N00530:339
The wonders of the invisible world. Observations as well historical as theological, upon the…
The wonders of the invisible world. Observations as well historical as theological, upon the nature, the number, and the operations of the devils. : Accompanied with, I. Some accounts of the grievous molestations, by daemons and witchcrafts, which have lately annoyed the country; and the trials of some eminent malefactors executed upon occasion thereof: with several remarkable curiosities therein occurring. II. Some councils, directing a due improvement of the terrible things, lately done, by the unusual & amazing range of evil spirits, in our neighbourhood: & the methods to prevent the wrongs which those evil angels may intend against all sorts of people among us; especially in accusations of the innocent. III. Some conjectures upon the great events, likely to befall, the world in general, and New-England in particular; as also upon the advances of the time, when we shall see better days. IV. A short narrative of a late outrage committed by a knot of witches in Swedeland, very much resembling, and so far explaining, that under which our parts of America have laboured! V. The Devil discovered: in a brief discourse upon those temptations, which are the more ordinary devices of the Wicked One. / By Cotton Mather.The wonders of the invisible world. Observations as well historical as theological, upon the nature, the number, and the operations of the devils. : Accompany'd with, I. Some accounts of the grievous molestations, by daemons and witchcrafts, which have lately annoy'd the countrey; and the trials of some eminent malefactors executed upon occasion thereof: with several remarkable curiosities therein occurring. II. Some councils, directing a due improvement of the terrible things, lately done, by the unusual & amazing range of evil spirits, in our neighbourhood: & the methods to prevent the wrongs which those evil angels may intend against all sorts of people among us; especially in accusations of the innocent. III. Some conjectures upon the great events, likely to befall, the world in general, and New-England in particular; as also upon the advances of the time, when we shall see better dayes. IV. A short narrative of a late outrage committed by a knot of witches in Swedeland, very much resembling, and so far explaining, that under which our parts of America have laboured! V. The Devil discovered: in a brief discourse upon those temptations, which are the more ordinary devices of the Wicked One. / By Cotton Mather.
Boston : printed, and sold by Benjamin Harris, 1693 i.e., 1692
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.
II. The Devil does often manage his Temptations, by urging of our Necessities. Our Lord, was thus by the Devil bawled upon; You want Bread; and you•l Starve, if in my way you get it not. The Devil will show some Forbidden Thing unto us, and plead concerning it, as of Bread we use to say, It must be had. Necessity has a wonderful Compulsion in it. You may see what Necessity will do, if you read in Deut. 28.56. The Tender and the Delicate Woman among you, her eye shall be evil towards the Children what she shall Bear, for she shall eat them for want of all Things. The Devil will persuade us that there is a Necessity of our doing what he does propound unto us; and then tho' the Laws of God about us were so many Walls of Stone, yet we shall break through them all. That little Inconvenience, of our coming to Beg our Bread, O what a fearful Representation does the Devil make of it! and when once the Devil scares us to think of a sinful thing. It must be done, we soon come to think, It •ay be done. When the Devil has frighted us, into an Apprehension, that it is a Needful thing which we are prompted unto, he presently Engages all the Faculties of our Souls, to prove, that it may be a Lawful one. The Devil told Esau, You'll Die if you don't Sell your Birthright; the Devil ⟨p. 6⟩told Aaron, You'll pull all the People about your ears, if you do not countenance their Superstitions; and then they complied immediately. Yea, sometimes, if the Devil do but Feign a Necessity, he does thereby Gain the Hearts of Men; he did but Feign a Need, when he told Saul, The Cattle must be Spared, and the Sacrifice must be precipitated; and he does but Feign a Need, when he tells many a man, If you do no Service work on the Sabbath-day, and if you don't Rob God of His Evening, you'll never subsist in the World. All the Denials of God, in the world, use to be from this Fallacy Imposed upon us. It never can be Necessary for us to violate any Negative Commandment in the Law of our God; where God says, Thou shalt not, we cannot upon any pretence Reply, I must. But the Devil will put a most formidable and astonishing face of Necessity upon many of those, Abominable Things which are hateful to the Soul of God. He'll say nothing to us about The One Thing Needful; but the petite and the sorry Need-nots of this world, he•l set off with most bloody Colours of Necessity.