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 Devil once exclaimed in Mat. 8.29. Jesus, 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 plagueing 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 'tis 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 Devil can give a shrewd guess, when he draws 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 Devil to know that God won't suffer him to have the Everlasting Dominion; and that when God has once begun to rescue the World out of his hands, he'll 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 Devil 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 Pit. It is not improbable, that the Devil 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 certain place in the Epistle to the Ephesians, That the Angels do sometimes come into our Churches, to gain some advantage from our Ministry. But be sure our Demonstrable Interpretations may give Repeated Notices to the Devil, That his time is almost out; and what the Preacher says unto the Young Man, Know thou, that God will bring thee into Judgment! That may our Sermons tell unto the Old Wretch, Know thou, that thy Judgment 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 'tis, 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 Devil knows, that he is got into his Last days, he will make perillous times for us; the times will grow more full of Devils, and therefore more full of Perils, than ever they were before. Of this, if we would know, what cause is to be assigned; It is not only, because the Devil grows more able, and more eager to vex the World; but also, and chiefly, because the World is more worthy to be vexed by the Devil, 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 and Exquisite and 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 and gone! 'Tis because that men by sinning over again the sins of the former days, have a Fellowship with all those unfruitful works of darkness. As 'twas said in Matth. 23.36. All these things shall come upon this generation; so, the men of the last Generation, will find themselves involved in the gulf of all that went before them. Of Sinners 'tis 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 all former ages going up to God, That the Devil 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 distast 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 cast 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 Vials in the Apocalyptick Schemes of these things, to come upon the World, were the woes to come from the wrath of the Devil, 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 Vileness which then came upon mankind, and the Monstrous Croisadoes which thereupon carried the Roman World by 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 Devil is come down in great Wrath, having but a short time.
But besides all these things, and besides the increase of Plagues and 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 Devil in the Earth. The Devil will be clap't up, as a Prisoner in or near the Bowels of the earth, when once that Conflagration shall be dispatched, 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; in asmuch 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 ere 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, Terræ motus 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 Tiberious. 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
