N00655:20
The way to excel. Meditations, awakened by the death of the Reverend Mr. Joshua…
The way to excel. Meditations, awakened by the death of the Reverend Mr. Joshua Moodey; with some short character of that eminent person: who slept in Jesus, 4d. 5.m. 1697. In the sixty fifth year of his age. / By Cotton Mather. ; [Six lines from Joshua]
printed by B. Green, 1697
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Concerning the Face of an Angel, we have a Remarkable Account, in what we read about one of the Angels, in Mat. 28.3. His Countenance was like Lightning. And we read concerning a Great man, who had got the Face of an Angel, by being much with the Angels, in Exod 34.10. Behold, ⟨p. 8⟩the skin of his Face shone. If we carry the passage now before us, unto the Highest sense, which it would lay claim unto, we are to suppose, That such a Splendour was discernible upon the Face of Stephen: And surely, if they who discerned it, had not had the Heart of a Devil in them, they durst not have gone on, to Abuse a man, that Appeared before them, with the Face of an Angel. Alas, the more of an Angel there is in any man, the more Stones will the Devil procure to be thrown at such a Man! But, behold, the Agreeableness of the matter; Stephen was persecuted for vilifying of Moses; and, behold, at this very Time, he is vindicated with a Shine upon his Face, like that once upon the Face of Moses. The Things here spoken by Stephen, were those very Things, which the Angel Gabriel, had formerly spoken unto the Prophet Daniel; and behold, the Aspect of an Angel adorns him, in his Discourse.
Concerning the Face of an Angel, we have a Remarkable Account, in what we read about one of the Angels, in Mat. 28.3. His Countenance was like Lightning. And we read concerning a Great man, who had got the Face of an Angel, by being much with the Angels, in Exod 34.10. Behold, ⟨p. 8⟩the skin of his Face shone. If we carry the passage now before us, unto the Highest sense, which it would lay claim unto, we are to suppose, That such a Splendor was discernible upon the Face of Stephen: And surely, if they who discerned it, had not had the Heart of a Devil in them, they durst not have gone on, to Abuse a man, that Appeared before them, with the Face of an Angel. Alas, the more of an Angel there is in any man, the more Stones will the Devil procure to be thrown at such a Man! But, behold, the Agreeableness of the matter; Stephen was persecuted for vilifying of Moses; and, behold, at this very Time, he is vindicated with a Shine upon his Face, like that once upon the Face of Moses. The Things here spoken by Stephen, were those very Things, which the Angel Gabriel, had formerly spoken unto the Prophet Daniel; and behold, the Aspect of an Angel adorns him, in his Discourse.