N00620:78
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.
11.28. He might notwithstanding that, be a good Angel: For no work is more becoming those Holy Spirits, than to Execute the Judgments of God on Impenitent Sinners. And although it is said concerning the Egyptians, Psal. 78.49. That the Lord did cast upon them the fierceness of his Anger, By sending Evil Angels among them: Judicious Expositors conceive, That those Angels are styled, Evil Angels, not in respect of their Nature, but in respect of the sad Message they were sent upon, in that they were the Messengers of Evil Tidings; they were the Messengers of Death to the Egyptians. The Egyptians had made use of wicked Angels to oppose Moses, ⟨p. 34⟩and to withstand the Design of God for the Salvation of His People: and now God to punish them, would make use of the Holy Angels, as the Instruments of His Providence. When Seventy Thousand men among the Children of Israel, Dyed of the Plague, they were smitten by the Hand of an Angel. David saw the Angel stretched out his Hand over Jerusalem to destroy it, but the Lord said to the Angel that destroyed, it is enough, stay now thine hand 2 Sam. 24.16. When Jerusalem was laid waste by the Babylonians: Holy Angels had a hand in the Execution of that Righteous Judgment; A Whirlwind came out of th• North, Ezek. 1.4. The Babylonians came like a Whirlwind, and the Angels of Heaven had a Hand in Raising the Storm, that carried Jerusalem away before it. Hence in v. 24. It is said of the Living Creatures, That the noise of their Wings was as the Noise of an Host: The Angels fetched […] Host to destroy Jerusalem. So when Jerusalem was the last time destroyed by the Romans, the Angels of the Lord did forsake the City. Th• Jewish Historian relates, That a voice was heard in the Temple, saying, [METABAINOMEN ENTEUTHEN,] Let us depart from hence; and Tacitus reports, that in Jerusalem there was heard a voice greater than Humane, saying, The God's are departing from this place. The Angels of God departed from that place, and now it lay open to the Fury of their Enemies. The Trumpets in the Revelation, signifying Judgments on the Roman ⟨p. 35⟩