N00620:208
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.
It is (says Chrysostom) the property of a Diviner to be Ecstatical, but its otherwise with a true Prophet, his understanding is awake and his mind in a sober orderly Temper. No doubt but that some of rhe false Prophets amongst the Jews were imposed on by Daemons. They thought that they had Angelical or Divine Revelations, 1 King. 22.24. Jer. 29.8. The Hebrew Doctors say, it is a profound Question, How the true Spirit of Prophesy may be certainly known from ⟨p. 17⟩that which is false? Nor do they give any satisfactory Resolution concerning it: only they say, that all Prophesy makes it self known to the Prophet by the strength & vigour of the perception. And that false Prophesy do's proceed from the too great force of the Imaginative power, and the Imbecility of the rational. The Prophetical Spirit does never alienate the mind, since it seats it self in the rational as well as in the sensitive power. Again, If these White Angels appear to Females only, who are the weaker Sex, and more easy to be imposed on, that renders the case yet the more suspicious. It was part of the Devils subtlety in the first Temptation, which he assaulted mankind with, that he began▪ with the Woman; and he hath found such success, as to hold on in the same course. How many Women have been famous in some former dark Ages on account of pretended Angelical Apparitions and Revelations? There was S. Hildegardis, with whose Revelations as wise a man as Bernard was deceived. There was Lutgardis, whose many Apparitions and Revelations are Commemorated by Surius. There was Christina Surnamed Admirabilis, of whom Ferrarirus has written. There were St. Bridget, Elizabetha (a Q of Hungary) Liduina, Catharina, Raconissa, Agnes, Politiana, and I know not how many more such, of whose converses with Angels, Possevinus, Sandeus, Delrio, and other such Authors have Published strange things▪ If ever an Age for Angelical Apparitions shall come, no question but men, and not women only, will be honoured with their Vis••s▪ of which I hear little or nothing at present. And this shall bring us to the last particular, which giveth ground of suspicion, that the persons who suppose themselves to be attended with Angelical Apparitions, are only so imaginarily, or imposed on with Diabolical illusions, so. if they be diseased Persons.