A26888:328
The certainty of the worlds of spirits and, consequently, of the immortality of souls…
The certainty of the worlds of spirits and, consequently, of the immortality of souls of the malice and misery of the devils and the damned : and of the blessedness of the justified, fully evinced by the unquestionable histories of apparitions, operations, witchcrafts, voices &c. / written, as an addition to many other treatises for the conviction of Sadducees and infidels, by Richard Baxter.The certainty of the worlds of spirits and, consequently, of the immortality of souls of the malice and misery of the devils and the damned : and of the blessedness of the justified, fully evinced by the unquestionable histories of apparitions, operations, witchcrafts, voices &c. / written, as an addition to many other treatises for the conviction of Sadduces and infidels, by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for T. Parkhurst, 1691
Treatise › Chapter 8: Of good Angels, and some doubtful Spirits, and their notable Actions.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The Church where the present Lord Chamberlain, Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, his Ancestors Monuments were, was torn by Lightning that came in at the Steeple, melted the Bells, and went up to the Chancel, and there tore the Monuments in pieces. I saw pieces of the Monuments, that had some of the Golden Letters, which a truly worthy Lady brought home, that went from Tunbridge Waters, to see the Church.
Many and many Churches have been thus torn, proportionably so much beyond all other Buildings, especially of Stone, that I cannot but think there is some knowing Agent that maketh the Choice, though I know not who, nor why.
Except a few Hay-Ricks, I remember not that till this Seventy sixth Year of my Age, I have known Lightnings to have had Hurting Power on any Buildings but Churches, save very rarely, and small, as this last Year, at Islington, it entered a House, and killed a Woman and Child:) Nor to ⟨p. 166⟩have torn any Wood but Oak, (which in Trees and Buildings I have seen torn where I dwelt.) But divers persons have been killed and scorched by it. An Eminent Knight, that I knew, is commonly said to have been struck dead by it in his Garden.
Except a few Hay-Ricks, I remember not that till this Seventy sixth Year of my Age, I have known Lightenings to have had Hurting Power on any Buildings but Churches, save very rarely, and small, as this last Year, at Islington, it entred a House, and kill'd a Woman and Child:) Nor to ⟨p. 166⟩have torn any Wood but Oak, (which in Trees and Buildings I have seen torn where I dwelt.) But divers persons have been killed and scorch'd by it. An Eminent Knight, that I knew, is commonly said to have been struck dead by it in his Garden.