Consideratio & observatio cometae aetherei astronomica qui anno MDLXXX mensibus octobri, novembri et decembri in alto aethere apparvit

...is fulfilled. For if we look upon the microcosm the little world, or man: how horrible was the eclipse of the Sun of Justice a title for Christ under the tyranny and slaughter of the Roman Antichrist, it far exceeds all power of expression. For in broad daylight, one had to wander as if in the densest darkness, and from the entire genre of doctrines that were being taught (for the saving doctrine of the divine word lay hidden under a bushel), the way of truth to salvation could not be known. How the same Sun of Justice is daily darkened by the sectarians in dire ways, all sincere people complain with many groans and the greatest grief to our Lord God. But the Moon, that is, the people who boast that they are the Church of God, who ought to shine with borrowed light from the Sun, Christ—that is, with justice, piety, and holiness of morals—into what horrible shadow, not of the earth, but of death, and even of hell, they fall, and what an eclipse they suffer, cannot be told without immense sadness of heart. For the greatest part of humanity is so immersed in earthly desires, infidelity, impiety, blasphemies, contempt for the word of God and faithful admonitions, disobedience, injustice, virulence, impurity, deceit, impostures, and lies (I shudder as I relate more), that many everywhere flatter themselves remarkably, as if they had been sold under sin, striving with all their might so that not a single spark of faith, charity, and virtues might shine forth. Could the celestial powers be moved with greater violence and crash than by this very fall of men—who were created by God to shine like stars in heaven and eternal life—into the eternal abyss? Why do we wonder that God, by His just judgment, keenly vindicates these pitch-black eclipses, of which we ourselves are the cause (although the gravity of the matter and the atrocity of the sins would demand even harsher visitations than these)? Why