Berkeley saw the sun of empire travelling westward. A contemporary whose home was made in New England, Samuel Sewall, saw the New Heaven and the New Earth. He was born at Bishop-Stoke, England, 28th March, 1652, and died at Boston, 1st January, 1730. A child emigrant in 1661, he became a student and graduate of our Cambridge; in 1692, Judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts; in 1718, Chief Justice. He was of the court which condemned the witches, but afterwards, standing up before the congregation of his church, made public confession of error, and his secret diary bears testimony to his trial of conscience. In harmony with this contrition was his early feeling for the enslaved African, as witness his tract, “The Selling of Joseph,” so that he may be called the first of our Abolitionists.
Besides an “Answer to Queries respecting America,” in 1690, and “Proposals touching the Accomplishment of Prophecies,” in 1713, he wrote another work, with the following title:—
“Phænomena quædam Apocalyptica ad Aspectum Novi Orbis configurata: Or, Some Few Lines towards a Description of the New Heaven as it makes to those who stand upon the New Earth. By Samuel Sewall, A. M., and sometime Fellow of Harvard College at Cambridge in New England.”
The copy before me is the second edition, with the imprint, “Massachuset, Boston. Printed by Bartholomew Green, and sold by Benjamin Eliot, Samuel Gerrish, and Daniel Henchman. 1727.” There is a prophetic voice even in the title, which promises “some few lines towards a description of the New Heaven as it makes to those who stand upon the New Earth.” This is followed by verses from the Scriptures, among which is Isaiah, xi. 14: “But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west”; also, Acts, i. 8: “Ye shall be witnesses unto me unto the uttermost part of the earth,”—quoting here from the Spanish Bible, “hasta lo ultimo de la tierra.”
Two different Dedications follow,—the first dated “Boston, N. E., April 16th, 1697.” Here are words on the same key with the title:—
“For I can’t but think that either England or New England, or both, (together is best,) is the only bridemaid mentioned by name in David’s prophetical Epithalamium, to assist at the great wedding now shortly to be made.… Angels incognito have sometimes made themselves guests to men, designing thereby to surprise them with a requital of their love to strangers. In like manner the English nation, in showing kindness to the aboriginal natives of America, may possibly show kindness to Israelites unawares.… Instead of being branded for slaves with hot irons in the face and arms, and driven by scores in mortal chains, they shall wear the name of God in their foreheads, and they shall be delivered into the glorious liberty of the children of God.… Asia, Africa, and Europe have each of them had a glorious Gospel-day. None, therefore, will be grieved at any one’s pleading that America may be made coparcener with her sisters in the free and sovereign grace of God.”
In the second Dedication the author speaks of his book as “this vindication of America.”
Then comes, in black letter, what is entitled “Psalm 139, 7-10,” containing this stanza:—
“Yea, let me take the morning wings,
And let me go and hide: