A DISCOURSE ON THE WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD.
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Mather, Cotton and Mather, Increase
But there will be more such Catastrophes 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 Jamaica: an horrible Earthquake, whereby the Tyrus of the English America, was at once pull'd into the Jaws 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; and perhaps in Possessions and 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 his 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 be like to see the Devil more sensible 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 Jews were to be finished, a man then ran 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 our selves with a few Corollaries, deduced from what has been thus asserted.