lord’s discovery of the banians and persees.

554

By this, Vyftney’s time (as they fay") being expired, in this place and vale of mortality,the Lord took him up to heaven, there being no further need of his prefervation, forwhen this age is concluded there {hall be a final end of all things.

But the Bramanes, though they fuppofe time to be running on the fourth age ofthe world, yet they fuppofe this age {hall be longer than any of the reft, in the endwhereof they fay Ruddery {hall be rapt up into heaven. Thefe ages they call by fournames : the firft, Curtain ; the fecond, Duaper ; the third, Tetraioo; the fourth,Kolee.

Concerning the manner of this final judgment, they hold it {hall be more dreadfulthan any of the reft, and that it lhall be by fire; that Ruddery then fhall fummon upall the power of deftrudftion; that the moon fhall look red; that the fun {hall fhed hispurling light like flaming brimftone; that the lightning lhall flafli with terrors, theIkies lhall change into all colours ; but efpecially fiery rednefs lhall overfpread the faceof heaven ; that the four elements of which the world at firft was conftituted, lhall beat oppofition and variance, till by this agony fhe be turned to her firft confufion.

And that the final confummation of the world {hall be by fire, they gather hence; offuch as was the beginning of the world, of fuch fhall be her diflolution ; but the prin-ciples of the world’s conftitution, were thefe four, Earth , Air, Water, and Fire; there-fore by them lhall {he be deftroyed, which alfo they gather by the deftruclion of thefeveral ages: for the' people of the firft age were deftroyed by water ; the people ofthe fecond age were deftroyed by wind, which they account the air; the people ofthe third age were deftroyed by earth ; and the people of the Iaft age fhall be deftroyedby fire.

Then (fay they) fhall Ruddery carry up the fouls of all people to heaven with him,to reft in God ’s bofom, but the bodies fhall all perifh. So that they believe not thereftirreciion, For they lay heaven being a place that is pure, they hold it cannot becapable of fuch grofs fubftances.

The Author's Conclujion to the Reader ; together with a Cenfure on the material Parts

of this Relation.

THUS, worthy reader, thou haft the fum of the Banian religion, fuch as it is; notvoid of vain fuperftitions, and compofed forgery, as well may be judged by the pre-cedent difcourfe, wherein, as in all other herefies, may be gathered how Satan leadeththofe that are out of the pale of the church, a round, in the maze of error and gen-tiliftn. I might leave the particulars to thy cenfure, as well as to thy reading; butfince I have detedled fuch grofs opinions in this fed, I cannot let them pafs without arod truft: at their backs, as a deferved penance for their crime.

To help thy memory therefore in a fliort revife of their forementioned vanities;What feemeth their firft age to prefent, but a figment of their own devifing, to confirmthem to be the moft ancient of all people ? as if, like the Egyptians, in the fecond bookof Juftin, they would only boaft of antiquity ; and to lay the firft ground of religionand government, when the Scythians had better arguments to plead than they. HoWfabulous and like an old woman’s tale feems their devifed medium for the world’s pro-pagation, in placing four women at the four winds ? And for the fecond age and theworld’s reftoration therein, if by thofe three perfons, Bremaw, Vyftney, and Ruddery,they glance on the Trinity, how prodigious have they made that myftery ; making itrather a quaternity, than a trinity ? What a monftrous fancy have they formed andftiaped for the peopling of that age ; and if they aim not at a mark fo fublime, what

men