N01184:115
A dissertation concerning the future conversion of the Jewish Nation. Answering the objections of…
A dissertation concerning the future conversion of the Jewish Nation. Answering the objections of the Reverend and learned Mr. Baxter, Dr. Lightfoot, and others. : With an enquiry into the first resurrection. / By Increase Mather, president of Harvard-College, at Cambridge, in New-England. ; [Three lines from Jeremiah]A dissertation concerning the future conversion of the Jewish Nation. Answering the objections of the Reverend and learned Mr. Baxter, Dr. Lightfoot, and others. : With an enquiry into the first resurrection. / By Increase Mather, president of Harvard-Colledge, at Cambridge, in New-England. ; [Three lines from Jeremiah]
London: printed by R. Tookey for Nath. Hillier, 1709
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Others are of Opinion that the one half of the Earth will be consumed by the First Conflagration, which begins with the Thousand Years, viz. That Hemisphere which is spoken of in the Scripture. As for the New World, which is now well known and called by the Name of America (tho' there is more Reason to call it by the Name of Columbina, as Mr. Nich. Fuller well observes in Missel. p. 172.) in Honour to the first European Discoverer; it was not known in the Days in which the Penmen of the Holy Scriptures lived. Those Parts of the Earth which do not include America are in Scripture Dialect all the World, Luke 2.1. Acts 11.28. Col. 1.23. The late Opinion of Torniellus and P•gius that the Apostles preached the Gospel in America is a groundless. Imagination, and it is solidly refuted by •asuagius in Exercitat. Historic. critic. p. 524, &c. It is certain that the American Hemisphere was unknown to the Ancients a long Time after the Apostles Days: Nay, the Notion of Antipodes was as incredible to them as the Earth's Motion is to some in these Days. I remember one of them derides that Opinion; he says, they are idle Men who think there are Inhabitants in the opposite Part of the Earth, for then (says he) they must walk with their Feet superior to their Heads, and Trees would grow downwards, and the T••es would grow downwards, and the Rain fall upwards. And Austin calls it a Fable, and says, it is nullâ ratione credendum, that it is in no wise to be believed that there are Men on the other Side of the Earth, walking with their Feet against ours. It is famously known that Pope Zechary, Anno 748. excommunicated a poor Presbyter, whose Name was Virgilius, for maintaining that there were Antipodes; that is, for saying there are Men in America. So then for many Ages after the Penmen of the Holy Scriptures were dead, America was an unknown World. And whether there were then any Inhabitants in that Hemisphere is uncertain. But Asia, Africa and Europe were the Stage on which the Four Monarchies acted their Parts. All those Parts of the Earth are spoken of in that one Scripture, Isa. 66.19. Mr. Mede conjectures not only that the American Hemisphere will escape the Conflagration, but the People there will not be concerned in the Blessedness of the renovated World, during the Thousand Years, and that Gog and Magog will come from thence;