the nature of wine, that he drank to excefs; nay, was drunk to fuch a pitch, that he had not fo much command of himself as to cover his nakedness; and that, upon awaking, he immmediately falls a-bleffing fome of his children, and curfing others for their undutiful behaviour; and both by the spirit of prophecy. Thus I believe all the tranflations reprefent it. But the original phrase, Gen.ix. 20. "Noah began to be an husband66 man," need not be fo understood as if that had been the first time he practifed husbandry, but only that it was the business he followed after the flood; and the word rendered drunk, does not always fignify the ftupifying effect of wine, but whatever puts men into such a state as wine doth, locking up the fenfes to external objects. And thus the history feems to carry in it something very facred, which made Ham's conduct not only undutiful to his father, but highly profane in itfelf. Every body knows, that it was the custom of the patriarchs to bless their children before their death; and when there were more than one, to convey the primitive bleffing of the promised feed to that one of whom he was to defcend.

This, furely, must have been a matter of too great moment to be left to the difpofal

of

of any man whatfoever; and least of all, to the caprice of a man juft awaked from a fit of drunkenness. It is evident that it could not be done without particular divine direction. Thus we find Abraham inftructed, that in Ifaac his feed fhould be called as the child of the promise. And by what we find Ifaac did when about to convey the bleffing to his fon, Gen. xxvii. 25. drinking wine in fome particular manner feems to have been a part of that folemnity. When the Apostle Paul was wrapt up to the third heavens, and had his very extraordinary revelations, he could not fay whether he was in or out of the body. If he was in a divine ecftafy, which is most probable, he could have had no more care of his body than Noah had of his. And when the whole of Noah's character, and the fpecial divine favour and grace shown him by God, are confidered, together with his prophetic blefling and curfing his children, how much more reasonable is it to think, that he was in fuch an ecftafy, than oppreffed with the fumes of the wine he had drunk: A very improper preparation, one fhould think, for the fpirit of prophecy. In confequence of the indignity offered him by Ham, he might reafonably enough VOL. I. bagin

1

begin as he does, by curfing, or rather by declaring the curse to be refting where the event afterwards made it appear. But even this he doth not like one under the influence of refentment: he paffes by Ham, the offender, and all the elder children of Ham, and lodges the curfe on Canaan; where, we know, it has been punctually fulfilled. The bleffing is as extraordinary as the curse. Though, by all that appears in the history, Japhet, the eldest of Noah's fons, was every way as dutiful as Shem the youngest, yet upon this laft is the bleffing made to reft; whether we take the words as our tranflators have rendered them, "Bleffed "be the Lord God of Shem;" or rather, as there is neither verb nor tense in the original, Bleffed is Shem of the Lord his "God," which agrees better with what follows; for it was not to God, but to Shem, and his brother Japhet, who was joined with him in the bleffing, that Canaan was doomed to be a fervant. But the bleffing of God is not conveyed as eftates are among us, either by feniority or merit. It is free and fovereign, and freely given where the great proprietor pleafes. What fome learned men have talked of the prerogatives of the eldest line, is fo

66

far

far from having any foundation in the facred history, that feniority there appears, in almost every instance, tò be set aside, and entirely difregarded.

IT

13. Abraham.

T might have been expected, that the dreadful deftruction of the old world, the distinguishing favour fhown to Noah, and the blessing renewed, and entailed on him and his defcendents, fhould have fecured the attachment of the new world to that God who had thus manifefted at once his eternal power and Godhead, and the fovereignty of his mercy and grace. But it foon appeared, that the creator and fovereign of the world was not mistaken when he faid, "That the imaginations of "man's heart were only evil continually." How foon the apoftafy began, or how long Noah's defcendents continued in their adherence to the true God and his worship, cannot be easily determined. It is very probable, that Noah's curfe would fit heavy upon Ham and his children, and that they' would not longer continue to be devout adorers of that God who had, as they might think,

002

think, fhown fuch partiality against the younger brother, and doomed him to fervitude. Among them, however, the defection feems to have begun; very probably under Nimrod; who was fo diftinguished in his day, that his name went into a proverb, and gave rife to the fabulous hiftory of the old Affyrian monarchy; which yet did not take its rife until within a few centuries of the date which they make the end of it.

As the worship of the heavens was undoubtedly the first and most natural idolatry, the builders of the tower of Babel feem to have had more in view than barely to prevent their being scattered abroad on the face of the earth; though even that was bad enough, and little, if any thing, short of a direct rebellion against their creator, who had ordered them to be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. It can never be fuppofed they were fo foolish as to imagine they could build a tower on a plain, which should overtop all the mountains that furrounded it, much less fhould reach to the heavens, as our translators. have made them fay. They propofed, indeed, that the top or fummit of it fhould be to

the