Page:Saducismus Triumphatus.djvu/242

 SECT. III.

That the Angels that are said to have appeared in Scripture, were not Men-Messengers, but Inhabitants of the invisible World: And whether they Eat and Drank or no.

But were not those Angels that so appeared, special Prophets, Divine Messengers, sometimes in Scripture confessedly called Angels? They did Eat and Drink with Abraham and with Lot, by which it should seem that they were real Men. But whoever shall look over the Instances alleged of the Apparition of Angels, and read them in all the Circumstances of the Text, will plainly see that they could not be Men.

Such could not be the Angel that spake to Abraham and Hagar out of Heaven, that Conversed with Jacob in a Dream, that appeared to Moses in the Burning-bush, that appeared to Manoah, and ascended in his and his Wifes presence, in the Flame of the Sacrifice, that went before the Camp of Israel, that stood before Balaam in the way unseen to him, that smote the Army of the Assyrians, that appeared to Zacharias in the Temple, and to the Maries at the Sepulchre. These must be a sort of Beings superiours to Mankind, Angels in the proper Sense, who are sometimes in Scripture called Men, because they appear in our likeness.

But whether these do receive refection or sustinence in their own World and State or not, I will not dispute. It is most probable, that it hath been the Doctrine both of Fathers and Philosophers, that they are vitally united to Ætherial and Heavenly Bodies, which possibly may need Recruits some such way, and so Angels Food may be more than a Metaphor. But certainly they cannot Eat after our manner, nor Feed on our gross Diet, except in appearance only; they may make a shew of doing it, as the Angel Raphael told Tobit that he did, Tob. 12. 19. All these Days I did appear unto you, but I did neither Eat nor Drink, but you did see a Vision) but really they do it not: So that when Abraham's and Lot's Angels are said to Eat and Drink with them, the Scripture speaks as to them it seemed. And so the Jerusalem Targum reads, And they seemed as if they did Eat and Drink. And we may suppose that Mens Concep-