Concerning Comets, Title page – To the reader 1
foreign.
OR A Discourse Concerning COMETS; wherein the Nature of BLAZING STARS is Enquired into: With an Historical Account of all the COMETS which have appeared from the Beginning of the World unto this present Year, M. DC. LXXXIII.
Expressing The Place in the Heavens, where they were seen, Their Motion, Forms, Duration; and the Remarkable Events which have followed in the World, so far as they have been by Learned Men Observed.
As also two SERMONS Occasioned by the late Blazing Stars.
By INCREASE MATHER, Teacher of a Church at Boston in New-England.
Psal. 111. 2.
The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.
Amos 9. 6.
He buildeth his stories in the Heaven.
BOSTON IN NEW-ENGLAND, Printed by S. G. for S. S. And sold by J. Browning At the corner of the Prison Lane next the Town-House 1683.
To the Reader.
THe Subject of this following Discourse, now offering it self to thy Perusal is one of the many foreign which it hath pleased the Almighty Lord of Heaven and of Earth, to treat of and insist upon, in Drawing up and Publishing to the World the great and glorious volume of his Works: in the Margent whereof they have been frequently placed as Red Letters, Asterisms, or pointing Hands, to awaken unto a more heedful attention and serious consideration, the dead hearted sleeping and secure World of Mankind. To promote this, the best and most blessed end and use, of such tremendous and threatning Aspects of the highest and most Dreadful Majesty, is the pious design of the Reverend and Learned Author, in compiling & publishing this Treatise, & its a thousand pities it should not be attended to and attained by a People so circumstanced as we, English transplanted into, or procreated in these American Desarts, be. The labour and pains it hath cost the Author to peruse and consult so many Writers, ancient & modern, Astronomers, Chronologers, & Historians, is such as will render it very disingenious, not to give it a grateful and friendly reception and entertainment. He hath therein presented thee with, first, the Theory; secondly, the History of Comets, commonly called Blazing Stars. As to the Theory, there is (to my understanding) as much declared, as it hath pleased the Father of Lights and Fountain of all knowledge & wisdome (hitherto) to discover to poor ignorant Mortals; viz. the result of the judicious thoughts of the ablest and best accomplished Artists, who upon very many accurate, unquestionably true and exact Observations, made by the help of choicest Instruments improved by minds intensely set to search into, and find out the Mystery and Meaning of those abstruse and admirable works of him who is most High; have declared what they conceive most rationally probable. The wisest of Men know that they understand but little part of Gods wayes and works; and are not ashamed to confess that in things so much above humane Capacity, they are rather Quaerists then Adeptists, content to be ignorant of what he is pleased as yet not to discover; our Authors modest expressing himself, sheweth he wrote under the influence of so humbling a consideration.
Of the second, or Historical part of the Discourse, the scope is, to evidence and evince that Comets are ordinarily the forerunners of disasterous Calamities, Mischiefs, & Miseries, hastning to follow and fall down on the heads of senseless & secure Sinners. For the clearing up and making out of which, by way of induction, a great multitude of particular Instances and Examples are out of sundry Authors of approved ability and faithfulness alledged; who have left upon Record their accurate observations of time, place, and other circumstances of several Come…s in divers ages, with the dreadful Revolutions, dismal Commotions and Confusions which followed them at the heels. If it be said, that some of those Periwigged Heraulds have appeared on the aethereal stage upon a more benign account: it may be rationally replied, that the number of such is very small: and that their blasting influences, might be direfully operative in remoter and less known parts of the Earth. When the hand of Heaven is seen writing MENE MENE TEKEL, &c. it may become the highest of Mortals to tremble. Reader, if thou art one any whit considerably raised above the level of the lowest sort of men, thou wilt not think it lost labour to acquaint thy self with what is here presented: an awakening and humbling is the best use thou canst make of it; to see it improved unto the furthering thy souls best good will be the most acceptable recompense of the Pious Authors unwearied pains: That he may see the desired travel of his soul, shall be the unfeigned wish, of him who is,
Thine in the Lord, JOHN SHERMAN. Decemb. 20. 1682.