N00620:164
Angelographia, or A discourse concerning the nature and power of the holy angels, and…
Angelographia, or A discourse concerning the nature and power of the holy angels, and the great benefit which the true fearers of God receive by their ministry: delivered in several sermons: : to which is added, a sermon concerning the sin and misery of the fallen angels: also, a disquisition concerning angelical-apparitions. / By Increase Mather, president of Harvard College, in Cambridge, and preacher of the Gospel at Boston, in New-England. ; [Two lines from Hebrews]Angelographia, or A discourse concerning the nature and power of the holy angels, and the great benefit which the true fearers of God receive by their ministry: delivered in several sermons: : to which is added, a sermon concerning the sin and misery of the fallen angels: also, a disquisition concerning angelical-apparitions. / By Increase Mather, praesident of Harvard Colledge, in Cambridge, and preacher of the Gospel at Boston, in New-England. ; [Two lines from Hebrews]
printed by B. Green & J. Allen for Samuel Phillips, 1696
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.
2. The Angels that sinned, shall ere long be in greater misery then at present they are subject unto. They are Prisoners, and have been so from the day of their fall: nevertheless, they are Prisoners at large, and the Devil hath a long chain allowed to him for the present: Therefore when it was said to him, Whence comest thou? saith he, I come from going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. Job 1.7. So that he hath leave to go from one end of the earth to the other. He walks about seeking whom he may devour, 1 Pet. 5.8. For the present he is permitted to range up and down the World, to see if he can prevail over miserable Creatures, and make a prey of the precious Souls of the children of men. But there is a day a coming, when he shall be made a close Prisoner. Satan is to be cast into the Bottomless Pit, and shut up there. Rev. 20.4. He cannot then wander up and down as now he doth. Although the Devils now feel something of torment in their guilty Consciences, and there are doubtless some Laws which they are under, being (as some have judiciously observed) awed by a superior power, and which they are as much afraid of acting against, as a Malefactor is afraid of going against the Laws of men, lest h• ⟨p. 115⟩should be scourged for his so doing: Hence the Devil, though he had a natural power to hurt Job, was afraid to do it without leave. Yet there is a time coming, that they will be in more intolerable torment by far, than what they at present endure. Hence when the Devils saw the Lord Jesus Christ approaching, they cried out, What have we to do with thee? Art thou come to torment us before the time. Mat. 8.28. So that there is a time yet to come, wherein the Devils shall be subject unto greater torment, than as yet they are made sensible of. And that time will be at the Day of Judgment: Do ye not know, that the Saints shall Judge the World? Know ye not, that we shall judge Angels, 1 Cor. 6.2, 3. that is to say, the Angels that sinned. At the Great Day, all reprobate men, and not only so, but all the reprobate Angels shall be brought into Judgment, and shall then have a sentence of Eternal Condemnation passed upon them. Therefore it is, that the thought of the Day of Judgment is exceeding terrible unto all the Devils in Hell; they all tremble, when ever they think of the Judgment to come.