Of the three men, or angells wherein GOD appeared to Abraham in the plaine of Mambra. CHAP. 29.
GOD appeared vnto Abraham in the plaine of Mambra in three men, who doubtlesse were angells, though some thinke that one of them was Christ, and that he was visible before his incarnation. It is indeed in the power of the vnchangeable, vncorporall, and inuisible deity to appeare vnto man visible when∣soeuer it pleaseth, without any alteration of it selfe: not in the owne but in some creature subiect vnto it; as what is it that it ruleth not ouer? But if they ground that one of these three was Christ, vpon this, that Abraham when hee saw three men, saluted the Lord peculiarly, bowing to the ground at the dore of his Ta∣bernacle, and saying, LORD if I haue found fauour in thy sight &c. Why doe they not obserue that when two came to destroy Sodome, Abraham spake yet but vnto one of them that remained (calling him Lord, and intreating him not to de∣stroy the righteous with the wicked) and those two were intertained by Lot, who notwithstanding called either of them by the name of Lord? For speaking to them both, My Lords (saith hee) I pray you turne in vnto your seruants house &c. * 1.1 and yet afterwards we reade: and the angells tooke him and his wife, and his two daughters by the hands, the Lord beeing mercifull vnto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the citty, and when they had so done, the angells said, Escape for thy selfe, looke not behind thee, neither tarry in all the plaines, but es∣cape to the mountaines least thou bee destroied, and he sayd, not so I pray thee my Lord &c. and afterward, the Lord being in these two angells, answered him as in one, saying: Behold, I haue (a) receiued thy request &c. and therefore it is far more likely that Abraham knew the Lord to bee in them all three, and Lot in the two, vnto whom, they continually spoke in the singular number, euen then when they thought them to bee men, then otherwise. For they intertained them at first only to giue them meate and lodging in charity, as vnto poore men: but yet there was some excellent marke in them whereby their hoasts might bee assured, that the Lord was in them, as he vsed to be in the Prophets: and therefore they some∣times called them Lords in the plurall number, as speaking to themselues, and sometimes Lord, in the singular, as speaking to God in them But the scriptures themselues testifie that they were angells, not onely in this place of Genesis, but in the Epistle to the Hebrewes where the Apostle commending hospitality: (b) therby Io•…•…e (saith he) haue receiued angels into their houses vnwares: these three men therefore confirmed the promise of Isaac the second time, and said vnto Abra∣ham: * 1.2 He shalbe a great and mighty nation, and in him shall the nations of the world be blessed. Here is a plaine prophecy both of the bodily nation of the Israelites, and * 1.3 the spirituall nations of the righteous.