Page:Saducismus Triumphatus.djvu/83

not very Philosophical to suppose; since, if we judge by the Analogy of the natural World, all things we see are carried on by the Ministery of second Causes, and intermediate Agents. And it doth not seem so magnificent and becoming an apprehension of the Supream Numen, to fancy his immediate Hand in every trivial Management. But 'tis exceeding likely to conjecture, that much of the Government of us, and our Affairs, is committed to the better Spirits, with a due subornation and subserviency to the Will of the chief Rector of the Universe. And 'tis not absurd to believe, that there is a Government runs from highest to lowest, the better and more perfect Orders of Being still ruling the inferiour and less perfect. So that some one would fancy, that perhaps the Angels may manage us, as we do the Creatures that God and Nature have placed under our Empire and Dominion. But however that is, that God rules the lower World by the Ministry of Angels, is very consonant to the sacred Oracles. Thus, Deut. XXXII. 8. 9. When the most high divided the Nations their Inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people, Κατ´ ἀριθμὸν ἀγγέλων Θεοῦ, according to the number of the Angels of God, as the Septuagint renders it; the Authority of which Translation is abundantly credited and asserted, by its being quoted in the New Testament, without notice of the Hebrew Text; even there where it differs from it, as Learned Men have observed. We know also, that Angels were very familiar with the Patriarchs of old; and Jacob's Ladder is a Mystery, which imports their ministring in the Affairs of the lower World. Thus Origen and others understand that to be spoken by the presidential Angels, Jer. LI. 9. We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her and let us go. Like the Voice heard in the Temple before the taking of Jerusalem by Titus, Μεταβαινωμ εντεεν. And before Nebuchadnezzar was sent to learn Wisdom and Religion among the Beasts, he sees a Watcher according to the 70. an Angel, and an holy one come down from Heaven. Dan. IV. 13. who pronounceth the sad Decree against him, and calls it the Decree of the Watchers, who very probably were the Guardian Genii of himself and his Kingdom. And that there are particular Angels that have the special Rule and Government of particular Kingdoms, Provinces, Cities, yea and of Persons, I know nothing that can make improbable: The instance is notorious in Daniel, of the Angels of Persia and Græcia, that hindred the other that was engaged for the concerns of Judea; yea our Saviour himselftells