Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/192

 material body, in which his spiritual mind can only think of spiritual things after a natural manner; but when the mind is liberated from its mortal covering, it then begins to think spiritually of spiritual things: and when this is the case, man becomes an angel, and understands things which were not comprehended by him in his previous condition as a man. Thus an angel is a holy man raised into a purer and higher stage of being.

Nor can it be shown from the Scriptures that there is, or ever was, an angel in heaven who had not first been a human inhabitant of the natural world. This world was created for man to dwell on, and there to receive that education which is necessary to form the angelic disposition. Holy discipline of the mind and heart is the means by which, according to the Scriptures, the Lord forms angelic principles and character in man. And what evidence is there that He provides inhabitants for His kingdom in any other manner? Whatsoever He does is done by Him in the best and wisest way; no other would consort with the perfection of His purposes, and, therefore the angels of His kingdom must have been gathered from the good and faithful of the human race. How else can the fact be accounted for, that the angels, who are stated in the Word to have appeared to favoured individuals, are spoken of as men? The three angels who appeared to Abraham in the plains of Mamre are afterwards called three men; so likewise are those who were seen by Lot. Jacob is described to have wrestled with an angel, who is also called a man. The angel seen by Joshua is stated to have been a man; and so is he who appeared to Manoah and his wife. The angel Gabriel is expressly called the man Gabriel. The two angels who were seen at the sepulchre after the resurrection of the Lord are said to have been two men;