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Sermon 135: On Guardian Angels

https://wesleyworks.ecdsdev.org/sermons/Sermon135

04:224 An Introductory Comment

1According to John Wesley’s records, this was his sixth sermon manuscript.

Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley’s Early Sermons’, pp. 115-16.

But numbers 3-5 are not known to have survived, which leaves us with this one as third in the present sequence. It was first preached on ‘Thursday, Sept. 29, 1726, in St. Michael’s, Oxford, for the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels’. There are no other records of its subsequent history until it appears in the collection of John’s sermons in Charles Wesley’s hand, with Charles’s own note that he had transcribed it. John chose not to publish it, but he returned to the subject later (1783) with a pair of sermons, ‘Of Good Angels’ and ‘Of Evil Angels’ (see Nos. 71-72). For the 1816 edition of her husband’s sermons, Mrs. Sarah Wesley chose to publish a heavily edited version of the original.

Cf. Sermons (1816), pp. 22-42.

None of John Wesley’s subsequent editors has taken any notice of it.

2Even so, it is an interesting reflection of the young Wesley’s mind at so early a stage of his theological development. His first two sermons had based their hopes on the comforts of a grace-filled death. Within a year, Wesley had come to a broader understanding of the benevolent action of ‘guardian angels’ as special agents of God’s abundant providence. He is even able to attempt a description of these divine ‘messengers’ and knows a good deal about their gracious interventions in human affairs. There is, however, nothing original in his ideas here.

Cf. Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, pp. 201-19.

What is noteworthy is his recognition of the problem of human freedom in relation to the angels and their initiatives (as, e.g., their respect for human responsibility). It is also interesting to see Wesley’s conventional anti-papist biases as expressed in his gratuitous condemnation of ‘the folly and impiety of the Romish Church, namely, the worshipping of angels’. Like the two previous manuscripts, this one also ends with a conventional ascription.

3The text presented here is a transcription of Charles’s manuscript of 1736.

04:225 On Guardian Angels

Psalm 91:11

In the 91st Psalm at the eleventh verse it is thus written:

“ He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. ”

1[1.] One would think it scarce possible that a man, even through the wantonness of wealth, power, or glory, should forget the very condition of his nature—that we are weak, miserable, helpless creatures; that we are by no means equal to those many and great dangers that continually surround us, and threat[en] not only our souls (those, men have little care for) with indelible guilt, that is endless misery, but our darling bodies,

A sarcastic use of the sort of language that Wesley usually eschews, save for phrases like ‘darling sins’, ‘bosom sins’, etc.; cf. No. 48, ‘Self-denial’, II.2 and n. For his comments against sentimental language, see No. 123, ‘On Knowing Christ after the Flesh’, §§8 ff.

too, with tedious, painful diseases, and at length with a total dissolution. The meanest object of our scorn—a beast, an insect, nay, even things that themselves have no life—are sufficient either to take away ours, or to make it a curse rather than a blessing. Pangs yet sharper than these can inflict we may often feel from the perverse injustice or malice of our brethren, encouraged therein by those wicked spirits, our fiercest enemies, who, like roaring lions, daily range in quest of prey,

See 1 Pet. 5:8.

and when they are not permitted to do it themselves, rejoice in seeing us devour one another.

2[2.] ‘But where’, then will the unbeliever say, ‘is the boasted goodness of your Creator, if he delivers over his impotent helpless creatures to their numerous, powerful, and cruel enemies?’ God forbid that he should deliver us to them! Mercy is still over all his works!

Cf. BCP, ‘Forms of Prayer to be Used at Sea’, alternate Collect of Thanksgiving; see also Ps. 145:9.

’Tis true, to humble our natural pride and self-sufficiency, he suffers them to ‘hold us in on every side’;

Cf. Luke 19:43.

’tis true, too, ‘that we are unable of ourselves to help ourselves’.

Cf. BCP, Second Sunday in Lent, Collect.

Yet 4:226‘hath he not given us over as a prey unto their teeth’.

Ps. 124:6.

On the contrary he hath established a law, and ordained it shall never be broken,

See Ps. 148:6; note the idea here of a natural moral law which the later Wesley will strenuously reject See No. 12, ‘The Witness of Our Own Spirit’, §5 and n.

that unless by our own positive voluntary act they ‘shall have no advantage over us’.

Cf. 2 Cor. 2:11.

For all who do not wilfully, obstinately refuse to accept it, he hath appointed an inviolable refuge (beautifully described at large in that psalm, part of which you have heard repeated)—‘They may dwell in the secret place of the Most High, may abide under the shadow of the Almighty.’

Cf. Ps. 91:1.

3[3.] That while the afflictions which vex the rest of mankind increase ever more and more, while a thousand fall into various troubles at their side, and ten thousand at their right hand, yet no evil shall befall these, unless for good, ‘no plague come nigh their dwelling’,

See Ps. 91:7, 10.

we cannot doubt, if we consider what peculiar care he hath taken for their protection, that ‘he hath given his angels charge over them, to keep them in all their ways.’

Cf. Ps. 91:11.

4[4.] A stronger proof of the truth of this general proposition we cannot have than the authority of the Proposer. A clearer view of the sense of it we may have by making a particular inquiry,

0First, when the angels of God attend this their charge; at what times they are peculiarly employed in keeping good men in their ways;

0Secondly, how they attend upon it; what methods they take, as we may probably suppose, thus to keep them;

0Thirdly, why this charge is assigned them; for what reasons we may presume him who is omnipresent and omnipotent not to make use of his own immediate power, but of these ‘his servants to do his pleasure’.

Cf. Ps. 103:21 (BCP).

5[5.] To these inquiries, that they may not seem to be matter of mere speculation, an inference or two naturally resulting from them may, not unfitly, be subjoined.

1I. [1.] As to the times when the holy angels attend this their charge, this in general we may be assured of, that they are always ready to assist us when we need their assistance, always present 04:227when their presence may be of service, in every circumstance of life wherein is danger of any sort, or would be if they were absent. The commission they bear plainly reaches thus far: they are ‘to keep us in all our ways’; and we know when these ministers are employed here by God his will is done in earth as it is in heaven.

See Matt. 6:10.

[2.] In particular, when our body is threatened with pain or sickness, or our souls with violent passion or sin, then are they especially watchful over us, to ward off the approaching evil. And these no doubt approach often when we are sensible of no danger; which is often nearest when we apprehend it farthest off. Destruction does not always ‘waste at noon-day’; it more frequently ‘walketh in darkness’.

Cf. Ps. 91:6.

And our being delivered from it then is wholly owing to their timely interposition, though neither the attack nor the repulse falls under the notice of our imperfect senses.

[3.] Other times there are at which we are sensible of our danger, but not of the means by which we escape it, which we suppose to be either the natural work of material causes, or chance, or our own strength or wisdom. But were we left to these, and ourselves, we should soon find how little resistance we could make against the enemies that daily besiege us, without those on our side who are more skilful to save than these to destroy!

[4.] And doubtless they would save us whenever assaulted by any evil, whether visible or invisible, but that this exceeds the commission they have received from their and our Master. This he did not appoint, could not permit them to do, since he knew it would not benefit, but hurt us. He knows of what infinite service afflictions are to creatures in our station, and therefore that to be delivered from all while on earth would be the greatest evil that could befall us. Such an undistinguishing tenderness to the body would be an irreparable injury to the soul: if one were continually comforted here, ’tis great odds but both would hereafter be tormented.

[5.] Neither would it be kindness thus to exempt us from spiritual any more than from temporal danger—to deliver the soul from all temptation,

In the manuscript the word ‘sin’ was later altered to ‘temptation’; given the context (‘spiritual danger’), ‘temptation’ makes better sense.

any more than the body from all pain. 04:228Were the angels of God enjoined to do this, as we should be without vice, so we must have been without virtue, seeing we should have no choice left; and where there is no choice, there can be no virtue.

For a variation on this theme, cf. No. 60, ‘The General Deliverance’, I.4 and n.

But had we been without virtue, we must have been content with some lower happiness than that we now hope to partake of, which is the natural necessary result of virtue, and its genuine and inseparable fruit.

[6.] But although for these reasons (and who knows how many others the divine wisdom may have in view) the blessed angels may not always prevent sin or affliction from assaulting the soul or body, yet when either has taken hold upon us, they may prevent our being totally overthrown. They may preserve us from sinking under temporal misfortunes, from being enslaved by spiritual enemies. They may likewise recover us out of that trouble which they might not hinder us from falling into; nay, and often assist us to rise by our fall; by having been defeated, to obtain a nobler conquest.

0II. How it is that the angels of God do this, by what particular methods they may be supposed to keep us, I proceed under my second general head to inquire, according to the light that is given us. Little of certainty, you are sensible, can be expected on a subject of this nature, unless where there is the express warrant of his revelation who made all things, and therefore knows them.

11. And, first, in general, his revelation expressly assures me that these his servants ‘excel in strength’;

Ps. 103:20.

which we may likewise infer from the works ascribed to them in many places of Holy Writ. That one of them shut the lion’s mouth, which would otherwise have devoured Daniel;

See Dan. 6:22.

that at the word of another the chains fell off St. Peter’s hands, and the prison gates opened of their own accord,

See Acts 12:7.

seems little when we consider what is elsewhere related of the tasks their Sovereign had assigned them. ‘I saw’, saith St. John, ‘four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that they should not blow.’

Cf. Rev. 7:1.

Of four others, who seem to have been of that number which probably lost much of their strength with their purity, the same Apostle records that they were loosed from their bonds in 04:229the River Euphrates, ‘to slay the third part of men’.

Rev. 9:15.

What then cannot those do, whose strength is still entire, when they are permitted to exert it? Especially since,

22. Secondly, they excel equally in wisdom, as we have the strongest reason to believe. They, like man, were undoubtedly created upright, though with higher powers, as they are beings of an higher order. But they fell not like him, and have therefore retained them unimpaired, at least ever since the world began, if not many ages before. But we may be assured they neither would nor could retain them without continually improving them. At what degree, then, of knowledge and wisdom may we not suppose they are now arrived? If a creature of so confined, so depraved an understanding as man can improve it so much in threescore years, what bounds can fancy set to the understanding of an angel, which, with so vast a grasp, and so right unbiased an apprehension, hath been travelling onward toward perfection for probably many thousands of ages? Especially considering whose face they continually behold,

See Matt. 18:10.

even his, ‘of whose understanding is no [searching]’;

Cf. Isa. 40:28 and Ps. 147:5 (AV); MS reads ‘no number’.

and that to imitate him,

Cf. Nos. 1, Salvation by Faith, §1 and n.; and 3, ‘Awake, Thou That Steepest’, II.10 and n.

as far as the noblest creature can, is both their business, and pleasure, and glory.

3[3.] By these perfections, strength, and wisdom, they are well able to preserve us, either from the approach, if that be more profitable for us, or otherwise in the attack of any evil. By their wisdom they discern whatever either obstructs or promotes our real advantage: by their strength they effectually repel the one and secure a free course to the other. By the first they choose means conducive to these ends; by the second they put them in execution.

4[4.] One particular method of preserving good men which we may reasonably suppose these wise beings sometimes to choose, and by their strength to put in execution, is the altering some material cause that else would have a pernicious effect, the cleansing (for instance) tainted air, that would otherwise produce a contagious distemper. And this they may easily do, either by increasing the current of it, so naturally to purge off its impurity, or by mixing with it some other substance, so to correct its hurtful qualities and make it friendly to human bodies.

504:230[5.] Another method they may be supposed to take when their commission is not so general, when they are only authorized to preserve some few persons from a common calamity. ’Tis then likely they do not alter the cause, but the subject on which it is to work; that they do not lessen the strength of the one, but increase the strength of the other. Thus, too, where they are not allowed to prevent, they may remove pain or sickness: thus the angel restored Daniel in a moment, ‘when neither strength nor breath remained in him’.

Cf. Dan. 10:17-18; see No. 71, ‘Of Good Angels’, II.4.

6[6.] By these means, by altering either our bodies or the material causes that use to affect them, they may easily defend us from all bodily evils,

‘Evils’, altered in MS from orig. ‘pain’.

so far as is expedient for us. A third method they may be conceived to take to defend us from spiritual dangers: by applying themselves immediately to our soul, to raise or allay our passions. And this province indeed seems more natural to them than either of the former. How a spiritual being can act upon matter seems more unaccountable than how it can act on spirit. That one immaterial being, by touching another, should either increase or lessen its motion, that an angel should either retard or quicken the stream wherewith the passions of an angelic substance flow, is no more to be wondered at than that one piece of matter should have the same effect on its kindred substance, that a flood-gate or other material instrument should retard or quicken the stream of a river. Rather, considering of how contagious a nature the passions are, the wonder is on the other side—not how they can affect them at all, but how they can avoid affecting them more; how they can continue so near us, who are so subject to catch them, without spreading the flames that burn in themselves.

7[7.] And a plain instance of their power to allay human passions the Scriptures give us in the case of Daniel, when he beheld that gloriously terrible minister ‘whose face was as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, his arms and feet like polished brass, and his voice as the voice of a multitude’.

[Dan.] 10:6.

‘His fears and sorrows were turned so strongly upon him that he was in a deep sleep’,

Cf. Dan. 10:9, 16.

void of sense and motion. Yet these turbulent passions the angel allayed in an instant; when they were hurrying 04:231on with the utmost impetuosity he stopped them short in their mid-course, so that immediately after we find him desiring the continuance of that converse which he was before utterly unable to sustain. The same effect was doubtless wrought on all those to whom these superior beings, on their first appearance, used that common salutation, ‘Fear not’—which would have been a mere insult upon human weakness had they not with that advice given power to follow it.

8[8.] Near akin to this method of affecting the passions is the last I intend to mention, by which the angels, as ’tis probable, keep good men especially in or from spiritual dangers. And this is by applying themselves to their reason, by instilling good thoughts into their hearts; either such as are good in their own nature, as tend to our improvement in virtue, or such as are contrary to those suggestions of the flesh or the devil by which we are tempted to vice. ’Tis not unlikely that we are indebted to them, not only for most of those reflections which suddenly dart across our minds, we know not how, having no connection with any that went before them; but for many of those, too, that seem entirely our own, and naturally consequent from the preceding.

1III. [1.] It were easy to show that to some of these heads all those actions are reducible which we can conceive these our guardians ever to perform in execution of this their charge. But ’tis time that we came to our third inquiry, which was, Why this charge was assigned them; for what reasons we may presume he who is omnipresent and omnipotent not to make use of his own immediate power, but of these his servants, to do his pleasure?

I am not ignorant that this is usually thought a ‘knowledge too wonderful for us’

Cf. Ps. 139:6.

—that man cannot attain a view of these ways of God, these hidden treasures of his providence. However, it cannot be unlawful to extend our search as far as our limited faculties will permit, provided we proceed

A later hand has altered the manuscript here to read ‘approach’.

with due reverence and humility, and do not contradict the analogy of our faith.

I.e., the ‘general tenor’ of Scripture; cf. No. 5, ‘Justification by Faith’, §2 and n.

Consistently with these we may presume one reason why God assigns this charge to his holy angels to be because they delight in it, because they have an additional pleasure therein besides what always results from their being employed in his service. Seeing 04:232the more benevolent any being is, the more delight he takes in doing good; seeing that these are benevolent in the highest degree, we cannot but infer by their holding the highest rank among creatures, inasmuch as God always favours and honours them most who are most like him—but

Altered (by a later hand) to ‘for’.

‘God is love’:

1 John 4:16.

to conduct others in the paths of happiness must be a particular addition to their own.

2[2.] Nor is it a barren, useless pleasure which these sons of God reap from their attendance on the children of men, but a pleasure joined with improvement. In doing good to us they do good to themselves also, and this perhaps is a second reason why the Most High hath allotted this province to them, because by exercising the goodness they have already they continually acquire more, and swiftly, too. Even we, fettered as we are in this house

Altered (also by a later hand) to ‘tabernacle’; both echoes of 2 Cor. 5:1. See No. 28, ‘Sermon on the Mount, VIII’, §21 and n.

of earth, and weighed down by original corruption, perceive [that] the more acts of any virtue we perform, the stronger habit we slowly attain to. Much more swiftly must exercise improve them who have neither of these impediments: much more sensibly by the acts of benevolence they perform must they advance in that godlike virtue.

33. And thirdly, as by this exercise of benevolence they are even now both more benevolent and happy,

Note this yoking of benevolence and happiness as in Anglican moralists generally and especially in Joseph Butler’s famous Rolls Chapel Sermons (1726); cf. No. 5, ‘Justification by Faith’, I.4 and n.

so thereby they every moment treasure up to themselves fresh matter of future happiness. The greater goodwill they bear to men, the greater must be their joy when these men, in the fullness of time, are received into that glory appointed for them. The more exquisitely will they sympathize with them when all their troubles are done away, when the days of sickness and pain and sin are over, are swallowed up in immortality, and they are admitted to drink of ‘those rivers of pleasure’ that flow at God’s right hand for evermore!

Cf. Pss. 36:8; 16:11.

44. In those days we shall plainly see a fourth reason likewise why these ministering spirits were so constantly ‘sent forth’ to guard ‘them who were to be heirs of salvation’;

Heb. 1:14.

namely, that the 04:233heirs of salvation, when entered into that inheritance, might be gratefully sensible of their benefits; that when they experienced the inestimable value of those benefits, this gratitude might ripen into love; that this love might be a means of increasing their happiness, by seeing them whom they loved, and seeing them so happy; and by reflecting that themselves, unworthy as they were, had in some degree contributed to it.

1IV. 1. From that little we have been able to feel out touching this one dispensation of providence, touching the time when, the manner how, and the reasons why, the blessed angels have charge to keep good men, may we not naturally infer that we should adore his goodness and wisdom who hath instituted the services both of angels and men in so wonderful an order! How great is that goodness which hath not left without defence his weak, miserable, helpless creatures! How great is that wisdom which hath so well proportioned the powers of our defenders to their office! How infinitely great are the

Corrected in MS from ‘is that’.

wisdom and goodness which have made us serviceable to them, which have derived such advantage from weak, miserable, helpless creatures to beings only not almighty!

22. Hence we may, secondly, infer the weakness of that objection which men who pretended to believe a God have often made against his providence

For further comments on ‘Providence’, see No. 67, ‘On Divine Providence’, and notes 30, 64.

—that ’tis beneath a Being of such infinite greatness to concern himself in our little affairs. Supposing it were (though ’tis palpably absurd to suppose it of him who is omnipresent as well as omnipotent), yet what would this avail them? How would it follow that fortune governed the world, since there is a particular order of beings whose business it is to attend on this very thing; who are ready on all occasions to assist such as need and will accept of their assistance, and by the powers wherewith he hath endued them are sufficiently able (were that the will of their Master) to keep both the natural and moral world in order without his ever interposing?

33. We learn hence, in the third place, to condemn the folly and impiety

Altered (by a later hand) to ‘error’.

that obtains in the Romish church; namely, the worshipping of angels, the paying to the creature the incommunicable 04:234honour of the Creator.

Even if Wesley had never read Aquinas on this point (Summa Theologica, Pt. I, Q. 113, ‘Of the Guardianship of the Good Angels’), his general view follows the tradition. There is, however, no word in Aquinas as to the worship of angels. This reference to ‘Romish impiety’ was, therefore, an echo of popular anti-Roman prejudice based, perhaps, on the denial in The Catechism of the Council of Trent (in its comment on ‘The First Commandment’): ‘Veneration and Invocation of Angels and Saints not Forbidden by this Commandment’. There, and in Roman Catholic angelology in general, the distinction between latria (‘the honour due to God alone’) and dulia (‘veneration and invocation’) is carefully observed. Protestants, however, had rejected this distinction as too easily blurred in popular practice.

‘Let no man beguile us of our reward’

Cf. Col. 2:18.

in this show of gratitude and humility. They keep us in all our ways, ’tis true, but we know who gives them a charge so to do. The Lord our God is but one Lord;

See Deut. 6:4.

these are servants that do his pleasure. And if their doing this, if their obeying his order, were a sufficient reason for us to worship them, ‘fire and hail, wind and storm fulfilling his word’,

Ps. 148:8 (BCP).

as well as they, would have an equal claim to our adoration.

44. ’Tis God himself, as we may fourthly collect from what has been said, to whom our praises and prayers are due, to whom we ought to return our sincerest acknowledgements, whom we should implore with the deepest humility, that we may reap the fruits of his wisdom and goodness, from the constant ministry of his servants. To him our petition should be addressed, according to the wise direction our Church has given us, ‘that as his holy angels do him service in heaven, so they may succour and defend us upon earth’;

Cf. BCP, Collects for St. Michael and All Angels.

that their general commission to inspect human affairs may affect us in particular, and secure to us such a degree of present ease as suits best with our future happiness.

[V.] Conclusion: Happy is the man, even now, as he can be upon earth, who is in such a case, who enjoys such a protection! Happy in having the greatest possible security that he never shall be unhappy! That even no temporal evil shall befall him, unless to clear the way for a greater good! What though he wrestles not only against inanimate enemies, but against flesh and blood, the depravity of his own nature, with the perverseness, malice, and injustice of other men; nay, and not only against flesh and blood, but against principalities, the rulers of the darkness of this world, 04:235the wicked spirits in high places?

See Eph. 6:12.

They that are for him are not only more, but stronger and wiser than they that are against him!

See 2 Kgs. 6:16; Rom. 8:31.

And are not these at least as watchful to do good as those are to do us evil? So watchful, that let him but be true to himself, let him but fix his love on their common Creator, and nothing in the creation, animate or inanimate, by design or chance, shall have power to hurt him. ‘In famine they shall preserve the good man from death; in war, from the hand of the sword. They shall hide thee from the scourge of the tongue. Thou shalt laugh at destruction when it cometh. The very beasts of the earth shall they make to be at peace with thee, and thou shalt be at league with the stones of the field.’

[Cf.] Job 5:22, etc. [i.e., 20-23].

Wherefore to him who hath thus loved us, and given us this good consolation among the numberless evils wherewith we are surrounded, to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, let us yield all praise, majesty, and dominion, now and for ever! Amen!

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