A Threnodia upon our churches second dark eclipse, happening July 20, 1663, by death’s interposition between us and that great light and divine plant, Mr. Samuel Stone, late of Hartford, in New England.
Sad withering fall our beauties which despoil’d;
Two choicest plants, our Norton and our Stone,
Your justs threw down; remov’d, away are gone.
One year brought Stone and Norton to their mother,
In one year, April, July, them did smother.
Dame Cambridge, mother to this darling son;
Emanuel, Northampt’ that heard this one,
Essex, our bay, Hartford, in sable clad,
Come bear your parts in this Threnodia sad.
In losing one, church many lost: O then
Many for one come be sad singing men.
May nature, grace and art be found in one
So high, as to be found in few or none.
In him these three with full fraught hand contested.
With which by each he should be most invested.
The largest of the three, it was so great
On him, the stone was held a light compleat,
A stone more than the Ebenezer fam’d;
Stone splendent diamond, right orient nam’d;
A cordial stone, that often cheered hearts
With pleasant wit, with Gospel rich imparts;
Whetstone, that edgify’d th’ obtusest mind;
Loadstone, that drew the iron heart unkind;
A pond’rous stone, that would the bottom sound
Of Scripture depths, and bring out Arcan’s found;
A stone for kingly David’s use so fit,
As would not fail Goliah’s front to hit;
A stone, an antidote, that brake the course
Of gangrene error, by convincing force;
A stone acute, fit to divide and square;
A squared stone became Christ’s building rare.
A Peter’s living, lively stone (so reared)
As ’live was Hartford’s life; dead, death is fear’d.
In Hartford old, Stone first drew infant breath,
In New, effused his last; O there beneath
His corps are laid, near to his darling brother,8
Of whom dead oft he sighed, Not such another.
Heaven is the more desirable, said he,
For Hooker, Shepard, and Hayne’s company.
—E. B.9
1664.
This year Mr. Thomas Prince was chosen governor of the jurisdiction of New Plimouth. Mr. William Collier, Mr. John Alden, Capt. Thomas Willet, Major Josias Winslow, Lieut. Thomas Southworth, Capt. William Bradford, and Mr. Thomas Hinkley, were chosen assistants to him in government.10
This year a blazing star, or comet, appeared in New England, in the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and the beginning of the twelfth month. Concerning which it hath been observed, that such was its motion, that, in all likelihood, it was visible to all the inhabitants of the earth; and that, also, in its motion, the blaze of it did turn to all the quarters of the world; and that by its turning according to the several aspects it had to the sun, it was no fiery meteor caused by exhalation, but that it was sent immediately by God to awake the secure world.11
I willingly close with that which Mr. Samuel Danforth hath religiously observed, as to the theological application of this strange and notable appearance in the heavens, that indeed by the testimony of the Sacred Scriptures, and the common histories of former ages, comets do usually precede and portend great calamities and notable changes.
To add a few more instances to those the said author hath well observed:—
When the Emperor Jovian attained to the empire (succeeding the apostate Julian, under whom the church suffered much persecution), and that under him both church and commonwealth were like to have had a flourishing time, had he not been taken away by sudden death; then also appeared a comet, showing that further trouble was yet to be expected to the church.—[Socrates, lib. 4, cap. 22.]
Again, other authors make mention of a strange comet, that was seen in the year of Christ 410, being like a two-edged sword, which portended many mischiefs and calamities, that happened both in the east and west, and such great slaughters of men were, about those days, as no age ever afforded the like. All Europe was in a manner undone; no small part of Asia was affrighted; and Africa also was not void of those evils, as war, famine, drought, and pestilence, all of them strove, as it were, to trouble the whole world.
Also, in the years 1400, 1401, 1402, and 1403, comets appeared, and great calamities followed; sundry unheard of diseases were felt, rivers dried up, and plagues were increased. Tamerlain, king of the Scythians
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