i62 ANTIENT MET APHYSICS. Book II. 



v'llity and arts among the fava,a:es there. They could not, I think, 

 have come from any part of North or South America, v^-hich we 

 mufl: fuppofe to have been tlien much more barbarous than it is now. 

 And it is impoflible to fuppofe that they fhould have crofled the At- 

 lantic, and have come from Europe. I am, therefore, of opinion, 

 as I have faid, that they were genii or Dsemons, fent down from hea- 

 ven to civilife thofe barbarians, and thus far enable them to recover 

 from their fallen (late. 



Nor, I think, is the teftimony of our fcripture wanting to fup- 

 port my opinion j We read there of angels, and likewife of archan- 

 gels, who certainly were an order of beings fuperior to the angels. 

 We may therefore, I think, fuppofe them to be altogether imma- 

 terial beings : "Whereas the angels may have been Daemons that were 

 embodied. That this was the cafe of thofe angels, who came to 

 vifit Abiaham, is evident ; for they not only had the bodies of men, 

 but ate and drank with Abraham *. And that angels had a fuper- 

 intendency and diredion of human affairs, Plato and Kefiod fuppofe. 

 With them too our fcripture agrees; for we read, in the Revelation, of 

 the angels of different churches : And in Daniels vifion, he fays, he 

 faw the angel of the Kingdom of Perfia, whom he calls the Prince of 

 Perfia, but plainly dillinguifhes him from the Kings of Perfia, and 

 the other Kings whom he mentions in that vifion t ; and alfo the 

 Prince of the Greeks, whom I underftand likewife to be the angel 

 of the Greeks:):. And he alfo mentions the angel Michael, as thff 

 great Prince ivhich fanJttb for the children of thy people, thitiSf 

 for the children of Ifrael §. And there is a very remarkable paffage 

 in Deuteronomy j] , which fays, Whsn the mofl high divided the nations^ 



and 



* Genefis, chap. i8. 



f Daniel, chap. 1 1, v. 2. and following. 



% ibid. chap. lo, v. 13, 6i :o. 



J Ibid, chap, 12. v. i. 



;; Deut. chap. 33. v. 3. 



