N00620:189
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.
THIS Age has abounded with Atheists, not only in Practice but in Opinion. A late Author speaks of many thousands of them in one Kingdom, nay in one City in Europe. Sadducism is a degree of Atheism, and commonly ends therein. The Learned Dr. Cudworth (in his Intellectual System, p. 703.) Observes that some who object that the Age wherein we live has n• Demoniacs, or possessed persons, do from thence suspect the whole Gospel of Fabulosity or Imposture. That there are in this age Energumens, late recent Examples amongst our selves, (and more than a few of them) are an awful Conviction. Some are willing to phansy all to be a strange natural disease. Plotinus relates that ••e of the Heterodoxies of the old Gnostics, was, that they supposed diseases to be Devils, and that therefore the way to cure them was not by Physic, but by words and charms. The Opinion of these men who call Devils, diseases, is not unlike that of the Gnostics. The lamentable objects which our eyes have beheld are sufficient to Convince the most obdurate Sadducees in the World, that there are Evil Angels infesting the Earth. Nor is it to be doubted but that one reason why Providence has permitted such things to be done in the midst of us, is, that so men may be left without excuse for their Atheism, if they will not believe a future state, or that there is any World ⟨image ?⟩[…] that which is visible, when such sensible demonstrations thereof have been set before them.
THIS Age has abounded with Atheists, not only in Practice but in Opinion. A late Author speaks of many thousands of them in one Kingdom, nay in one City in Europe. Sadducism is a degree of Atheism, and commonly ends therein. The Learned Dr. Cudworth (in his Intellectual System, p. 703.) Observes that some who object that the Age wherein we live has n• Demoniacks, or possessed persons, do from thence suspect the whole Gospel of Fabulosity or Imposture. That there are in this age Energumens, late recent Examples amongst our selves, (and more than a few of them) are an awful Conviction. Some are willing to phansy all to be a strange natural disease. Plotinus relates that ••e of the Heterodoxies of the old Gnosticks, was, that they supposed diseases to be Devils, and that therefore the way to cure them was not by Physick, but by words and charms. The Opinion of these men who call Devils, diseases, is not unlike that of the Gnosticks. The lamentable objects which our eyes have beheld are sufficient to Convince the most obdurate Sadduces in the World, that there are Evil Angels infesting the Earth. Nor is it to be doubted but that one reason why Providence has permitted such things to be done in the midst of us, is, that so men may be left without excuse for their Atheism, if they will not believe a future state, or that there is any World