N00252:26
Heaven's alarm to the world. Or A sermon, wherein is showed, that fearful sights…Heaven's alarm to the world. Or A sermon, wherein is shewed, that fearful sights…
Heaven's alarm to the world. Or A sermon, wherein is showed, that fearful sights and signs in heaven, are the presages of great calamities at hand. Preached at the lecture of Boston in New-England; January, 20. 1680. / By Increase Mather.Heaven's alarm to the world. Or A sermon, wherein is shewed, that fearful sights and signs in heaven, are the presages of great calamities at hand. Preached at the lecture of Boston in New-England; January, 20. 1680. / By Increase Mather.
printed for Samuel Sewall. And are to be sold by Joseph Browning, 1682
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Qu. How doth it appear that such Fearful Sights are Presages of Calamities coming upon the World?
Qu. How doth it appear that such Fearful Sights are Presages of Calamityes coming upon the World?
Ans. 1. The Scripture is clear for this. The Text before us doth expressly declare ⟨p. 11⟩no less. And the Prophet Joel foretelling the same Calamities which this Text hath reference unto, saith also, that prodigious Signs in heaven should presage and portend them. Joel, 2.30, 31. I will show Wonders in the heaven. Truly, Blazing Stars are Wonders in the heaven. And in the Earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke before the great and the terrible Day of the Lord come. When Jerusalem was destroyed, and the Jewish state dissolved, that was a great and notable Day of the Lord, a Type of the great Day of Judgement. Wonders, even prodigious and amazing Signs should precede it. A very learned (i)and judicious Interpreter conceiveth that the Hebrews of old did use to call Comets, or Blazing Stars by that name of A Pillar of Smoke; because sometimes they appear like Pillars of smoke, and that therefore when it is said, there shall be Pillars of smoke before the terrible Day of the Lord, the true meaning and intendment of those Expressions is, ⟨p. 12⟩that Comets should precede and presage the miseries coming upon the Jewish Nation. Yea, the Scripture informs us, that Fearful Sights and Signs in heaven, shall precede the Great and General Day of Judgement, as Presages thereof. Luk. 21.25. There shall be Signs in the stars: meaning that such things should be observed among the Stars in heaven, as would be a Sign that Christ's coming to Judge the World, did approach. Wherefore in Verse 28. it is said, When these things come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your Redemption draweth nigh. The Day of Judgement, is a Day of Redemption, and is so called in other Scriptures,