Think you the notes of holy song
On Milton's tuneful ear have died?
Think ye that Raphael's angel throng
Has vanished from his side?
-John G. Whittier.
What shall I be when days of grief are ended,
From earthly fetters set forever free;
When from the harps of saints and angels blended
I hear the burst of joyful melody?
-Langbecker.
Tune your harps anew, ye seraphs,
Join to sing the pleasing theme;
All in earth, and all in heaven,
Join to praise Emanuel's name.
-Rev. Jonathan Evans.
The world recedes, it disappears;
Heaven opens on my eyes; my ears
With sounds seraphie ring.
-Pope.
I heard an angel singing
When the day was springing:
"Mercy, Pity and Peace
Are the world's release!"
-William
Blake.
O providence beyond compare!
O glorious vision, wondrous sight!
O miracle, transcending far
Imagination's boldest flight.
Horses and chariots of fire
About the mount keep watch and ward;
The highest seraphim aspire
To form Elisha's body-guard.
-John Brooke Greenwood.
It has been said of William Blake that he "created the
most
perfect, tremendous and dramatic types of angelhood that
have
ever been given to the world, as accrurately shown as
though they
had stood in Blake's little chamber while he drew."
The man
himself, like Fra Angelico, believed that they did. With a
firm
hand he pictured how "the morning stars sang together
and all
the sons of God shouted for joy."
-Isabel McDougal
The Lord, my Maker, forming me of clay,
By His own breath the breath of life conveyed;
O'er all the bright new world He gave me sway,
A little lower than the angels made.
-St. Theophanes.
To weary hearts, to mourning homes,
God's meekest angel gently comes:
No power has he to banish pain,
Or give us back our Lost again;
And yet in tenderest love, our dear
And Heavenly Father sends him here.
-Whittier.
For the great eye that sees us never sleeps;
It has its ministering angels wheresoe'er
Existence is beneath us, and above,
Around us, and within us, He has there His delegates.
-Lord Byron.
This was manna coming from heaven, where angels dwell.
-Strong.
But when we shall have got to heaven, shall we hear the
Word
and eat and drink with Him as the angels do now? Do the
angels
need books and interpreters and readers? Surely not. They
read
in seeing, for the truth itself they see, and are
abundantly satisfied
from that fountain, from which we obtain so few drops.
-Augustine.
The obedience of the angels is absolutely perfect, and that
with perfection of both parts and degrees.
-Bishop Hopkins.
Yet being pregnant still with powerful grace,
And fruitful love that loves to get
Things like himself, and to enlarge his race,
His second brood, though not of power so great
Yet full of beauty, next he did beget
An infinite increase of angels bright
All glistening glorious in their Maker's light.
-Edmund Spenser.
Ye holy angels bright
Who stand before God's throne,
And dwell in glorious light,
Praise ye the Lord each one!
Ye there, so nigh
Are much more meet
Than we, the feet,
For things so high.
-Baxter.
Angels! With regard to their essence or nature, they are
all spirits,--not material beings, not clogged with flesh and blood like us;
but having bodies, if any, not gross and earthly like ours, but of a finer
substance, resembling fire or flame more than any of the lower elements. And is
not something like this intimated by the Psalmist? As spirits, he has endowed
them with understanding, will, affections, and liberty.
-Wesley.
O God, who can doubt that You could create spirits without
a body? Or is there need of a body that one might understand, love, and be
happy? You who are Yourself so pure a spirit--are You not incorporeal and
immaterial? Are not intelligence and love spiritual and immaterial operations
which can be exercised without the need of a body? Who doubts, then, that You
could create intelligencies of this kind? And You Yourself have not left us in
doubt, but have revealed Yourself and the existence and nature of angels to us.
-Bossuet.
These things the seer Isaiah did befall:
In spirit he beheld the Lord of all
On a high throne raised up in splendor bright,
His garment's border filled the choir with light.
Beside Him stood two seraphim, which had
Six wings, wherewith they both alike are clad;
With twain they hid their shining face, with twain
They hid their feet as with a flowing train,
And with the other twain they both did fly.
-Martin Luther.
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