Holiness, even in an unfallen angel, is not an absolutely self-originated thing.  If it were, the angel would be worthy of adoration and worship.  He who is inwardly and totally excellent, and can also say:  I am what I am by my own ultimate authorship, can claim for himself the glory that is due to righteousness.  Any self-originated and self-subsistent virtue is entitled to the hallelujahs.  But, no created spirit, though he be the highest of the archangels, can make such an assertion, or put in such a claim.  The merit of the unfallen angel, therefore, is a relative one; because his holiness is of a created and derived species.  It is not increate and self-subsistent.  This being so, it is plain that the proper attitude of all creatures in respect to moral excellence is a recipient and dependent one.  But this is a meek and lowly attitude; and this is, in one sense, a child-like attitude.  Our Lord knew no sin; and yet He himself tells us that He was meek and lowly of heart, and we well know that He was.  He does not say that He was penitent.  He does not propose himself as our exemplar in that respect.  But, in respect to the primal, normal attitude which a finite being must ever take in reference to the infinite and adorable God, and the absolute underived Holiness; in reference to the true temper which a holy man or a holy angel must possess; our Lord Jesus Christ, in His human capacity, sets an example to be followed by the spirits of just men made perfect, and by all the holy inhabitants of heaven.  In other words, He teaches the whole universe that holiness in a creature, even though it be complete, does not permit its possessor to be self-reliant, does not allow the proud spirit of manhood, does not remove the obligation to be child-like, meek, and lowly of heart.

But if this is true of holiness among those who have never fallen, how much more true is it of those who have, and who need to be lifted up out of the abyss.  If an angel, in reference to God, must be meek and lowly of heart; if the holy Redeemer must in His human capacity be meek and lowly of heart; if the child-like temper, in reference to the infinite and everlasting Father and the absolutely Good, is the proper one in such exalted instances as these; how much more is it in the instance of the vile and apostate children of Adam!  Besides the original and primitive reason growing out of creaturely relationships, there is the superadded one growing out of the fact, that now the whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint, and from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in human nature.