Wesley Corpus

How uncom fortable the supposition, which implies this, by direct necessary consequence, namely, that all these things are the pure result of merely natural causes! But supposing the earthquake which made such havoc at Lisbon should never travel so far as London, is there nothing else which can reach us? What think you of a comet? Are we absolutely out of the reach of this? You cannot say we are; seeing these move in all directions, and through every region of the universe. And would the approach of one of these amazing spheres be of no importance to us? especially in its return from the sun; when that immense body is (according to Sir Isaac Newton’s calculation) heated two thousand times hotter than a red-hot cannon-ball. The late ingenious and accurate Dr. Halley (never yet suspected of enthusiasm) fixes the return of the great comet in the year 1758; and he observes that the last time it revolved, it moved in the very same line which the earth describes in her annual course round the sun; but the earth was on the other side of her orbit. Whereas, in this revolution, it will move, not only in the same line, but in the same part of that line wherein the earth moves. And “who can tell,” says that great man, “what the consequences of such a contact may be?” Who can tell / Any man of common understanding, who knows the very first elements of astronomy. The immediate consequence of such a body of solid fire touching the earth must necessarily be, that it will set the earth on fire, and burn it to a coal, if it do not likewise strike it out of its course; in which case, (so far as we can judge,) it must drop down directly into the sun. But what, if this vast body is already on its way? if it is nearer than we are aware of? What, if these unusual, unprecedented motions of the waters be one effect of its near approach? We cannot be certain that it will be visible to the inhabitants of our globe, till it has imbibed the solar fire. But possibly we may see it sooner than we desire.