, shoot them for fun. But that salvation is a marvellous of their real nature we know no-! achievement even for the Almighty thing. What does your dog think himself, so the even "angels desire of you? What is the unseen soul still-further to look into it." of all these myriads of creatures?
That is a thing, that ought to What is their destiny? Yet here furnish thought for a good many they are in myriads. Just so, says people to-day, is it not? If we the cardinal, as there are all these could bring our sermons down to orders of beings below us, why ten minutes, still better to five should there not be orders and minutes some people might come ranges of beings above us, as much and hear about this thing called the above us, as we are above the Gospel, just as a condescension to animals? Why should there not be small minds, who believe in it. beings called angels, who, as, Some reckon to believe in it, but Bishop Hall says, "attend the all-do not see much interest in it. But glorious throne of their Creator, Peter says the angels see that the singing perpetual Hallelujahs to difficulties in the way of saving Him in the highest heaven," and mankind were so immense that "who know things in their inward even God surpassed himself in and immediate causes?" effecting salvation. The grace of Laitarions Tuey ApMit, Ged in Christ has kept them in rapt study, from the crucifixion till Now, taking for granted, that now. there are such beings as angel: here is something of an astonish May's Iyrextecr at a Srop. his plans, as the angels do salvation. That is the problem of-"Reparations" by Germany for the damage done by the war that she created. It shows that when you have so many factors in a problem, you ought almost to be worshipped if you can solve it. I want to show that when you have the clash of right and wrong, of good and evil on a world-wide scale, when you have the clashing of millions stubborn wills, and nationalities, you are beaten. Man's intellect is at a dead stop. Take this case of reparations. It looks easy; demand so much from Germany and make them pay it. But there you are. The Peking and Tientsin Times," the "North China Daily News" of Shanghai, and the home papers all have articles on the puzzle of reparations. It seemed easy to cry, that the Germans must pay back ton for ton of the ships they sank. How simple! Is it? She has repaid Britain 350 or more ships, and America a lot of ships, and they are rotting in harbours and eating their bows off in charges. However you look at the problem you can see no way out. If you keep the Germans poor, they can't pay; if they get rich and strong, as the French fear, they won't pay. What are you to do? Economists tell us that the Germans must pay, either in cash, that is, gold, or in labour, or in goods, that is in exports. But there isn't enough gold in all the world: for them to repay in that; and if it were suggested, that the German government should send 100,000 labourers, to work nothing in Allied ' countries, there would be a howl from the Labour party. And to charge an export duty on German goods, it has been pointed out, is to make the trading subjects of the victorious Allied nations really pay the German indemnity, which looks a bit {absurd, does it not? All this apart from the moral and spiritual problems involved, the hatreds being sown, to produce, like dragon's teeth, future wars; the national jealousies aroused into new life by ithe creation Of small jarring nationalities. So we may come to the thought of Peter in my text, and assert, that if there were any man, who really could solve the difficulty, and square this frightful reparation problem, kings, pres-idants, princes, chancellors, bank managers, financial experts, would crowd up to "look into" his scheme. Newspapers would send their expertest reporters to get it ing statement. Peter says that: there are some things that even the angels do not understand. With all their superhuman intelligence, there is something that beats them. They know something about it, but there are vast ranges of it that! they do not know; "which thing: angels desire to look into." It i:
Now, can we not get the angels', point of view? I think we can. And this is where the '"correspondences" of good Bishop Hall come in. In this way. There is a problem before the world at the present time, so knotty, so unheard of in its difficulties, so complicated: With physical, moral, economic, out of him. At present the "§mancial experts" are shown to be {pretenders, if not frauds. They "have no more idea than you and I how to make Germany pay and settle poor Europe. The problems, racial, financial economic, political, geographical, spiritual are 50 complicated.
Ig there were "a a happy every-day phrase. We! geographical and spiritual factors, Gospel," that is, a solution, all the read of a learned scientific man, that if any man were able to solve! governments of the world would who has had some natural history it we should have all our leading smother the author in gold and poser set before him, promising to statesmen crowding round to study diamond orders, and even republics
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.