N00657:39
A discourse concerning the uncertainty of the times of men, and the necessity of…
A discourse concerning the uncertainty of the times of men, and the necessity of being prepared for sudden changes & death. Delivered in a sermon preached at Cambridge in New England. Decemb. 6. 1696. On occasion of the sudden death of two scholars belonging to Harvard College. / By Increase Mather, president of that college. ; [Two lines from I Samuel]A discourse concerning the uncertainty of the times of men, and the necessity of being prepared for sudden changes & death. Delivered in a sermon preached at Cambridge in New England. Decemb. 6. 1696. On occasion of the sudden death of two scholars belonging to Harvard Colledge. / By Increase Mather, praesident of that colledge. ; [Two lines from I Samuel]
printed by B. Green for Samuel Phillips, 1697
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.
Inf. II. We may here see the Vanity and Impiety of those Persons who pretend to know their own, or other mens Times. There are some that will not engage in a design on such or such days, because they are not (as they speak) Lucky days. Some (as Mr. Cartwright in his Commentary on the Text before us observes) will not undertake a matter on a Saturday, because they say Saturn has made that to be an unfortunate Time for Action. There are some wicked Almanacs, which tell men that such a day of the Month is a Lucky Time, to begin a Journey in: And that some other days are Unlucky ones. This is that which the Scripture calls Observing Tines; and it is a most heinous Sin to do so. The Heathen of old did practise such things. But God in his Word declares them to be Heathenish Abominations, and with the highest Severity has cha•ged his People not to do thus. Deut. 18.10. It is mentioned as one of the Crying Sins of Manasseh, that he Observed Times, 2 King. 21.6. And that wicked Haman, who designed the bloody destruction of the Lords People, would go to Conjuring▪ that he might know when would be a Lucky Time for him to Execute his purposed ⟨p. 24⟩Mischief. Est. 3.7. And of this nature is that fallacious Art, which bears the Name of Judicial Astrology, when men will Calculate Nativities, & pretend to know by the Stars, what Times shall pass over such Persons. Zanchy, Gassendus, and other Learned men have notably discovered the Vanity and Impiety of all such Planetarians. The old Chaldeans had as much skill as ever any man had in this Art or Science falsely so called. But how does the Prophet deride them? Isa 47.13, 14. Let now the Astrologers, the Stargazers, the Monthly Prognosticators stand up and save thee from these things, that shall come upon thee; behold they shall be as Stubble, the fire shall burn them, they shall not deliver themselves from the Power of the flame. They pretended to know the Fate of Kingdoms, and yet could not tell their own and the Nations ruin before the day that it came upon them all. There are cursed Fortune tellers, who pretend to know what shall befall particular persons, how they shall be disposed of; when, and where they shall Dye. It is a sad thing, that ever any person should dare to do thus in New England. Time was, when the Air of New England was intolerable to such Vipers.