the fancy, but permanent creatures of God; whereof those which they thought were good to them, they esteemed the “angels of God,” and those they thought would hurt them, they called “evil angels,” or evil spirits. Such as was the spirit of Python, and the spirits of madmen, of lunatics, and epileptics, for they esteemed such as were troubled with such diseases, “demoniacs.”
But if we consider the places of the Old Testament where angels are mentioned, we shall find that in most of them, there can nothing else be understood by the word “angel,” but some image raised, supernaturally, in the fancy to signify the presence of God in the execution of some supernatural work; and therefore in the rest, where their nature is not expressed, it may be understood in the same manner.
For we read ( Gen. 16) that the same apparition is called, not only an “angel,” but “God,” where that which (verse 7) is called the “angel” of the Lord, in the tenth verse, saith to Agar, “I will multiply thy seed exceedingly”; that is, speaketh in the person of God. Neither was this apparition a fancy figured, but a voice. By which it is manifest that “angel” signifieth there nothing but “God” himself, that caused Agar supernaturally to apprehend a voice from heaven; or rather, nothing else but a voice supernatural, testifying God’s special presence there. Why therefore may not the angels that appeared to Lot, and are called ( Gen. 19:12) “men”; and to whom, though they were two, Lot speaketh (verse 18) as but to one, and that one as God, (for the words are, “Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my Lord,”) be understood of images of men, supernaturally formed in the fancy, as well as before by angel was understood a fancied voice? When the angel called to Abraham out of heaven to stay his hand ( Gen. 22:11) from slaying Isaac, there was no apparition, but a voice; which nevertheless was called properly enough a messenger or “angel” of God, because it declared God’s will supernaturally, and saves the labour of supposing any permanent ghosts. The angels which Jacob saw on the ladder of Heaven ( Gen. 28:12) were