and the wonders of His moral government, extending over all His creatures, and over all worlds, and throughout all ages, afford inexhaustible subjects wherewith to exercise the intellect of man?  Is not every truth, too, with which we are already acquainted linked to another and a higher truth?  And if so, when shall we reach the end of that awful chain which is in the hand of God?  But though for ever we shall thus dive deeper and deeper into the divine mind, never, never can we sound its unfathomable depths.  Though we shall ascend for ever from one intellectual height to another in the eternal range of thought, we shall approach, yet never reach, that unseen throne on which is seated the I Am, the Comprehender of all truth, the Solver of all mysteries, but who Himself, though known, because revealed to us in His eternal Son and loved as our Father, must ever, as the absolute One, be the mystery incomprehensible!

From the few glimpses which we obtain in Scripture of angelic life, we may infer that the understanding of the works and ways of God forms no small part of its joy.  We read of the sons of God crowding round the earth, and we hear those morning stars singing for joy, as they behold the commencement of this new theatre of wonders added to those with which they were already acquainted.  I doubt not that these high intelligences watched with intensest interest the progress of the world’s formation, and beheld order and beauty growing out of chaotic darkness and confusion, and during the incalculable ages of the past, before man himself appeared upon the scene, gazed with wonder on the successive creations of animal and vegetable life, whose remains we now see buried in their rocky sepulchres.  We know, too, the deeper interest which the angelic host have taken in this world since it became the abode of man.  They are acquainted with all its inhabitants, and have seen the mystery of God’s providence here unfolding itself from age to age.  A great multitude of them hovered over the hills of Bethlehem at that great era when “unto us a Child was born, and unto us a Saviour was given, who was Christ the Lord;” and in sympathy with God and man they ascribed “glory to God in the highest,” because of the “peace” which was proclaimed to earth, and of the “good-will” which was expressed towards man.  We know also how they have taken an active share under Jesus the King, in advancing the affairs of His kingdom, both by punishing the wicked, and ministering to the heirs of salvation.  And to put it beyond a doubt that scope is given even here for the exercise of the intellect of the angels, we are distinctly informed that all the marvellous history now proceeding in this world had a direct reference in its original design to their progressive education:  “For God created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent that now unto principalities and powers might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.”  There are indeed things even here “which angels desire to look into!”