A history of the work of redemption. Containing the outlines of a body of…

(2) As to the second kind of success which the gospel has lately •ad, viz its propagation among the Heathen, I would take notice of three things.

[1] The propagation there has been of the gospel among the Heathen here in America. This American continent on which we live, which is a very great part of the world, and, together with its neighbouring seas adjoining, takes up one side of the globe, was wholly unknown to all Christian nations till these latter times. It was not known that there was any such part of the world, though it was very full of people: and therefore here the devil had the people that inhabited this part of the world as it were secure to himself, out of the reach of the light of the gospel, and so out of the way of molestation in his dominion over them. And here the many nations of Indians worshipped him as God from age to age, while the gospel was confined to the opposite side of the globe. I• is a thing which, if I remember right, I have some where lit of, as probably supposed from some remaining accounts of things, that occasioned the peopling of America was this, that the devil being alarmed and surprised by the wonderful success of the gospel which there was the first three hundred years after Christ, and by the downfall of the Heathen empire in the time of Constantine; and seeing the gospel spread so fast, and fearing his Heathenish kingdom would be wholly overthrown through the world, led away a people from the other continent into America, that they might be quite out of the reach of the gospel, that here he might quietly possess them, and reign over them as their god. It is what many writers give an account of, that some of the nations of Indians, when the Europeans first came into America, had a tradition among them, that their god first led them into this continent, and went before them in an ark.

[1] The propagation there has been of the gospel among the Heathen here in America. This American continent on which we live, which is a very great part of the world, and, together with its neighbouring seas adjoining, takes up one side of the globe, was wholly unknown to all Christian nations till these latter times. It was not known that there was any such part of the world, though it was very full of people: and therefore here the devil had the people that inhabited this part of the world as it were secure to himself, out of the reach of the light of the gospel, and so out of the way of molestation in his dominion over them. And here the many nations of Indians worshipped him as God from age to age, while the gospel was confined to the opposite side of the globe. I is a thing which, if I remember right, I have some where lit of, as probably supposed from some remaining accounts of things, that occasioned the peopleing of America was this, that the devil being alarmed and surprised by the wonderful success of the gospel which there was the first three hundred years after Christ, and by the downfal of the Heathen empire in the time of Constantine; and seeing the gospel spread so fast, and fearing his Heathenish kingdom would be wholly overthrown through the world, led away a people from the other continent into America, that they might be quite out of the reach of the gospel, that here he might quietly possess them, and reign over them as their god. It is what many writers give an account of, that some of the nations of Indians, when the Europeans first came into America, had a tradition among them, that their god first led them into this continent, and went before them in an ark.