So the Lord fcattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

W

was landed on the pre-.

EN Noah was

fent, earth, and and happily faw his piety rewarded with fuch an amazing inftance of divine favour; there is no room to doubt, but that he made religion his chief concern, and zealoufly propagated it among his pofterity. Thofe religious notions and customs", which his fons and their defcendants carried down along with them into the feveral countries in which they fettled, are inconteftable proofs of his care and diligence in this refpect.

But, notwithstanding the feverity of God in punishing the fins of the old world, and the industry of Noah in providing for the inftruction of the new; yet mankind in a hort time degenerated again; and unka towards the fame ftate of depravation, that

apace

3. Such as the notions of expiation by facrifice; of a Mediator between God and men, &c; the cuftom of facrificing; and the ●bfervation of the fabbath, or keeping boly the ferventh day, &c.

we have represented them to have been in before the flood.

Now, that the world should degenerate fo fast, and forget fo foon the first principles of true religion, is what feems, in the opinion of a noble author, to be utterly incredible. But his opinion of things would have been very different, had he read the Scripture, as he ought to have done, with less prejudice, and with more attention. For then he would have found it fo far from being "impoffible, for any man in his fenfes to believe, that a tradition, derived from God himself, fhould be loft, in the courfe of fo few generations, amongst the greatest part of mankind; or, that polytheism and idolatry fhould be established on the ruins of it in the days of Serug, before those of Abraham, and fo foon after the deluge *—" that, on the contrary, every man in his fenfes, who confiders the tendencies and operations of things, muft neceffarily conclude from the account which the facred historian has given us, that fuch corruptions would take place; * Lord BOLINGBROKE's Works, vol. IV. Effay II. p. 20.

19

and,

and, unless prevented by fome extraordinary providence, be likely to extirpate the knowledge and worship of the true God from off the face of the whole earth.

It fhall therefore be my business in this Difcourfe, to explain, in the

First place, how thefe corruptions came to be introduced; or, in other words, how idolatry and wickedness came to spread and prevail in the world fo very foon after the deluge.

And, when they did prevail, to fhew, in the

Second place, how excellently well the miracle of the text, the confufion of languages, was adapted to check their increase and progrefs.

When the deluge had retired, and the ground was become capable of fresh cultivation, God, for the encouragement of Noah, to proceed with alacrity in that neceffary work, declared that, notwithstanding the future provocations of men, he was fully determined, never to destroy the earth again, in the manner he had now done. But, as there

there appeared then no evil in the world, Noah perhaps might wonder, whence those future provocations could arife; or what could poffibly give occafion to them. Hence therefore the declaration, at the fame time. that it brought him the affurance he wanted, led him to the knowledge of the point he fought. For thus faid the Lord" I will not again curse the ground any more for man's fake; though the imagination of man's heart is evil from his YOUTH." Now here, when the first clause, "I will not again curfe the ground," conveyed to Noah the neceffary confolation; for what other purpofe, but for his information concerning the introduction of evil, could the latter claufe be added? And what elfe, in due construction of language, could he reasonably understand by it, but that, though iniquity had not fprung forth, yet God faw the latent feeds of it lurking in the heart of one of his fons? or rather, as it fhould feem by the turn of

VOL. I.

y Gen. vii. 21.

M

the

As this sense of the paffage ftands fupported by the grammatical conftruction, fo is it confirmed by the event that followed. For we advance but a little way farther in the course of this history, before we discover a ftrange perverseness in the conduct of Ham: before we discover those feeds of iniquity, which had hitherto lain dormant in his heart, bursting out at once into a fhameful irreverence towards his father, and horrid impiety againft God: irreverence to his father, in openly expofing and deriding his nakednefs impiety against God, by his taking occafion from thence, as the Jewish writers interpret the action, to make the promise of the Meffiah a fubject of ridicule.

This was a crime of an heinous natureas it evidently arofe from a fpirit of infidelity; tended to defeat the purpose of Providence; and alfo to deftroy the hopes of the world. It was therefore a crime that

» Gen. ix.. 24.

Ibid. 22.

deferved