Gen. 18. 1, 4, 8.
And if any do object (as we have heard some do) that three Angels did appear untoAbrahamin the Plains ofMamre, as he sate in the Tent-door, and did eat and drink, and washed their feet, and therefore that they had flesh and bones; to that we return this responsion.
1. It is a very froward and perverse way of arguing, to make one place of Scripture to clash with another, when they ought all to be expounded according to the Analogy of faith, and it is a perfect Harmony which we ought to labour to find out and rejoyce in.
Heb. 1. 1, 2.
2. It is no perfect way of arguing from the Dispensations in the time of the Patriarchs and Prophets, to those that God useth now in the time of the Gospel; for so they might argue that God should answer byUrimandThummim, because he did so in the time of the Levitical Priesthood, but that is now ceased, and the Apostle tells us:God at sundry times, and in divers manners spake in times past unto the Fathers by the Prophets: But in these last days he hath spoken by his Son unto us. So though God did then vouchsafe to make himself manifest unto the Patriarchs by the visible appearance of Angels: yet it is no rational consequence that he doth so now in these days.
Ibid.v.17.
3. It is manifest, that though they were in number three, yet it is true that it was Jehovah that appeared untoAbraham, and Jehovah said,Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do. Now we do not find that the word Jehovah is communicable to any Creature, but only to God himself; and therefore the best Expositorsdo understand (notwithstanding whatPereriusdoth say to the contrary) that one of them was Christ the second Person in the Trinity, who after was to take humane nature upon him, and therefore did so appear.
4. However these Angels had with them the assistance of a divine and omnipotent Power, which cannot rationally be affirmed of the common and ordinary apparitions of Demons to Witches, and therefore doth conclude nothing against what we have laid down before.