N00277:237
Kometographia. Or A discourse concerning comets; wherein the nature of blazing stars is enquired…
Kometographia. 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 Mr. Increase Mather, teacher of a church at Boston in New-England. ; [Three lines of Scripture texts]Kometographia. 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 thay have been by learned men observed. : As also two sermons occasioned by the late blazing stars. / By Mr. Increase Mather, teacher of a church at Boston in New-England. ; [Three lines of Scripture texts]
printed by S.G. for S.S. i.e, 1683
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.
Thus God delights to baffle Judicial Astrologers, when they will presume to know the times and the seasons, which he hath […] in his own power. It was the saying of a wise King in Poland, that to be able certainly to predict future Events is Gods Prerogative: *And a wiser then he, yea, the wisest amongst the sinful Sons of Men hath said, A Man cannot tell what shall be, ⟨p. 142⟩and what shall be after him, who can tell? Eccl. 10.14. Notable changes have happened in our days, which the Monthly Prognosticators could tell us nothing of, before that God who rules in the Kingdoms of Men brought them to pass. The Star-gazers in old Babylon, who by looking upon the Heavens, and observing the Courses and Conjunctions of the Stars there, would undertake to tell the fates and fortunes of Kingdoms, all the Judicial Astrologers and Wizards there, could not by all their skill in the Stars read their own and the Nations ruin, until the day that it came upon them, Isai. 47.13, 14. Therefore it is not good positively to determine what the particular miseries or mutations are, nor the persons or places that shall undoubtedly perceive the effects thereof, when rare Conjunctions of the Planetary Bodies happen, or when Blazing Stars appear. Only that at least some of those Evils which have been wont to attend the like appearances, are at the door, we may rationally conjecture and conclude.
Thus God delights to baffle Judicial Astrologers, when they will presume to know the times and the seasons, which he hath 〈…〉 in his own power. It was the saying of a wise King in Poland, that to be able certainly to predict future Events is Gods Prerogative: *And a wiser then he, yea, the wisest amongst the sinful Sons of Men hath said, A Man cannot tell what shall be, ⟨p. 142⟩and what shall be after him, who can tell?