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The Angels' intercession for Man's redemption.
Mankind having for the long and tedious space of more than five thousand years continued in a miserable state of exile, not one of them being able to shake off the clog of original guilt, and soar to his native country, Heaven; the blessed choir of angelic spirits, (moved to compassion, and concerned at the dreadful havock sin had made among them, as well as solicitous to see the numbers of their own heavenly legions again completed) as soon as the fulness of time was come, resolved to renew the instances they had often before made to the Almighty. For this end, presenting themselves before the awful throne of God, with redoubled earnestness and devotion, they jointly prostrated themselves at his feet, and made the following prayer:—"All-merciful Lord! Remember how you graciously vouchsafed, from the inexhaustible fund of your goodness, to create man out of nothing, and to raise him above all the works of your sublunary creation, by enriching him with the eminent gift of a rational soul, capable of knowing you, and this on purpose that he might become a partaker of our felicity, and repair the loss we sustained by the fall of our reprobate brethren. Yet behold, O gracious Sovereign, the whole species lies still involved in such woeful ruin, that out of so great a number, not one has been able to escape and arrive hither in the long space of many thousand years. Our enemies thence gather new matter of triumph: when instead of seeing the vacant places of the fallen angels filled, they behold hell continually crowded with innumerable victims: to what end, then, are they created, O Lord? Why are the souls that
