Why America was so lately known.
The Tyrians first understood how to Steer their Course by the North-Star, and when dark and foul Weather had Clouded the Sky, that they could neither see Heaven or Earth, but onely Sea, they directed their Course by the Wind; and if they doubted the change thereof, they let some Birds flie, whom they follow’d, supposing that they stood directly to the nearest Land. But these are but poor helps, and blind Guides to shew you Land from the middle of the boundless Ocean. It is certain, that the Romans in the time of Julius Cæsar and Augustus, stretch’d the Bounds of that Empire Eastward to Euphrates, the Rhyne, and the Danube, and Westward to the Ocean and Mount Atlas, Sailing up and down the Mediterranean, with great Fleets, which stoutly endur’d the violence both of Waves and Weather; but all this made them not so hardy, as once to think or look after new Worlds. But after the Roman power decreas’d, by several Eruptions of the Goths, Vandals, Huns, Normans, Lumbards, and other Northern Countreys, which swarm’d with People, that overflow’d all places like a Deluge, so that Europe was every where puzzel’d and Imbroyl’d, their whole business consisting in conjoyning Forces to withstand such bold Invaders, and so vexatious an Enemy.
And farther East, Asia was at the same time little better, still trembling at the daily Alarms and Incursions of the Scythians, Persians, and Saracens; and afterwards the Turks growing upon them more than any of the former, expected no other than a sad Catastrophe, so that the known World had too much work cut out for them by these Distractions and Alterations of Government, then to go in Quest of uncertainties, to find they know not where, another.
Hieron. in c. 2. Ephes.
Here also is added by St. Jerom, what an antient Writer saith, Great care hath been taken in Computing the Age of this World, and if there be another which Commenc’d not with ours, (as Clemens mentions in his Epistles) where are scituate those Seas and Lands that make that second World? Or is a part of that, in which Adam was Created? Or may it not rather Metaphorically be taken for Worldly Affairs, govern’d by the Prince of the Air, ruling in the Hearts of the Children of Disobedience?
The Antients opinion of an unknown world.
But Pliny, Cicero, and Virgil, the best in their kind of Latin Writers, concur, That there may be a habitable World under our Horizon, in the temperate Southern Zone, beyond the extream heat, and on this side of the Antartick colds.
In Comment. super Obad. v. 19, 20, 21.
And they of the south shall possess the mount of Elau, and they of the plain, the Philistines: and they shall possess the fields of Ephraim, and the fields of Samaria, and Benjamin shall possess Gilead. And the captivity of this host of the children of Israel shall possess that of the Canaanites, even unto Zarephath, and the captivity of Jerusalem, which is in Sepharad, shall possess the Cities of the south. And saviors shall come upon mount Zion, to judge the mount of Esau, and the kingdom shall be the LORDS.
But what signifies all this to the Discovery of America, which lies not onely under the scorching Heats of the Equinox, but under the Frosts and Snows of the Artick and Antartick-Poles? Yet less probable is that which Lodowick Leo, an Augustine Frier takes out of Obadiah; as if that Prophet in the three last Verses of his Prophecy should speak of the Spaniards, which should not onely discover and Conquer America, but also Convert the Inhabitants to the Christian Faith, because those that are in Sepharad, should Inherit and Possess the Cities of the South, And Saviours shall arise from the Mountains of Zion, to judge the Mount and Wealth of Esau.