At the
Reformation Luther declared strongly in favour of it. In one of his
Advent sermons he said, "The heathen write that the comet may
arise from natural causes, but God creates not one that does not
foretoken a sure calamity." Again he said, "Whatever moves in the
heaven in an unusual way is certainly a sign of God's wrath." And
sometimes, yielding to another phase of his belief, he declared
them works of the devil, and declaimed against them as "harlot
stars."[182]
Melanchthon, too, in various letters refers to comets as heralds of
Heaven's wrath, classing them, with evil conjunctions of the
planets and abortive births, among the "signs" referred to in
Scripture. Zwingli, boldest of the greater Reformers in shaking off
traditional beliefs, could not shake off this, and insisted that
the comet of 1531 betokened calamity. Arietus, a leading Protestant
theologian, declared, "The heavens are given us not merely for our
pleasure, but also as a warning of the wrath of God for the
correction of our lives.
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