innumerable multitude.  And where did the Devil ever reign more absolutely, and without control, since mankind first fell under his clutches?

“And here it is to be noted, that the story of the Mexican kingdom (which was not founded above four hundred years before ours came thither) relates, out of their own memorials and traditions, that they came to that place from the north, whence their god, Vitziliputzli, led them, going in an ark before them:  and, after divers years’ travel and many stations (like enough after some generations), they came to the place which the sign he had given them at their first setting-forth pointed out; where they were to finish their travels, build themselves a city, and their god a temple, which is the place where Mexico was built.  Now, if the Devil were God’s ape in this, why might he not be likewise in bringing the first colony of men into that world out of ours? namely, by oracle, as God did Abraham out of Chaldee, whereto I before resembled it.

“But see the hand of Divine Providence.  When the offspring of these runagates from the sound of Christ’s gospel had now replenished that other world, and began to flourish in those two kingdoms of Peru and Mexico, Christ our Lord sends his mastives, the Spaniards, to hunt them out, and worry them; which they did in so hideous a manner, as the like thereunto scarce ever was done since the sons of Noah came out of the ark.  What an affront to the Devil was this, where he had thought to have reigned securely, and been for ever concealed from the knowledge of the followers of Christ!

“Yet the Devil perhaps is less grieved for the loss of his servants by the destroying of them, than he would be to lose them by the saving of them; by which latter way, I doubt the Spaniards have despoiled him but of a few.  What, then, if Christ our Lord will give him his second affront with better Christians, which may be more grievous to him than the former?  And, if Christ shall set him up a light in this manner to dazzle and torment the Devil at his own home, I hope they (viz., the Americans) shall not so far degenerate (not all of them) as to come into that army of Gog and Magog against the kingdom of Christ, but be translated thither before the Devil be loosed; if not, presently after his tying up.”

Dr. Twiss, in a reply to the above, dated April 6, 1635, thanks Mede for his letter, which he says he read “with recreation and delight;” and, particularly in reference to the “peopling of the New World,” he affirms that there is “more in this letter of yours than formerly I have been acquainted with.  Your conceit thereabouts, if I have any judgment, is grave and ponderous.”