N01899:54
India Christiana. A discourse, delivered unto the Commissioners, for the Propagation of the Gospel…
India Christiana. A discourse, delivered unto the Commissioners, for the Propagation of the Gospel among the American Indians : which is accompanied with several instruments relating to the glorious design of propagating our holy religion, in the Eastern as well as the Western, Indies. : An entertainment which they that are waiting for the kingdom of God will receive as good news from a far country. / By Cotton Mather, D.D. and F.R.S.
printed by B. Green, 1721
Title page typeset from the transcription.
The Joyful Sound reaching to both the INDIA's. › APPLICATION.
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.
Let a foolish Paracelsus and Peyrerius pretend what they will, we are sure, that the Americans are of the Noetic Original. And there is a great probability of what is affirmed by Acosta and Brierwood, That Asia and America are Contiguous. The Phoenicians also were great Sailors, and by them (tho' Bochart in his Nice tracing of them allows it not,) either Intentionally or Accidentally, People might be carried over the Atlantic into America. 'Tis reported, That Christopher Colonus, (the Leader of all our American Colonies, in the two last Centuries,) had some Advice of People, by a violent Storm carried over into America, to lead him into his Noble Undertaking. A Learned Helvetian, (the Incomparable Heidegger,) has well observed, That the Countries which have Great and Wide Seas between them, yet generally meet some where with an Isthmus, or some small passable Distance of Water between them; which Conjunction of Countries, N•n sine Numine facta est. But I must refer you, to the Lucubrations of them who have written, ⟨p. 24⟩as diverse others besides Hornius, have done, De Origine Gentium Americanarum, and especially an Essay in the Introduction to the Itinerantium Bibliotheca, more lately Published, for the Satisfaction of that Enquiry, Which way the Indians, and other wild Creatures might come into America?
We are as much at a loss about the Time, as we are about the Way. For, though we have Evidences as well as Traditions (confirming the ever-Triumphing Sentiments of our Excellent Woodward) that the Flood reached unto America, yet we have none, (except the Relics of Giants, like those at Albany should pass for such) that America was Peopled before the Flood.
We are as much at a loss about the Time, as we are about the Way. For, though we have Evidences as well as Traditions (confirming the ever-Triumphing Sentiments of our Excellent Woodward) that the Flood reached unto America, yet we have none, (except the Reliques of Giants, like those at Albany should pass for such) that America was Peopled before the Flood.