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fected Ship; which Notion of its Origin, seems more the Effect of a deluded Imagination and Conjecture, than any solid Truth.
But a further Recital of such strange Conceits as these, which the Populace had broached out of their own Heads, concerning the Rise of this Sickness, being foreign to my Design, I will therefore endeavour to set Things in as clear a Light as I can, without prying too far into the secret Purposes of the Almighty, when he intends to punish us for our Good.
The Influences of Cælestial Bodies, and hidden Causes, are well known to be superior to all other natural Things; which when they carry with them a malignant Train of Steams, contrary to our Natures, they excite putrid and irregular Distemperatures, throughout the whole human Frame, by which they exercise their cruel Power over Mankind. The further off such Impressions are made, the greater do they denote the future Calamity will be; and when a Pestilence appears, with such Forewarnings as this of ours, with a terrible blazing Comet; what less Miseries and Desolations could be expected, than the ensuing Slaughter and Conflagration, that had almost destroy'd our Metropolis. Some Persons of Thought did not so much regard it; yet the Prevalency it had upon the Minds of the common People,
