Wrote the Protestant Tasman in his diary before leaving his old Holland for 'New Holland' alias Australia: "May God Almighty vouchsafe His blessing on this work!" Later, after departing from off the coast of Tasmania, he further wrote: "God be praised and thanked for His happy voyage!"5
About a century later, the great American Puritan Rev. Professor Dr. Jonathan Edwards (Sr.) — later to become the Founder and first President of Princeton University — had already waxed lyrical about Britain, Ireland and the great Southern Continent of Australasia. Fascinating indeed are his many predictions concerning what he himself called "Hollandia Nova Incognita" (or 'Unknown New Holland' alias Australia) and "Terra Australis" (or what we now call Australasia). Uncanny too are his predictions about the year A.D. 2000. For in his Apocalyptic Writings, the A.D. 1703-58 Jonathan Edwards proclaimed:6 "There are three Continents of the Earth: the Old Continent [alias the land-mass of Europe-Africa-Asia], America [North-Central-South], and Terra Australis [or Australasia]…. The Mediterranean Sea…opens the way from Canaan…straight to Terra Australis the Third Continent" — which is also located "to the West side of America through…the great South Sea into Terra Australis by the Indian Ocean….
