Oh Lord, we adore Thee and bless Thee,
That we in Thy hands of might
Are the chords whereupon Thou makest
The music of Thy delight;
Whereon Thou wilt sound forever
In wondrous and glorious tone,
The Name of Thy Son beloved,
His Name alone.
Angels are a witness rendered to the creative power of God. They excel in strength. We see in them creatures kept by God, so that they have not lost their first estate. Angels desire to fathom the wonderful ways of God with regard to man.
It is from the heart of man, descended to the lowest step in the scale of intelligent beings, resembling, alas! the beasts in his desires, Satan in his pride, a weak slave in his passions; strong, or at least proud, in his spirit and in his pretensions; having the knowledge of good and evil, but in a conscience which condemns him; by reason of sufferings, sighing after something better, but incapable of attaining it; having the want of some other world than this material one, but fearful of getting to it; having the feeling that we ought to be in relationship with God, the only Object worthy of an immortal soul, but at an infinite distance from God in his lusts, and animated by such a desire for independence that he is unwilling to admit God to the only place which becomes Him if He is God, and seeks consequently to prove that there is no God; it is from the heart of man, capable of the highest aspirations, with which his pride feeds itself, and of the most degrading lusts with which however his conscience becomes disgusted; it is from the heart of man that God forms the divine harp on which all the harmony of His praises can resound and will resound for evermore!
By the bringing in of grace and the divine power which unfolds itself in a new life communicated to man, and by the manifestation of the Son of God in human nature, fallen man is brought to judge all evil, according to divine affections formed in him by faith, and to enjoy good according to the perfect revelation of good in God Himself manifested in Christ; while man gives God His place with joy, because He is known as a God of love. Man also takes again the place of dependence-.-the only one which is suitable for a creature; but of a dependence which is exercised in the intelligence of all the perfections of God, on which he depends, and depends with joy, as a child on his father, like Christ Himself who has taken this place in order that we may enter into it.