N00620:222
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.
And what should make an Evil Angel give a kind warning to a poor Country-man.
2. Many have been miserably imposed on by deceitful Daemons, pretending to be good Angels. Thus it has been with not a few heterodox persons as a Judgment of God upon them for their Errors: Strong Delusions have bin sent upon them. 2 Thes. 2.11. The Montanists and other primitive Heretics were high pretenders to rare communion with Spirits; and no doubt but that many of them did really think that Angels had appeared to them, when it was all Diabolical Illusion. See Eusebius Hist. l 5. cap. 15. When Monkery and Popery crept into the World, Angels of Darkness clothed like Angels of Light were the cause of that misery to the World. Sin•• ⟨p. 27⟩the Reformation the Devil has played the old game over again. Balduinus speaks of them in his time, who from the visions and conferences which they had with Angels, predicted mutations and eversions of several States and Kingdoms, and that the destruction of Antichrist, and the seculum spiritus sansti was then at hand. How some in the former Century, who went under the name of Anabaptists, have been after the like manner imposed on, •ornbeck Spa••eimius, and Cloppenburgius have given accounts large enough. But it is awful to consider that persons truly pious have been thus deceived by the old Serpent. He that crept into Paradise, will creep into Churches. Tertullian in his Book De Anima (p. mihi. 265) which was written before his lapse into Montanism, relates, That there was in the Church unto which he did officiate, a Soror, who had the Gift of Revelations; That in the Church whilst they were solemnizing the Worship of God, she would be in Extasies, et conversatur cum Angelis, she had conferences with Angels. After the Public Worship was over, and the Congregation dismissed, she would declare to Tertullian and the other Officers of the Church what she had seen and heard; who kept an account of what she declared, that so they might observe whether the things were true or no. But thus not only a Member, but she Pastor and Officers of the Church suffered themselves to be imposed on by pretended Angels. Junius his note on this passage in Tertullian is, Inepta revelatio; phantasma laborantis melancholiae, non indita a caelis revelatio.