N00620:224
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 reported concerning Gertrude, who was accounted a very religious woman, that she was frequently visited with Angels, who used to appear to her in a glorious form, and would predict future things, and reveal some matters that were secret. Nevertheless, these Visitants were (as Cesarius has noted) Devils transforming them ⟨p. 28⟩selves into Angels of Light. But I have not met with any Examples more astonishing than some that have happened in our days. I pretermit the Revelations which some amongst the persecuted Protestants in France have lately been attended with, because I do not understand what those things are come to, so that whether they are Angelical or Diabolical, sub judice lis •st, is as yet undetermined. Nevertheless, there are several things which make me suspect that the French Prophets are imposed on. e. g. Their Prophesying that the K. of England, & the K. of France shall come to an agreement, and that the French K shall be converted; their having sad looks, Fasting four or five days before they Prophesy: Their being in Torments until the Sinners by them impeached come to them. Their feeling something come from their •eet to their throat before the fit takes them. One of them had his Leg broke by the Spirit which acted him, of which he felt nothing, till out of his fit. These things seem not to be the work of Holy Angels: Time will discover what they are▪ But amongst them of the Reformed and Persecuted Religion in Bohemia and Germany, there have lately been no less than sixteen persons who have had Visions and Revelations. See the General Table of Europe. p. 205, 206. I shall here take notice of only two of them who have made a great noise in the World, and of whom Commenius has published a large and true account. One is Nicholas Drabicius, a Protestant Minister of Moravia. Commenius did at first suspect, that Drabicius's Visions were either feigned or imaginary, and did with much severity reprove him: Yet afterwards that very learned and pious man inclined to think, that Drabicius his Spirits were good Angels. And the only wise God saw meet in his Holy Providence to suffer such things to happen as did both harden Drabicius in his Errors, and occasion others to give credit to ⟨p. 29⟩him.