The general conflagration and purgatorial fire were among the tenets of the Sibylline books, and maintained by many Fathers of the Greek and Latin churches down to the sixth century. See Blondel on the Sibyls, and Arkudius adversus Barlaam. Among modern writers on this subject, it will be sufficient to name Magius de Mundi Exustione, Dr. H. More, and Dr T. Burnet. Ray, in the third of his Physico-Theological Discourses, discusses all the questions connected with the dissolution of the world.
T. J.
Footnote 1:[(return)]
Magius, "that prodigy of learning en pure perte" (Villebrune), concludes from the words of the text "the heavens shall pass away," that the universe will be dissolved; but that it will undergo mutation only, not annihilation.—Cf. Steuches de Perenni Philosophia, lib. x.
Wraxen, (Vol. ii., p. 207.).—G. W. Skyring will find the following explanation in Halliwell's Dictionary of Provincial and Archaic Words, "to grow out of bounds, spoken of weeds," c. Kent. Certainly an expressive term as used by the Kentish women.
J. D. A.
Wraxen.—Probably analogous to the Northumbrian "wrax, wraxing, wraxed," signifying to stretch or (sometimes) to sprain.
A peasant leaving overworked himself, would say he had wraxed himself; after sitting, would walk to wrax his legs. Falling on the ice would have wraxed his arm; and of a rope that has stretched considerably, he would say it had wraxed a gay feck.
It may possibly have come, as a corruption, from the verb wax, to grow. It is a useful and very expressive word, although not recognised in polite language.
S. T. R.