Corollary V.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Mather, Cotton and Mather, Increase
Good News for the Israel of God, and particularly for his New-English Israel. If the Devils Time were above a thousand years ago, pronounced short, what may we suppose it now in our Time? Surely we are not a thousand years distant from those happy thousand years of rest and peace, and [which is better] Holiness reserved for the People of God in the latter days; and if we are not a thousand years yet short of that Golden Age, there is cause to think, that we are not an hundred. That the blessed Thousand years are not yet begun, is abundantly clear from this, We do not see the Devil bound; No, the Devil was never more let loose than in our Days; and it is very much that any should imagine otherwise: But the same thing that proves the Thousand Years of prosperity for the Church of God, under the whole Heaven, to be not yet begun, does also prove, that it is not very far off; and that is the prodigious wrath with which the Devil does in our days Persecute, yea, desolate the World. Let us cast our Eyes almost where we will, and we shall see the Devils domineering at such a rate as may justly fill us with astonishment; it is questionable whether Iniquity ever were so rampant, or whether Calamity were ever so pungent, as in this Lamentable time; We may truly say, 'Tis the Hour and the Power of Darkness. But, tho the wrath be so great, the time is but short: when we are perplexed with the wrath of the Devil, the Word of our God at the same time unto us, is that in Rom. 16.20. The God of Peace shall bruise Satan under your feet Shortly. Shortly, didst thou say, dearest Lord!
O gladsome word! Amen, Even so, come Lord! Lord Jesus, come quickly! We shall never be rid of this troublesome Devil, till thou do come to Chain him up!
But because the people of God, would willingly be told whereabouts we are, with reference to the wrath and the time of the Devil, you shall give me leave humbly to set before you a few Conjectures.