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begin as he does, by curfing, or rather by declaring the curfe 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 be the Lord God of Shem;" or rather, as there is neither verb nor tenfe 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 free`ly given where the great proprietor pleafes. What fome learned men have talked of the prerogatives of the eldest line, is so

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far from having any foundation in the facred history, that feniority there appears, in almost every inftance, to be fet afide, and entirely difregarded.

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13. Abraham.

might have been expected, that the dreadful deftruction of the old world, the distinguishing favour fhown to Noah, and the bleffing 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 sovereignty 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,

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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 history 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 fcattered abroad on the face of the earth; though even that was bad enough, and little, if any thing, fhort 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 fhould overtop all the mountains that furrounded it, much less fhould reach to the heavens, as our tranflators have made them fay. They propofed, indeed, that the top or summit of it should be to

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the heavens; which cannot be conceived to have any other meaning than that it fhould ferve as a temple or altar to the heavens.

This one complex object, by which all the operations of what they call nature are maintained and carried on, came in time to be divided into a multitude of imaginary gods, as the different powers, cffects, and operations, of that wonderful machine, happened to be pitched upon by different worthippers. And by what we find Joshua saying to the Ifraelites, of the gods which their fathers ferved beyond the flood, it would feem that the apoftafy had become very general, if not univerfal, when it pleafed God to take a further course for maintaining and fupporting right religion in the world, by feparating Abraham and his family to be witneffes for him against the prevailing idolatry and falfe worship.

Whether or not Abraham himfelf was involved in that idolatry which we are plainly enough told prevailed in his father Terah's family, we have no evidence on either fide. The Jewith pretended traditions about him are ill-contrived fables. However, there is not the least ground to ima

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gine that he merited the extraordinary favour which was fhown him, when he was called to leave his father's house, and to go to a land, which, as yet, he was an utter ftranger to; which command he neverthelefs readily obeyed, and went out, not knowing whither he went.

At what time the command was given to Abraham to depart from his father's houfe, whether before his father and his family left Ur, or after he fettled in Haran, we are not told; though the first is most likely. For though the leaving Ur be mentioned as Terah's deed; yet, as we are told, that it was with an intention of going into the land of Canaan, it would seem to have been in confequence of the order given his fon Abraham. In either cafe it might be very juftly faid, as we find it is oftener than once, that God brought him out of Ur of the Chaldees. It feems alfo to have happened toward the end of Terah's life; for Haran the son of Terah had not only been married, but left children, who appear likewise to have been married: and though nothing is faid of Nahor coming along with them, yet, by what we find afterward of his family being fettled at Ha

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