Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/191

 than those which may reasonably be supposed to belong to the beatified spirits of departed men. Hence the poet has beautifully said—

Surely they are the spirits of just men made perfect. God has nowhere told us that He has created two different races of accountable creatures. All the angels of whom the Scriptures speak appeared as human beings. The wings with which they are sometimes depicted are the inventions of poets and painters: they have no such appendages assigned to them in the Word.

Man, we are told, was created in the image and likeness of God, and he was declared to be very good. That which is an image of God is a recipient of His wisdom; and that which is a likeness of God is a recipient of His love. The goodness of man arose out of his reception of those quallities. He must then have been the highest object of Divine creation. What can be higher than that which is an image and likeness of the Highest? They who possess those excellences during their lifetime in the world are emphatically described as men; and when they pass with this high condition into heaven, they do not lose their characteristics as men; and though, from their new condition and superior dwelling-place they are called angels, yet they are also designated men. Thus they who have been good and wise in the world become angels in heaven. These two different titles arise out of two distinctive conditions of life. The state of an angel is superior to the condition of a man, because man, during his lifetime in the world, is in the process of being regenerated, and is confined to a