N00620:209
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.
If they have been lately sick, and the disease wherewith they have been attended, has had any influence on the ⟨p. 18⟩brain, that & Satan together will make them phansy very wonderful matters Dr Casaubon in his Treatise of Enthusiasm as an effect of nature, (which Sir Will Temple in his Miscellanies p. 308. is pleased to call a Curious and Useful Treatise) has some memorable Instances to confirm this p. 73. He says that in September 1655. there was in the Parish where he then dwelt, one John Carpenter, who related to him what Visions and Raptures he had experienced the night before: how he had been carried to hell, and what fearful things he had seen there; and also to Heaven, and what glorious things he had seen there. He was in transports of joy, not doubting but that thousands would be Converted by his Revelations. Nor could he bear it, that any should call his Revelations into question, which he was certain (as he thought) that they were of Divine Inspiration. But within a while all appeared to be the effect of a natural disease. That Learned man observes that some persons in the World by reason of an Unaccountable Epileptic humour, have been strangely disposed to Enthusiastical raptures & fancies. Paulus Eberus (a Lutheran Divine of great fame in Misnia) writes of a Maid in Friburg, who had strange Ecstasies & Visions. After her fits she was full of Religious Discourse, so that she was generally thought to be inspired, and her Speeches were Printed under the name of Divine Prophesies & Warnings: but Eberus was much against the Publication of them, judging her Ecstasies to be a more gentle kind of Epilepsy, & that her pious discourses were a natural effect of her Religious Education, frequent hearing the Word, and having used her self to the exercises of Godliness Joh. Coboldus (a Learned Physician giveth an account concerning a Youth in Alterburg (a Town in Germany) whom his Master upon some great provocation did with his fists beat about his head unmercifully. The Lad fell sick of an Epilepsy, whereof he had diverse terrible fits, and was twelve days speechless. ⟨p. 19⟩But then instead of them he had Ecstasies, in which he would continue without sense or motion for some hours. As soon as he was out of a fit, he would sing Hymns (though it was not known that he had learned any) very melodiously.
If they have been lately sick, and the disease wherewith they have been attended, has had any influence on the