adversaries and their ministers); but then it is repugnant to their immateriality; because everlasting fire is no punishment to impatible substances, such as are all things incorporeal. Angels therefore are not thence proved to be incorporeal. In like manner where St. Paul says, (_1 Cor._ vi. 3) _Know ye not that we shall judge the angels?_ and _2 Pet._ ii. 4, _For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down into hell_: and (_Jude_ i. 6) _And the angels that kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the last day_: though it prove the permanence of angelical nature, it confirmeth also their materiality. And (_Matt._ xxii. 30) _In the resurrection men do neither marry nor give in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven_: but in the resurrection men shall be permanent, and not incorporeal; so therefore also are the angels. There be divers other places out of which may be drawn the like conclusion. To men that understand the signification of these words, _substance_, and _incorporeal_; as _incorporeal_ is taken, not for subtle body, but for _not body_; they imply a contradiction: insomuch as to say, an angel or spirit is in that sense an incorporeal substance, is to say in effect, there is no angel nor spirit at all. Considering therefore the signification of the word _angel_ in the Old Testament, and the nature of dreams and visions that happen to men by the ordinary way of nature; I was inclined to this opinion, that angels were nothing but supernatural apparitions of the fancy, raised by the special and extraordinary operation of God, thereby to make his presence and commandments known to mankind, and chiefly to his own people. But the many places of the New Testament, and our Saviour’s own words, and in such texts, wherein is no suspicion of corruption of the Scripture, have extorted from my feeble reason, an acknowledgment and belief, that there be also angels substantial, and permanent. But to believe they be in no place, that is to say, no where, that is to say, nothing, as they, though indirectly, say, that will have them incorporeal, cannot by Scripture be evinced. [Sidenote: Inspiration, what.]