The Wonderful Works of God Commemorated, Appendix – Errata
An APPENDIX Touching Prodigies In NEW-ENGLAND.
AS an Appendix to the Endeavours used in the foregoing Treatise, to Commemorate the Wonderful Works of God, and at the same time to awaken this Countrey unto such a Devotion and Repentance as the Works of God are calling for: It ought to be seriously enquired, Whether we have not been by any Prodigies Warned of the Evils near unto us? tho' it must be confessed, that our Hearts were Pr… digiously obdurate and insensible, if we needed any, while we have Moses and the Prophets. The written Word of God is that Firmament, spread over the Spiritual, which answers the Expansum in the Natural World; and the Threatnings with the Histories therein shining and Thundering, would givē to ā sinful People, as great a praemonition of impendin… Plagues, as the most Portentous Armies in th… Air, or Comets in the AEther of the Universe. Yet even Insolit Accidents of Nature, as well as Faithful Cautions of Scripture have been employ'd for our awakening in our late stupidity. Indeed there are some from whom we might have expected a less unreasonable Scepticism, who deride all Prodigies; but these Gentlemen, like Those who deny Original Sin, do in their own Disputation confute themselves, by Giving, yea, by Being an Instance of the very thing, which they oppose. Nay, Let no more than the Authorities and Varieties recited by the Great Zuinger, in his Elaborate Theatre, upon the Head of Prodigies, be faitly considered, and I know not whether you will allow them to be called Gentlemen, that shall be so Disingenuous as to make a Ridicule of all in this kind, that has been hitherto Reported and Believed. I acknowledge, That there ought to be much Accuracy in the Observation of Prodigies; and that those things ought not always to be accounted Prodigies which are Extraordinaries; and that it is a simple thing to believe every word; and since I have seen the Nonconformist. Reproched for their minding of Prodigies, by the loose Pens of certain Writers, whom, weighing well their Accomplishments, by their own Rule, we ought not to mind, I have been desirous that we may so far take the Informations, tho' we value not the Iudgments of their Malice, as to be sufficiently critical in this important point; yet we may not by profanity maintain our own Security. Altho' that the Eternal God, Hate Robbery for burnt offering, and it is as Dangerous as 'tis an officious thing, To Ly for Him: nevertheless those people, I am sure, were stigmatized for none of the wisest, Who Regard not the Works of the Lord, nor the Operation of his Hands; and the Communion between Us and the Angels, either good or bad, which are Invisibly about us, is more frequent, and Upheld and Applied unto more purposes than Mankind is Happy enough to be well Aware. I therefore pass on to say, That New-England also seems to have had its Prodiges. We have had inded One Omen, which was rather a Prophesy than a Prodigy unto us. I Remember that Leontius, the Aged and Famous Minister of Antioch, pointing to his own White Head, said unto his people, Brethren, when this Bank of Snow falls, I can tell you, that you'll have a dirty time on't; intimating the Troubles and Quarrels that should happen among them, after his Decease. Truly that sort of Snow fell so fast among us, and the precious, praying, Excellent Old Disciples were so fast interr'd, that we might well conceive as much of our Quiet, would go away with them, as there went of our Glory. But I yet speak too figuratively, to answer the Expectations of my Reader; Let him then know: That
Just before our late Vexations, we were terrified with an Earth-quake in the Southern Parts of the Countrey. And if so base a man as Polydore Virgil could reckon an Earth-quake in England long since, the Forerunner of a Bloody and Cruel French War, We that knew what Neighbours w… had, were not without ground of Conjectures that were none of the most Comfortable or Encouraging.
In the Summer of the Year, 1688. just before the first eruption of our unhappy War, we had growing in Boston a Cabbage Root, out of which there sprouted three very wonderful Branches, one of them exactly re…e…bling a …, another of them, as exactly resembling a Rapier, and a third, extreamly like to the Club used by the Indians in their Barbarous Executions. I was my self one among the Multitudes that visi…ed this Curios… …y, with no little surprize at the odness of it; and the Characters of it in my thoughts have grown more … and Solemn, since the … of it have been so agreeable. I … imagine my self herein impos'd upon, as Lycosthenes who wrote of Prodigies, was in the Business of his Bearded Grapes; but it would be Cranibe his cocta for me to offer the Reader what Exemples parallel hereunto are mentioned by the exquisitely Learned, and Curious Authors of the Renowned German Ephemerides.
Moreover, it was credibly affirmed, that in the Winter of the Year 1688, there fell a Red Snow, which lay like Blood on a spot of Ground, not many miles from Boston; but the Dissolution of it by a Thaw, which with in a few hours melted it, made it not capable of lying under the contemplation of so many Witnesses as it might have been worthy of. The Bloody Shower that went before the suffering of the ancient Britains from the Picts, (a sort of People that painted themselves like our Indians) this Prodigy seem'd a second Edition of.
And in the opinion of the most Critical Observers, throughout the Countrey, they were prodigious, or at least, Uncommon SIGHTS and SOUNDS, which on the first of October, in the Year, 1689. We were entertained withal, and not unlike those which Pliny mentions as presages to the Cimbric Wars of old▪ For on that Day, in the Morning, while the Sky was too clear, to give us a suspicion of any thing like Thunder approaching, there suddenly Blazed a Flame… in the fashion of a Sword; which Blaze after a continuance, far longer than that of an ordinary Lightning, expired in a smoke that gave Terror unto the Beholders of it. But hereunto succeeded immediately very terrible and Repeated Noises, exactly like Volleys of small Shot, not without Reports like those of Great Guns super added thereunto. This was a Scaene which all the Colonies of this large Countrey, and Thousands of People, at once were Spectators of, carrying in it, something, beyond the known Laws which ordinary Meteors are Conform'd unto. And herein was indeed One Circumstance, that gave Demonstration, of something Rare and Great in this Occurrent; That persons which were Distant from one another many scores of Miles above an Hundred, yet at the same Time, both Saw and Heard the whole of what is now related; and though I know, the Fancies of men applying themselves unto what is in the Clouds, are Fruitful even to a Ridicule; strong imagination being able to find, even a Iuno in them▪ and all that can be any where imagined; the shapes of Clouds, like the Clinks of Bells, humoring the Thoughts ▪ of any one; yet in This Accident, no small, Numbers of Gentlemen, who do not use to be imposed upon, but count no Trial severe enough to Examine Things of this Nature with, were so surprised as with one mouth to say, The Finger of God was here! But with Him are left the Events of all. And in the mean time we are not ignorant, that
Nunquam Futilibus Excand…it Ignibus AEther▪
FINIS.
ERRATA.
PAge 1. l. Last, Read Saying. Page 9. Line 5. Read Iews.
Page 37. Line 1. dele Can.
Page 44. Line 1. Read as at.
Page 44 Line last r. undone.
Page 45. Line 13. for gave. r. have.
End of the text · Cotton Mather, The Wonderful Works of God Commemorated (1690)