that some general Calamity is at Hand?
AND certainly this will not appear a very difficult Conjecture, and remote from Reason, when we duly consider the strange Intercourse and Familiarity which the Spirits maintain with Things very occult, and at a Distance; for whosoever rightly weighs this Matter, will perceive the Spirits capable of very subtile Impressions, by Means of their Intercourses with the Imagination, whereby they are capable of perceiving, though obscurely, any approaching Evil, and consequently of exciting amongst the Populace a general Apprehension concerning Futurity, without any miraculous Influence.
LASTLY, All fore-bodings of any Kind denote the Malignancy of the approaching Evil, because they are manifestly from the Influence of the pestilential Miasmata; and the further off such Impressions are made, the greater do they prognosticate the future Calamity will be; because such Irradiations at a Distance, and propagated through a long Tract of Air, denote the great Energy and Virulence of their Origin; when therefore the Pestilence
seldom appears without such Fore-warnings, and gradually diffuses according to the greater or lesser Liberty for the nitro-aerial Poison to move in, and the first Perceptions of it are so terrible, what Miseries and Desolations may not be expected from it, when it is arrived in its full Force?
A Pestilence that is fierce and deadly in its first Attack, soon ceases.
I call such a Pestilence fierce, that immediately destroys the strongest Constitutions, and which being every where diffused, seizes all at once; for the sooner the venomous Seminium is spread and wasted, the sooner will its Fury be over.
THE Times of a Pestilence in its Decrease, are in Proportion to the Times of its Increase.
FOR the infectious Poison does not act precariously, but in a regular and uniform Manner, as it fully appeared by the Course of the late Sickness amongst us; (not to mention others at a greater Distance of Place and Time) but this will be best
made appear from the Tables of Mortality hereunto annexed.
The Cause of a Pestilence being removed, spent, or extinguished, its Effects immediately cease.