the Divel are swoâ—…n Enemiâ—…s to each other the Terms between them are those in Zech. 11. 18. My Soul 〈◊〉 them and their Soul also Abbâ—…rred me And from this Furious Wrath or Displeasure and Prejudice at God proceeds the Divels Wrath at us the poor Children of Men. Our doing the Service of God is one thing that Exposes us to the Wrath of the Divel We are the High-Priests of the World when all Creatures are call'd upon Praise ye the Lord they bring to us those demanded Praises of God saying Do you Offer them for us Hence 't is that the Divel has a a Quarrel with us as he had with the High-Priest in the Vision of Old Our bearing the Image of God is another thing that brings the Wrath of the Divel upon us As a Tygre thro' his Hatred at a man will tear the very Picture of him if it come in his way such a Tygre the Devil is because God said of old Let us make Man in our Image the Devil is ever saying Let us pâ—…ll this man to pieces But the envious Pride of the Devil is one thing more that gives an Edge unto his Furious Wrath against us The Apostle has given us an hint as if Pride had been the Condemnation of the Devil 'T is not unlikely that the Devils Affectation to be above that Condition which he might learn that Mankind was to be preferr'd unto might be the occasion of his taking up Arms against the Immortal King However the Devil now sees Man lying in the Bosome of God but Himself damned in the Bottom of Hell and this Enrages him exceedingly O says he I cannot bear it that man should not be as miserable as myself Proposition III. The Devil in the prosecution for the execution of His wrath upon them often getts a Liberty to make a Descent upon the Children of men When the Devil does Hurt unto us he Comes Down unto us for the Randezvouze of the Infernal Troops is indeed in the Supernal Parts of our Air. But as t is said A. sparrow of the Air does not fall down without the will of God so I may say Not a Devil in the Air can come down without the leave of God Of this we have a famous Instance in that Arabian Prince of whom the Devil was unable so much as to Touch any thing till the most High God gave him a permission to go down The Divel stands with all the Instruments of Death aiming at us and begging of the Lord as that King ask'd for the Hood-winck'd Syrians of old Shall I Smite 'em shall I Smite ' em He cannot strike a Blow till the Lord say Go down and smite but sometimes He does obtain from the High Possessor of Heaven and Earth a License for the doing of it The Divel sometimes does make most rueful Havock among us but still we may say to him as our Lord said unto a great servant of his Thou couldest have no power against me except it were given thee from above The Divel is called in 1 pet 5. 8. your Adversary T is a Law-term and it notes An Adversary at Law The Divel cannot come at us except in some sence according to Law but sometimes he does procure sad things to be inflicted according to that Law of the eternal King upon us The Divel First Goes up as an Accuser against us He is therefore styled The Accuser and it is on this account that his proper Name does belong unto him There is a Court somewhere kept a Court of Spirits where the Divel enters all sorts of Complaints against us all he charges us with manifold sins against the Lord our God There he loads us with heavy Imputations of Hypocrisy Iniquity Disobedience where upon he uâ—…ges Lord Let 'em now have the Death which is their Wages paid unto ' em If our Advocate in the Heavens do not now take off his Libels the Devil then with a Concession of God Comes down as a Destroyer upon us Having first been an Attorney to bespeak that the Judgments of Heaven may be Ordered for us he then also pleads that he may be the Executioner of those Judgments and the God of Heaven sometimes after a sort signs a Warrant for this Destroying Angel to do what has bin desired to be done for the Destroying of men But such a Permission from God for the Divel to Come down and Break in upon mankind oftentimes must be Accompanyed with a Commission from some wretches of mankind it 〈◊〉 Every man is as 't is hinted in Gen. 4 9. His Brothers Keeâ—…per We are to keep one another from the 〈◊〉 of the Divel by mutual and Cordiâ—…l wiâ—…hes of prosperity to one another When ungodly people give their Consents in witchcrafts diabolically performed for the Divell to annoy their Neighbours he â—…nds a Breach made in the Hedge about us whereat he Rushes in upon us with gâ—…ievous molestations Yea when Impious people that never saw the Divel do but utter their Curses against their Neighbours those are so many Watch words whereby the Maâ—…ives of Hell are animated presently to fall upon us ' Tiâ—… thus that the Devil gets Leave to worry us Proposition IV. Most Horrible Woes come to be inflicted upon Mankind when the Divel do's in Great Wrath make a Descent upon them The Divel is a Do-Evil and wholly set upon mischief When Our Lord once was going to Muzzel him that he might not mischief others he cry'd out Art thou come to 〈◊〉 me He is it seems himself Tormented if he be but Restrained from the Tormenting of Men. If upon the Sounding of the Three last Apocalyptical Angels it was an outcry made in Heaven Wo Wo Wo to the inhabitants of the Earth by reason of the voice of the Trumpet I am sure a Descent made by the Angel of Death would give cause for the like Exclamation Wo to the World by reason of the Wrath of the Divel What a Woful plight Mankind would by the Descent of the Divel be brought into may be gathered from the Woful pains and wounds and hideous desolations which the Divel bâ—…ings upon them of whom he has with a Bodily Possession made a Siezure You may both in Sacred and Profane History read many a direful Account of the Woes which they that are possessed by the Divel do undergo And from thence conclude What must the Children of Men hope from such a Divel Moreover the Tyrannical Ceremonies whereto the Divel uses to subjugate such VVoful Nations or Orders of men as are more Entirely under his Dominion do declare what VVoful Work the Divel would make where he comes The very Devotions of those forlorn Pagans to whom the Divel is a Leader are most bloody Penances and what VVoes indeed must we expect from such a Divel of a Mâ—…loch as relishes no Sacrifices like those of Humane Heart-Blood and unto whom there is no musick like the bitter dying doleful Groans ejulated by the Roasting
a Spirit and thus they become Improv'd in Sinfulness Yea the Devil will put Good Men upon doing Ill. Thus we read in 1 Chron. 21. 1. Satan provoked David to Number Israel And so the Devil provokes men that are Eminent in Holiness unto such Things as may become eminently pernicious he provokes them especially unto Pride and unto many unsuitable Emulations There are likewise most lamentable Impressions which the Devil makes upon the Souls of men by way of punishment upon them for their Sins 'T is thus when an Offended God puts the Souls of men over into the Hands of that Officer Who has the Power of Death that is the Devil It is the woful misery of Unbelievers in 2 Cor. 4. 4. The God of this World has blinded their minds And thus it may be said of those Woful Wretches whom the Devil is a God unto The Devil so Muffles them that they cannot see the things of their Peace And The Devil so Hardens them that nothing will awaken their cares about their Souls How come so many to be Seared in their Sins 'T is the Devil that with a Red Hot Iron fetch 't from his Hell does cauterise them Thus t is till perhaps at last they come to have a Wounded Conscience in them and the Devil has often a share in their Torturing and Confounding Anguishes The Devil who Terrify'd Cain and Saul and Iudas into Desperation still becomes a King of Terrors to many Sinners and frights them from laying hold on the Mercy of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. In these regards Wo to us when the Devil comes down upon us Proposition V. Toward the End of his Time the Descent of the Devil in Wrath upon the World will produce more woful Effects than what have been in Former Ages The Dying Dragon will bite more Cruelly sting more bloodily than ever he did before The â—…th-pangs of the Devil will make him to be more of a Devil than ever he was and the Furnace of this Nebuchadnezaear will be heated seven times hotter just before its putting out We are in the first place to Apprehend That there is a Time fixed and stated by God for the Devil to enjoy a Dominion over our sinful and therefore woful World The Dâ—…vil once Exclaimed in Mat. 8. 29. Iesus thou Son of God art thou come hither to Torment us before our Time It is plain That until the Second Coming of our Lord the Devil must have a Time of plaguing the World which he was afraid would have Expired at His First The Devil is By the wrath of God the Prince of this World and the Time of his Reign is to continue until the Time when our Lord Himself shall Take to Himself his great Power and Reign Then 't is that the Devil shall hear the Son of God swearing with loud Thunders against him Thy Time shall now be no more Then shall the Devil with his Angels receive their Doom which will be Depart into the Everlasting Fire prepared for you We are also to Apprehend that in the mean time the Divel can give a shrowd guess when he drawes near to the End of his Time When he saw Christianity enthron'd among the Romans it is here said in our Rev 12 12 He knows he hath but a short time And how does he know it Why Reason will make the Divel to know that God won't suffer him to have the Everlasting Dominion that when God has once begun to rescue the world out of his hands Hee 'l go through with it until The Captives of the mighty shall be taken away and the prey of the Terrible shall be delivered But the Divel will have Scripture also to make him Know that when his Antichristian Vicar the seven headed Beast on the seven-hilled City shall have spent his determined years he with his Vicar must unavoidably go down into the Bottomless Pitt It is not Improbable that the Divel often hears the Scripture expounded in our congregations yea that we never Assemble without a Satan among us As there are some Divines who do with more uncertainty conjecture from a â—…eartain Pâ—…ace in the Epistle to the Ephesians That the Angels do some times come into our Churches to gain some Advantage from our Ministry But be sure our Demonstra ble Interpretations may give Repeated Notices to the-Divel That his time is almost out and what the preacher says unto the Young Man Know thou that God will bring thee into Iudgment THAT may our Sermons tell unto that Old Wretch Know thou that the time of thy Iudgment is at hand But we must now likewise Apprehend that in such a time the Woes of the world will be heightened beyond what they were at any Time yet from the foundation of the world Hence ti 's that the Apostle has forewarned us in 2. Tim. 3. 1. this know that in the last days perillous times shall come Truly when the Divel knows that he is got into his Last days he will make Perillous Times for us the times will grow more full of Divels and therefore more full of Perils than everthey were before Of this if we would Know what cause is to be assigned It is not only because the Divel growes more Able and more Eager to Vex the world but also and cheefly Because the world is more worthy to be Vexed by the Divel than ever heretofore The Sins of men in this Generation will be more mighty Sins than those of the Former Ages men will be more Accurate Exquisite Refined in the Arts of Sinning than they use to be And besides their own sins the sins of all the Former Ages will also lie upon the sinners of this generation Do we ask why the mischievous powers of darkness are to prevail more in our days than they did in those that are past gone T is because that men by sinning over again the sins of the Former days have a Fellowship with all those unfruitful works of darkness As 't was said in Math. 23. 36. All these things shall come upon this generation so the men of the Last generation will find themselves involved in the guilt of all that went before them Of Sinners t is said They Heap up Wrath and the sinners of the Last generations do not only add unto the Heap of sin that has been pileing up ever since the Fall of man but they Interest themselves in every sin of that enormous Heap There has been a Cry of sin in all Former Ages going up to God That the Divel may come down and the sinners of the Last generations do sharpen and louden that cry till the thing do come to pass as Destructively as Irremediably From whence it follows that the Thrice Holy God with His Holy Angels will now after a sort more Abandon the World than in the former Ages The Roaring Impieties of the Old World at last gave Mankind such a Distaâ—…t in the Heart of the Just God
that he came to say It Repents me that I have made such a Creature And however it may be but a witty Fancy in a Late Learned Writer that the Earth before the Flood was nearer to the Sun than it is at this Day and that Gods Hurling down the Earth to a further Distance from the Sun were the cause of that Flood yet we may fitly enough say that men perished by a Rejection from the God of Heaven Thus the Enhanc'd Impieties of this our World will Exasperate the Displeasure of God at such a rate as that he will more Cost us off than heretofore until at last He do with a more than ordinary Indignation say Go Devils do you take them and make them beyond all former measures miserable If Lastly We are inquisitive after Instances of those Aggravated Woes with which the Devil will towards the End of his Time assault us Let it be Remembred That all the Extremities which were foretold by the Trumpets and the Vials in the Apocalyptic Schemes of these things to come upon the world were the woes to come from the wrath of the Divel upon the shortning of his Time The horrendous desolations that have come upon mankind by the Irruptions of the old Barbarians upon the Roman World and then of the Saracens and since of the Turks were such woes as men had never seen before The Infandous Blindness and Viâ—…eness which then came upon mankind and the Monstrous 〈◊〉 which thereupon carried the Roman world by the Millions together unto the shambles were also such woes as had never yet had a Parallel And yet these were some of the things here intended when it was said wo For the Divel is come down in Great wrath having but a short Time But besides all these things and besides the Increase of Plagues Wars and Storms and Internal Maladies now in our days there are especially two most extraordinary Woes one would fear will in these days become very ordinary One Woe that may be look'd for is A frequent Repetition of Earthquakes and this perhaps by the energy of the Divel in the Earth The Divel will be clap't up as a Prisoner in or near the Bowels of the earth when once that Conflagration shall be dispatch'd which will make The New Earth wherein shall dwell Righteousness and that Conflagration will doubtless be much promoted by the Subterraneous Fires which are a cause of the Earthquakes in our Dayes Accordingly we read Great Earthquakes in divers places enumerated among the Tokens of the Time approaching when the Devil shall have no longer Time I suspect That we shall now be visited with more Usual and yet more Fatal Earthquakes than were our Ancestors inasmuch as the Fires that are shortly to Burn unto the Lowest Hell and set on Fire the Foundations of the Mountains will now get more Head than they use to do and it is not impossible that the Devil who is e're long to be punished in those Fires may aforehand augment his Desert of it by having an hand in using some of those Fires for our Detriment Learned Men have made no scruple to charge the Devil with it Deo permittente Terraemotus causat The Devil surely was a party in the Earthquake whereby the Vengeance of God in one black Night sunk Twelve considerable Cities of Asia in the Reign of Tiberius But there will be more such Catastrophe's in our Dayes Italy has lately been Shaking till its Earthquakes have brought Ruines at once upon more than thirty Towns but it will within a little while shake again and shake till the Fire of God have made an Entire Etna of it And behold This very Morning when I was intending to utter among you such Things as these we are cast into an Heartquake by Tidings of an Earthquake that has lately happened at Iamaica an horrible Earthquake whereby the Tyrus of the English America was at once pull'd into the Jawes of the Gaping and Groaning Earth and many Hundreds of the Inhabitants buried alive The Lord sanctifie so dismal a Dispensation of his Providence unto all the American Plantations But be assured my Neighbours the Earthquakes are not over yet We have not yet seen the Last And then Another Wo that may be Look'd for is The Devils being now let Loose in preternatural Operations more than formerly perhaps in Possessions Obsessions that shall be very marvellous You are not Ignorant That just before our Lords First Coming there were most observable Outrages committed by the Devil upon the Children of Men And I am suspicious That there will again be an unusual Range of the Devil among us a little before the Second Coming of our Lord which will be to give the last stroke in Destroying the Works of the Devil The Evening Wolves will be much abroad when we are near the Evening of the World The Devil is going to be Dislodged of the Air where his present Quarters are God will with flashes of hot Lightning upon him cause him to fall as Lightning from this Ancient Habitations And the Raised Saints will there have a New Heaven which We expect according to the Promise of God Now a little before this thing you 'l be like to see the Devil more sensibly and visibly Busy upon Earth perhaps than ever he was before You shall oftner hear about Apparitions of the Devil and about poor people strangely Bewitched Possessed and Obsessed by Infernal Fiends When our Lord is going to set up His Kingdom in the most sensible and visible manner that ever was and in a manner answering the Transfiguration in the Mount it is a thousand to one but the Devil will in sundry parts of the World assay the like for Himself with a most Apish Imitation and Men at least in some Corners of the World and perhaps in such as God may have some special Designs upon will to their Cost be more Familiarized with the World of Spirits than they had been formerly So that in fine if just before the End when the Times of the Iews were to be finished a man then â—…an about every where crying Wo to the Nation Wo to the City Wo to the Temple Wo Wo Wo Much more may the descent of the Devil just before his End when also the Times of the Gentiles will be finished cause us to cry out Wo Wo Wo because of the Black things that Threaten us But it is now Time to make our Improvement of what has been said And first we shall entertain ourselves with a few Corollaries deduced from what has been thus asserted Corollary I. What cause have we to bless God for our preservation from the Devils wrath in this which may too reasonably be call'd the Devils VVorld While we are in this present evil world We are continually surrounded with swarms of those Devils who make this present world become so evil What a wonder of Mercy is it that no Devil could ever yet make a prey of us
at the year 1517 in the former Century Indeed it is very agreeable to see how Antichrist then Lost Half of his Empire and how that Half which then became Reformed have been upon many accounts little more than Half-Reformed But by this Computaion we must needs bee within a very few years of such a Mortification to befall the See of Rome as that Antichrist who ha's lately been planting what proves no more lasting than a Tabernacle in the Glorious Holy Mountain between the Seas must quickly Come to his End and none shall help him So then within a very little while we shall see the Devil stript of the Grand yea the Last Vehicle wherein he will be capable to abuse our World The Fires with which That Beast is to be consumed will so singe the Wings of the Devil too that he shall no more set the Affairs of this world on Fire Yea they shall both go into the same Fire to be tormented for ever and ever The Second Conjecture That which is perhaps the greatest Effect of the Divels Wrath seems to be in a manner at an end and this would make one hope that the Divels Time cannot be far from its end It is in PERSECUTION that the wrath of the Divel uses to break forth with its greatest Fury Now there want not Probabilities that the Last Persecution intended for the Church of God before the Advent of Our Lord has been upon it When we see the Second We Passing away we have a fair signal given unto us That the Last Slaughter of our Lords Witnesses is over and then what QUICKLY followes The Next thing is The Kingdomes of this World are become the Kingdomes of Our Lord and of His Christ and then Down goes the Kingdome of the Divel so that he cannot any more come down upon us Now the Irrecoverable Irretrievable Humiliations that have Lately befallen the Turkish Power are but so many Declarations of the Second Wo Passing away And the dealings of God with the European parts of the world at this day do further strengthen this our Expectation We do see At this Hour a great Earth-Quake all Europe over and we shall see that this Great Earth-quake and these great Commotions will but Contribute unto the Advancement of Our Lords Hitherto Depressed Interests T is also to be Remark'd that A Disposition to Recognize the Empire of God over the Conscience of man does now prevail more in the world than formerly God from on High more touches the Hearts of Princes Rulers with an Averseness to Persecution T is Particularly the unspeakable Happiness of the English Nation to be under the Influences of that Excellent Queen who could say Inasmuch as a man cannot make himself Believe what he will why should we Persecute men for not Believing as we do I wish I could see all good men of one mind but in the mean time I pray let them 〈◊〉 Love one another Words Worthy to be written in Letters of Gold and by us the more to be considered because to one of Ours did that Royal Person Express Her Self so Excellently so Obligingly When the late King Iames published his Declaration for Liberty of Conscience a Worthy Divine in the Church of England then stâ—…dying the Revelation saw cause upon Revelational Grounds to Declare himself in such words as these Whatsoever others may intend or design by this Liberty of Conscience I cannot believe that it will 〈◊〉 be recalled in England as long as the World stands And you know how Miraculously the Earth Quake which then immediately came upon the Kingdom â—…a's established that Liberty But that which exceeds all the tendencies this way is The Dispensation of God at this Day towards the blessed Vaudâ—… Those Renowned Waldenses which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sort of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the Protestant Churches were never dissipated by all the Persecutions of many Ages till within these few years the French King and the Duke of Savoy Leagued for their Disspation But just Three years and half after the scattering of that Holy people to the Surprise of all the world a Spirit of life from God is come into them and having with a Thousand Miracles Repossessed themselves of their antient Seats their Hot Persecutor is become their great Protector Whereupon the Reflection of the Worthy person that writes the story is The Churches of Piemont being the Root of the Protestant Churches They have been the first Established the Churches of other places being but the Branches shall be Established in due time God will deliver them speedily He has already delivered the Mother and He will not long leave the Daughter behind He will Finish what he has Gloriously begun The Third Conjecture There is a Little Room for Hope that the Great Wrath of the Devil will not prove the Present Ruine of our poor New-England in particular I believe there never was a poor Plantation more Pursued by the Wrath of the Devil than our poor New-England and that which makes our Condition very much the more deplorable is That the Wrath of the Great God Himself at the same Time also presses hard upon us It was a Rowsing Alarm to the Devil when a great Company of English Protestants and Puritans came to Erect Evangelical Churches in a corner of the World where he had Reign'd without any Controll for many Ages and it is a vexing Eye-sore to the Devil that our Lord Christ should be known and own'd and preached in this Howling Wilderness Wherefore he has left no Stone Unturned that so he might undermine his Plantation and force us out of our Country First The Indian Powawes used all their Sorceries to molest the First Planters here but God said unto them Touch them not Then Seducing Spirits came to Root in this Vineyard but God so Rated them off that they have not prevail'd much further than the Edges of our Land After this we have had a continual Blast upon some of our principal Grain Annually diminishing a vast part of our Ordinary Food Herewithal Wasting Sicknesses especially Burning and Mortal Agues have Shot the Arrows of Death in at our Windows Next We have had many Adversaries of our own Language who have been perpetually assaying to deprive us of those English Liberties in the Encouragement whereof these Territories have been Settled As if this had not been enough The Tawnies among whom we came have Watered our Soyl with the Blood of many Hundreds of our Inhabitants Desolating Fires also have many times laid the chief Treasure of the whole Province in Ashes As for Losses by Sea they have been multiply'd upon us and particularly in the present French War the whole English Nation have observed That no part of the Nation has proportionably had so many Vessels taken as our poor New-England Besides all which now at last the Devils are if I may so speak in Person come down upon us with such a Wrath as is justly much and will quickly be more the