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THE PENTATEUCH WRITTEN BY MOSES.

That the Pentateuch was written by Moses, is the voice of all antiquity. It has been all along, even to this day, the received opinion of both Jews• and Christians, that Moses, being commanded and inspired by God, wrote those books, which are called the Pentateuch, except only some particular passages, which were inserted afterwards by a divine direction, for the better understanding of the history.

We read, Exodus 24:4,7,8. that Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, which before that time had been delivered from mount Sinai, in a book, which is there called The Book of the Covenant. Afterwards, when God had added more precepts, he again commands Moses to write them, Exodus 34:27. “And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words; for after the tenor of these words have I made a covenant with thee and with Israel.” Near 40 years afterwards, Moses was commanded to write all the commands which God had given the people, and the revelations which he had made of himself to them, in a book, to be laid up by the side of the ark of the covenant, to be kept for a testimony against Israel. Deuteronomy 31:24-26. “And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee.” And the original of this book of the law was in being, as we read expressly, till the times of Josiah; 2 Kings 22:and 2 Chronicles 34:and so, doubtless, till the captivity into Babylon, This book of the law, which Moses was thus commanded to lay up beside the ark, did not only comprehend those things, which were contained in some of those preceding chapters of Deuteronomy, wherein some things of the law were repealed; but the whole system of divine law, which God gave to the children of Israel, expressing the whole of the duty which God expected of them. This appears from Joshua 1:7,8.” Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe and do according to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded them; turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.

This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate on them day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein,” etc. And therefore the Levites, whom Jehoshaphat sent to teach the people le their duty, did not do it in any other way than out of tie book of the law. “And they taught in Judah, and had the book of the law of the Lord with them, and went about, throughout all the cities of Judah, and taught the people.” (2 Chronicles 17:9.)

And then it is further evident, that the book of the law which we have an account of Moses’s committing to the Levites, to be laid up in the side of the ark, Deuteronomy 31 did not contain merely what had then lately been delivered in some preceding chapters of Deuteronomy; because in this book of the law were contained tbe precepts concerning burnt-offerings and sacrifices, and the office and business of the priesthood; which are not contained so much in Deuteronomy as in Leviticus and Numbers, as appears from 2 Chronicles 23:18. “Also Jehoiada appointed the officers of the house of the Lord, by the hands of the nests, the Levites, whom David had distributed in the ouse of the Lord to offer the burnt-offering of the Lord, as it is written in the law of Moses.” 2 Chronicles 35:12. Nehemiah 10:34,35,36. Haggai 2:11, etc. Joshua 8:31. Ezra 6:18. Nehemiah 8:14,15.2 Chronicles 30:5. and 31:3. And in the book of the law were contained not merely the precepts which God delivered to Moses, but the sanctions and enforcements of those laws, the promises and threatenings; as appears from Deuteronomy 29:20,21. “The Lord will not spare him, but then the anger of the Lord, and his jealousy, shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him; and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven; and the Lord shall separate him unto evil, out of all the tribes of israel, according to all the curses of the covenant, that are written in this book of the law. See also ver. 27. and Deuteronomy 28:61. “Also every plague, and every sickness, which is not written in the book of this law, will the Lord bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed.” See also 2 Kings 22:13,16,19. and parallel places in 2 Chronicles 34:Daniel 9:and Joshua 8:34,35. “And afterwards he read all the words of the law, the blessings and the cursings according to all that is written in the book of the law. There was not a word, of all that Moses commanded, that Joshua read not.” See Psalm 105:8,9,10, And not only the promises and threatenings were contained in the book of the law, but all the revelations which God gave, which tended to enforce it, or which in any way related to it, and even the prophecies that were there contained of what should afterwards happen to the people on their sin or on their repentance. This appears from Nehemiah 1:8,9. “ Remember, I beseech thee the word that thou commandest thy servant Moses, saying, If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations. But if ye turn unto me, and keep my commandments, and do them, though there were of You cast out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there.”

And besides, we read of Moses being expressly commanded to write histories of the acts of the Lord towards his people, as well as of the revelations which he made to them. So he was commanded to write an account of the people’s war with Amalek, with its attendant circumstances, that posterity might see the reason of this perpetual war which God had declared against Amalek. “And the Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua; for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.” (Exodus 17:14.)

Now a full account could not he given of this affair without relating much of the preceding history of Israel; for an account must he given in the writing of the reason and occasion of the children of Israel’s coming to the border of the Amalekites, and what was the cause of the discord and war which subsisted between them and Israel, which would take up no small part of the history of the book of Exodus.

Besides, we are expressly told that Moses wrote the journeys of the children of Israel by God’s command. Numbers 33:2. “And Moses wrote their goings-out according to their journeys, by the commandment of the Lord;” and is it reasonably to be supposed that he would write those for the use of the children of Israel in after-generations, and not write the great and mighty acts of the Lord towards that people in Egypt and at the Red sea, at mount Sinai, and in the wilderness, which were a thousand times more worthy of a record, and of being delivered down to posterity, than a mere journal of the people’s progress in the wilderness, without those mighty acts? It is every way incredible that Moses, of whom we so often read expressly that he wrote God’s commands, threatenings, promises, and revelations, and the early histories of mankind, that he should not write those great acts of the Lord, and leave a record of them with the congregation of Israel; especially when it is evident in fact that Moses was exceeding careful that they might not forget those great acts of the Lord in future generations. Deuteronomy 4:9,10,11. “Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thine heart all the days of thy life, but teach them thy sons,and thy sons, sons specially, the day when thou stoodest before the Lord thy God in Horeb,” etc, Here the very same orders are given for the keeping the acts of the Lord in the memory of posterity, as are given for the keeping up the memory of the precepts, chap. 6:7. and 11:18, 19. Job speaks of writing words in a book, as a proper mean to keep up the memory of them, and so does God to Isaiah.

Isaiah 30:8.” Now go write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever.” Moses did not trust the precepts of God merely to oral tradition, he was sensible that that way only was not sufficient, though he gave such a charge to the people to teach their children; and the memory of the war with Amalek, when God saw it needful that it should be transmitted to posterity, was not trusted to oral tradition, but Moses was commanded to write it, that other generations might know it; and so the travels of the children of Israel, when they were thought of importance to be remembered, were not trusted to tradition, but a record was written to be transmitted. Very great care was taken that these acts should be remembered, in appointing monuments of them. Thus the passover was instituted as a perpetual monument or memorial of the redemption of the children of Israel out of Egypt, and the beginning of the year was appointed as a memorial of it, and the first-horn sons were consecrated to God in memory of God’s slaying the first-born of Egypt. Certain laws were appointed about strangers and the poor.

Deuteronomy 24:17,18,22. and 16:11, 12. and 15:15. 16:12. Leviticus 25:42,55. and about bondmen in remembrance of their peregrination and bondage in Egypt. To suppose that such care should be taken lest the laws themselves should be forgotten, which were appointed for the very end of keeping up the memory of the fact, and that those laws should be written down; and yet that no care should be taken that the facts themselves should be so far remembered as to write them down, when the memory of the fact is supposed to be of so great importance, that the very being and remembrance of those laws is by the supposition subordinate thereto, the memory of the fact being the end both of the existence and of the memory of the laws, is absurd. In Nehemiah 13:1,2,3. a precept is cited, with a part of the history annexed as the reason of the law, and altogether is said to be read in the book of Moses. The manna was laid up as a monument of their manner of living in the wilderness, and God’s miraculous sustaining of the people there. The feast of tabernacles was to keep in remembrance the manner of their sojourning in the wilderness; as in Leviticus 23:43. Aaron’s rod that budded, was laid up as a memorial of the great things done by that rod in Egypt, at the Red sea, and in the wilderness, and particularly of the contest with Korah and his company, and the censers of the rebels kept and turned into broad plates for the covering of the altar, as a memorial of what happened in the matter of Korah, and the fire from heaven, was kept without ever going out, as a perpetual monument of its miraculous descent from heaven, and the occasion of it; and the brazen serpent was kept as a memorial of the plague of fiery serpents, and the miraculous healing of those that were bitten. The tabernacle that was built in the wilderness, was a monument of the great manifestations which God made of himself there, and the many things that came to pass relating to the building of the tabernacle. The two tables of stone kept in the ark were a monument of those great things which happened when they were given. The rest of the Jewish sabbath was appointed as a memorial of the deliverance of the children of Israel out of bondage. The laws concerning the Moabites and Ammonites were appointed as monuments; and the gold taken in the war with the Midianites was laid up for a monument of that war. Numbers 31:54. A great many places were named to keep in remembrance memorable facts in the wilderness; and who can think that all this care was taken to keep those things in memory, and yet no history be written to be annexed to these many monuments to explain them, by him by whose hand these monuments were appointed; and he, at the same time, so great a writer, and so careful to keep up the memory of events by writing, in those instances of the writing of which we have express mention?

Another instance of Moses’s great care that these great acts might not be forgotten, is his calling together the congregation to rehearse them over to them a little before his death, as we have an account in Deuteronomy. He also left some precepts wherein the children of Israel were required themselves from time to time to rehearse over something of the general history of their ancestors the patriarchs, of whom we have an account in Genesis; and so the history of the people from that time, as in the law of him that offered the first-fruits, Deuteronomy 26.

And we find that great care was taken to erect monuments of the great acts of God towards the people after Moses’s death, as of their passing through Jordan, though less memorable than some of those. And the fact that there were monuments expressly appointed to keep in memory so many of God’s acts in Moses’s time, and not of some others more memorable, is an argument that they had a history of them instead of monuments, as particularly of the children of Israel passing through the Red sea, and the destruction of Pharaoh and his hosts there. No act of God towards that people is more celebrated through the Scriptures than this; and yet we have no account of any monuments of it, or any ordinance expressly said to be appointed in memory of it, though there was a monument of their passing through Jordan, an event much like it, but less remarkable, and far less celebrated in Scripture. No account can be given of this, but that the history and song that Moses wrote and left in the book of the law, were monuments of it. Such was the care that was taken, that some of the acts of God towards the people might be remembered, that in appointing the monuments for their remembrance, it is expressed that it was for that end, that they might have it perpetually in mind as a token on their hand, and as frontlets between their eyes, as particularly in appointing the law of consecrating the first-born, to keep up the remembrance of God’s slaying the first-born of Egypt, Exodus 13:15,16. One of the laws or precepts themselves of the book of the law was, that the people should take heed never by any means to forget the great acts of God, which they had seen, and that they should not be forgotten by future generations, Deuteronomy 4:how unreasonable, then, is it to suppose that no history was annexed to those laws, and that at the same time that such a strict injunction of great care to keep up the memory of those things in future generations was given, they should yet be left without the necessary means of it! Again, another precept is, that they should not forget their own acts and behaviour from time to time, Deuteronomy 9:7, etc. See also chap. 8:14, 15, 16, etc. and chap. 5:15. So they are strictly required to remember their bondage in the land of Egypt, Deuteronomy 16:12. and chap. 24:18, 22. And also, to remember what God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt, all those great signs and wonders, and the manner of their deliverance out of Egypt, Deuteronomy 7:18,19. So they are strictly enjoined to remember all their travel, the way that they went, and the circumstances and events of their journey, Deuteronomy 8:2-5. and 14, to the end. And they are .charged to know God’s great acts in Egypt, and from time to time, in Deuteronomy 11:at the beginning. They are commanded to remember what God did to Miriam, Deuteronomy 24:9. Writing of those works of God that are worthy to be remembered and celebrated by praises to God, is spoken of as a proper way of conveying the memory of them to posterity for that end, in Psalm 102:18. “This shall be written for the generation to come, and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord.” The importance of remembering these works of God related in the Pentateuch, is mentioned not only in the Pentateuch itself, but also in other parts of Scripture, as in “Remember his marvellous works that he hath done, his wonders, and the judgments of his mouth.” (Psalm 105:5.)

By the marvellous works which God has done, and his wonders, is meant those marvellous works that he did to Abraham and his seed, from the calling of Abraham to the bringing in of the people into Canaan, as appears from the following part of the psalm; and it is observable here that the psalmist connects the wonderful works and the laws or judgments of God’s month together as in like manner worthy to be remembered. See also Chronicles 16:12. with the subsequent part of that song. The law, and covenant, and wonderful works, are in like manner connected as not to be forgotten, in Psalm 68:10,11, and in the 111th Psalm, the psalmist intimates that God has taken some special care to keep up the memory of those works ver. 4. “ He hath caused his wonderful works to be remembered,” speaking of these works, as appears from what follows in the psalm. And what other way can we suppose it to be that God hath done this, than the same with that whereby he caused his covenant and commandments spoken of in the following verses, to be remembered, viz. by causing them to be recorded? The works and commandments are joined together. Ver. 7. “The works of his hands are verity and judgment, all his commandments are sure; and again in the 9th verse, “He hath sent redemption to his people, he hath commanded his covenant for ever;” as they are doubtless connected in the record. Compare Psalm 147:19. and 103:7, In the 78th Psalm, the psalmist, after speaking of the great care that Moses took that the history of the great works of God towards Israel in Egypt and the wilderness should be remembered and delivered to future generations, (in ver. 4, 5, 6, 7.) then proceeds to rehearse the principal things in that history in a great many particulars, so as to give us, in short, the scheme of the whole history, with many minute circumstances, in such a manner as to show plainly that what is there rehearsed is copied out of the history of the Pentateuch.

It is the more likely that the history of the Pentateuch should be. a part of that which was called the law of Moses, because it is observable that the words law, doctrine, statute, ordinances, etc. as they were used of old, did not only intend precepts, but also promises, and threateriings, and prophecies, and monuments, and histories, and whatever was revealed, promulgated, and established, to direct men in their duty to God, or to enforce that duty upon them. So the blessings and the curses that were written by Moses are included in that phrase, and the words that Moses commanded. Joshua 8:34,35. So promises are called law, and the word which God commanded in Psalm 105:9. and 1 Chronicles 16:15. So promises and threatenings are called the word which God commanded his servant Moses. Nehemiah 1:8,9. Threatenings and promises are called statutes and judgments in Leviticus 26:46. Thus we read, Exodus 15:25,26. that at Marab God made for the people a statute and an ordinance, but that which is so called is only a promise. So we read in Joshua 24:25. that Joshua made a covenant with the people, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem, which was nothing else than only his establishing what had been there said by a record and a monument, as appears from the context. So when God, in the song of Moses, Deuteronomy 32 calls upon heaven and earth to give ear to his doctrine, which he says shall distil as the rain, etc. therein is included both history and prophecy, as appears by what follows, and what, in Psalm 78:1. is called a law, is only a history, and the very same with the history in the Pentateuclh in epitome, those dark savings of old, which the psalmist there rehearses, as appears from what follows in the psalm; which makes it the more easily supposable that the original and more full history, of which this is an epitome, was also amongst them called a law. And it is probable, that when we read of the great things of God’s law, Hosea 8:12. and the wondrous things of God’s law, that thereby is not only intended precepts and sanctions, but the great and wondrous works of God recorded in the law. It is evident that the history is as much of an enforcement of the precepts, (atid is so made use of,) as the threatenings, promises, and prophecies; and why then should it not be included in the name of the law as well as they? There is something of history, or a declaration of the great acts or works of God in that, which is by way of eminency called the Law, viz. the Decalogue; in that there is a declaration of the two greatest works of which the history of-the Pentateuch gives an account, viz. the creation of the world, and the redemption out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage: the latter is mentioned in the preface of the Decalogue, and both in the 4th commandment in Deuteronomy. But the fact that history was included in what was called the law, is so plain from nothing as from Moses’s own records. Deuteronomy 1:5. “ On this side Jordan in the land of Moab, began Moses to declare that law, saying-” and then follows in this and the ensuing chapters, that which is called this law, which consists in great part of history, being a rehearsal and recapitulation of the history in the preceding books of the Pentateuch. What follows next in this and the two next chapters is almost wholly history, which undoubtedly there is special reason to understand as intended by those words, “Moses began to declare the law, saving.” See also Deuteronomy 4:44,45. and 31:9, 24, 25, 26. and 5:1.

Again, the book of the law, and the book of the covenant, were synonymous expressions; (see among other places, Psalm 105:8,9,10.) but the word covenant, as it was then used, included history, as Deuteronomy 29:”These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses;”-and what next follows is history, such history as was introductory, or concomitant, or confirmatory to the precepts, and threatenings, and promises that follow, and of this nature is all the history of the Pentateuch, It is abundantly manifest that the manner of inditing and writing laws in the wilderness delivered by Moses, was to intermix history with precepts, counsels, warnings, threatenings, promises, and prophecies.

It may be noted, that it was very early the custom in Israel to keep records of the public transactions of the nation, and they regarded this as a matter of so great importance, as to have men appointed, whose business and office it was to keep these records. So we find it was in the days of Solomon and David, and in the days of the Judges, as early as the days of Deborah. Judges 5:14. “ Out of Zebulun, they that handle the pen of the writer.” It is probable from the context, that these were their rulers, or some of the chief officers in the land that kept records of public affairs.

Before this, also, we have express account of Joshua and Moses making records of public transactions. (See Joshua 24:26. and the forementioned place concerning Moses’s writing records.) And it is evident that these transactions which related to the bringing of that nation into a covenant relation with God, and redeeming them out of Egypt, etc. were always by that nation chiefly celebrated, and looked upon as the greatest and most memorable events of their history. Now, therefore, is it credible, that in a nation, whose custom it was all along, even from the very times of those great transactions, to keep records of all public affairs, that they should be without any written record of these transactions?

There is no other way that would be natural of writing a divine law, or a law given by God in an extraordinary manner, with wonderful and astonishing circumstances, and great manifestations of his presence and power, except that of writing it in this manner, and recording those extraordinary circumstances under which it was given: first introducing it by giving an account that it was given by God, and then declaring when, how, and on what occasion, and in what manner it was given. And this will bring in all the history, from the beginning of Exodus to the end of Deuteronomy. Who can believe that Moses wrote the law which God gave at mount Sinai, without giving an account how it was given there; when the manner of giving was so exceedingly remarkable, and so affected Moses’s mind, as appears from many things which Moses wrote in Deuteronomy, which are there expressly called by the name of a law, and which we are also expressly told that Moses wrote in the book of the law, and delivered to the priests to be laid up in the sanctuary.

There is such a dependence between many of the precepts and sanctions of the law, and other parts of the Pentateuch, that are expressly called the law, and that we are expressly told were written in the book of the law, and laid up in the sanctuary; I say, there is such a dependence between these and the history, that they cannot be understood without the history. Many of the precepts, as was observed before, were appointed to that end to keep up the remembrance of historical facts and that is expressly mentioned in the words of these laws themselves. But such laws obviously cannot he understood without the history. Thus this is mentioned as the reason of the appointment of the feasts of tabernacles, viz. that the children of Israel might remember how they dwelt in tabernacles in the wilderness; 23:43.

Now this required the history of their travels and sojourning there. So the law concerning the Amalekites, Moabites, and Amorites, appointed in commemoration of hat passed between the congregation of Israel in the wilderness in their travels there, and those nations, cannot be understood without the history of those facts; and these require the history of the travels of the children of Israel, and of the things that led to those incidents, and that occasioned them. So that great law of the passover that is said in the law to be in remembrance of their redemption out of Egypt, and the many particular rites and ceremonies of that feast, are said expressly in the law to be in remembrance of these, and those circumstances of’ that redemption. Now it is impossible to understand all these particular precepts about the passover without a history of that affair: and this requires the history of their bondage in Egypt, and the manner how they came into that bondage and this draws in the history of the patriarchs.

The preface of the ten commandments cannot be understood without the history of the redemption of Israel out of Egypt, and of their circumstances there, in the house of bondage; nor can what is given as one reason of the 4th commandment in Deuteronomy be understood without an account how they were servants in the land of Egypt, and how they were delivered from their servitude. We very often find this mentioned as an enforcement of one precept and another, viz. God’s deliverance of the people out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage and out of the iron furnace. See Leviticus 18:3. 19:34. 22:3:3. 25:42, 55. 23:43. and 26:13, 45. Numbers 15:41. Deuteronomy 4:20. 6:12. 7:8. 8:14. 13:10. and 20:1. Which shows how necessary the history is to understand the law. The many precepts about the Porn’ bondman and stranger that are expressly enforced, from the circumstances of the Israelites in Egypt, absolutely require a history of their circumstances there. And there are in the enforcement of the laws, frequent references to the plagues and diseases of Egypt, threatenings of inflicting those plagues, or promises of freedom from them, which cannot be understood without the history of those plagues. The law of no more returning again into Egypt, Deuteronomy 17:16. requires the history of their coming out from thence. The law concerning not admitting the Moabites and Ammonites into the congregation of the Lord, because they so treated them in their journey, could not be understood without the story of their treatment, and that required an account of their journey. The law concerning sins of ignorance, Numbers 15:22,23,24. depends on the history for its being intelligible: “and if ye have erred, and not observed all these commandments ‘which the Lord hath spoken unto Moses, even all that the Lord hath commanded you by the hand of Moses, from the day that the Lord commanded Moses, and henceforward among your generations, then it shall be, if ought be committed by ignorance,” etc.

Here is a reference to God’s revealing himself from time to time, iii a long series of revelations to Moses, which cannot be understood without the history. The law was written as a covenant, or as a record of a. covenant, between God and the people; and therefore the tables of the low and the tables of the covenant, the book of the law and the book of the covenant, are synonymous phrases in Scripture. And the psalmist, Psalm 105:1,10. speaking of the covenant that God made with the patriarchs, says, that God confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and unto Israel for an everlasting covenant, It is to be noted that the promise to Abraham is what is there especially called the low, and the word which God commanded. The threatenings of the law are called the words of the covenant which God made by Moses in .Jeremiah 11:8. But if Moses wrote the book of the law as a record of the covenant that was made between God and the congregation of Israel, it was necessary to write the people’s consent, or what was done on both sides, for there was a mutual transacting in this covenant. See Deuteronomy 26:17,18. “Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God, and to walk in his ways,” etc .-”And the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments.” Agreeable hereto is the account we have, Exodus 19:8. and 24:3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. and Deuteronomy 5:27. and 26:17.

The discourse that we have in Deuteronomy 29:and 30:is introduced thus, “These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.” But the following discourse, called the words of the covenant, is made up of the following things, viz. a history of the transaction, Moses’s rehearsal of past transactions and wonderful dealings of God with them, with reproofs for their insensibility and unaffectedness as introducing what he had further to say. He then proceeds to charge them to serve the true God, and to avoid idolatry, and then to enforce this charge with awful threatenings and predictions of judgments that shall come upon them if they transgress, with the circumstances of these judgments, and promises of forgiveness on repentance and the w hole concluded with various arguments, pressing instances, solemn appeals, obtestations, exhortations, etc. to enforce their dots. If such a miscellany is called the words of the covenant, we need not wonder if the whole book, that ‘is called the book of the lure, should be a similar miscellany.

It was necessary that a record of a covenant between God and the nation of Israel, should contain the story of the transaction. But this, if fully related, would bring in very much of the history of the Pentateuch, which is extensively made up of an account of those things that were done by God, to bring the people into a covenant relation to him, and the way in which they became his covenant people. Hence the psalmist, in Psalm cv. having mentioned this covenant and law which God established with the people, proceeds in the ensuing part of the Psalm, to rehearse the series of events relating this covenant transaction, from God’s entering into covenant with the patriarchs to the children of Israel’s being brought into Canaan.

It was exceedingly necessary, in particular, when Moses was about to write a record of the covenant which God established with the people, and to give an account of the manner in which he entered into covenant with them, and brought them unto a covenant relation to him, to show the beginning of it with the patriarchs, with whom that covenant was first established, and with whom was laid the foundation of all that transaction, and that great dispensation of the Lord of heaven and earth with that people, in separating them from all the rest of the world, to be his peculiar covenant people. The beginning and groundwork of the whole affair was mainly with them, and what was done afterwards by the hand of Moses, was only in pursuance of what had been promised to them, and often established within them, and for which God made way by his acts and revelations towards them. What God said and did towards those patriarchs, is often spoken of in the words of the law (those that are expressly called the law) as the foundation of the whole, and also in other parts of the Old Testament; as most expressly in Psalm 105:8,9,10.; see also .Joshua 24:3, etc.; and many other’ parallel places.

And there is very often in the law, strictly so called, an express reference to the covenant that God had made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as in Leviticus 26:42. Deuteronomy 4:31,37. Deuteronomy 6:10,18. and 7:8, 12. and 9:5, 27. and 10:11, 15. and 19:8. 26:3, 15. and 30:20. which passages are unintelligible without the history of the patriarchs, And there are many other passages in the law, wherein there is an implicit reference to the same thing; as in those in which God speaks of the land, which the Lord their God had given them, or had promised them, the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Canaanites, etc. referring to the promise made to Abraham, Genesis 15:18, to the end; where God promises to Abraham the land of those nations by name.

Again, the forementioned considerations, many of them must, at least, induce us to believe that Moses wrote the history of the redemption of the children of Israel out of Egypt, so far at least as he himself was concerned in that affair, and was made the chief instrument of it, from his being first called and sent of God on that errand. But this as naturally leads us back further still, even to what God said and did to the patriarchs; for the beginning of this history directly points and leads us to those things as the foundation of this great affair, of which God now called Moses to he the great instrument. Thus when God first appeared to Moses, and spake to him in mount Sinai out of the bush, and gave his commission, it was with these words, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Exodus 3:6. So again, ver. 13, 14, 15, 16. “And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you, and they shall say to me, What is his name? What shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. And God said, moreover, unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations. Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, for’ that which is done to you in Egypt.” So again, chap. 4:5. “ That they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee.” And chap. 6:2, 3, 4.” And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the Lord, and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty; but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them. And I have established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers.” It is unreasonable on many forementioned accounts, to believe any other than that Moses should write the history, and it is most credible that he did it on this account, that those first extraordinary appearances of God to him, as is natural to suppose, made most strong impressions on his mind, and if he wrote any history it is likely he wrote this. But from these things it appears that the history of the patriarchs lays the whole foundation of the history of the redemption of the children of Israel out of Egypt, and of God’s separating them and bringing them into a covenant relation with himself.

So that it cannot be understood without the history of the patriarchs.

Would it not therefore have been an essential defect in Moses, in writing that history, to leave the children of Israel without any record of that great foundation?

There is frequent mention in that part of the Pentateuch, (which is expressly styled the law,) of several tribes of Israel and their names, and of the patriarchs who were the heads of the tribes. Deuteronomy 3:12,13,15,16. and 27:11, 13. and elsewhere. And Moses was commanded to engrave the names of the twelve patriarchs on the stones of the breast plate of the high-priest. But these things are not intelligible without the history of Jacob’s family. In Deuteronomy 10:22. there is a reference to Jacob’s going down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons, which is not intelligible without the history.

The law for him that brings the offering of the firstfruits cannot be understood without the history of Jacob’s difficulties and sufferings in Padan-Aram, and the history of his going down into Egypt with its circumstances, and the history of the great increase of his posterity there, and the history of their oppression and hard bondage there, and the history and circumstances of their deliverance from it, and the history of the great and wondrous works of God in Egypt, and the Red sea, and the wilderness, until the people came to Canaan. And if Moses left no record of these things; then, in the law, he enjoined him who offered the firstfruits, (i.e. of all the people, every individual householder, from generation to generation,) to make an explicit confession and declaration of those things that he did not understand.

What is said in the law, of the Edomites, as the children of Esau, and what God had given to him for His possession, and the favour God showed Esau, in Deuteronomy 2:4,5,6,7,8, and 22. and the law concerning the Edomites, Deuteronomy 23:7,8. how they should be treated, because Esau was their brother, cannot be understood without the history of the family of Isaac. And the kind of mention made of Moab and Ammon, as the founders of the nations of the Moabites and Ammonites, and the favour showed them on their father Lot’s account, in Deuteronomy 2:seems to suppose the history of Lot and his family, rind cannot be understood without it. And the reference there is in the law to the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Deuteronomy 29:23. cannot be understood without the history of tha affair.

These things that have been mentioned, lead us up in the history of the Pentateuch, within less than eleven chapters of its beginning; so that according to what has been said, all except this very small part of the Pentateuch must have been delivered by Moses to the children of Israel; and it is unreasonable to suppose that this small part was not delivered by the same hand as part of the same record. The history of Abraham begins with the 26th verse of the 11th chapter of Genesis; and the beginning of that history is there so connected with, and as it were grows upon, the preceding history of Noah and his posterity, that to suppose any other than that they were originally the same record, having the same author, is most unreasonable. That Moses’s history began any where between that and the beginning of Genesis, or that that part of Genesis from the beginning to the 26th verse of the 11th chapter, is to be divided, as having several writers, are suppositions which, from a hare view of the history itself, any one will be convinced are erroneous. But it will appear still more unreasonable not to ascribe it to Moses, if we consider not only the connexion of the beginning of the history of Abraham with it, but the dependence of many things in the following history upon it; and also in that part of the Pentateuch that is more plainly called the Law. There is frequent mention made both in the law and history of the posterity of the sons of Ham, Mizraim and Canaan, called by the names of these their ancestors, mentioned chap. 10:6. and of those of the posterity of Mizraim, called Caphterim, mentioned ver. 14. and in Deuteronomy 2:23. and of the posterity of the sons of Canaan, mentioned ver. 15, etc. called by their names. And in the following history there is mention made of Ham, the son of Noah, Genesis 14:5. Mention is made of Elam and Shinar, Genesis 14:1, etc. of whom we have an account, chap. 10 Frequent mention is made of the land of Cush, (in our translation, Ethiopia,) so named from Cush, the son of Ham, of whom we have an account, Genesis 10:6-8. So there is in the following history frequent mention of the land of Aram, the son of Shem. In Balaam’s prophecy, referred to in the law in Deuteronomy, mention is made of Ashur, Chittim, and Eber, Numbers 24:22,24. The great event of which Moses most evidently wrote the history, and which takes up all the historical part of the Pentateuch, from Genesis 10:26. to the end of’ Deuteronomy, is God’s separating the seed of Abraham and Israel from all nations, and bringing them near to himself to be his peculiar people. But to the well understanding of this, it was requisite to be informed of the origin of nations, the peopling of the world, and the Most High dividing to the nations their inheritance: and therefore the 9th, I0th and 11th chapters of Genesis are but a proper introduction to the history of this great event, In the song of Moses, of which mention is made in the law, and which Moses in the law was required to write, and the people in the law were required to keep, and learn, and often rehearse, there is an express reference to the separating the sons of Adam, and God’s dividing the earth among its inhabitants; which is unintelligible without the 10th and 11th chapters of Genesis. In that song, also, is plainly supposed a connexion between this affair, and that great affair of separating the children of Israel from all nations to be his peculiar people, about which most of the history of the Pentateuch is taken up. The words are as follows, and in them the people are expressly called upon to keep in remembrance both these events that are so connected, which obviously supposes a history of both, Deuteronomy 32:7-9. “Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations. Ask thy father, and he will show thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee; when the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance; when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.

For the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.”

And by the way I would observe, that in the following words are also references to other historical facts of the Pentateuch that cannot be understood without the history.

In the fourth commandment, there is such a mention made of the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and all that in them is, and of God’s resting the seventh day, as is a kind of epitome of the first chapter’ of Genesis, and the beginning of the second, and is unintelligible without that history; and there is a reference, in Deuteronomy 4:32. to God’s creation of man, and there is mention in the prophetical song of Moses of the name of Adam, as the grand progenitor of mankind, Deuteronomy 32:8. And there is mention made of the garden of God, or Paradise, Genesis 13:10, And before I leave this argument from references to historical facts, I would observe, that a very great part of the thirty-one first chapters of Deuteronomy, (which are most evidently, as I observed before, a part of the law of Moses, laid up in the holy of holies,) are made up of nothing but recapitulations, brief rehearsals, references, and hints of preceding historical facts, and counsels, and enforcements from history, which cannot be understood without the knowledge of that history.

And not only does the law of Moses de rend upon the history, and bear such a relation to it, and contain such references to it that it cannot be understood without it, but the manner of writing the law shows plainly that the law and history were written together, they are so connected, interwoven, blended, in wrought, and incorporated in the writing. The history is a part of the law, its preamble from time to time being often made an introduction to laws; and there are continually such transitions from history to law, and from law to history, and such a connexion, and reference, and dependence, that all appears as it were to grow together as the several parts of a tree. These, as they stand, are parts of the continued history, and the history of the facts is only as an introduction and preamble, or reason and enforcement, of the laws, all flowing in a continued series, as the several parts of one uninterrupted stream, all as one body. So that the bare inspection of the writing, as it stands, may be enough to convince any one that all has the same author, and that both were written together. Such is the manner of writing the laws concerning the passover, the chief of all the ceremonial observances, in the 12th chapter of Exodus, and the law concerning the first-born, in the 13th chapter, and the statute and ordinance mentioned in the 15th chapter of Exodus 25,26 verses. Such also is the manner of writing that law by which is made known to the children of Israel, which particular day is the sabbath, Exodus 16:23. Such is the manner’ of writing the Decalogue itself, which in the highest sense is called the law of Moses, in Exodus 20:that it is unreasonable to think that it was recorded by Moses without any of the concomitant history, and those words in the law, Exodus 20:22,23. Such are the laws ordering the particular frame of the tabernacle, ark, anointing oil, incense, priest’s garments, with the history of the consequent building, etc. The revelation made to Moses when God proclaimed his name, Exodus 34:6,7. which is an important part of the law, together with ver. 10, 11, etc. and ver. 30, 31. The several laws given on occasion of Nadab and Abihu’s being burnt, Leviticus 10:and chap. 16:particularly ver. 1, 2. taken with what follows, together with the last words in the chapter. Sce also Leviticus 21:1 and ver. 24. and chap. 22:1-3, 17, 18. The law concerning blasphemy, with the story of the blasphemy of Shelomith’s son, Leviticus 24:The law of the Levites’ service, with the history of their being numbered and accepted instead of the first-born and consecrated, Numbers 3:and 4:and 8:The law of putting the leper out of the camp, Numbers v, at the beginning. The law of polluted persons keeping the passover, with the history that gave occasion for it, Numbers 9:6. The history of making the trumpets, with the law concerning their use, Numbers 10 The law constituting the seventy elders, which is only giving a history of their first appointment, Numbers 11:The law of the presumptuous sinner, with the history of the sabbathbreaker, Numbers 15:30, etc. The law for the priests, Numbers 18:which supposes a foregoing history of the rebellion of Korah, see ver. 5. and ver. 27. compared with the 13th verse of the preceding chapter. The law of the inheritance of daughters, with the history of Zelophehad’s daughters. The law of the cities of refuge on the east side of Jordan, with the history of the taking of the country.

History and law are every where so grafted one into another, so mutually inwrought, and do, as it were, so grow one out of and into another, and flow one from another in a continued current, that there is all appearance of their originally growing together, and not in the least of their being artificially patched and compacted together afterwards. It seems impossible impartially and carefully to view the manner of their connexion, and to judge otherwise.

Another argument that the same care was taken to preserve the memory of the facts, as to preserve the precepts of the law, vir. by making a public record of them, to be preserved with the same care, and so in like manner laid up in the sanctuary, is, that it is declared in the law, that the whole law was written, and the record of all the precepts of it transmitted to posterity as a monument of the historical facts, or to that end that the memory of those facts might be kept up in future generations. Deuteronomy 6:20, to the end. “And when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord our God hath commanded you? Then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh’s bondmen in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and the Lord showed signs and wonders great and sore upon Pharaoh and upon all his household before our eyes, and he brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in to give us the land which he sware unto our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day: and it shall be our righteousness if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us.”

It is a plain and demonstrative evidence, that the Jews had all along some standing public records of the facts that we have an account of in the history of the Pentateuch, that these facts are so abundantly, and in such a manner’, mentioned or referred to all along in other books of the Old Testament. There is scarcely any part of the history from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy, but what is mentioned or referred to in other books of the Old Testament, that were the writings of after-ages, and some of them are mentioned very often, and commonly with the names of persons and places, and many particular and minute circumstances, not only that part of the history which belongs more immediately to the redemption of Israel out of Egypt, and their journey through the wilderness, but the preceding introductory history, and not only that which concerns the Jewish patriarchs, but the first part of the history of Genesis, even fl-am the very beginning. In these writings we have very often mention of God’s creating the heavens and the earth; Isaiah 65:17. and 66:22. and 40:21, 22, 28. and 51:13. and 42:5. and 44:24. and 45:12. and 37:16. And 66:1, 2. Jeremiah 10:11,12. and 32:17. and 51:15. and 14:22. 2 Kings 19:15. Psalm 89:40,12. and 102:25. Zechariah 12:1. Psalm 115:15. and 121:2. and 124:8. and 134:3. The manner of God’s creating by speaking the word, Psalm 33:6,9. and 148:5.

The world being at first without form and void, and covered with darkness, agreeably to Genesis 1:2. is referred to Jeremiah 4:23.

God’s creating the light is referred to Psalm 124:16.

God’s creating the light and darkness, Isaiah 44:7. agreeable to Genesis 1:3,4.

God’s creating the firmament, Psalm 19:1.

God’s creating the waters that are above the heavens, Psalm 148:4,6. agreeable to Genesis 1:7.

God’s gathering together the water’s, Psalm 33:7. His making the sea and the dry land, Psalm 95:5. stretching out the earth above the waters, Psalm 136:6. appointing the sea its decreed place, Jeremiah 5:22. Proverbs 8:29.

Psalm 104:9.

God’s creating the sun, Psalm 19:1,4. and 74:16.

God’s creating the sun for a light by day, anrd the moon and the stars for a light by night, Jeremiah 31:35. Psalm 148:3,6.

God’s creating great lights. The sun to rule by day, and the moon and stars to rule by night, Psalm 136:7,8,9. See also Psalm 104:19. with ver. 24.

God’s creating the sea, and the many creatures that move herein, and the whale in particular, Psalm 104:25,26.

God’s creating the heavens, the earth, and the sea, and all that is therein, Psalm 146:6; many parts of the creation is mentioned, Proverbs 8:22-29.

God’s creating man and beast, Jeremiah 27:5.

God’s creating man, Psalm 8:5.

Man being made of the dust of the earth, Ecclesiastes 12:7.

Man’s having dominion given him in His creation over the fish of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and beasts of the earth, Psalm 8:6,7,8.

Man’s having the herbs and plants of the earth given him for meat, Psalm civ. 14, 15. agreeable to Genesis 1:29. and 3:18.

The first marriage, or God’s making Adam and Eve one, is referred to, Malachi 2:15.

Adam’s name is mentioned, Hosea 6:7.

The garden of Eden is often mentioned by name, with its pleasures and delights, Isaiah 51:3. Ezekiel 28:13. and 31:8, 9, 16, 18. and 36:35. and Joel 2:3 Adam’s violating the covenant is referred to, Hosea 6:7. The curse denounced against Adam. that as he was dust, so unto dust he should return, is referred to, Ecclesiastes 12:7.

The curse denounced on the serpent, that He should eat dust all the days of his life, is referred to, Isaiah 65:25. Micah 7:17.

Mention is made of the flood of waters that stood above the mountains, and God’s rebuking and removing the flood, Psalm 104:6,7.

Noah’s name is mentioned, and His righteousness before God, and great acceptance with him, referred to, Isaiah 54:9. and Ezekiel 14:14,20.

The waters of Noah’s flood, and their going over the earth, and God’s covenant with Noah, that he could no more destroy the earth with a flood, are mentioned, Isaiah 54:9.

Many of the names of the descendants of Noah that we have an account of in Genesis 10 are mentioned in other parts of the Old Testament, and some of them very often, and every where in an agreeableness with the account we have of them there; Psalm 78:51. and 10523, 27. and 106:22. and 83:8.

Isaiah 11:11. and 23:1, 2, 12, 13. Jeremiah 2:10. and 25:20-25. and 49:34- 39. Ezekiel 27:5-15. and ver. 20-25. chap. 30:45. and 32:24, 26. and 38:2- 5,6,13. Micah 5:6. and in many other places.

The names of others also that we have an account of as heads of nations in the history of the Pentateuch before Moses’s birth, beside the patriarchs of the Jewish nation, are frequently mentioned, Psalm 83:6,7. Isaiah 11:14,15. Isaiah 60:6,7. Jeremiah 2:10. Jeremiah 25:20,25. Jeremiah throughout, and in many other places, all is in agreeableness to the history of the Pentateuch. The Philistines coming forth out of Caphtor, Amos 9:7.

Jeremiah 47:4. compared with Genesis 10:14. and Deuteronomy 2:23.

The name Babel is often mentioned. There is particular mention of the ancestors of the Jews dwelling on the other side of the river Euphrates, and particularly Terah the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor, Joshua 24.

Abraham being brought from thence of God, from the East, from the other side of the river, his coming at the call of God, and being led by him into the land of Canaan, Joshua 24:3. Isaiah 41:2.

His being called with Sarah his wife, Isaiah 41:1,2.

God’s leading Abraham throughout the land of Canaan, Joshua 24:3. agreeable to Genesis 12:6. and 13:17.

God’s blessing Abraham is mentioned, Isaiah 41:1,2.

Abraham is spoken of as a righteous man, and God’s servant and friend, Isaiah 41:2. and verse 8, Psalm 105:42.

God’s entering into covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, promising them the land of Canaan, Psalm 105:8,9,10,11,42.

The church of God in the families of those patriarchs, being very small, and their being strangers and sojourners in the land of Canaan, and their going from one nation to another, and from one kingdom to another people, and God’s wonderfully restraining men from hurting them, and his reproving kings for their sakes, and God’s calling them prophets, Psalm 105:12-15.

God’s giving Abraham an easy conquest over great kings and rulers of the principal nations of the world, as in Genesis 14:14, etc. is mentioned in Isaiah 41:2,3.

Melchizedek is mentioned by name as being a great priest of the true God, and both a king and a priest, Psalm 110:4.

God’s fixing the border of the seed of Abraham at the river Euphrates, as the history of the Pentateuch informs us that God did in His promise to Abraham, Genesis 15:18. and afterwards from time to time to the Israelites, is referred to 2 Samuel 8:3.

The great plentifulness of the land of Sodom is spoken of, Ezekiel 16:49.

The great wickedness of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, Ezekiel 16:46-56. Isaiah 1:10.

Their being guilty of notorious uncleanness, Ezekiel 16:50. 1 Kings 14:24 and 15:12. and 22:46. 2 Kings 23:7.

Their being of a very proud and haughty spirit, Ezekiel 16:49,50. agreeable to Genesis 15:9.

Their being very open, and barefaced, and shameless in their wickedness, Isaiah 3:9.

Their being overthrown with a very great, and terrible, and utter destruction, Isaiah 1:9. and 13:19. Jeremiah 49:18.

Their being the subjects of sudden destruction, Lamentations 4:6.

God’s overthrowing them with fire, Amos 4:11.

Their being overthrown with perpetual and everlasting desolation, without ever being rebuilt, or inhabited anymore, Isaiah 49:18. and 1. 40. Ezekiel 16:53,55. Zephaniah 2:9.

Their being overthrown together with neighboring cities, Jeremiah 49:18. and 1.40.

The birth of Isaac, as a special gift of God to Abraham, Joshua 24:3.

The birth of Jacob and Esau the sons of Isaac, by a special gift of God, Joshua 24:4.

Esau is mentioned under the names of both Esau and Edom, as Jacob’s brother, in the book of Obadiah, and often elsewhere.

Jacob’s taking hold of Esau’s heel when they were born, is mentioned, Hosea 12:3.

Jacob’s being preferred before his brother by God’s election, Psalm cv. 6.

Isaiah 41:8. Malachi 1:2,3.

God’s appearing to Jacob at Bethel, Hosea 12:4 Jacob’s fleeing into the country of Syria, serving for a wife, and particularly his serving there and doing the business of a shepherd or keeping sheep Hosea. 12:12.

The two wives of Jacob, Rachel and Leah, are mentioned as those that did build the house of Israel, Ruth 4:11.

Jacob by his strength having power with God, and having power over the angel, Hosea 12:3,4.

The names of the twelve sons of Jacob are mentioned in Ezekiel 48, and very often elsewhere.

Esau’s having mount Seir given to him, Joshua 24:4. agreeably to Genesis 26:8.

And the name of Ishmael, and his posterity, and of the sons of Abraham by Keturah, and the sons of Lot, and the sons of Esau, are often mentioned, agreeably to the account we have of them in Genesis.

Joseph’s being sold into Egypt, and being a servant there, Psalm 105:17.

Joseph’s being by Providence sold into Egypt before the house of Israel, to preserve life, Psalm cv. 16, 17. agreeable to Genesis 45:5. and 50:20.

Tamar’s bearing Pharez to Judah, Ruth 4:12.

Joseph’s being bound in prison in Egypt, Psalm 105:18. as Genesis 39:2.

Joseph’s having divine revelations in prison, and his thereby foretelling future events, and those predictions coming to pass, and that being the occasion of Pharaoh’s taking him out of prison and setting him at liberty, Psalm 105:19,20.

And Joseph being upon this exalted over all the land of Egypt, and being made lord of Pharaoh’s house, and ruler of his substance, and being next to the king himself in power and dignity, and being Pharaoh’s vicegerent, and so having power and authority over all the princes and nobles of Egypt, Psalm 105:21,22.

The famine that was at that time in the land of Canaan, that obliged Israel and his family to seek elsewhere for bread, is mentioned, Psalm 105:16.

Jacob’s going down into Egypt with his family, Joshua 24:7. 1 Samuel 12:8. and Psalm 105:24.

Their multiplying exceedingly in Egypt, till they were become more and mightier than the Egyptians, and the Egyptians dealing subtlety with them to diminish them. Psalm 105:24,35 agreeable to Exodus 1:9,10.

The Egyptians first loving the Israelites, and then afterwards being turned to hate them, Psalm 105:25.

Their being slaves in Egypt, Micah 6:4. Jeremiah 2:20. Judges 6:8.

The cruelty of their bondage, its being as it were an iron furnace, (as it is called Deuteronomy 4:20.) is mentioned 1 Kings 8:51. Jeremiah 11:4. and Judges 6:9 The particular kind of their service in handling pots, wherein they carried their mortar, and working in furnaces, in which they burnt their brick, is referred to 1 Kings 8:51. and Jeremiah 11:4. and Psalm 68:13. and 81:6.

God’s taking notice of their cruel bondage and great affliction with compassion, and a fellow-feeling of their calamity, Isaiah 63:9. agreeably to Exodus 2:23-25. and chap. 3:7, 9, 16.

God’s making known himself to them in Egypt, Ezekiel 20:5. agreeable to Exodus 3:1-6. and yen. 13-16, 29-31. and chap. 6:2-6.

God’s making himself known to them by the name of the Jehovah your God. Ezekiel 20:5. agreeable to Exodus 6:2,3,6. especially verse 7.

God’s promising and securing to them in Egypt to bring them forth out of the land of Egypt into a land flowing with milk and honey. Ezekiel 20:6. agreeable to Exodus 3:8,10,12,14,17. and chap. 6:2-8. where we have an account of his swearing by his great nameJEHOVAH, and I AM THAT I AM.

God’s making use of Moses, a great prophet, as the main instrument of bringing the people out of Egypt, etc. Isaiah 63:11,12. Hosea 12:13.

Aaron’s being joined with Moses in this affair. Joshua 24:5. 1 Samuel 12:6-8. Psalm 77:20. and 105:26. Miriam’s also being joined, Micah 6:4.

God’s-working very great wonders for his people in the time of Moses and Aaron, Psalm 77:11-14.

His working great wonders in Egypt, Psalm 78:12,43. and 81:5. and 105:27. and 125:9. and 106:9. Joshua 24:5. Great tokens and wonders upon Pharaoh and all his servants, Psalm 135:9.

God’s redeeming the people out of Egypt, Judges 6:8,9. and 11:16. Samuel 12:6-8. Psalm 81:10. and 74:2. and 77:15. and 78:42. and 114:1.

And 111:9. Jeremiah 2:6,20. and 11:4. 1 Kings 8:51. Jeremiah 16.:4.

Ezekiel 20:10. Hosea 12:13. Amos 9:7. Micah 6:4. and many other places.

God’s turning the rivers and pools of Egypt into blood, so that the Egyptians could not drink the waters, and also thereby killing their fish, Psalm 78:44. and 105:29.

The land’s bringing forth frogs in abundance, to fill even the chambers of Pharaoh, Psalm 78:45. and 105:31.

The plague of lice is mentioned Psalm 105:31.

The plague of the divers sorts of flies, Psalm 105:31. and 88:45.

God’s sending hail, and thunder, and lightning, and flaming fire with hail, to the breaking of the trees of the field and destroying their cattle, Psalm 88:47,48. and 105:32. agreeably to Exodus 9:22, etc.

God’s sending locusts to eat up all the growth of the field, Psalm 78:46. and 105:34, 35.

The plague of darkness, Psalm 105:28.

God’s smiting and destroying all the first-born of Egypt with the pestilence, the first-born, both of men and beasts, Psalm 78:50,51. and 105:36. and 135:8. ann 136:10.

The children of Israel’s going out of Egypt upon this last plague, Psalm 78:52. and 136:11. Joshua 24:5.

Their going out with silver and with gold, Psalm 105:37.

The Egyptians’ being glad to be rid of them, Psalm 105:38 agreeably to Exodus 12:33- Their being brought out with a strong hand, and an outstretched arm, Psalm 136:12.

Their being led by a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire to give them light by night, Psalm 78:14. and 105:39. Isaiah 4:5.

Their being led into the wilderness, Psalm 68:7. and 78:40, 52. and 95:8. and 106:9, 14. and 136:16. Jeremiah 2:2,6. Ezekiel 20:10. Judges 9:16.

The people going to the Red sea, Judges 9:6.

The Egyptians pursuing after the people with chariots and horsemen unto the Red sea, Joshua 24:6.

The people crying unto the Lord at the Red sea, Joshua 24:7.

The perverseness of that generation, Psalm 106:6,7. 95:8. and 78:8,etc.

Isaiah 63:10. Psalm 81:11.

Their provoking God at the Red sea, Psalm 106:7. agreeable to Exodus 14:11,12.

God’s putting darkness between Israel and the Egyptians, Joshua 24:7.

God’s dividing the Red sea, and causing the people to pass through, and causing the waters to stand as an heap; his turning the sea into dry land, so that the people went through on foot dry shod, Psalm 78:13. 66:6. And 24:13. 77:16, 19, 20. 114:3, 4. 136:13, 14. 106:8, 9. Isaiah 10:26. 52:10. 63:11, 12, 13. Habakkuk 3:8-10,15. Psalm 77:10-20.

God’s destroying Pharaoh and his hosts, his chariots and his horses by the Red sea, by bringing the waters upon them to cover them, so that there was not one of them left, Psalm 74:13,14. 76:5, 6. 78:53. 136:15. 106:10, 11. Isaiah 10:26. 51:9, 10. and Joshua 24:7.

God’s doing these things at the Red sea by the lifting up of Moses’s rod, Isaiah 10:26.

God’s conquering and crushing Egypt in a forcible manner, and with mighty power, Psalm 89:10. Isaiah 51:9.

God’s doing such great things for to preserve a people for the glory of his own name, and to show his mighty power, Psat. 106:8. agreeable to Exodus 8:16.

The people’s singing praises at the Red sea, Psalm 106:12. Hosea 2:15.

Psalm 66:6. 105:43. agreeable to Exodus 9:16.

This destruction of the Egyptians being reported and famed through the earth, Isaiah 23:5.

The people’s murmuring in the wilderness for want of bread, Psalm 78:17, etc. and 106:14.

Their soon transgressing, and provoking, after singing praises at the Red sea, by lusting and tempting God, Psalm 106:13,14,15.

The people’s dwelling in tents in the wilderness, Psalm 106:25.

The people’s being encamped in the wilderness, like an army, Psalm 78:28. and 106:16.

God’s sending the people manna, and feeding them with bread from heaven that was rained down upon them, Psalm 78:23,24,25. and 105:10.

God’s revealing his holy sabbath to the people as we have an account in the l6th. of Exodus Ezekiel 20:12. Nehemiah 9:14.

God’s giving the people waters plentifully to supply the whole congregation out of the rock of Meribah, by striking the rock and causing the waters to gush out, Psalm 78:15,16,20. 81:7. and 105:4. and 114:8.

Amalek’s coming forth in a hostile manner against Israel in the way when he came up from Egypt, 1 Samuel 15:2.

What Jethro the priest of Midian said and did, that we have an account of Exodus 18 is referred to 1 Samuel 15:6.

God’s entering into covenant with the people at mount Sinai, or Horeb, after they came out of Egypt, and giving. the law and statutes, and judgments there, 1 Kings 8:9. Psalm 76:8. Ezekiel 20:10,11. Malachi 4:4.

God’s giving the law by a very terrible and awful voice from heaven, Psalm 76:8.

God’s appearing there with extraordinary manifestations of his majesty and glory in the heavens and in the earth, with an exceeding-shining brightness and beams of glory, attended with the utmost danger of being struck dead in a moment, as by a pestilence, to those that transgressed, Habakkuk 3:3,4,5.

The earth trembling, and the mountains quaking exceedingly at that time, Judges 5:4,5. Habkkuk 3:6, 7, 10. Psalm 114:4. and 58:8.

And particularly mount Sinai shaking, Judges 5:5. Psalm 48:8.

The people’s making a molten calf at mount Sinai, and worshipping that as the representation of the God of Israel, Psalm 106:19,20. Ezekiel 20:8.

God’s saying on that occasion that he would destroy the people, but Moses standing before him as an intercessor for them, to turn away God’s anger, on which God spared them, Psalm 106:23.

Moses’s putting the two tables of stone into the ark at mount Sinai, when he made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt, 1 Kings 8:9.

The people lusting for flesh, and tempting God by asking meat for their lust, Psalm 78:17,18,19.

God’s wrath on that occasion, Psalm 28:21, etc.

God’s giving the people quails in answer to their desire, in vast abundance, which were brought by a wind which God caused to blow, and let fall in the midst of their camp, round about their habitations, Psalm 78:26, etc. and 105:4. 106:15.

The wrath of God’s coming upon them while the meat was yet in their mouths, and suddenly slaying them with a great plague, Psalm 78:30,31, and 106:15.

The people not believing, for all God’s wondrous works that they had seen, despising the pleasant land, and not believing his promise, that he would bring them into it, and murmuring at the report of the spies, and being for turning back again into Egypt, Psalm 78:32, etc. ver. 41. and 106:24, 25.

God appearing on that occasion as though he would p our out his fury and consume the whole congregation, but yet spared them for his mercies’ sake, lest the Egyptians and other heathen nations should hear of it, and should take occasion from thence to reproach the name of’ God, Ezekiel 20:13,14,17.

God’s swearing in wrath on that occasion concerning that froward and perverse generation, that they should not enter into his rest, but that he would destroy them in the wilderness, because they had seen God’s miracles, but yet exceedingly provoked him, and often tempted him, Psalm 95:8-11. and 106:26. Ezekiel 20:15,16.

God’s promising Caleb the land whereunto he went, Judges 1:20.

Korah and his company envying Moses and Aaron in the camp and the earth’s opening her mouth and swallowing up Dathan and Abiram, and their company, and a fire from the Lord consuming others of them, Psalm 106:16, etc.

What Moses said to the Levites about their inheritance, Numbers 18:20, etc. referred to Joshua 13:33. “But unto the tribe of Levi Moses gave not any inheritance; the Lord God of Israel was their inheritance, as he said unto them.”

The people’s angering Moses at the water of strife, provoking His spirit, so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips, so that it went ill with Moses for their sakes, Psalm 106:32,33.

Israel’s sending messengers to the king of Edom, saying, “Let me, I pray thee, pass through thy land,” and the king of Edom’s refusing to hearken thereto, Judges 11:17.

The people’s compassing or going round the land of Edom, going along through the wilderness, Judges 11:18. agreeable to Numbers 21:4. and Deuteronomy 2:1-8.

The people’s passing through a great and terrible wilderness, a land of pits, and of great draught, a waste and desolate country, Jeremiah 2:2,6. Hosea 13:5.

The people compassing the land of Moab, and coming by the east side of the land of Moab, and pitching on the other side of Arnon, because Arnon was the border of Moab, Judges 11:18. exactly agreeable to the history of the Pentateuch, Numbers 21:11,13. and 22:36.

The people not being suffered to pass through the land of Moab, Judges 11:17,18.

Israel’s sending messengers from their camp in the borders of Moab to Sihon, king of the Amorites, saying, “Let us pass, we pray thee, through thy land,” and Sihon refusing, but upon this, gathering all his people together, and coming to Jahaz to fight against Israel, Judges 11:18,19,20.

God’s delivering Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and Israel’s possessing their land from Arnon, even unto Jabbok, and from the wilderness even unto Jordan, dwelling in Heshbon and her towns, and in Aroer and her towns, and in all the cities that belonged to Sihon, exactly agreeable to the history, Judges 11:21-26. Joshua 24:8. Psalm 125:10,11. 136:17-22.

And afterwards smiting Og, the king of Bashan, and possessing his land’, Joshua 24:8. Psalm 135:10,11. and 136:17-22.

But that Balak, the king of Moab, durst not venture, after he had seen this, to go out against Israel, and never engaged them in battle, until Israel went against them, Judges 11:25,26. agreeable to Numbers 22:2. and the consequent history.

Balak’s stirringBalaam, the son of Bear, to curse the turning the curse into a blessing, while people, and God’s in Shittim, Joshua 24:9,10. Micah 6:5.

Israel’s sinning by joining themselves to Baal Pear, and eating the sacrifices of their gods, and God’s being provoked, and executing wrath on the congregation for this sin, and Phineas’s executing judgment an this occasion, that was counted to him for righteousness unto all generations for evermore, Psalm cvi. 28-3 1.

The war of Israel with Balak, and their victory, Joshua 24:9,10.

The people’s long sojourning in the wilderness, Joshua 24:7. and Isaiah 63:9.

God’s speaking from time to time to Moses and Aaron from a pillar of cloud, Psalm 99:6,7.

Moses’s faithfulness in his office, Psalm 99:7. agreeable to Numbers 12:7.

Their great perverseness, hardness of heart of that generation, and their frequent rebellions, and provoking, and vexing God’s Spirit, and tempting of him in the wilderness, even for forty years, Psalm 78 throughout, especially ver. 40, 41. and 81:11, 12. and 95:8-11. Isaiah 63:10. Ezekiel 20:13.

God’s repeated and continual judgments against them, wasting them by a great mortality that pursued and destroyed with great manifestations of divine wrath. Psalm 90 Isaiah 63:10.

God’s often pardoning and sparing the people, so as to forbear to destroy the whole congregation at Moses’s intercession, but yet not without giving great manifestations of his wrath towards their sins, taking vengeance of their inventions, as Moses ground their calf to powder, Psalm 78:38, etc. and 99.

The people’s promising time after mime to repent when smitten with terrible judgments, but yet turning again quickly to sin, not being stedfast in God’s covenant, Psalm 78:31-37.

God’s showing great favour to the young generation, Jeremiah 31:2.

God’s entering into covenant a second time with that young generation, Jeremiah 2:2,3. Ezekiel 20:18,19,20.

He that can observe the facts of the history of the Pentateuch after this manner mentioned and referred to in the writings of the several ages of the Israelitish nation, and not believe that they had all along a great and standing record of-these things, and this very history, can swallow the greatest absurdity. If they had not had this history among them, or one that exactly agrees with it, it would have been morally impossible, but that amongst this vast number of citations and references, with so great a multitude of particularities and circumstances mentioned by so many different writers in different ages, there must have been a great many inconsistencies with the history, and a great many inconsistencies one with another; and it would have puzzled and confounded the skill of any writer who should have attempted to form a history afterwards that should every where without jarring so harmonize with such various manifold citations, and rehearsals, and references so interspersed inn, and dispersed through, all those writings of several ages; and unless these writers had such a record to be their common guide, it could not have been otherwise than utterly impossible.

It was impossible that this vast number of events, with so many circumstances, with names of persons and places, and minute incidents, should be so particularly and exactly known, and the knowledge of them so fully, and distinctly and without confusion or loss, kept up for so many ages, and be so often mentioned in so particular a manner, without error or inconsistency through so many ages, without a written record. How soon does an oral tradition committed to a multitude vary, and put on a thousand shapes, and mix, and jumble, and grow into confusion! Here appears in fact to have been an exact consistent knowledge and memory of things kept up, and that shows that there was in fact a standing record; and the comparing of the records of the Pentateuch with these innumerable citations and references, shows that this was in fact that identical record.

The facts of this history are very often rehearsed just in the same order and manner as they are in the history of the Pentateuch; and in many places there is a rehearsal of the facts of’ very great parts, and sometimes a kind of abridgment of the bigger part of the history, as Joshua 24:Psalm 78 and 105 and cvi. and 136. Ezekiel 20:5-23. And we sometimes find the facts of former parts of the history of Genesis joined with the story of the children of Israel’s redemption out of Egypt, and travels in the wilderness, as introductory to it, and sometimes even beginning with the story of the creation, in like manner as it is in the Pentateuch, and after the captivity, in Nehemiah 9.

These events are commonly mentioned after such a manner as plainly supposes that a full account of them was already in being, and well known and established, as in those words, Though Noah, Daniel, and Job stood before me. It supposes the history of those men extant and well known among the people, and so in these words, We should have been like Sodom and like unto Gomorrah. It is supposed that the history of the destruction of those cities was what the people were well acquainted with. So those words, Psalm 78:40. “How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert,” plainly supposes a hi story extant, that gives a particular account of those things. It is after the manner of a reference to a history. So it is very often elsewhere, as Ruth 4:11. “The Lord make this woman that is come into thine house like Rachel, and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel.” So Joshua 13:33. “But unto the tribe of Levi Moses gave not any inheritance, the Lord God of Israel was their inheritance, as he said unto them;” the words are mentioned plainly after the manner of a citation. So Judges 1:20. “And they gave Hebron unto Caleb, as Moses said.” Psalm 90. “Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek:” it supposes an extant account of Melchizedek. See also Samuel 8:3. Isaiah 13:19. Jeremiah 49:18. and h. 40. Ezekiel 16:46-56.

Amos 4:11. Zechariah 2:9-Isaiah 41:1-8. and hi. 1, 2, 9, 10. Micah 6:5. and very many other places there are that show the same thing, which it would be tedious to mention.

And sometimes these historical events are mentioned so much in the words of the history of the Pentateuch, as could not be without a written history to be a guide; as particularly Jephthah’s rehearsal, Judges 11:15-28.

That the children of Israel had a great standing record among them of those facts that they looked upon sacred and holy, is evident from Psalm cxi. 4. The psalmist, speaking of these works, says that God had made his wonderful works to be remembered. They are those works of which we have an account in the Pentateuch, as is manifest from ver. 7, 9. The words in the original that are translated, he hath made to be remembered, are [...] he hath made a record. The word signifies memorial or record. The word recorder, 2 Samuel 8:16. I Kings 4:3. 2 Kings 18:18. Isaiah 36:3,22. and other places, is which is a word of the same root; the words Zeker and Markir are just in the same manner akin to one another, as the English words recorder and record.

So the history of these facts is called God’s report, (as it is in the original,) Habakkuk 3:2. “I have heard thy report, and was afraid. What that report was, appears from what follows: it was the report of those works there mentioned: which works he, in this verse, prays God to revive, But in the 15th and 16th verses the prophet more plainly tells us what that report was that made him afraid, viz. the account of God’s marching through the Red sea, with the other great works of God, mentioned in the foregoing part of the chapter.And a his great record that the writers of the Old Testament cited so often, was contained in the book of the law, may be argued from the manner in which these facts are sometimes mentioned. The psalmist, in the introduction which he makes to his rehearsal of the story of the Pentateuch in the 78th Psalm, calls that story by the name of law, ver. 1. and the precepts and history are united in the notice he here takes of them, and mentions the history as what God had commanded the memory of to be carefully kept up as the proper enforcement of the precepts, ver. 7. with the foregoing verse. And being given of God as an enforcement of the precepts of the law, is as properly looked upon as a part of the law, as the prophecies and other arguments made use of in Deuteronomy, and other parts of the law. So the history is introduced in such a manner in the 105th Psalm, speaking in the introduction of the covenant and law which God established with the people, ver. 5, 8, 9, 10. that makes it naturally to be supposed that the history he rehearses is taken out of the book of the law.

The wonderful works and precepts of the law are spoken of together, as in like manner to be remembered; ver. 5. “Remember his marvellous works that he hath done, his wonders, and the judgments of his mouth.” So these wonderful works are repeatedly mentioned or referred to together, Psalm cxi. And so again they are in the introduction to the rehearsal we have of this history in the 106th Psalm, as in ver. 2, 3. So the law and the historical facts are mentioned together, Psalm 103:7. as being both alike of divine revelation. “He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel.” We find the precepts and history cited together, mixed, and blended in the 81st Psalm, as they are in the Pentateuch.

It appears from profane history to have been the manner of the nations of old to keep the ancient histories of their nation, and their genealogies, and the genealogies and acts of their gods, in their temples, where they were committed to the care of their priests as sacred things. This, in all probability, was in imitation of the example of the Israelites in keeping the Mosaic history which Moses committed to the care of the priests, to be laid up in the sanctuary as a sacred thing; and the ancient records of the neighbouring heathens, particularly of the Phoenicians, show the priests of the Jews had such a history in keeping giving an account of the creation of the world, etc. even so long ago as the days of the Judges. This appears from Sanchoniathon’s history, wherein he mentions many of the same facts, and confesses that he had them from a certain priest of the god Iao.

The ancient heathen writers do make mention of Moses as the writer of the things contained in the former part of the book of Genesis. [See instances, Miscoll. No.1012 and 1014, at the place marked thus (||) in the margin. See also ff. No. 429, at the same mark, and 432.] Again: Another argument that will invincibly prove that the history of the Pentateuch, as well as the precepts, was of old, from the beginning, contained in the book of the law, that sacred book which the children of Israel had among them laid up in the sanctuary from the days of Moses, is this, viz, that it is certain that the book which the Jews had among them, when they first returned from the Babylonish captivity, which they called the book of the law, and the law of Moses, and made use of as their law, as the same book of the law that their nation had all along as their great and standing record and rule, and as such had kept in the sanctuary of old, was that very Pentateuch which we now have, containing both the history and the precepts. This was the book of the law that Ezra made use of, and that Ezra and the Levites that were with him did so publicly and solemnly read and explain to the people, as we have account, Nehemiah 8:and which was laid up in the second temple in the same manner as the book of the law of Moses had been in the first. That this book was the same with the Pentateuch that we now have, is exceeding manifest from the genealogies and historical references in the first book of Chronicles, that was written on occasion of all Israel being reckoned by genealogies after they came out of the captivity. See 1 Chronicles 9:1. None that read those genealogies and historical references will make himself so ridiculous as to question whether these were not taken from the very history that we have in the Pentateuch, and an history that the Jews had among them as the ancient, great, and established records of their nation.

And again: If they had any other book of the law when they first came out of the captivity, it is impossible but that it must be preserved, for they must have a high regard to it as being the same with that sacred book that had been regarded in all former ages as the great and holy rule of their nation, and accordingly kept as most sacred by the priests in the sanctuary of God, in the holy of holies, beside the ark of God. We find the writings of the prophet Jeremiah were preserved, Daniel 9:2. how much more would they preserve the law of Moses! But the Jews had no books of the law preserved, they have none other now, and have had no other in all ages since; they had no other in Christ’s time, and we have no account of any other in all the accounts we have of the nation, from Christ’s time to the captivity; though in these accounts there be very much said about the book of the law, and though there were many controversies about it from time to time, and innumerable copies of it, and many that made it their business to study, to write, and to teach it, though there were synagogues established through Palestine, and through the world wherever the Jews were dispersed. The custom of synagogues in every city began near the first return from the captivity. See Prideaux, part I. p. 534, etc. Yet there is no mention made in any accounts we have of the Jews of any other book of the law that was among them in any of those times, nor of any knowledge or thought that any of them had that there had ever been any other book of the law in any former times. It is evident that the book of the law that the Jews had in Ezra’s time, was very publicly known among the people, by the great pains that Ezra and others took thoroughly to acquaint them with it, and therefore it would have been impossible to make so great an alteration in that sacred book to which they were taught to pay such a regard, and which was laid up in the holy of holies in the temple, and in their regard to which the people soon after the captivity became, in some respects, even superstitious. I say it would have been impossible to have made so great an alteration in it, that whereas formerly it had only a body of precepts, now it was turned into a large history, with precepts here and there mixed and blended, without some notice being taken of it, and some notable disputes, and controversies, and some remaining traces at least of the alteration, and some remaining knowledge of the former purer volume, It would be endless to reckon up the absurdities of such a supposition.

There were many sects among the Jews in Palestine, having many disputes and differences of opinion about the law of Moses; but there was no such dispute or difference as this, whether this was the genuine book of the law.

And not only the Jews in Palestine, but all the Jews through the world, which were so vastly dispersed even in Esther’s time, yet without controversy or any difference of opinion, all acknowledged this same book as the only book of the law, and this was the book of the law that was read in all the synagogues through the world, and was owned by the Samaritans also; (of which more afterwards;) which would have been impossible, if this was so different from that book of the law that the Jews had, and was so publicly known in Ezra’s time. The Sadducees, many of whom were learned men, and boasted of their freedom of thought, and taking liberty to differ from the Jews, and were a kind of infidels, and rejected most other writings that the Jews accounted sacred, yet acknowledged without dispute the book of the Pentateuch, as we now have it, as the genuine book of the law of Moses, and as the record of God. So did the Samaritans, though they hated the Jews, and exceedingly differed from them in other things, and were such enemies to them after the captivity, that they would rather reject a thing for being one of their customs or principles; yet they owned this Pentateuch as the genuine law of Moses, which it is exceeding absurd to suppose they would have done if the book had been new made with all the history foisted in sometime after Ezra; so that undoubtedly this was the book of the law that the Jews owned and made use of, and regarded as the true law of Moses in Ezra’s time.

Now, as to the consequence, if the Pentateuch, as we now have it with its history, was the book that the Jews had and used as the book of the law soon after the captivity, then it will follow that it was also the same book that was their book of the law before the captivity; for if such a great alteration was made in the book of the law, it was either done by Ezra, or by some of the Jews, before he came up to Jerusalem. It was not done by Ezra, for the priests in Jerusalem had the book of the law among them before Ezra came, even when they first came out of the captivity, as appears from Hag. 2:11, 12, 13. Thus saith the Lord of’ hosts, Ask now the priests concerning the law, saying, If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priests answered and said, No. Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean.” See also Ezra 2:62,63. 3:2-8. 6:18. Hence, if Ezra had made such an alteration, the Jews would all have known it, and could not have been imposed upon, and made to believe that this book was the same with the book of the law.

Neither the priests, nor the Levites, nor any of the people, make the least opposition to Ezra’s copy of the law, but all allow it, receiving it as an undoubted copy of the law of Moses. See Nehemiah 8:And then it is most apparent that the style of the history of the Pentateuch is very different from Ezra’s style-in the two books of Chronicles and the book of Ezra, whose style in history is very distinguishable from all the preceding histories of the Old Testament. Besides, it is manifest, that at the time that Ezra went up from Babylon to teach the Jews the law, the book of the law of Moses was not a thing of which the Jews, who were then abroad in the world, were destitute, as of a book which was lost or secreted, of which they were in quest, but of which they had not the possession, but it was a book well known by multitudes, and this fact was a thing at that time notorious and known to the heathen. It is manifest from the copy of Artaxerxes’s letter, Ezra 7:25. “And thou, Ezra, after the wisdom of thy God, that is in thine hand, set magistrates and judges, which may judge all the people that are beyond the river, all such as know the laws of thy God; and teach ye them that know them not.” This made it impossible for Ezra to palm upon the people a book of his own contriving and writing, instead of the book of the law of Moses, the grand and ancient law of their God, which was the grand rule of their nation, and the foundation both of their civil and sacred constitution, and of all their privileges, and of their very being as a nation, separated from other nations.

It is very manifest, that soon after Ezra’s coming first to Jerusalem, as it is thought about ten or a dozen years after that event, Nehemiah, the king’s cup-bearer in Shushan, in Persia, was well acquainted with the book of the law of Moses, Neb. 1:7, 8, 9.; which clearly proves the falsity of the sup position that the nation of the Jews had at that time no other book of the law of Moses but that which was of Ezra’s forging and publishing, as nothing would be more absurd than to suppose his new forged book would in so short a time be published, and well known, and received, and establish, not only at Jerusalem and Judea, but among the Jews dispersed over the world as far as Shushan, in so short a time.

And it could not be that any of the Jews in Judea should forge this book after the captivity, and impose it on the priests and the people before Ezra came, for this would have made no less jar between Ezra and the rest of the people than the other; for then Ezra would have known that this was not the true book of the law, for he was well acquainted with the law before he came out of the land of the captivity to Jerusalem. He was a noted scribe in the law of Moses in Babylon., Ezra 7:6. insomuch that he was famed for it among the heathen, and was noted for it by the king of Persia, who over and over gives him that as a name that he was known by, “ Ezra the scribe of the law of the God of heaven.” Ezra 7:11,12,13. And Ezra went up with a design to teach the people in Jerusalem this law of Moses; this was his main errand, as appears from Ezra 7:6,10,14,21,23,25,26. and the hook of the law that he taught the people he did not receive at Jerusalem of any of the priests, or others there, but carried it up with him in his hand, as appears from Ezra 7:14,25. And Nehemiah 1,2.

This great forgery, or fraudulent substitution of such a book as the Pentateuch for the book of the law of Moses, could not he done and imposed on the Jews at any time soon after the return from the captivity, for from what has been said already, it appears that there was the same book of the law well known by many, and received by all at that time, both by the Jews in Judea, and also by those who still remained in the land of their captivity; which could not possibly arise from any other cause than the tradition of this book from their forefathers who lived before the captivity, It is impossible that such a forgery should so quickly, so easily, and universally, without dispute or difference of parties, obtain through so great a nation, so disunited in the places of their abode. it could not have been so difficult to introduce and give currency to a forgery in any thing, as in the book of the law of Moses, their grand and sacred rule, and constitution and foundation so much so that never did any people so much, and in so many respects, depend on any body of laws, as the Jewish nation depended on this book. It was for the sake of the laws commanded them and the privileges given them in this book, that they forsook their habitations and all their possessions in the land of their captivity, and bore the loss and trouble of their journey to Palestine, and the great difficulties of rebuilding their city and temple, and resettling again in the land, and re- establishing their state there. And therefore we may be sure they would be, above all things, careful with regard to that book. In Haggai’s and Zechariah’s time, before the temple was finished, they had this book among them, as I observed before; but then many were living that had seen the former temple, and must know what kind of book that was that was called the law of Moses, that was amongst the people before the captivity, and was kept in their first temple. The highest ambition of the Jews that returned from the captivity, was to be like their forefathers in their religious privileges; and therefore they were for building a temple as near as they could like the former, and those that had seen the former temple wept bitterly that this new temple was no more like it; and doubtless they would be for having the same book of the law. The people that remembered the former temple must needs know what book that was, that was then called the book of the law, being so much and so severely reproved and threatened from time to time, by the prophet Jeremiah, for not conforming themselves to it, Jeremiah 2:8.” The priests said not, Where is the Lord?

And they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit. Jeremiah 18:18. “Come and let us devise devices against Jeremiah, for the law shall not perish from the priests.” Jeremiah 42:23. and 8:8. “How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us?

Lo, certainly in vain made he it, the pen of the scribes is in vain.” Chap. 6:19. and 16:11. 44:10. and 26:4. and 32:23. See also Lamentations 2:9.

Ezekiel 7:26. and 22:26.; and indeed the whole book of Jeremiah seems to suppose the book of the law extant, and visible among the people; the people therefore, that returned from the captivity, would not easily have received any other book, as the book of the law, to be their sacred rule, and to be laid up in the sanctuary, different from that which their forefathers had, and which had been laid up in the holy of holies in the former temple.

The book of the law of Moses was not lost in the time of the captivity, but was well known among the Jews in Babylon, Daniel 9:10, 11,12, 13.; and that this was a fact very publicly and openly known among the heathen, that they had the law of their God among them in the time of the captivity, is a thing manifest from Daniel 6:5. and Ezra 7:12,21,25.; yea it was extant among them just before their return, as appears from Daniel 9:10,11,12,13. “Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey thy voice; therefore the curse is poured out upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses, the servant of God.”

And several of the prophecies of Daniel suppose the book of the covenant to be extant, Daniel 11:22,28,30,32. which shows more plainly how impossible it was for another book so different to be universally imposed on the nation in Babylon and Judea instead of this book, so soon after the captivity. it a p pears that the Jews in the captivity kept the writings of the prophet Jeremiah among them, from Daniel 9:2. How much more would they keep copies of the law of Moses, which they esteemed as the foundation of all!

Again: It is most manifest that the Jews in their first re-settlement in Palestine, had those very records that we now have in the Pentateuch, as the records that had been constantly upheld in their nation, as the ancient, established, and undoubted sacred records of their nation, insomuch that when they on that occasion reckoned the people by their genealogies, they founded their reckoning on these records, and ran up their genealogies to the accounts given of their forefathers, and the first original of their families in them, making this record their standard, and grand rule, by which to judge who were true Israelites and who were not, and who were true priests and who not. So that they refused so much as to admit those that could not prove themselves to be of the seed of the priests, or of the seed of Israel according to the rule of this record, as appears by the genealogies in the first book of Chronicles, and particularly chap. 9:1. and Ezra 2:59,62,63. It was necessary for any one in order to prove himself to be of the genuine seed of the priests, that he should be able to run up his genealogy to Aaron; for his p roving that he was of the seed of some other person that lived since did not prove it, unless he also p roved that that person was a descendant of Aaron. And so for any one to prove that he was of the seed of Israel, he must be able to run up his genealogy to Israel himself.

So that this very record at that time was of such established reputation among them, that they all with one consent made it the very foundation of their re-establishment; they founded their nation and church in this its restoration wholly on this foundation, and by this rule, which shows that this record was no new thing among them, just then devised, with which before they had never been acquainted. It was a notorious fact, that in Esther’s time, known to the heathen, that the Jews who remained dispersed all over the Persian empire, from Judea to Ethiopia, agreed in one established law, which was very diverse from those of all other nations; Esther 3:8.

Again: TheZENDAVESTA, or book that Zoroastes wrote, shows that the history of the Pentateuch was extant either in or before the time of the captivity of the Jews into Babylon, and was of great reputation then, because many things in that book of his are taken out of the history of the Pentateuch. He speaks of Adam and Eve as the first parents of mankind, and gives in a manner the same history of the creation and deluge that Moses doth, and speaks therein of Abraham, Joseph, and Moses, in the same manner as the Scriptures do, and out of a particular veneration for Abraham, he called his book the book of Abraham. (See Prid. part I. p. 318.) These things must have been taken from the Jews either at or before the time of the captivity. (See the preceding pages in Prideatix.)

Again: Another argument, that the Pentateuch with its history was the book that the Israelites anciently had among them as the book of the law of Moses even before the captivity, is, that the Samaritans had this Pentateuch as it is with its history, under this name of the book of the law of Moses.

One argument that the Samaritan Pentateuch was written before the captivity, is, that it is written in the ancient Phaenician or Hebrew character; whereas, the Jewish copy is written in Chaldea letters; those letters becoming natural to them in their captivity; and therefore if they had taken their Pentateuch from the Jews after the captivity, they would have doubtless taken it in the same characters in which they had it; but in that it is found among them not in their characters, but in the characters that the Jews used before the captivity, it is a strong argument that they took it from the Jews before the captivity, and not afterwards. Whence should the Samaritans take those old Hebrew characters, if not from the Jews before the captivity? They were characters to which they were not used in their own country, but were much more likely to he used to the Chaldean characters then, from their living in the neighbourhood of Chaldea. And if they took the Pentateuch from the Jews after the captivity, whence should they take those characters, which were neither natural to themselves, nor in use among the Jews at that time?

Again: It is not at all likely that the Samaritans would be so fond of a conformity to the Jews after the captivity, as to adopt their laws and make the Jewish constitution their own, seeing there was always, even from the first return from the captivity, such a peculiar and inveterate enmity between them and the Jews.

And as such an alteration of the hook of the law could not be made after the captivity without notice being taken of it, so-neither could it at airy time before, even in the most degenerate and ignorant times in Israel. Yet there must be so much knowledge of this book, as must render such a cheat impracticable; for the whole nation, in all its constitution, both civil and sacred, and in the title they had to their inheritance, and in all their usages, and innumerable peculiar customs, was so founded on this law, that it must unavoidably lead at least many in the nation to such a degree of knowledge of it, as to enable them to distinguish between that which is supposed to be so different from it as such a book as the Pentateuch, and only the body of the Mosaic precepts. Though the law was commanded to be laid up in the sanctuary, and kept there, yet it was not kept from the common use of the priests. The priests are cal led those that handle the law, Jeremiah 2:8. See also Jeremiah 18:18. Ezekiel 7:26. Haggai 2:11.

Malachi 2:7. it was required of the priests that they should be thoroughly acquainted with the law, for they in the law of Moses are appointed to teach it to the people. The great number of ceremonies and minute circumstances with which their business was attended, and also the multitude of observances which they were to teach the people out of the law, made it necessary in the nature of things that they should be thoroughly acquainted with the law, even to the having it as it were by heart. Hence the priests and Levites in all their cities and dwellings through the land, must be supposed to have copies of the law in their hands. This being also the judicial or’ political law of their nation, the rule of the civil magistrates and judges in all civil and criminal matters, and the rule by which every man held his possessions, and was defended in his civil and common rights; this made it necessary that civil magistrates, and those who sat to judge in their gates, should have copies of the law in their hands. The king was, by an express statute of the law, required to write him out a copy of the law with his own hand, and the law was commanded to be read to the whole congregation of Israel once in seven years. And particularly pious and devout persons were wont to have by them copies of the law, for it is mentioned as the character of the godly man, Psalm 1 and 37:31. “That he meditate on God’s law day and night.” And all were commanded in the law to be continually meditating on the law, and make it as it were their constant companion day and night, that it might be for a sign on their hand, and as frontlets between their eyes, and that they should make it the continual subject of their conversation one with another, as they sat in the house, and as they walked by the way, etc. It was not to be shut up only in the holy of holies, and in airy respect so disposed of as to be out of the reach of any, but to be nigh to every one, in every one’s heart and mouth, as appears from Deuteronomy 30:11-14. See also Deuteronomy 6:6,7,8,9. and chap. 11:18, 19, 20. and chap. 4:9. It is true the law, in times of great degeneracy, was much more neglected, and less known; and copies of it were more rare than at other times, as in the reign of Manasseh. The original that Moses laid up in the sanctuary had been neglected and lost, being buried up in rubbish, as the temple of God itself was neglected, and the finding of it by the priest was a thing greatly taken notice of and excited the observation and inquiry of the king and people into the nature of things contained in this book, and the Spirit of God set in on that occasion greatly to impress the king’s mind with the things contained in that book, and the finding and reading that very book, as written by Moses’s own hand, had a natural tendency greatly to engage the attention of the king, and to affect him in the reading of it. But we are not to suppose, that during that degenerate time, there was no copy of the law extant and in use among any of the people. If in the most degenerate times in Israel, there were seven thousand devout worshippers of the true God left, though but little known, so undoubtedly in Manasseh’s reign there were many of the priests and Levites, and others that were devout worshippers of the true God, enough to keep many copies of the law for their use to direct them in God’s service.

As to the passages in the Pentateuch, wherein a later hand than that of Moses is evident, they are very few: as Witsius, in his Miscel. Sac. observes. Two of them are only a kind of translation of the names of places, as of the city of Hebron, and the place to which Abraham pursued the kings, where it is said he pursued them unto Daniel The history is exactly the same that Moses must be supposed to write, and the place mentioned the same that Moses mentioned; but the alteration that is made by some later hand is rendering the name of the place by a word whose signification was known to the people; and those two are the only instances that appear manifest to me of all that Le Clerc mentions, excepting only the account of Moses’s death and burial As to the name Hebron, so often used in the Pentateuch, it is very probable that there is in it no later hand than that of Moses; fur, though it was called Arbak at first, yet it seems to have been named Hebron, which signifies fellowship, from his there entering into an association or covenant-fellowship with Mamre, Eshrcol, and Aner.

Compare Genesis 13:18. with chap. 14:13. It is likely that Abraham might give a name to this place from his entering into this fellowship with those men here, that he should name the place where he entered into covenant with Abimelech, Beer-sheba, from that covenant, as Genesis 21:31,32.; or possibly this name Hebron, or fellowship, might be given to the place from that wonderful communion and fellowship which Abraham there had with angels, with whom he ate, and drank, and conversed most familiarly under an oak, and where at the same time he familiarly conversed with God about the destruction of Sodom, which is much remarked by Abraham and God himself, Genesis 18:ver. 17, 27, 37. Or it might have been named so first from Abraham’s fellowship with Mamre, Aner, and Esheol, and afterwards confirmed from this his communion with God and the angels, as Beersheba was first so named from Abraham’s covenant with Abimelech, and afterwards confirmed from Isaac’s covenant in the same place, Genesis 26:30-33. It seems that after this, when the posterity of Abraham heft the land and sojourned in Egypt, this place went no more by that name Hebron in the hand of Canaan, but when the children of Israel returned, and Caleb took possession of the place, he restored the name which Abraham gave it.

See Dupin, at the beginning of the first volume of his Ecclesiastical History. See concerning places inserted after Moses’s death, Numbers 21:14.

As to the account of Moses’s death and burial, it was not Ezra that made this addition; for the Samaritan Pentateuch, which was taken from the Jews before Ezra, has this addition, and all other passages that have been supposed to be additions. This addition of Moses’s death in all probability was made by Joshua, who, it is evident, was a divine writer, and a writer of divine records, and was Moses’s successor, who alone was in the mount with him forty days and forty nights, and who succeeded to Moses’s authority, and to most of his divine privileges and intercourse with heaven, on whom Moses laid his hand, and committed the care of the whole congregation, and of the law and tabernacle, into his hands. He succeeded Moses as the head of the congregation, and as their judge, and as the person by whom they were to transact-with God, as it was with Moses. He had the care of setting up the tabernacle, and therefore he took care to set it up in Shiloh, and he took the care of the settlement of the church of Israel, and the establishment of the worship of God in Canaan, and he was looked upon as having the care of the book of the law of Moses, even so as to have power to add words to it, as appears from Joshua 24:26.

Places in the New Testament, which suppose Moses to be the penman of the Pentateuch, John 5:46,47. Mark 12:26. compared with Exodus 3:6.

Acts 15:21. 2 Corinthians 3:14,15. Hebrews 12:21. [342] Genesis 1:2. “The earth was without form and void.” The first state of the earth, or this lower world, shows what it was to be afterwards, viz, a world of confusion and emptiness, full of evil, vanity of vanities. So in the first state of man in his infancy, is an image of what man always is in himself, a poor, polluted, helpless worm. [427]” And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” The word translated moved, in the original is [...] which, as Buxtorf says, the Hebrew note properly signifies to hover as a bird, or to brood as a bird over her young or her eggs when sitting on them; and both Grotius and Buxtorf observe from the writers of the Talmud, properly signifies the brooding of a dove upon her eggs. See Buxtorf on the Radix [...] and Grotius de Veritate, B. 1. Sec. 16. Notes; where Grotius also asserts more than once, that the word merachepheth signifies love. Hence the many fables among the heathen about the world’s being formed by love, and by the breeding of a dove, etc. Macrobius resembles the world to an egg, in the 7th book and 16th chap. of his Saturnalia. And hence the Syrian gods are called by Arnobius the offspring of eggs, by which gods he means the stars. Orpheus had his opinion from the Phoenicians, one of which was this in Athenagoras, that mud proceeded from water, after which he mentions a great egg split into two parts, heaven and earth.

In the Argonauticks, ascribed to Orpheus, we have these lines, “In verse he sung the origin of things- How Love, the cause of all things by His power Creating every thing, gave each his place.” And Aristophanes, in his play called the Birds, in a passage preserved by Lucien, in his Philopatris and Suidas, “First of all was Chaos and Night, dark Erebus and gloomy Tartarus. There was neither earth, nor air, nor heaven, till dusky night, by the wind’s power on the wide bosom of Erebus, brought forth an egg, of which was hatched the god of love; (when time began:) who with his golden wings fixed to his shoulders flew like a mighty whirlwind, and mixing with black Chaos in Tartarus’ dark shades, produced mankind, and brought them into light. For before love joined all things, the very gods themselves had no existence, But upon this conjunction all things being mixed and blended, aether arose, and sea, and earth, and the blessed abodes of the immortal gods.” Grotius.

Ibid. [448] Genesis 1:2. “ And the earth was without form and void.” Tohu, Bohu, which last are words signifying vanity and emptiness. Thus God was pleased in the first state of the creation to show what the creature is in itself; that in itself it is wholly empty and vain, that its fulness or goodness is not in itself, but in him, and in the communications of his Spirit, animating, quickening, adorning, replenishing, and blessing all things. The emptiness and vanity here spoken of, is set in opposition to that goodness spoken of afterwards. Through the incubation of the Spirit of God, (as the word translated moved, signifies,) the Spirit of God is here represented as giving form, and life, and perfection to this empty, void, and unformed mass, as a dove that sits infuses life, and brings to form and perfection the unformed mass of the egg. Thus the fulness of the creature is from God’s Spirit. If God withdraws from the creature, it immediately becomes empty and void of all good. The creature as it is in itself is a vessel, and has a capacity, but is empty; but that which fills that emptiness is the Spirit of God.

As the Spirit of God here is represented as hovering or brooding as a dove, so it is probable, when the Spirit of God appeared in a bodily shape, descending on Christ like a dove, it was with a hovering motion on his head, signifying the manner in which not only He personally was filled with the fulness of God, but also every individual member of his mystical body.

So that this that we have an account of is one instance wherein the old creation was typical of the new. (See note on Ephesians 3:19.) [398] Genesis 1:27,28,29,30. Covenant with Adam. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them; and God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat; and it was so.”

Here is described the sum of the blessedness that man had in his first estate.

Here is first his inherent spiritual good, which lay in his being created in God’s image. Here is the happiness that he had in the favour of God; his blessing of him is a testimony of it; Here is the happiness he had in his intercourse with God; for his thus talking with him in this friendly manner is an instance of it. Here is all his external good, which consisted in two things: first, in having society, implied in that expression, Male and female created he them, and in those words, Be fruitful and multiply. Here is the sum of their outward good in the enjoyment of earthly good. Here is the possession of the earth, and the enjoyment of the produce of it, and dominion over the inferior creatures in it. These things were evidently given to Adam as the public head of mankind. God in blessing them, evidently speaks to them as the head of mankind. The blessings he pronounces are given him in the name of the whole race, and therefore the favour manifested in blessing them is implicitly given to him as the head of the race. God’s making them in his own image and then blessing them, implies his bestowing those blessings pronounced on the subject blessed, on the condition of its continuing such an excellent subject as he had made it, and as it now stood forth to receive his blessing, or continued in such a happy capacity to enjoy the blessings as it now was. Otherwise the blessing would be in a great measure made void; for in order to men’s being happy in the blessing, two things were needful: first, that the enjoyments granted should be good; and secondly, that the subject should be good, or in a good capacity to receive and enjoy them; therefore both these are doubtless implied in the blessing here pronounced on Adam, which is plainly pronounced on him in the name of the whole race. And therefore, in like manner when Adam is threatened with being deprived of all these in case of his disobedience, Adam must understand it in like manner as a calamity to come on the whole race, and consequently the implicit promise of life, as the confirmation and increase of the blessing, respects also the whole race. Hence the covenant must be made with Adam, not only for himself, but all his posterity. [450] Genesis 2:2. “And on the seventh day God ended all his works.” The word translated work, is rtkalm which comes from dalm , angel or messenger, and therefore most properly signifies a work done in the execution of some function to which the workman is appointed, as the angel, messenger, officer, or workman of another; and so is fitly used concerning the work of creation; which was performed by the Son of God, who is often called the angel of the Lord: he being the Father’s great officer, and artificer, through whom he performs all his work, and executes his eternal counsels and purposes. [451] Genesis 2:5. “And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.” This seems to be observed to teach that all the life that is in the creation is immediately from God, and not from the creature itself: that in itself is wholly lifeless and void, and empty of all perfection. The vegetable life that is in the lower world was immediately from God. Of all the innumerable kinds of principles of life that now are manifest, every one was immediately from God. Though the earth, and the rain, and the cultivation and husbandry of men be now made use of, yet these living principles were not first owing to them, for they were before them. So it is as to all principles of spiritual life in the spiritual creation. [397] Genesis 2:9. and 3:22, 23, 24. Concerning the Tree of Life. This tree seems manifestly to have been designed for a seal of Adam’s confirmation in life, in case he had stood, for two reasons: 1st, because its distinguishing name is the tree of life; and 2d, because by what is said in the latter end of the 3d chapter, there appears to have been a connexion by divine appointment, between eating of that tree and living for ever, or enjoying a continued, certain, and everlasting life. But yet here are these difficulties attending such a supposition. If it was so that this fruit was intended as a seal of Adam’s confirmation in life, and was by divine constitution connected with confirmed life, then it should seem that it was something kept in store, reserved by God to he bestowed as a reward of his obedience and his overcoming all temptations, when his time of probation was ended.

There seems to be an allusion to this in Revelation 22:14. “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life.”

And chap. 2:7. “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life.” So that it was not to he come at until the time of his trial was ended, for if he had eat of the tree before His probation was ended, confirmed life would doubtless have been as much connected with it as after he fell, and that would have defeated God’s design, which was that he should not have confirmed life till his obedience was tried; and if so, why was there not need of cherubim and a flaming sword before, to keep Adam from the tree, before he fell, as well as afterwards? Whereas there seems to have been nothing to keep him from this tree. The tree was not forbidden him; for he had leave to eat of every tree, but only the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And as there was no moral hinderance, so there seems to have been no natural force to keep him off: it does not seem to have been out of his reach; for, if so, what occasion was there for placing cherubim and a flaming sword after he fell. The tree does not seem to be hidden from Adam, for, if it was sufficiently secured from him by this means, before he fell, so it was afterwards, and so what need of the cherubim and flaming sword? From the account which Moses gives of the place of this tree, that it was in the midst of the garden, it appears probable that it was in the most conspicuous place in the whole garden; as the tree of life is said to grow in the midst of the street of the heavenly paradise. Revelation 22:2. The street of a city is the most public place in it; and that Adam might have it in view to put him in mind of the glorious reward promised to his obedience, to engage him to the greater care and watchfulness, that he might not fail.

The most probable account that is to be given of this matter is this: that the fruit of the tree of life was not yet produced; but that it was revealed to Adam, that after a while the tree should produce fruit, of which whosoever eat should live for ever; that he might eat of it if he persisted in his obedience; and that if he did not persevere in obedience he would expose himself to death before that time, and so cut himself off from ever tasting of it. The tree probably made a most lovely and excellent appearance, and sent forth a sweet fragrance, and perhaps was gay in the blossom, promising most excellent fruit.

This tree, as it grew in the midst of the garden, so probably it grew by the river, that ran through the midst of this Paradise. See Revelation 20:2.

Ezek.47:12. [469] Genesis 2:9. and 3:22-24. On the Tree of Life. There is not the least probability that every fruit-tree in the garden of Eden was then loaded with ripe fruit all at one time. If so, there would have been no provision made for Adam’s subsistence through the year, according to those laws which God had established concerning the trees when he created them; for, according to those laws, the same fruit was not to be perpetually hanging; but when the fruit was ripe, the fruit was to be shed, otherwise the seed would not be shed upon the earth in order to a new production, according to Genesis 1:11,12. “God said, Let the earth bring forth grass; the herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth, and it was so.” It is much more probable that it was with the trees of paradise as is represented of the trees that grew on the banks of Ezekiel’s river of living waters. It is represented as though there were all sorts of fruit-trees, and some yielding their fruit one month, and others another; so that there were ripe fruits newly produced every month of the year, and so a perpetual summer, and also a perpetual spring: some trees were hung with ripe fruit, and others in the blossom, in each month in the year. St. John’s vision, Revelation 20:2 may be so understood that each single tree bore twelve manner of fruits on different branches; and yet perhaps there is no necessity of so understanding it; and so one sort bore ripe fruit in one month, and another in another; so that the same tree was always in blossom in some part, while some other part was loaded with ripe fruit. But in Ezekiel’s vision the variety of fruits seems to be on different trees, because it is said there shall grow all trees for meat.

Corol, This is a confirmation of the supposition, that the angels were not confirmed till Christ had ended his humiliation, and until he ascended into glory. For Christ is the tree of life in the heavenly paradise, in the native country of the angels; just as the tree of which we have been speaking was the tree of life on earth, the native country of men; and the Scriptures give us to understand that this person, who is the tree of life in this heavenly paradise, is “angels’ food.” Hence we may infer, that the fruit of this tree was the food by which the angels have their eternal life, or their confirmed life. But as man, who was made under a like covenant of works with the angels, would not have been confirmed, if he had persevered in his obedience, till the tree had brought forth its fruit, and till the fruit of the tree was ripe; so it is not probable that the angels were confirmed, until Christ, the Tree of life in the heavenly paradise, had brought forth his fruit.

But what is the fruit that grows on this heavenly tree, the second Person of the Trinity, but the fruit of the Virgin. Mary’s womb, and that fruit of the earth spoken of Isaiah 4:2. and 9:6. “In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely, for them that are escaped of Israel.”-” For unto us a son is born, and unto us a child is given,” etc. (how often are the children that are born in a family compared in Scripture to the fruit that grows on a tree!) when this holy child had gone through all his labours and sufferings, and had fulfilled all righteousness, and was perfected, as this expressed in Luke 13:32.Hebrews 2:10.and 5:9: then he was seen of angels, and received up into glory, then the fruit was gathered: Christ, as full ripe fruit, was gathered into the garner of God, into heaven, the country of angels, and so became angels’ food: then the angels fed upon the full ripe fruit of the tree of life, and received of the Father the reward of everlasting life. Christ did not become the author of eternal salvation to man, till he was thus made perfect, neither did he become the author of confirmed eternal life to the angels till he was made perfect. Thus the fruit of the tree of life did not become the food of life to either men or angels till it was ripe.

This tree of life did as it were blossom in the sight of the angels, when man was first created in an innocent, holy, pheasant, and happy state, and was that creature from whence the future fruit of the tree of life was to spring, the blossom out of which the fruit was to come. It was a fair and pleasant blossom, though weak and feeble, and proved a fading thing like a flower, When man fell, then the blossom faded and fell off; man came forth like a flower, and was cut down, but the blossom fell in order to the succeeding fruit. The fall of man made way for the incarnation of Christ, it gave occasion to the production and ripening of that fruit, and to its blessed consequences.

Thus, though Christ God man be not the Saviour of the angels, as he is of men, yet he is the tree of life to the angels, and the bread of life as truly as to men. [77] Genesis 2:17. “In the day that thou eatest thereof, dying thou shalt die.” This expression denotes not only the certainty of death, but the extremity of it. Thou shalt die, in the superlative and to the utmost degree; and so it properly extends to the second death, the death of the soul; for damnation is nothing but extreme death, and I am ready to think that God, by mentioning dying twice over, had respect to two deaths, the first and the second, and that it is to those words the apostle John refers in Revelation 20:14. when he says, “This is the second death.” It is much such a reference as he made in the 2nd verse of that chapter. There he explains to us who the serpent was that beguiled Eve, viz. the dragon, that old serpent, who is the devil and Satan: so here he explains what the second of those deaths, that was threatened to Adam, was. See notes on Revelation 20:14. [325] Genesis 2:17. “Dying thou shalt die.” If we sometimes find such kind of doubled expressions, and also this very expression, dying thou shalt die, as in Solomon’s threatening to Shimei, when no more is intended than only the certainty of the event, yet this is no argument that this does not signify more than the certainty, even the extremity as well as certainty of it.

Because such a repetition or doubling of a word, according to the idiom of the Hebrew tongue, is as much as our speaking a word once with a very extraordinary em p basis. But such a great emphasis, as we often use, signifies variously; it sometimes signifies certainty, at other times extremity, and sometimes both. [320] Genesis 2:17. “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” This, in addition to notes in blank Bible,-And besides Adam died that day, for he was ruined and undone that day, his nature was ruined-the nature of his soul-which ruin is called death in Scripture, Ephesians 2:1,5.

Colos. 2:13. Matthew 8:22. John 5:25.The nature of his body was ruined that day, and became mortal, began to die, his whole man became subject to condemnation, to death; he was guilty of death, and yet that all was not executed; that day was a token of his deliverance; and his not dying that day a natural death, is no more difficult to reconcile with truth, than his never suffering at all that death that was principally intended, viz. eternal damnation; and probably there were beasts slain the same day by God’s appointment in their stead, of which God made them coats of skins, for it is probable God’s thus clothing them was not long delayed after that they saw that they were naked. [110] Genesis 2:21. “Adam received Eve as he awaked out of a deep sleep;” so Christ receives his church as he rises from the dead. Dr.

Goodwin speaks of this deep sleep of Adam as a type of Christ’s death, 1st vol, of his Works, part 3:p. 58. [251] Genesis 3, at the beginning. “Now the serpent was more subtle,” etc. ‘What is an argument ex posteriori of the devil’s having assumed the form of a serpent in his temptation of our first parents, is the pride he has ever since taken of being worshipped under that form, to insult, as it were, and trample upon fallen man. To this purpose we may observe that the serpent has all along been the common symbol and representation of the heathen deities, Jul. Firmic. de errore Proflhn. Relig. p. 15. That the Babylonians worshipped a dragon, we may learn from the Apocrypha, and that they had images of serpents in the temple of Belus, Diodorus Siculus, hib. 2:cap. 4. informs us. Grotius out of several ancient authors, has made it appear that in the old Greek mysteries they used to carry about a serpent, and cry, Era, the devil, thereby expressing his triumph in the unhappy deception of our first mother. The story of Ophis among the heathen was taken from the devil’s assuming the body of a serpent in his tempting of Eve. Orig. contra Celsus, lib vi, And to name no more what Philip Melancthon tells us of some priests in Asia, is very wonderful, viz. that they carry about a serpent in a brazen vessel, which they attend with a great deal of music, and many choruses in verse, while the serpent every now and then lifts up himself, opens his mouth, and thrusts out the head of a beautiful virgin,’ (as having swallowed her,) ‘to show the devil’s triumph in this miscarriage among those poor deluded idolaters.’ Nicol’s Conference with a Theist, vol. i. [452] Genesis 3:14. “Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.” This doubtless has respect not only to the beast that the devil made use of as his instrument, but to the devil, that old serpent, to whom God is speaking, chiefly as is evident by the words immediately following. The words, On thy belly shalt thou go, as they respect the devil, refer to the low and mean exercises and employments that the devil shall pursue; and signify that he should be debased to the lowest and most sordid measures to compass his ends, so that nothing should be too mean and vile for him to do to reach his aims. The words, Dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy lift, have respect to the mean gratifications that Satan should henceforth have for his greatest good, instead of the high and glorious enjoyments of which heretofore he was the subject in heaven; and that even in those gratifications he should find himself sorely disappointed, and so his gratifications should from time to time in all that he obtained as long as he lived, turn to his grief and vexation, agreeably to the use of a parallel phrase, Proverbs 20:17.” Bread of deceit is sweet to a man, but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.” When a man has eagerly taken into his mouth that which he accounted a sweet morsel, but finds it full of dirt, it moves him immediately to spit it out, and so to endeavour to clear his mouth of what he had taken as eagerly as he took it in. So Satan is from time to time made sick of his own morsels, and to spit them out again, and vomit up what he had swallowed down, as the whale vomited up Jonah, and as the devil vomited up Christ, when he saw that he had swallowed down that which, when within him, gave him a mortal wound at his vitals. [456] Genesis 3:14,15. “And the Lord said unto the serpent,” etc, In this first prophecy ever uttered on earth, we have a very plain instance of what is common in divine prophecies through the Scripture, viz. that one thing is more immediately respected inn the words, and another that is the antitype principally intended, and so of some of the words being applicable only to the former, and others only to the latter, and of God’s beginning to speak in language accommodated to the former, but then as it were presently forgetting the type, and being taken up wholly about the antitype. Here in the 14th verse, the words that are used are properly applicable only to that serpent that was one of the beasts of the field; so here it is said, Thou art cursed above all cattle; which shows that this prophecy has some respect to that beast that is a type of Satan. But, in the things spoken in the next verse, the beast called a serpent seems to be almost wholly forgotten, and the speech to be only about the devil; for the enmity that is there spoken of, is between the Seed of the man, and that Seed a particular person; for the words in the original are, “He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel;” it is (He) in the Hebrew, and av1’o~ in the Septuagint; as is observed in Shuckford, vol. 1:p. 286. [322] Genesis 3:20. “And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.” What Adam in this has respect to, doubtless is that which God had signified in the 15th verse, viz. that Eve was to be the mother of that Seed that was to bruise the head of the serpent, the grand enemy of mankind that had brought death on them, and had the power of death, and so was to be the author of life to all that should live, i.e. all that should escape that death. So Eve was the mother of all living, as all that have spiritual and eternal life are Christ’s, and so the woman’s seed, because Christ was of the woman. Adam, when he had eaten the forbidden fruit, and his conscience smote him, had a terrible remembrance of the awful threatening, “ Dying, thou shalt die;” and therefore took great notice of those words which God spake concerning the seed of Eve bruising the serpent’s head; which seem to afford some relief from his terror, and therefore he thought it worthy to give Eve her name from in, as the most remarkable thing that he had observed concerning Eve, and the thing that he thought more worthy to be remembered, and could think of with greater delight and pleasure, than any thing else concerning her, and therefore he thought it above all things worthy that her name should be a continual memorial of it.

That the thing of which Adam took special notice in giving his wife this name, was not her being the universal mother of mankind, or the universality of her’ maternity, but the quality of those that she was to be the mother of, viz. living ones, is evident from the name itself, which expresses the latter, and not the former; the word ‘Chavah’, which we render Eve, expresses Life, the quality of those that she was to be the mother of, and not the universality of her maternity, And it is not likely this would have been if there was nothing in this quality of her posterity that did at all distinguish her from any other mother; which would have been if all that was intended by her being the mother of those that were living, was that she was to be the mother of such as were to live in the world; for so all other mothers might be called Chavah as well as she, or by some name that expressed that quality of life. A name is given for’ distinction; and therefore doubtless Adam gave her a name that expressed something that was distinguishing; but if what was meant was only that she was the mother of all mankind, then the thing that was distinguishing of her, was merely the universality of her maternity, and not at all the quality of her posterity. Why, then, was not the universality, the distinguishing thing, expressed in the name, rather than the quality, which was not at all distinguishing?

Again: It is not likely that Adam would give her a name from that which did not at all distinguish her from him. If persons have not names that shall distinguish them from all others, yet doubtless they ought to have names to distinguish them from those with whom they always live, and from whom there is most occasion to distinguish them. But if it was not the quality of her posterity, but only the universality of her progeniture of mankind, to which he had respect, that was what was common to her with himself.

If it had been only her being the mother of all mankind to which Adam had respect, it would have been inure likely that be would have given her this name on her first creation, and on her being brought to him; which was after that benediction, “ Be fruitful and multiply;” but we find that this name was not given on that occasion, hint then Adam gave her another name, Genesis 2:23. he called her Ishah, from her being taken out of man; but the name of Chavah, as the mother of all living, is given on another occasion, viz, just after God had promised that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head, and immediately after God had pronounced the threatening of death on Adam, as in the verse immediately foregoing, “ till thou return to the ground, for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return:” while Adam is tinder the terror of this sentence of death, he comforts himself with the promise of life couched in what God had said to the serpent. Adam gave Eve a new name on the occasion, from that new thing that appeared concerning her after the fall as sine had her first name from the manner of her creation, so she had her new name given her from Christ’s redemption, and Adam gave her her name from that which comforted him, with respect to the curse that God had pronounced on him and the earth; as Lamech named Noah, Genesis 5:29. “And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work, and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.”

It was a common thing for the progenitors of Christ to have names given them from something that had respect to him or his redemption, or some of his benefits: so were Seth, and Noah, and Abraham, and Sarah, and Israel, and Judah, and others named.

And besides, we have no parallel place in the Bible to justify our understanding this expression, all living, of all mankind that shall hereafter live upon the earth, or including them with those that are now living. [399] Genesis 3:20. There are also these further arguments to confirm that Adam does not give his wife the name of Eve, which signifies Lift, because she was the mother of all mankind, but because she was the mother of Christ, and of his living seed, who are the seed of the woman of whom God had just spoken. 1st. This name is exceedingly proper and suitable to signify the latter, because, “in Adam all die, but in Christ shall all be made alive; by man came death, so by man also came the resurrection of the dead;” “the second Adam is made a quickening Spirit;” “in him was life and he is the lift.”, All mankind by the first Adam are in a state of death, dead in trespasses and sins, but Christ is the bread of life, of which he that eats should live for ever; and he is thus the fountain of life to the children of men, by bruising the head of the serpent, or destroying him that has the power of death, even the devil; which God had just before promised should be by the Seed of Isha, the name that Adam gave his wife at first. 2. It is not likely that Adam would give this name, viz. Living One, as a distinguishing name for mankind, to distinguish them from other creatures; for the same name is, from time to time in the preceding chapters, given to other creatures, as chap. 1:21, 24, 28. and chap. 2:19. where the word is radically the same; and so afterwards the name is often given to other animals, chap. 6:19. 7:4, 23. 8:1. and in many other passages of Scripture.

And especially it is unlikely that he would give this as a distinguishing name to mankind immediately upon man’s fall, whereby he was ruined, and had brought that threatening on himself, “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die;” and immediately after he had been told by God that he was dead, (i.e. in effect so,) “dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.” Adam could not mean by the phrase all living, what indeed we sometimes use that expression to signify, viz, mankind; but yet we do not intend by it, all that have had, and now hove, the human nature, as though life was a distinguishing property of that nature, but we merely mean by it those that ore now alive, to distinguish them from those that are dead, or are not yet born, And it is exceeding unlikely that Adam would now first find out this name to distinguish mankind, even those that vet had no life or being, as though life was a distinguishing property and dignity of human nature, on the occasion of so great, awful, and affecting an event, as the first entrance of any such thing as death into the world, to waste, and destroy, and make fearful havock of all mankind, all Eve’s posterity, and that originally by her means. If Adam had meant by all living, all mankind that then had a being in this world, the name was very improper for her; for he that was living of mankind was the only person of all mankind that she was not the mother of: he was rather the father of her. But in the other sense it is true, Eve was the mother of all living universally, of every living one, as it is in the original, There is not one that has spiritual and eternal life of all mankind, who in this sense is excepted, not Adam, nor Christ, no, nor herself, for in this sense, as she was the mother of Christ, she was her’ own mother. 3. It is remarkable that Adam had before given his wife another name, viz.

Isha, when she was first creamed and brought to him; but now, that on the occasion of the fall, and what God had said upon it, he changes her name, and gives her a new name, viz. Life, because she was to be the mother of every one that has life; which would be exceeding strange and unaccountable if all that he meant was, that she was to be the mother of mankind. If that was all that he intended, it would have been much more likely to be given to her at first, when God gave them that blessing, viz.”

Be fruitful and multiply,” by virtue of which she became the mother of mankind; and when mankind was hitherto in a state of life, and death had not yet entered into the world, But that Adam should not give her this name then, but call her Isha, and then, after that, change her name, and call her name Life, immediately upon their losing their life and glory, and coming under a sentence of death, with all their posterity, and the awful, melancholy shadow and darkness which death has brought on the whole world, occasioned by Eve’s folly, is altogether unaccountable, if he had only meant, that she was the mother of mankind. 4. That Adam should change her name, and call her name Lift, after he had given her another name, doubtless was from something new that appeared, that was very remarkable, concerning Eve; and doubtless we have an account of what that remarkable thing was. The scriptural history is not so imperfect as to give us an account of such an event as a person’s name being changed, without mentioning the occasion of that change. We have several times elsewhere an account of the change of persons names in Scripture, but always have an account of the reason why; but we have no account of any thing new concerning Eve, that could give Adam occasion thus to change her name, and call her Lift, but only what God said concerning her and her seed after her fall. We have an account of this change of her name immediately upon it, and therefore must understand that as the occasion of it. This was an exceeding proper occasion for such a name, and it is natural to suppose that Adam’s mind might now be so affected by the curse of death just pronounced by God, and the promise of life by Eve, as to induce him to change her name from Isha to Lift.

It is most probable, that Adam would give Eve her name from that which was her greatest honour, since it is evident that he had respect to her honour in giving her this name. The name itself, Lift, is honourable; and that which he mentions concerning her being the mother of every living one, is doubtless something he had respect to as honourable to her. Since he changed her name from regard to her honour, it is most likely he would signify in it that which was her peculiar honour; but that was the most honourable of any thing, that had ever happened, or that ever would happen concerning her-that God said that she should be the mother of that\parSEED, that should bruise the serpent’s head. This was the greatest honour that God had conferred on her; and we find persons’ names changed elsewhere to signify something that is their peculiar honour, as the new names of Abraham, Sarah, and Israel. 6. All new names, of which we have an account in Scripture as given prophetically, are given with respect to some great privilege persons have by some special relation to Christ, or interest in him, and his redemption.

So Abraham’s and Sarah’s new names were given them of God, on occasion of the promise made to them, that in their seed all the families of the earth should be blessed; and Jacob’s new name of Israel is given because as a prince he had prevailed with Christ in wrestling with him, and bad obtained the confirmation of Abraham and Isaac’s blessing to him and his seed, when he and his posterity were in danger of being cut off by Esau. [466] Genesis 3:20. “And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she is the mother of all living.” To suppose the living here to mean those that are restored to spiritual life, and shall be saved from death, and have everlasting life, is agreeable to the denomination the apostle gives true Christians, 2 Corinthians 4:11. Oi xwntev the living, or the livers; and again chap. 5:15. [82] Genesis 4:1. “And Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.” In Eve’s expressing herself thus, it is probable she had an eye to what God said, that her seed should bruise the serpent’s head: and now seeing she had a son, her faith and hope was strengthened that the promise should be fulfilled. [453] Genesis 4:3,4. Cain’s and Abel’s sacrifice. Abel when he comes before God is sensible of his own unworthiness and sinfulness, like the publican, and so is sensible of his need of an atonement, and therefore comes with bloody sacrifices, hereby testifying his faith in the promised great sacrifice. Cain comes with his own righteousness, like the Pharisee, who put God in mind that he paid tithes of all that he possessed. He comes without any propitiation, with the fruit of his ground, and produce of his own labours, as though he could add something to the Most High, by gifts of his own substance; and therefore he was interested in no atonement, for he was not sensible of his need of any, nor did he trust in any; and so being a sinner, and not having perfectly kept God’s commandments, sin lay at his door unremoved, and so his offering could not be accepted, for guilt remained to hinder. This reason God intimates, why his offering was not accepted, in what way he says to him, verse 7th, “If thou doest well-if thou keepest my commandments, thou and thine offerings shall be accepted; but seeing thou doest not well, as thine own conscience witnesses that in many things thou hast offended, the guilt of sin remains to binder thy being accepted without an atonement, thy righteousness cannot be accepted, whatever offering thou mayest bring to me.” See Bp. Sherlock’s Use and Intent of Prophecy, p. 74, 75. and Owen on Hebrews 11:4. p. 18. [344] Genesis 4:7. “If thou doest well, shalt not thou be accepted and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.” Cain was not accepted in his offering, because he did not well-because, 1. He was a wicked man, led an ill life under the reigning power of the world and the flesh, and therefore his sacrifice was an abomination to the Lord, Pray. 15:8. a vain oblation, Isaiah 1:13. God had no respect to Cain himself, and therefore no respect to his offering, as the manner of the expression (ver. 5.) intimates. But Abel was a righteous man: he is called righteous Abel, Matthew 23:35. His heart was upright, and his life was pious; he was one of those whom God’s countenance beholds, Psalm 11:7. and whose prayer is therefore his delight, Proverbs 15:8. God had respect to him as a holy man, and therefore to his offering as a holy offering. The tree must be good, else the fruit cannot be pleasing to the heart-searching God. 2. There was a difference in the offerings they brought. It is expressly said, Hebrews 11:4. Abel’s was a more excellent sacrifice than Cain’s: either, 1. In the nature of it. Cain’s was only a sacrifice of acknowledgment offered to the Creator; the meat-offerings of the first of the ground were no more, and for ought I know might have been offered in innocency. But Abel brought a sacrifice of atonement, the blood whereof was shed in order to remission, thereby owning himself’ a sinner, deprecating God’s wrath, and imploring his favour in a Mediator: or, 2. In the qualities of’ the offering. Cain brought of the fruit of the ground, any thing that came next to hand, what he had not occasion for himself, or was not more charitable. But Abel was curious in the choice of his offering, not the lame, or the lean, or the refuse, but the firstling of the flock, the best he had, and the fat thereof, the best of those best. 3. The great difference was this, that Abel offered in faith, and Cain did not-” Abel was a penitent, like the publican that went away justified; Cain was unhumbled, and his confidence was in himself, like the Pharisee who glorified himself, but he was not so much justified before God.” Henry on verses 3, 4, 5. [“ If thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.”] Not at Cain’s door, but at God’s door. His wicked doings lay, as it were, at the door of God’s temple, to prevent his admittance and acceptance with God: they stood as a partition-wall between God and him. Wicked men’s sins are a cloud which their prayers cannot pass through, and which hinders their offerings from being brought into the holy place: they are a thick veil before the door of the holiest of all, to hinder their access to God. 1 John 3:2 1 22. “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God, and whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” [51] Genesis 4:14. It seems to me no way improbable that Cain’s house was intended, and by him understood, not only of him personally, but of his posterity. Such he might (earn from his father Adam, seeing the covenant that was made with him was made not only for himself, but for his posterity. If Cain understood it only of himself personally, it seems somewhat strange that he should express himself after such a manner. The inhabited earth was not broad enough for such expressions. The expression, from thy face, may be in the same sense as David was shut out from the face of God when he dwelt in Ziklag, from his altar where his people sacrificed and worshipped him, and where he especially manifested himself. Doubtless there were then such things as well as afterwards. [323] Genesis 5:29. “And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work, and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed-” Noah comforted God’s people concerning their labour and fatigue, that was the fruit of God’s curse on the ground. 1. And chiefly as the Redeemer was to be of him, who should deliver his people from all their labours and sorrows, and should procure them everlasting life in the heavenly Canaan, a better paradise than that which was lust, where the ground is not cursed, and shall spontaneously yield her rich fruit ever month, where there remains a rest to the people of God, who shall rest from their labours, and their works shall follow them. 2. He first invented wine, which is to comfort him that is faint and weary with fatigue, and the toil of his hands, and which makes glad man’s heart, remarkable type of the blood of Christ, and his spiritual benefits. 3. To him was given leave to eat flesh, as a relief from the fruit of the curse on the ground, which rendered the fruits of it less pleasant and wholesome.

God gave Noah leave to feed on the flesh of other animals, to comfort him under his toil of his hands in tilling the ground. And this is another type of our feeding on Christ, and having spiritual life and refreshment in him: for, in feeding on the flesh of animals, our food and the nourishment of our lives is obtained at the expense of their lives and shedding their blood, as we come to feed on Christ by his laying down his life. And these things in Noah that should he matter of comfort under God’s curse, are the rather taken notice of in him, because in his time the curse on the ground was to be more fully executed than ever it had been before-the good constitution of the earth was to be overthrown by a flood, and its wholesomeness and fertility greatly diminished, and so the toil of his hands would be greatly increased, were it not for this relief given that has been mentioned. 4. Before Noah, God’s people did not know how far this curse would proceed; they probably foresaw that God intended to execute the curse on the ground in a much further degree than ever yet he bad done. God had not comforted his people by any limits set in any promise made to them, but to Noah God made a gracious promise, setting limits to the curse, promising in some respects a certain measure of success to the labour of their hands, promising that seed-time, and harvest, etc. should not cease. [5] Genesis 6:4. The monstrous births that arose from the conjunction of the sons of God with the daughters of men, typify unto us what an odious monster results from the conjoining of holy things with wicked, as of a holy profession with a wicked life in hypocrites, and what powerful enemies against religion such are, whether they are particular persons or churches, as the church of Rome, that monstrous beast, in whom are joined the profession of the name of Christ and many of his doctrines with the most odious devilism, who has horns as a lamb, but speaks as a dragon: and their bulk and huge stature denotes their pride, as none are so proud as hypocrites. Vid. 257. [257] Genesis 6:4. And their great bulk, and strength, and renown, besides the pride of such persons and churches as join the religion, doctrines, and worship, and profession of his church, with the deluding glories and bewitching pleasures of this world, and of the heathenish and other human and carnal churches and societies of it, here typified by the beauty of the daughters of men. I say, besides the pride of such churches, these things seem to denote the earthly pomp and splendour, and worldly renown and glory, and great temporal power, that such churches affect, and are commonly in providence suffered to arrive to, as the church of Rome and others. [428] Genesis 6:4. “And there were giants in the earth in those days,” etc.

Pausanias, in his Laconics, mentions the bones of men of a more than ordinary bigness, which were shown in the temple of Esculapius, at the city of Asepus: and in the first of his Eliacks, he speaks of a bone taken out of the sea, which aforetime was kept at Piso, and thought to have been one of Pelops. Philostratus, in the beginning of his Heroicks, in forms us that many bodies of giants were discovered in Pallene, by showers of rain and earthquakes. Pliny, b. 7:ch. 16. says, “That upon the bursting of a mountain in Crete, there was found a body standing upright, which was reported by some to have been the bodyof Orion, by others, the body of Aetion.

Orestes’s body, when it was commanded by the oracle to be digged up, is reported to have been seven cubits long. And almost a thousand years ago, the poet Homer continually complained, “that men’s bodies were less than of old.” And Solinus, chap. 1:inquires,” Were not all that were born in that age less than their parents?” And the story of Orestes’s funeral testifies the bigness of the ancients; whose bones when they were digged up in the 58th Olympiad at Yegea, by the advice of the oracle, are related to have been seven cubits in length. Other writings, which give a credible relation of ancient matters, affirm this, that in the war of Crete, when the rivers had been so high as to overflow and break down their banks, after the flood was abated, upon the clearing of the earth, there was found a human body of three and thirty feet long: which L. Flaccus, the legate, and Metellus himself, being very desirous of seeing, were much surprised to have the satisfaction of seeing what they did not believe when they heard.” Grotius de Verit. b.i. sect. 16. Notes.

Josephus, h. 5:chap. 2. of his ancient history: “There remains to this day some of the race of the giants, who by reason of the bulk and figure of their bodies, so different from other men, are wonderful to see or hear of.

Their bones are now shown far exceeding the belief of the vulgar.”

Gabinius,in his history of Mauritania, said that Antaeus’s bones were found by Sertorius, which, joined together, were sixty cubits long. Phlegon Trallianus, in his 9th chap. of Wonder’s, mentions the digging u the head of Ida, which was three times as big as that of an ordinary woman. And he adds also that there were many bodies found in Dalmatia, whose arms exceeded sixteen cubits. And the same man relates out of Theopompus, that there were found in the Cimmerian Bosphorus a company of human bones twenty-four cubits in length. Le Clerc’s Notes on Grotius de Veritat. b. 1:sect. 16.

We almost every where in the Greek and Latin historians meet with the savage life of the giants mentioned by Moses. In the Greek, as Homer, Iliad 9th, and Hesiod, in his Works and Days. To this may be referred the Wars of the Gods mentioned by Plato in his Second Republic, and those distinct and separate governments taken notice of by the same Plato, in his third book of Laws. And as to the Latin historians, see the first book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and the fourth book of Lucan, and Seneca’s third book of Natural Questions, Quest. 30. where he says concerning the Deluge, “that the beasts also perished, into whose nature men were degenerated.”

Grotius de Vent. h. 1:sect. 16. [199] Genesis 6:14. “Make thee an ark of gopher wood.” The word in the Hebrew language seems to imply that the wood was of a bituminous or pitchy nature, and consequently more capable of resisting wet or moisture, and St. Chrysostom particularly calls it [...] ‘square wood not liable to rot’.

The learned Fuller rightly concludes it to be the cypress, from the affinity of the word for cypress in Greek, which is [...]; from whence, if the termination is taken away, Cuphar, or Gopher, consists of such letters as are often changed into each other; neither is there any wood less subject to rottenness and worms than this is, as all writers do allow. Pliny saith that the cypress-wood is not sensible of rottenness or age, that it will never split nor cleave asunder except by force, and that no worm will touch it, because it hath a peculiar bitter taste; and therefore Plato advised that all records that are to be preserved for the benefit of future generations, should be written upon tables of cypress. Martial says that it will last for a hundred ages and never decay. Thucydides saith that the chests were made of cypress in which the Athenians carried away the bones of those who died in war for their country, and the Scholiast gives this reason for it, because it would never decay; and the Pythagoreans abstained from making coffins of cypress, because they certainly concluded that the sceptre of Jupiter was made of this tree, and no reason can be assigned for such a fiction among the poets, but because it was the fittest resemblance of that eternal power and authority which they attribute to him. Theophrastus, speaking of those trees winch are least subject to decay, adds this as a conclusion, that the cypress-tree seems to be the most durable of all, and that the folding-doors of the temple of Ephesus being made thereof, had lasted without damage for four generations. In this Pliny is more particular, and saith that those doors were made of cypress, and they had lasted till his time, which he saith was near four hundred years, and still looked as if they were new. And Vitruvius. speaks both of the cypress and of the pine-tree, that they kept for a long time without the least defect, because the sap, which is in every part of the wood, hath a peculiar bitter taste, as is so very offensive that no worm or other consuming animal will touch it. He also tells us that such works as are made of such wood will last for ever. And therefore he advises that the beams of all churches should especially he made of cypress-wood, because such as were made of fir were soon consumed by the worm and rottenness; and as it was such a lasting wood, so it was also very fit for the building of ships. Peter Martyr, as cited by the learned Fuller, saith that the inhabitants of Crete had their cypress-trees so common, that they made the beams of their houses, their rafters, their rooms, and floors, and also their ships, of this wood. Plutarch saith that the ship carpenter in the first place useth the pine from Isthinos, and the cypress from Crete; and Vegetius adds, that the galleys are built chiefly of the cypress, and of the pine-trees, or of the larch and fir; and in the epistle of Theodoricus to Abundantius, the prefect, in which he gives him a commission to build a thousand barks for fetching provisions, or breadcorn; he commands him to inquire throughout all Italy, for proper artists, for wood for such work; and wherever he should find the cypress or pinetrees near the shore, that he should bury them at a reasonable price.

Neither was it thus only in Crete and Italy, but Diodirus proves that in Phoenicia there was timber sufficient to build ships, because Libanus, near Tripoli, and Biblus, and Sidon were full of cedar-trees, and larch-trees, and cypress-trees, which were very admirable for show and greatness; and Plato, among the trees that were fit for ship-carpenters to use, places the cypress next to the pine and the larch-trees. And even in latter years, we are told that the Saracens did hasten from Alexandria to Phoenicia to cut down the cypress-wood, and fit it for the use of the ships. And as the cypress-tree was very fit for this use, so it grew in great plenty in Assyria and Babylonia, and therefore Arrian and Strabo speak particularly of in-, and that the numerous fleet which Alexander the Great built in those parts, was made of the cypress which he cut down, and which grew in Babylonia.

F or there was, as they say, a great plenty of these trees in Assyria, and that they had no other wood in the country which was fit for such a purpose.

Bedford’s Scripture Chronology, p. 111, 112. notes that the reason why they needed a sort of wood not subject to decay or rottenness, was chiefly because the ark was so long in building. Had it not been a kind of wood of extraordinary durableness, it would have decayed and spoiled in much less than 120 years, being exposed to the weather. [259] The country where Noah built the ark, was probably in Babylonia, or the region there about, which abounds with cypress or gopher-trees. The Gordyean mountains in Armenia seem to be at a proportional distance, and since they are allowed to be the highest in the world, there is no reason for receding from the commonly received opinion, viz. than-those were the hills whereon the ark stopped. Here it is that the generality of geographers place the ark. Here it is that almost all travellers have found the report of it.

And lastly, here it is that the inhabitants of the country show some relics of it, and call places after its name to this very day. Complete Body of Divin. p. 324. “In Armenia est altior mons quam sit in toto orbe terrarum, qui Arath vuigariter nuncupatur; et in cacumine montis illius arca. Noe post diluvium primo sedit; et licet propter abundantiam nivium, quae semper in illo monte reperiuntur, nemo valet ilium ascendere; semper tamen apparet in ejus cacumine quoddam nigrum, quod ab hominibus dicitur esse Arca.” Hist. Orient. c. 9.

The mount Gordion, called by the Turks Ardogh, is the highest in the world; the Jews, the Armenians, and the Mussulmans, affirm that the ark of Noah stopped at this mountain after the deluge. La Boulaye’s Voyages.

They tell us likewise that the city Nahsivan, which is about three leagues from the mountain Ararat, is the oldest in the world; that Noah dwelt therein when he came out of the ark; that the word Nahsivan is derived from Nah, which signifies a ship, and sivan, which signifies to stop or Stay; and that this name was given to it because the ark stopped at this same mountain. Tavernier’s Travels, tom. 4. [297] Genesis 7:1-7. The company in Noah’s Ark was upon many accounts a type of the church of Christ. The ark did literally contain in it the church of God, for all flesh had corrupted their way before God, and true religion and piety seemed to be confined to Noah and his family. The ark was made for the salvation of the church, and for the saving the church from the destruction which the world was to undergo, and to which it was doomed, and of which all the rest of mankind were to be the subjects in an overflowing deluge of God’s wrath. So Christ, God-man, mediator, was made for the salvation of His church, to save it from that destruction and woe that is denounced against this wicked world, and that deluge of wrath that will overwhelm all others. The way in which persons were saved by the ark, was by taking warning from Noah the preacher of righteousness to fly from the wrath to come, and hearkening to the call, and flying for refuge to the ark, and getting into n-he ark. So the way by which we are saved by Christ, is by flying from the deluge of God’s wrath, and taking refuge in Christ, and being in him.

The ark was a refuge from storm, and from wind, the rain that poured down out of heaven in a very dreadful manner, it did not hurt those that were in the ark; so Christ is a hiding-place from the wind, a covert from the tempest. Isaiah 32:1. He is a place of refuge, and a covert from storm and from wind. Isaiah 4:6. “ He is to his church a refuge from the storm, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.” Isaiah 25:4. “He that is built in Christ, when the wind blows, the rain descends, and the floods conic and beat upon His house, it will not fall.”

The company in the ark was safe in the greatest catastrophe, when n-he world was as it were dissolved. So they than-have Christ for their refuge and strength, need not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of n-he sea, (as they in fact were in the flood, they were in the midst of the sea, the sea surrounded them and overwhelmed them,) though n-he waters there of roar and are troubled, though n-he mountains shake win-h n-he swelling thereof, Psalm 46:1,2,3.

Though the waters were so exceeding great and over-whelming, yet those that were in the ark did not sink in them. Though the waters overtopped the highest mountains, vet they could not overwhelm them; though the ark when it stood on the ground was a low thing, in comparison of other things that the waters overwhelmed, yet the waters could not get above them, but let the waters rise never so high, yet the ark kept above them, which evidently represents the safety of the church in Christ in the greatest danger, so that “when thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow three.” Isaiah 43:2.

Concerning those that belong to the church of Christ, it is promised in Psalm 32:6. “For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found; surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him.” And though the church often appears as a low thing, as though the mighty waters that come against it could immediately overflow it, yet the church is kept above water, let them come in ever so fiercely, and rise never so high. If it was not the Lord that is on their side, oftentimes her enemies would swallow her up quick. This also represents to the how Christ was kept from sinking under his sufferings. It was impossible that Christ should fail in the great work that he undertook; and though his sufferings were so great, though the deluge that came upon him was so very great, the billows of wrath so mighty, enough to overwhelm a whole world, and to overwhelm the highest mountains, to overtop the stoutest and mightiest, yet Christ did not sink and fail, but was kept above water; he kept above all, and in the issue triumphed overall; as his church also in him shall obtain the victory over all her enemies, and shall appear finally above them, let them rise never so high, and deal never so proudly, as the ark kept still above the water, when the waters were mounted up even to heaven. The ship wherein Christ was could not sink. Matthew 8:24,25,26. “And behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves; but he was asleep, and his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saving, Lord, save us; we perish, And he said unto them, Why are ye fearful? 0 ye of little faith! Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.”

They that went into the ark were saved, when thousands and millions of others were destroyed; so they that dwell in the secret place of the Most high, that make Christ their refuge, and the Most High their habitation, thousands shall fall at their side, and ten thousands at their right hand; only with their eyes shall they behold and see the reward of the wicked, but no evil shall befall them, nor any plague come nigh their dwelling, Psalm 91.

There was then one ark that any could resort to for refuge in the whole world. So there is no other name, than the name of Christ, given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved. There was no other refuge but the ark. If they went up to the tops of their houses, or to the tops of the highest mountains, it was in vain, the waters overtopped them; so if men trust in their carnal confidences, in their own strength, their own works, and mount high in a towering conceit of their own righteousness, it is in vain. In vain is salvation looked for from the hills, and the multitude of the mountains, for there is no safety but in the Lord. Other refuges did they then probably look for, more likely to save them than the ark, for they could scarce conceive of such a way of safety by the floating of such a building on the waters, the art of making ships having not been discovered before that time. So men’s own righteousness looks more likely to men to save them, than Christ. They are ready to say of the Lord’s anointed, How shall this man save us?

There were but a few saved, when all the rest of the world was destroyed; so the church of Christ is but a little flock.

The door of the ark was open to receive all sorts of creatures, tigers, wolves, bears, lions, leopards, serpents, vipers, dragons, such as men would not by any means admit into the doors of their houses, but if they came they would soon have beat them out again. So Christ stands ready to receive all, even the vilest and worst: he came to save the chief of sinners.

There were all kinds of creatures in the ark; so in the christian church are gathered together persons of all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, persons of all degrees, all kinds of tempers and manners. In the ark the wolf dwelt with the lamb, the leopard lay down with the kid, all were peaceable together in the ark, even those that were the greatest enemies, and were wont to devour one another before, as it is prophesied that it should be in the christian church, Isaiah 11:6, etc. 65:25.

All in the ark was subject to Noah, as the church is subject to Christ; all was saved by his righteousness, Genesis 7:1. “And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark: for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.” As the church is saved by Christ’s righteousness, there is no rest any where for God’s people but and in Christ, as the dove that Noah sent forth found no rest for the sole of her foot but in the ark; when she wandered from the ark, she found no rest till she returned again. The dove therein was a type of a true saint, as the raven was a type of a false professor, who separates from Christ, and returns to him no more.

The ark was taken up from the earth, and after being long tossed to and fro in the waters, when it was not steered by the wisdom of Noah, but was only under the care of Providence, is rested on the top of an exceeding high mountain, as it were in heaven, and was brought into a new world; so the church of Christ in this world is tossed to and fro like a bark on the water, passes through great tribulation, and appears to be overwhelmed.

Isaiah 54:11. “O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted! behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and will lay thy foundations with sapphires.” At last, through God’s care of it and mercy to it, it rests in heaven. The ark, in the midst of the flood, rested on a mountain strong and high; so the church, when ready to be overwhelmed, rests on a rock higher than she. [354] Genesis 7:8,9, and 14, 15, 16. Concerning the resorting of all kinds of birds, and beasts, and creeping things to the ark before the flood. The particular animals that were gathered together to the ark and saved there, when all the rest of their kind were destroyed, were those that God had pitched on, and in his sovereign pleasure chosen, out of the many thousands and millions that were of their kind, and yet they were of every kind, as it were of every nation of birds and beasts. So that here was a lively image of that gathering together of the elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other, that there was before the destruction of Jerusalem, and before the terrible judgments of God that came on the earth at and before Constantine’s time, and that will be before the great destruction of God’s enemies that will he about the time of the destruction of antichrist, when the harvest of the earth shall be gathered in before the vintage, and the gathering together there will be to Christ before the great, and general, and last destruction of the wicked by the general conflagration, when the world shall be destroyed by a deluge of fire. There are elect of every nation that shall be gathered in before the final destruction of the wicked world, as is often said in Scripture, especially in the book of Revelation. The doves and other birds then flocked to the windows of the ark, representing that flocking of souls to Christ which shall be as doves to their windows. They flocked together, the eagle, the vulture, and other rapacious birds, together with doves and other such birds, without preying upon them; representing times of great ingathering of souls to Christ, wherein the wolf dwells with the lamb, and the leopard lies down with the kid, etc. [346] Genesis 8:7,8, etc. Concerning the raven and the dove, that Nook sent forth. The dove is an emblem of a gracious soul, which; finding no rest for its foot, no solid peace or satisfaction in this world, this deluged, defiling world, returns to Christ as to its ark, as to its Noah. The carnal heart, like the raven, takes up with the world, and feeds on the carrion it finds there. But return thou to tiny rest, 0 my soul, to thy Noah, so the word is, Psalm cxvi. 7. “0 that I had wings like a dove to flee to him,” Psalm 55:6. The olive-branch, which was an emblem of peace, was brought, not by a raven, a bird of prey, nor by a gay and proud peacock, but by a mild, patient, humble dove, It is a dove-like disposition that brings ins to the soul earnests of rest and joy. [166] Genesis 8:21. “ And the Lord smelt a sweet savour, and the Lord said in his heart, I will not,” etc. It. was not for the acceptableness of that sacrifice that made God promise that he wound no more curse the ground, but the acceptableness of the sacrifice of’ Christ represented by it. [347] Genesis 9:5, etc. “And surely your blood of your lives will I require it whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” We have an account of murders before the flood, but nothing that looks as though murder was wont then to be revenged with death by men, in an established course of public justice. Lamech, when he had been guilty of murder, seems not to have been executed for it by men. And by the story of Cain, it should seem that God took the punishment of murder then into his own hands. In all probability, a little before the flood, when we read that the earth was filled with violence, the earth was filled with murders, and that those giants who then became such mighty men, and men of renown, were guilty of many murders, and that it was in the earth as it was in corrupt times in Israel, and the land was filled with oppression and violence, in other respects their hands were full of blood, Isaiah 1:15. Jeremiah 2:34. “And the land was full of blood,” Ezekiel 9:9. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they broke out, and blood toucheth blood: the like in many other places. And there being no human laws for putting murderers to death, therefore God did in a remarkable manner take that work into his own hands in the destruction of those murderers by the waters of the deluge; but now establishes it as a rule henceforward to be observed that murder shall be revenged in a course of public justice.

Another reason why God now does expressly establish and particularly insist on this rule is, that God had now first given them leave to shed the blood of beasts for food, which had not been granted till now, which liberty they would have been in danger of abusing, to make shedding of blood appear a less terrible thing to them, and so taking encouragement the more lightly to shed men’s blood, had not God set up this fence. [238] Genesis 9:12,13,14,15. Concerning the rainbow that God gave for a token of the covenant to Noah. The author of Revelation examined with candour, supposes that the rainbow was never seen before Noah saw it, on occasion of his revealing his covenant to him, and says, “The tradition of antiquity concerning the rainbow, seems strongly to confirm this opinion; for Iris, which is the name of the rainbow with the Greeks, is said to be the daughter of Thaumas, i.e. Wonder, and the messenger of Jupiter, to carry his great oath to the other gods when they had offended. Now this seems to be a fable plainly founded upon the solemn covenant now mentioned, which God made with men after the deluge: the covenant of God on this occasion plainly implies the oath of God, as you may learn from Isaiah 54:9. where God declaring his resolution of mercy to the Gentiles, useth these words, ‘For this is as the waters of Noah unto me ,for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee.’“ [348] Genesis 9:12, etc. Concerning the rainbow, the taken of the covenant, This is on many accounts a token of God’s covenant of grace, and his special promise of no more overthrowing the earth with a flood in particular.

It was a most fit token of the covenant of grace of which this particular covenant was a part, and also an image, as appears by Isaiah 54:8,9,10.

Tokens of things that appertain to the covenant of God do as fitly confirm this promise, as they did the promise mentioned in the 7th chap. of Isaiah, ver. 14. It is light which is the symbol of God’s favour and blessed communications to those that are the objects of his favour, and a symbol of hope, comfort and joy, excellency and glory, It is a very pleasant light, excellently representing that grace and love that is manifested in the covenant of grace, and that sweet comfort and peace, and that excellent grace and glory, that is the fruit of that love.

It is light manifested in all the variety of its beautiful colours, which represent, as has been elsewhere shown, the beauty and sweetness of the divine Spirit of love, and those amiable sweet graces and happy influences that are from that Spirit.

It is a pleasant sweet light in a cloud, which is the symbol of the divine presence, and especially of God manifest in the flesh, or in the human nature of Christ, and therefore fitly represents the pleasant grace and sweet love of God as appearing in Christ God man. The light of the sun is more beautiful and pleasant to our weak eves appearing thus in a cloud where the dazzling brightness of it is removed, and its pleasantness retained and illustrated, than when we behold it in the sun directly. So the divine perfections, as appearing in Christ God man, are brought down to our manner of conception, and are represented to the greatest advantage to such weak creatures as we are, and appear not glaring and terrifying, but easy, sweet, and inviting. The light of the rainbow in a cloud, teaches the like mystery with the light of fire in a pillar of cloud in the wilderness, even the union of the divine nature, or God dwelling in flesh.

It is a pleasant light in the bosom of a dissolving cloud, that is wearied with watering, and is spending itself for the sake of men, and in order to shed down its fatness, its nourishing, benign, refreshing influences on the earth, and so fitly represents the beauty, and love, and excellent fulness of Christ, as it is manifested in his dying for men. The drops of rain fitly represent Christ’s blood and also his word, and the blessed communications of his Spirit, which come by his death, and are compared to the rain in the Scripture.’

As the cloud fitly represents the human nature of Christ’s person, so also it doth Christ mystical, or the human nature of the church. In the rainbow the light of the sun is imparted to, and sweetly reflected from, a cloud, that is but a vapour that continues for a little while, and then vanishes away in an empty, unsubstantial, vanishing thing, driven to and fro with the wind, that is far from having any light or beauty of its own, being in its own nature dark.

The multitude of drops from which the light of the sun is so beautifully reflected, signify the same with the multitude of the drops. of dew that reflect the light of the sun in the morning, spoken of, Psalm cx. 3. (See notes in the place.) They are all God’s jewels, and, as they are all in heaven, each one, by its reflection, is a little star, and so do more fitly represent the saints than the drops of dew. These drops are all from heaven, as the saints are born from above; they are all from the dissolving cloud: so the saints are the children of Christ, they receive their new nature from him, and by his death they are from the womb of the cloud, the church: Jerusalem which is above, is the mother of us all: the saints are born of the church that is in travail with them, enduring great labours, and suffering, and carnal persecutions; so those jewels of God are out of the dissolving cloud. These drops receive and reflect the light of the sun just breaking forth, and shining out of the cloud that had been till now darkened and hid, and covered with thick clouds; so the saints receive grace and comfort from Christ’s rising from his state of humiliation, suffering, and death, wherein his glory was veiled, and he that is the brightness of God’s glory was as it were extinguished, as was signified in the time of it, by that eclipse of the sun. The light which in the sun, its fountain, is one and unvaried, as it is reflected from the cloud appears with great variety; so the glory of God, that is simple, is reflected from the saints in various graces.

The whole rainbow, composed of innumerable shining beautiful drops, all united in one, ranged in such excellent order, some parts higher and others lower, the different colours one above another in such exact order, beautifully represents the church of saints of different degrees, gifts, and offices, each with its proper place, and each with its peculiar beauty each drop may be beautiful in itself; but the whole, as united together, much more beautiful. Numbers 24:5,6. “How goodly are thy tents, 0 Jacob! and thy tabernacles, 0 Israel”! as the valleys are they spread forth, as the gardens by the river’s side; as the trees of lign-aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as the cedar-trees beside the waters.” Psalm 48:2. “ Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion.” PS. I. 2. “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.” Psalm cxxii. 3.

Jerusalem is builded as a city compact together.” Part of this bow is on earth, and part in heaven, so it is with the church. The bow gradually rises higher and higher from the earth towards heaven, so the saints from their first conversion are travelling in the way towards heaven, and gradually climb the hill, till they arrive at the top. So this bow in this respect is a like token of the covenant with Jacob’s ladder, which represented the way to heaven by the covenant of grace, in which the saints go from step to step, and from strength to strength, till they arrive at the heavenly Zion; so in this bow the ascent is gradual towards the top in the way to heaven; the beginning of the ascent is sharpest and most difficult; the higher you ascend the easier the ascent becomes. On earth this bow is divided, the parts of it that are here below are at a distance from one another, but in heaven it is united, and perfectly joined together. So different parts of the church on earth may be divided, separated as to distance of place, have no acquaintance one part with another, and separated in manner of worship and many opinions, and separated in affection, but will be perfectly united in heaven. The parts of the rainbow, the higher you ascend, the nearer and nearer do they come together; so the more eminent saints are in knowledge and holiness, the nearer they are to a union in opinion and affection; but perfect union is not to he expected but in heaven.

This beautiful, pleasant light, appears after the heavens have been covered with blackness, and have poured out rain on the earth, seeming to threaten its destruction by a deluge; so it is a fit symbol of his mercy after his anger, the turning away of his anger, his mercy appearing in the forgiveness of sins. So the glorious gospel follows the law, and Christ’s glory follows his sufferings, and comfort in the hearts of the saints follows sorrows of conscience; yea, this light is light in darkness, it is a beautiful light reflected from the dark cloud, showing God’s love in his anger, his love appearing in his frowns. God’s love never so greatly appeared as in the sufferings of Christ, the greatest manifestation of his anger against sinners, and his love when the shower is over in past threatenings, and convictions, and terrors of conscience, which the saints have been the subjects of.

The rainbow, if completed, would be a perfect circle, the most perfect figure in every part united, fitly representing the most excellent order and perfect union that there shall be in the church of Christ. The rainbow is sometimes in Scripture represented as a circle, Revelation 10:1. “And a rainbow was upon his head.” The reason why the circle is not now complete, is because a part of it is as it were under the earth; but if we by standing on a high mountain, or otherwise see it all raised above the earth, we should see it a complete circle. So the church of Christ is now incomplete, while a part of the elect church is buried under the earth, and a part has never yet received being, but after the general resurrection, when that part of the church that is now under the earth shall be raised above it, then the church of Christ would be in its complete state. If we could view the resurrection church from a high mountain, as the apostle John viewed it, and saw it in the colours of the rainbow, reflected from these precious stones, we should see the circle completed without any p art wanting, all disposed in the most perfect union and beautiful order. The order of the drops of the rainbow, supposing them to represent saints, and the sun to represent Christ, is the most apt, commodious, and beautiful, both with respect to the sun and each other. They are in the most apt order with respect to the sun, all opposite to him, and so placed in a fit posture to view the sun, and to receive and reflect his rays, all at an equal distance from the sun, and all in a sense round about him to testify their respect to him, and yet none behind him, but all before his face, and all in the most apt order to behold and reflect light on, and converse together, and assist and rejoice one another. On the whole, here is an image of the most pleasant and perfect harmony, of a great and blessed society, dependent on, blessed in, and showing respect to, the fountain of all light and love.

The sun is as it were in the centre of this beautiful circle of little jewels or stars, as the sun is in the centre of the orbits of the planets, and as the ark, and the mercy-seat, and the seven lamps, were in the midst of the tabernacle of blue, and purple, and scarlet, those colours of the rainbow, and as Christ is in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, and as the throne of the Lamb is in the midst of the saints of heaven, who are round about that throne, and also a rainbow round about the throne, Revelation 4:3,4. and as the Lamb, who is the light of the new Jerusalem, has that city adorned with the colours of the rainbow round about him.

Each drop contains in itself a beautiful image of the sun reflected after its manner according to that part of the sun s glory which is most conspicuous in it: one contains a red image of the sun, another a yellow one, another a green one, and another a blue one, etc.: so each saint reflects the image of Christ, though each one has his particular gift, and there be some particular grace or spiritual beauty that is most conspicuous in him. The whole bow, when completed into the form of a circle, or all that multitude of shining jewels or stars together united into that excellent form and order, do together constitute one complete image of the sun. Though the image differs from the sun itself in the following things: 1. That whereas the disk of the sun is full within its own circumference, the image is empty, it is a circle not filled, but left empty to he filled with the sun; so Christ has all fulness in himself; hut the church is in itself an empty vessel, and Christ is her fulness. 2. Whereas the light is single in the sun, in the bow it is diversified, reflected in a great variety, the distinct glories of the sun as it were divided, and separately reflected, each beauty by itself, as it is in Christ and his church. 3. Though there be so many that each one reflects a little image of the sun, and the whole how or circle be of so great extent, and be so beautiful, yet the sun infinitely exceeds the whole in light, the whole reflects but a little of the brightness of the fountain.

A drop of rain fitly represents man. It is a very small thing, of little value and significancy; a drop of the bucket, and light dust of the balance, are mentioned together as small and worthy of no consideration. It is very weak, very mutable, and unstable, exceeding liable to perish, soon falls and is dissipated, and cannot be made up again. The continuance of a drop of rain is but short, it is a thing of a very posting nature, its course is swift, and in a moment it sinks into the earth, and is no more, which fitly represents the frailty and mortality of man, whose days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, who is but a momentary thing, and hastens with a swift course to the grave. Man’s dying and sinking into the grave is compared to this very thing, of water’s being spilt on the ground, sinking into the earth, and so being irrecoverably gone, 2 Samuel 14:14.

The drops of rain reflecting the light of the sun in the rainbow fitly represent the saints, for in them fire and water are mixed together, which fitly represents the contrary principles that are in the saints’ flesh and spirit.

In those drops are a brighter spark of heavenly fire in the midst of water, and yet it is not quenched, it is kept alive by the influence of the sun, as the heavenly seed and divine spark is kept alive in the saints in the midst of corruption and temptation, that seem often as if they would overwhelm and extinguish it. So God suffers not the smoking flax to be quenched. The drop in itself is wholly water, as the nature of man in itself is wholly corrupt; in the saints, that is, in their flesh, dwells no good thing; they have no light or brightness in them, but only what is immediately from heaven, from the Sun of righteousness. In the drops of the rainbow is represented both the saints descending to the grave by the flesh, and also their ascending to heaven by the spirit of holiness, for the water descends swiftly to be buried in the earth, but by the fire, a beautiful light, in them is represented an ascent as it were up a hill from the earth to heaven.

These drops fitly represent the saints on another account, as Mary’s alabaster box of precious ointment represented the heart of a saint; this drop, though itself is weak and frail, yet is clear and pure as alabaster, and contains as it were a spark or show of beautiful heavenly light in it, which represents the same divine grace that Mary’s precious ointment did. [419] Genesis 10:and 11:The dispersion and first settlement of the nations.

By the descendants of Jophat were the isles of the Gentiles divided, Genesis 10:5. By the Isles, the Hebrews denoted not only such countries as were on all sides encompassed by sea, but also such countries as were so divided by the sea from them as that they could not be well come unto or at least used not to be gone unto, but by sea; in brief, they called islands all beyond sea-countries, and all people islanders, which were wont to come by the sea to them and to the Egyptians, among whom the Jews lived a long time, and so called things by the same names, at least in Moses’s time, when the people were lately come out of Egypt. Now such are not only the island of Cyprus, Crete, and other islands of the Mediterranean, but also the country of the Lesser Asia, and the countries of Europe; and indeed those countries, so many of them as were then inhabited and known to the Jews, were not only beyond the sea, but peninsulas mostly encompassed by the sea, as the Lesser Asia, Greece, Italy, and Spain, And that not only Europe, but the countries of the Lesser Asia were called isles, seems manifest by lea. 10:10, 11. “The Lord shall recover the remnant of his people from Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Ilamath, and from the islands of the sea.” Lesser Asia is either here included under the term, islands of’ the sea, or wholly left out; but it is not likely the countries of Asia would be mentioned, so many of them to the south-east and north of Judea, far and near, and the countries of Europe beyond the Lesser Asia, and all countries of the Lesser Asia wholly passed over.

The sons of Japhet were seven, Gomer, Magotr, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. The sons of Javan were Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodenim, Genesis 10:2,4.

To begin with Gomer and his sons, to whom we may assign t he greatest part of the northern tract of the Lesser Asia for their first plantations.

Josephus tells us expressly that the Galatians who lived in this tract were called Gomerites, and Herodotus tells us that a people called Cimrnerii dwelt in those parts; and Pliny speaks of a town in Troas, a part of Phrygia, called Cimmeris. All the northern part of Lesser Asia was anciently called Phrygia by the Greeks, which is a word that in the Greek language signifies torrid or burnt country, as Gamer in Hebrew is from the Radix Gamar, which signifies to consume; and its derivation Gumra, or Gumro, signifies a coal, and it is certain there was a part of this country which was specially called by the Greeks [...], Burnt Phrygia.

Ashkenaz, who of the three sons of Gomer is first named by Moses, was seated in the western part of the nation of Gomer, i. e, in the north-west part of the Lesser Asia; as it is hardly to be questioned, there being so plain footsteps of his name to be found in those parts; for in Bythinia there is a bay formerly called the Ascanian bay, together with a river and lake of the same name, and in the lesser Phrygia, or Troas, there was both a city and province anciently known by the name of Ascania, and there was isles lying on the coast called the Ascanian isles; nor is it any way unlikely but that in honour of this Ashkenaz, the king and great men of those parts took the name of Ascanias, of which name, besides Ascanius, the son of Eneas, we find a king mentioned in the second book of Homer’s Iliads, which came to the aid of Priamus at the siege of Troy, and from hence probably came that name the Greeks gave to the sea, the Euxine sea. From the family of Ashkenaz, upon the coasts along which lies the entrance into this sea, with some variation of the sound, which length of time might naturally introduce. And the prophet Jeremiah foretelling the taking of Babylon by Cyrus, has this expression, chap. 51:ver. 27. “Call together against her the kingdom of Ararat, and Miseni, and Ashkenaz;” where, by the kingdom of Ashkenaz, may very well be understood the inhabitants of those parts we are speaking of, for Xenophon, as Bochart has well observed, tells us that Cyrus having taken Sardes, sent Hystaspes with an army into Phrygia, that lies on the Hellespont, and that Hystaspes having made himself master of the country, brought along with him from thence a great many of the horse and other soldiers of the Phrygians, whom Cyrus took along with the rest of his army to Babylon.

Riphath, the second son of Gomer, is probably supposed to have seated his family in the parts adjoining eastward to the plantation of his brother Ashkenaz. This opinion is confirmed by the testimony of Josephus, who expressly says that the Paphlagonians, a people inhabiting some portion of this tract, were originally called Rip/iateana, from Riohat, There are also some remainders of his name to be found here among the writings of the ancient Greeks and Latins. For in Apollonius’s Argonauticks, there is mention made of the river called Rhebaeus, which rising in this tract, empties itself into the Euxine sea. The same is called by Dionysius Periegetes and others, Rhebas. Stephanus does not only acquaint us with the river, but tells us also of a region of the same name, and whose inhahitants were called Rhekai; and Pliny places here a people called Riphoei, and another called Arimphoei.

The third and last son of Gomer named by Moses, is Togarmah, whose family was seated in the remaining, and consequently in the most easterly, part of the nation of Gomer, and this situation of the family of Togarmah is agreeable both to sacred and common writers; for as to sacred Scripture, Ezekiel thus speaks, chap. 38:ver. 6. “Gomer, and all his bands, the house of Togarmah, of the north quarters, and all his bands;” and again chap. 27:ver. 14. “They of the house of Togarmah traded in thy fairs, (i.e. the fairs of Tyre,) with horses, and horsemen, and mules.” Now the situation that we assign to Togarmah makes it in a manner lie true north from Judea and Cappadocia, by which name a considerable part of the lot of Togarmah was in process of time known to the Greeks, was very well stocked with an excellent breed of horses and mules, and that the inhabitants were esteemed good horsemen, as is well attested by several ancient heathen writers, as Solinus, of Cappadocia, Dionysius Periegetes, Claudian, and Strabo; and there are to be found footsteps of the very name of Togomah in some of those names, whereby some of the inhabitants of this tract were known to old writers. Thus Strabo tells us that the Trochmi dwelt in the confines of Pontus and Cappadocia. And several towns lying on the east of the river Halys, and so in Cappadocia, are assigned to them by Ptolemy. They are by Cicero called Trogmi, and Trachmeni by Stephanus; and in the council of Chalcedon they are called Trocmades or Trogmades; there being frequent mention made in that council of Cyrimus, bishop of the Trogmades.

We next proceed to say something of the colonies which, coming from the nation of Gomer, in process of time spread themselves in several harts of Europe. Herodotus tells us that a people called Cimmerii formerly dwelt in that tract of Lesser Asia, which we assign to Gomer. So he tells us withal th at these people put out a colony to Palus Maeotis, on the north of the Euxine sea, and so gave the name of Bosphorus Cimmerius to the strait betwixt the Euxine sea and the Maeotick lake, now commonly called the strait of Caffa.

This colony of the Cimmerii increasing in process of time, and so spreading themselves still by new colonies further westward, came along the Danube, and settled themselves in the country which from them has been called Germany. For as to the testimony of the ancients, Diodorus Siculus (as Mr.

Mede observes) affirms that the Germans had their original from the Cimmerians, and the Jews to this day (as the same learned person remarks) call them Ashkenazim of Ashkenaz. Indeed they themselve, retain plain marks enough of their descent both in the name Cimbri and also in their common name Germans, or as they call themselves, Germen, which is but a small variation from Gemren, or Gomren, and this last is easily contracted from Gomerin, that is, Gomereans; for the termination en is a plural termination of the German language, and from the singular number, Gomer, is formed Gemren by the same analogy that from brother is formed brethren. The other name Cimbri, is easily framed from Cimmerii, and by that name the inhabitants of the northwest peninsula of old Germany, now called Jutland, were known not only to the ancient, but latter writers, and from this name of the inhabitant’s, the said peninsula is called Cimbrica Chersonesue, and that frequently by modem authors.

Out of Germany, the descendants of Gomer spread themselves into Gaul, or France. To prove this, Mr. Camden quotes the testimony of Josephus, when he says that those called by the Greeks Golatae were originally called Gomerites, which words may be understood either of the Asiatic Golatte, commonly called by us Galatians, or the European Galatte, commonly called by us Gauls. If it be taken in the former sense, then it is a testimony for the first seating of Gomer in the tract of the Lesser Asia we have assigned him, and on this account it is before taken notice by us. Mr.

Camden also produces the testimony of other writers to prove the Gauls to be from Gamer, as of Appian, who, in his Illyricks, says expressly that the Celtte, or Gauls, were otherwise called Cimbri. Those barbarians whom Mantis defeated, Cicero plainly terms Gauls, and all historians agree that these were the Cimbri. And the coat-armour of Beleus, their king, digged up at Aix, in Provence, where Marius routed them, does evince the same, for the words Beleos Cimbros were engraven upon it in a strange character. Again: Lucan calls that ruffian that was hired to kill Marius, a Cimbrian, whereas Livy and others affirm him to have been a Gaul; and by Plutarch the Cimbri are called Gallo-Scythians.

Hence we conclude that the ancient inhabitants of Britain were descended from Gomer, for it is not to be questioned but that the isle was first peopled from those countries of the European continent which lie next to it, and consequently from Germany or Gaul. The name by which the offspring of those ancient Britons, the Welch, call themselves to this very day, is Kumro, or Cimro, and Kumri, and in like manner they call a Welch woman Kumraes, and their language, Humeraeg; and since the Saxon-s and Angles were Germans, who, as was before observed, were descendants of Gomer, and were near neighbours to the people that were more especially called Cimbri, hence it follows that our ancestors, who succeeded the old Britons, were also descended from Gomer.

But now to proceed to the other sons of Japhet, as the nation of Gomer first seated itself in the northern tract of the Lesser Asia, so the nation of Javan seated itself in the southern tract of the same. And this appears not only from the name of a country in this tract called Ionia, but also from the situation of the four families of Javan’s sons within this tract, which are mentioned in this order by Moses, Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim, Genesis 10:4.

Tarshish seated himself on the eastern part of this tract, as is probable, on several considerations. For Tarsus is a chief town of Cilicia, and Josephus expressly affirms that Cilicia, and the country round it, was originally known by the name of Tarshish, It is scarcely to be doubted, but this was the Tarshish to which the prophet Jonas thought to flee from the presence of the Lord, as also that this principally was the Tarshish mentioned so often by the pro hets, on account of its trading with Tyre.

To the west of Tarshish, adjoining the portion a1pertaining to Kittim, or Cittim, which word having a plural termination, does, in all probability, imply the descendants of Keth, or the Ketians. Ptolemy tells us of a country here called Cetis, and Homer in Odys. 4. mentions a people called Cetii, who were thought to take their name from a river, Cetius, in the same quarter. But it is remarkable that this is agreeable to the name mentioned by Homer. Josephiis will have the isle of Cyprus to have been the seat of the Cittim, because therein was a town called Citium, of good note, but it is not to be questioned, but the continent was peopled before the island, and consequently that the Cittim first seated themselves on the continent, from which they might, probably enough, send in process of time some colony over into the neighbouring island of Cyprus.

The two remaining families of Javan, viz. Elishah and Dodanium, seated themselves on the western coast of the southern tract of the Lesser Asia.

Here upwards, or northwards, were anciently situated the AEoles, who as they carry some marks of their pedigree in their name, so are expressly affirmed by Josephus to have been descended from Elishah, and from him to have taken their name. And since the country, peculiarly called in afterages, Ionia, joined to the south, of what was in said ages peculiarly called AEolia, it is probable that the said Iowa, (so peculiarly called perhaps, from Javan’s living there with his son Elishah,) was possessed originally by the sons of Elishah, or else partly by them and partly by the Dodanim--of whom next.

On the same western coast, south of the family of Elishab, may the family of Dodanim be supposed to have first planted itself, for there we find in ancient writers a country called Doris, which may not improbably be derived from Dodanim, especially if this be plural, as the termination seems to import, and so the singular was Dodaus; which being softened into Doran, the Greeks might easily frame from thence Dormss, whom they assert to be the father of the Dorians. Certain it is from the Greek writers themselves, that the Doris or Dorians were a considerable body of the Greeks, insomuch that Dorico Castra is taken by Virgil to denote the whole Grecian camp, wherefore it is very probable that they had their extraction from one of the sons of Javan, the father of the Greek nation, and distinguished themselves from the other families of Javan, by assuming to themselves the name of the father of their family, as the others did, and consequently called themselves Dodanim, which the Greeks in time moulded into Doris. The Greeks say of Dorus, the father of the Dorians, that he was the son of Neptune, who evidently was the same with Japhet; (see No. 405.) and though Dodanim was the grandson of Japhet, yet according to the usual way of speaking among the Hebrews, he was called the son of Japhet. The change of Dodan into Dorus is the more likely, by reason of the great likeness there is between the Hebrew D and R. Hence, (viz. from Doris,) some might pass over to the isle of Rhodes, which might take its name from those Dodanim, which by reason of the likeness of letters is sometimes writ Rodanim, which seems to have been the opinion of the Seventy Interpreters, by their rendering the Hebrew word Dodanim by [...], Rhodii.

I proceed now to speak of the colonies of the posterity of Javan, that in process of time were made from their first settlements, and I shall begin with the two last mentioned, Elisha/i and Dodanim; for those lying on the western coast of the Lesser Asia, as they increased, peopled by degrees the many isles that lie on the adjoining sea, and so at length spread themselves into the European continent. The family of Elishah seems to have possessed themselves of most, or at least the most considerable isles lying in the sea between Europe and Asia, forasmuch as they are called by the prophet Ezekiel, 27:7. the isles of Elishah. What the prophet there says of the blue and the purple from the isles of Elishah, is very applicable to the isles of this sea, forasmuch as they did abound in this commodity, and are on that account celebrated by common authors, and some of them took their names from it. And the sea itself on which these isles were, seems originally to have been called the Sea of Elishah; which name, though it wore away in process of time in other parts, yet seems to have been all along preserved in that part, which to this day is frequently called the Hellespont, as if one should say Elisae Pontos, the Sea of Elishah, And this derivation of the word Hellespont will appear’ yet more likely, when we consider that the descendants of Elishab, passing over into Europe, came afterwards to be termed Hellenes, and their country Hellas, a name which in process of time became common to all Greece; in which there were other footsteps of Elishah’s name to be found formerly, as in the city and province of Elis, in the Peloponnesus, in the city of Eleusis, in Attica; and in the river Elissus, and Ilissus, in the same province. Some think the Campi Elisii, so much celebrated among the Greeks, to have been so called from Elishah.

As to Dodenim, or the Dorians, the Spartans, or the Lacedemonians, looked on themselves to be of Dorick extraction, and there were formerly remainders of the name to be found in those parts of Greece. In the province of Messena, in the Peloponnesus, there was a town called Dorion, and of the other tract of Greece, lying above the isthmus of the Peloponnesus, there was a considerable part called Doria, Dorica, or Doris; to say nothing of Dodona: and all the Greek nation is sometimes called Dores, as was before observed, out of Virgil.

As to Kittim, or the Cittim, they probably sent their first colony to the neighbouring isle of Cyprus, which seems to be called the land of Chittim, Isaiah 23:1-12. But in process of time wanting more room, and therefore seeking omit further, and finding the lower p arts of Greece already inhabited by the descendants of Elisirab and Dodanmm, they still proceeded on, coasting along the western shores of ‘Greece, until they came to the upper and northern parts of it, which not being yet inhabited, some of them planted themselves there while some others of them descrying the coast of Italy, wemit and settled themselves in that country.

Hence it comes to pass, in probability, that both Macedonia in Greece, and also Italy, are denoted in Scripture by the names of Cittim, or Kittin. The author of the book of Maccabees plainly denotes Macedonia by the land of Chetiim, when he says that Alexander, the son of Philip the Macedonian, came out of the land of Chitiim, 1 Mac. i 1.; so also chap. 8:5. the said author calls Perseus king of Macedonia, king of the Citums. The more ancient name of this country was Macetia, and the Macedonians themselves are otherwise termed Macetae.

The place of Scripture where Chittim, by the consent of almost all expositors, denotes the Romans, is Daniel 11:29,30. for by the ships of Chittim, there mentioned, is understood the Roman fleet; by the coming whereof, Antiochus was obliged to desist from his designs against Egypt.

There are also several footsteps of the name Chittim, or Cheth, to be found in Italy, among eminent writers; as a city of Latium, called Cetia, mentioned by Dionysius Helicarnasseus: another city among the Volsci, called Echetia, mentioned by Stephanos; also a river near Eumae, called Cetus. Nay, there are not wanting authors who expressly assert the Romans and Latins to have had their extraction from the Citii, or Cetii, as Eusebius, Cadrenus, Suidas; whose testimonies are produced by Bochart; and this learned person observes further, that the word Chttim does, in the Arabic tongue, denote a thing hid, so that the name Latins might be origimially only a translation of the old eastern name Chetim.

There remains now only the colonies of Tarshish to be spoken of and wheresoever else they seated themselves it is highly probable that Tartessus, a city and adjoining country in Spain, and much celebrated by the ancients for its wealth, was a colony of Tarshish. Bochart has observed that Polybius, reciting the words of a league between the Romans and Carthaginians, mentions a place under the name of Tarscium; and Stephanus expressly says, that Thrscium was a city near Hercules’s Pillars: the situation whereof agrees well enough with that of Tartessus. Again, what is said by Ezekiel, chap. 27:ver. 12. agrees very well with this Tarshish; for the words of the prophet run thus, “Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs;” i. e, in the fairs of Tyre. Now, as has been before observed, Tartessus was celebrated among the ancients for its multitude of riches, and the metals mentioned by the prophet were such as Spain did formerly abound with. Some also are of opinion that the Etrusci of Italy, otherwise called Turrheni and Tusei were a colony of Tarshish, The word Etrusci, without the initial E, (which was frequently added to derivatives,) contains the radicals of Tarshish.

The descendants of Tarshish were the most expert seamen, and consequently the chief merchants of the early ages of the world. Hence the whole Mediterranean sea seems to have been at length comprehended under the name of the sea of Tarshish. And because the descendants of Tarshish were wont to make longer voyages, and to adventure further into the open sea, than others did in those days, it is not unlikely that they had ships built for this purpose, and so of somewhat different make both as to size and shape from the vessels commonly used by others: and hence it is probable that all vessels built for longer voyages and greater burdens came to be called ships of Tarshish, because they were built like the ships of Tarshish properly so called.

Having observed these things concerning the settlements and colonies of the four families of Javan, I would here add something with respect to Javan himself, the father of this whole nation; and I would observe that it is probable that the colonies that passed over in process of time into Europe, though they were distinguished in reference to their distinct families by their distinct names, yet were all at first comprehended under the name of Jonians. Indeed the Scholiast in Aristophanes (as Bochart hath observed) expressly says, that all the Greeks were by the Barbarians called Iaones, i.e.

Ionians. Hence the Ionian sea came to be extended anciently to the western coast of Greece, and that northwards up as far as the western coast of Macedonia.

Now it is plain that the name Ionians was derived from the founder of this nation, Javan. For the Hebrew word, setting aside the vowels which are of disputable authority, may be read Ion, or Jaon. But supposing the word to be all along pronounced with the same vowels it has in the Hebrew text at present, it is granted by the learned in the same language, that the true pronunciation of the Hebrew vowel, Kamets, carries in it a mixture of our vowel o us well as a, so that the Hebrew nwy is very regularly turned into the Greek whence by contraction may be made Ie>wn Since therefore not only the forementioned Scholiast, but also Homer, styles those who were commonly called tones, by the name of Iwn it is not to be doubted but the Ionians were so called from Javan the founder of their nation. Agreeably to what has been said, we find the country of Greece denoted in the book of Daniel from time to time the country of Javan, Daniel 8:21. 10:20. 11:2.; and also in Joel 3:6. And though the Athenians affirm that the Asiatic Ionians were a colony of theirs, yet Hecateus in Strabo affirms, that the Athenians, or Ionians of Europe, came from those of Asia.

Having spoken somewhat largely of the posterity of Coiner and Javan, because Europe appears to be chiefly peopled by them, we now proceed to take notice of the other sons of Japhet, among whom I shall speak next of Tubal and Meshech, which are so mentioned together from time to time in Scripture, that it is evident that their settlements were adjoining one to the other.

Meshech joined on to the nation of Gomer eastward, and so settling at first in part of Cappadocia and Armenia, what according to the present vowels in the Hebrew is Meshech, was by the Seventy Interpreters, and others, read Mosoch, and hence it is very probable that they are the same called by the Greeks Moscoi , Mosci, who were seated in those p arts, and from whom no question but the neighbouring ridge of hills took the name of Montes Moschici, mentioned by the old geographers.

To the north of Meshech adjoined the first plantation of Tubal, who, by Josephus, is expressly affirmed to be the father of the Asiatic Iberians. The same historian asserting that when the Greeks called Iberi were originally called Theobeli from Tubal, adds hereunto that Ptolemy places in those parts a city called Thabilica. Mr. Bochait sup poses the Tibareni, a people mentioned by old authors in this tract, to have been so called, from Tubal, by the change of L into R, which is very frequent. But that Meshech and Tubal seated themselves in those parts is in a manner put beyond dispute, by what is said of those two nations in Ezekiel 27:13.” Tubal and Meshech were thy merchants; they traded in slaves and vessels of brass in thy market.” For it is evident from the testimonies of heathen writers that the Pontic region, especially Cappadocia, was remarkable formerly for slaves, as also that in the country of the Tibareni, and Iberia, there was the best sort of brass. Mr. Bochart observes that the Hebrew word translated in this place brass, is sometimes rendered steel; and hence he remarks that as a piece of iron or brass is in the Arabic tongue called Tubal, probably from its coming out of the country of Tubal, so it is likely that from the excellent steel that was made in their country, some of the inhabitants thereof were denominated by the name of Chalybs among the Greeks: the word Chalybs, in the Greek language, signifying steel.

That the Muscoviles, or Moscoviles, in Europe, were a colony originally of Meshech, or Mosock, called by the Greeks, Moschi, is very probable.

Magog is, by the testimony of Josephus, Eustathius, St. Jerome, Theodoret, and, (as Mr. Mede expresses it,) by the consent of all men, placed north of Tubal, and esteemed the father of the Scythians that dwell in the east, and north-east, of the Euxine sea. This situation is confirmed by Scripture itself, Ezekiel 38:2. “Set thy face against Gog, in, or of, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal.” Bochart conjectures that the mountain called by the Greeks Caucasus, took its name from Gog, But the name of Gog was entirely preserved in the name Gogarene, whereby was formerly denoted a country in those parts, as we learn both from Strabo and Stepiranus, And from hence perhaps in time was fashioned the name Georgia, Gurgistarm, whereby at this very day is denoted a considerable tract in this quarter. That Gog denotes the Scythians in the prophecy of Ezekiel, may be rationally inferred from Ezekiel 39:3. where God speaks of Gog thus, “I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.”

Now it is too well known to the learned to need proof, that the Scythians were remarkably famous of old for their skill in the use of the bow and arrow, insomuch that some among them for their winking with one eye when they shot, are said to have given them the name of arimaspi, oneeyed.

Nay, it is thought by some, and not without ground, that the very name of Scythians was derived from shooting, forasmuch as in the German tongue shooters are called Scutten.

To say something of the colonies of Magog, In the panegyric of Tibullus to Messala, we find mention made by the poet of a people about the river Tanais, called Magiai, which probably came from Magog. Yea, it is not improbable that the Mreotick lake into which the Tanais runs, took its name from the descendants of Magog; for Magogitis, or Magiitis, the Greeks might naturally after their manner soften into Maiotis, which the Latins and we render Maeotis, We read in Pliny, that the city in Syria, called Hierapolis, was by the Syrians called Magog, which name it is thought most likely to have taken from the Scythians, when they made an excursion into Syria, and took this city. On the like account it is that the city in Judea, called Bethisan, was also called in after-ages, Scythopolis.

Now Hierapolis being thus called Magog, it is not improbable but the adjoining part of Syria might be from thence called Magagene; which afterwards might be moulded into Gomagene, and so into Comagene; by which the northern part of Syria was denoted among the Greeks and Latins.

The next son of Japhet is Madai, who is almost universally looked upon to be the father of the Medes, who are all along denoted by the name of Madai in the Hebrew text. Bochart thinks the Samaritans a colony from those; he conjectures that the name of the Samaritans was originally Sear Madai, which in the original language denotes the remnant, or posterity, of the Medes. See objections against this and another region allotted to Madai, in Pool’s Synops. vol. i col. 117, 118.

Tiras, or Thiras, the last son of Japhet, is by universal agreement esteemed the father of the Thracians. The name whereby the country of Thrace is called in oriental writers, plainly shows that the Greek name Thrace was originally derived from Thiras, the founder of the nation. Ancient writers also tell us, that here was a river, a bay, and a haven, each called by the name of Atheyras, and they mention a city in the peninsula of Thrace called Tyristasis, and a tract in this country called Thrasus, and a people called Trausi. We learn also from them that one of the names of Mars, the god of the Thracians, was Qourav . Hence Homer calls Mars by an epithet Qourouv Arhv , Mars Thuras, We read also in old authors of Tereus, the son of Mars, and first king of the Thracians, and of one Teres king of Odrysae, a people in Thrace: and the Odrysn themselves are said to take their name from one Odrysus, a great person among them, insomuch that in after-ages he was worshipped by the Thracians as a god. As for the colonies of Tiras, it is hardly to be doubted but some of them planted themselves in the country over against Thrace, on the north side of the Euxine sea. From there is a considerable river in those parts, called in both Greek and Latin writers Tiras The very same as the name of the father of the Thracian nation, which river is now called the Niester. There was also a city of the name of Tires, standing on this river. The inhabitants of these parts were also formerly known by the name of Tyritae, or Tyragetae.

Though probably the Tyritae might denote the true descendants of Tyras and the Tyragetae might denote a mixed race, that arose out of the Tyritae mixing with the Getae, a bordering people, descendants of the Cetim, who settled in Macedonia.

It is not unlikely that Tyras might first sit down with his family in the Lesser Asia, in the country of Troy, which had nothing to part it from Thrace but the narrow strait of the Hellespont, and the ancient king named Tros, whence the country is denominated, was probably no other than Tyras, It is the common opinion and tradition among Greek writers, that the inhabitants on the east side of the Hellespont and Propontis, were originally or anciently Thracians.

We proceed next to the first plantations of the sons of SHEM, There are five sons of Shem mentioned by Moses, viz. Elam, and Ashur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram.

I shall begin with the settlement of Aram, as being the first nation of the branch of Shem, adjoining to the nations of the branch of Japhet, already spoken of. For the portion that fell to the nation of Aram, lay in the countries called by the Greeks Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Syria. It is probable that Armenia took its p resent name from Aram. Mesopotamia, as it was so called bythe Greeks, from its situation between the rivers Euphrates and Tygnis, so it was called by the Hebrews Aram Naharaim, i e. Aram of, or between, tie two rivers. And whereas one part of this country, viz. that lying next to Armenia, was very fruitful, and the other to the south very barren, and so of the like sort with Arabia Deserta, to which it adjoined, hence the former is in Scripture distinguished by the name of Padan-aram, which is equivalent to, Fruitful Aram.

Aram’s sons are four, viz. Uz and Hul, Gether and Mash. As for Uz, he is by a great agreement of the ancients said to be the builder of the city of Damascus, and his posterity are supposed to have settled the country about it. Here see Pool’s Synopsis on Genesis 10:23.

The family of Hul, or as it is in the original, Chul, may, with great probability be placed in Armenia, particularly the Greater Armenia, for there we find the names of several places beginning with the radicals of Chul, as Cholua, Cholvata, Cholimna, Colsa, Calura; and to mention but one more, Cholobatene, which last seems to have been formed from the oriental Cholbeth, which denotes the same as the house or dwelling of Chol. Now this Cholobatene being the name of a province in Armenia, from this especially we may gather with good probability that Chul with his family seated himself in those parts.

Between Hul to the north, and Uz to the south, their brother Mash seated himself; viz, about the mountain Masius, From this mountain issues out a river of Mesopotamia, called by Xenophon Masca, which probably comes from the name of this son of Aram, who otherwise is called in Scripture Meshech, the radicals whereof are plainly contained in the name Masca.

The inhabitants of the tract adjoining to the M. Masius, are by Stephanus called Masieni, or Mastant.

Gether probably seated himself east of his brother Hul, on the eastern borders of Armenia; where some in Ptolemy observe a city called formerly Getarrr, and a river of the same country called Getras.

We now pass on to the nation of Ashur, which is eastward of the nation of Aram, in the country called Ashur in the eastern tongues, which is Assyria, properly and originally so called, lying east of the Tigris, and wherein stood the city of Nineveh, which was afterwards called Acetabene, and also was sometimes by a change of S into T formerly called Attyria. The most ancient king of Assyria was said to be the son of Zames, i.e. Shem, and is styled in Suidas, and some others, Thuras, corruptly for Atthuras, i e.

Ashur; for Ashur in the Chaldee tongue is Atthur, or Atther. This Thuras, the son of Zames, was worshipped by the Assyrians as their Mars, or god of war.

That Elain seated himself in the southern tract beyond the river Euphrates, is beyond dispute, not only from the authority of the Scriptures, wherein the inhabitants of the said tract are plainly and frequently denoted by the name of Elain, but also from heathen writers, wherein we read of a country here called Elymais, and a city of the same name.

To the lot of Arphaxad is assigned by learned men the more southern part of Mesopotamia, where the plain or vale of Shinar lay, on the river Tigris, together with the country of Eden, and the tract on the east side of the same river, called Arapachitis, a name plainly derived from Arpachshad, which is the name of Arphaxed in the Hebrew text, That the vale of Shinar, with the country of Eden, was part of the first plantation of Arphaxad, is supposed on these probabilities: 1. That Noah, after the flood, returned and settled himself again in these parts, us well knowing the goodness of the soil and pleasantness of the country, which is confirmed by a town here called Zama from them. 2. That upon the dispersion of mankind and confusion of tongues, as the primitive Hebrew tongue was preserved in the family of Arphaxad, so agreeably hereunto this family still continued in the same parts where they then were, together with their grandsires, Noah and Shem. 3. This opinion may be confirmed from Genesis 10:30. “And their dwelling was from Mesha, as you go unto Sephar, a mount of the east;” for the Mesha here mentiouued is probably esteemed to be the same mountain as is before mentioned under the name of Mash, or Mesime, in the western parts of Mesopotamia; so that if the forecited text is to be understood of the descendants of Arphaxad, (as is thought by several learned men, and also by the historian Josephus,) it will import thus much, that the southern part of Mesopotamia, lying on the east of the mount Mesha, or Mesius, was first peopled by the descendants of Arphaxad; (and accordingly we here find Phalga, a town probably named from Peleg, or Phaleg, settling there;) and so on eastward as far as to Sephar, a mount in the east. Now this mount Sephar is probably thought to be the mountain adjoining to Siphare, a city in Aria, and which lies directly east from Mesha; and though this be a long tract of ground, yet it will be but proportional to the numerous descendants of Arphaxad, especially by Joktan, of whom more by and by. 4. It is the tradition of the ancients, Eustathius, Antiochenus, and Eusebius, that Salah, the son of Arphaxad, seated himself in Susiana; and agreeably hereto, we read in old writers of a town called Sela. But now Susiana did contain part of the country of Eden, which adjoined to, or in all probability was part of; the vale of Shinar, largely taken. 5. It is further confirmed that Arphaxad seated himself in the vale of Shinar, because we find that Terah, and Abraham his son, came out of those parts, Genesis 11:31. “ And Terah took Abram his son, and went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan.” Now it is confessed, I think by all, that Chaldea comprehended at least a great part of the vale of Shinar, and it is certain that it comprehended as much of the country of Eden as lay west of the common channel of the Euphrates and Tigris On this text of Scripture seems to be grounded what Josephus saith of the Chaldeans being called the Arphaxadeans.

Having thus seen the first settlements of the descendants of Arphaxad, let us turn our eyes a little upon their after-colonies, particularly those that sprung from Joktan, of whom Moses reckons up no fewer than thirteen sons; and as Moses assigns their habitation from Mesha to mount Sophar, so in this tract learned men have observed the names of several places, which by their likeness to the names of Joktan’s sons, seem to tell their respective situations.

There is nothing certain concerning Lud, the remaining son of Shem, but that he did not seat himself in the country of Lesser Asia, called Lydia.

Ham was the youngest of the three sons of Noah. He had four sons, Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan. We find Egypt twice or thrice in the book of Psalm called the land of Ham, whence it seems probable that Ham went thither himself; and there settled with his son Mizraim And it is scarce to be doubted but the person denoted by the Greeks under the name of Jupiter Ammon (in honour to whom there was a temple erected in the parts of Libya adjoining to Egypt, much celebrated for its oracles) was no other than Ham.

It is well known that the nation of Canaan settled itself in the country so often called in Scripture the land of Canaan. Upon the dispersion of mankind the country lying on the east and south-east of the Mediterranean sea fell to the share of Canaan, so that he was seated between the nation of Aram to the north and east, and the nation of Cush, his brother, to the south and south-east, and Mizraim, another of his brothers, to the southwest: his western boundary was the Mediterranean sea. His descendants are thus reckoned up by Moses, Genesis 10:15,18. “Canaan begat Sidon his first-born, and Heth, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite, and the Hivite, and the Arcite, and the Sinite, and the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite.”

Of Sidon were the inhabitants of the city of Sidon, and the country about; which city, us is apparent both from sacred and ancient profane writers, was in the more early ages of the world much more considerable than Tyre.

Sidon is called Great Sidon, Joshua 19:29.; but Tyre does not seem to have become considerable until about David’s time. Homer never so much as once mentions pyre, but often makes mention of the Sidonians, and Tyre is expressly called the daughter of Sidon, Isaiah 5:12.

The second family of Canaan mentioned by Moses, is that of Heth, whose posterity placed themselves in the southern parts of Canaan, about Ilebron, as appears from Abraham s concern with them there, Genesis xxiit. We also read that during Isaac’s dwelling at Beersheba, Esau took him wives of the daughters of Heth, Genesis 26.

The Jebusites were seated about Jerusalem, which was originally called Jebus, I Chronicles 11:4; so that the Jebusites joined on to the Hittites in the mountains towards the north. As the Hittites and Jebusites, so also the Amorites, dwelt in the mountainous or hilly part of the land of Canaan, as appears from Joshua 11:3, And the spies gave this account, Numbers 13:29. “ And the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains, and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and the coast of Jordan.”

Now as the Hittites seem to have possessed the hill country to the west and south-west of Hebron, and the Jebusites to the north, so the Amorites might settle themselves at first in the hill country to the east and south-east of Hebron. This seems probable, because the mountainous tract lying next to Kadesh-Barnea, is called the mount of the Amorites, Deuteronomy 1:7.; and we are told, Genesis 14:7. that Chedorlaomer smote the Amorites that dwelt in Haze ron-lamar, which was the same place with Engedi, Chronicles 20:2. and so was seated in the hilly pa~ of the land of Canaan to the east, or towards Jordan. And their neighbourhood to the country beyond Jordan might be the occasion that the Moabites were in process of time dispossessed thereof by the Amorites; whence that tract beyond Jordan is called the land of the Amorites; and Sihon, the king thereof; is always called king of the Amorites.

The Girgasite is the next family mentioned by Moses, who probably seated themselves at first along the upper part of the river’ of’ Jordan. Here, on the eastern side of the sea of Tiberias, or Galilee, we find in our Saviour’s time a city called Gergesa.

The Hivite we find was seated in the upper or northern parts of Canaan, and so adjoining to his brother Sidon. For we read, Judges 3:3. that “the Hivites dwelt in mount Lebanon from mount Baal-Hermon unto the entering in of Hamath.”

In process of time, these families intermixed one with the other; whence we read of some Hivites, Amorites, and Hittites in some other places than those we have assigned them for their first settlements, and also the Amorites becoming the most potent nation in process of time. Hence they are put to denote, frequently, any one or more of the other nations of Canaan.

Many of the posterity of Canaan of different families, either originally or afterwards, (possibly by being dispossessed of their original settlements by the Philistines, or by other means,) appear to have settled confusedly together, and to have become so intermixed that the names of their distinct families were not kept up, but they were called by the general name of Canaanites. hence we read in the fore-cited passages, Numbers 13:29. The Canaanites dwelt by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan.

As to the remaining families of Canaan mentioned by Moses, the first of them that occurs is the Ar/cite; which is probably thought to have settled himself about that tart of mount Libanus where is placed by Ptolemy and others a city called Arce. Not far from this settlement of the Arkite, did the Simile likewise settle himself; for in the parts adjoining, St. Jerome tells us, was once a city called Sin. As for the Arvadite, the little isle of Ardus, lying up more north, on the coast of Syria, is supposed to have taken its name from the founder of this family. In the neighbourhood on the continent did the Zemanite probably fix, forasmuch us on the coast there we find a town called Symyra, not far from Orthosia. And Eusebius does expressly deduce the origin of the Orthosians from the Samareans.

The only remaining family is the Hamathite. or the inhabitants of the land Hamath, often mentioned in sacred writ, and whose chief city was called Hamath. This country lay to the north of all the rest of the posterity of Canaan.

The nation of Cush had its first settlement in the country adjoining to his brother Canaan on the south, that is Arabia. That by Cush in Scripture, is denoted Arabia, and not Ethiopia in Africa, is manifest every where in Scripture, particularly from Numbers 21:1. compared with Exodus 2:15-21. and Habakkuk 3:7. 2 Kings 19:9. 2 Chronicles 14:9. and Ezekiel 29:10. “I will make the land of Egypt desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the borders of Cush.” Now all that have any knowledge of old geography, know that Syene was the border of Egypt towards Ethiopia in Africa.

There Cush being the opposite boundary cannot be Ethiopia in Africa, but must be Arabia.

The sons of Cush are Seba, Havilah, and Sabtah1 and Raamah, and Sabtecha; to which Moses subjoins the two sons of Raamah, Sheba and Dedan; and then adds lastly that Cush begat Nimrod, who began to be a mighty one upon earth, Genesis 10:7,8, etc. Now we shall find all these but the last seated in Arabia. As for Seba, the first son of Cush, he probably seated himself in the south-west of Arabia, where we find a city called Sabe. On the southeast side we find another city called Sabana, where we may therefore place Sheba, the grandson of Cush, by Raamah; and the reason why we choose this to be his situation, rather than the other side of the country, is, because it is on the eastern side of Arabia that we find his father and his brother situated; and it is likely he seated himself in their neighbourhood. On this account we find him always mentioned with his father and brother, as Ezekiel 27:22. “The merchants of Sheba and Raamah were thy merchants,” and chap. 38:”Sheba and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish,” etc. Now these two names, Sheba and Sebah, being so much alike, the two different families were confounded by the Greeks, and called promiscuously Sabeans. Hence Pliny says that the Sabean nation inhabited those parts spreading themselves to both seas, i. e, from the Red sea to the gulf of Persia. But the sacred writers exactly distinguish them, Psalm lxxii. 10. “The kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.”

On the same side of Arabia with Sheba was seated, as has been mentioned, both his father Raamah and his brother Dedan. For, as to the former, we find on this shore of the Persian gulf a city called Rhegma by Ptolemy; which it is not to be doubted was so called from this reason, for the Hebrew name, which in our translation is rendered Raamah, is in other translations, particularly the Septuagint, rendered (agreeably enough to the radicals) Rhegma. Nor far from Rhegma, mentioned by Ptolemy, we find on the same coast eastward another city called Dedan, now-a-days Dadaen, from which the neighbouring country also takes its name, as Bochart has observed, from Barboza, an Italian writer in his description of the kingdom of Ormuz.

On the same shore of the Persian gulf, but higher northward, we find in Ptolemy the situation of a city called Saphtha, whence it is probable that Sabta, the son of Cush, seated himself here.

Higher still to the northward was seated Havilah, or Chavilah, along the river Pison, on the western channel of the two, into which the common channel of the Tigris and Euphrates again is divided, before the waters thereof empty themselves into the Persian gulf. That Havilah was seated here, is confirmed in that Moses tells us it was seated on a branch of that common channel of which Euphrates and Hiddekel were a part: and in this country, where we have placed Havilah, there was, agreeably to what Moses says of Havilah, plenty of gold, and that good gold; which is agreeable to what ancient authors tell us of Arabia. Moses adds, that in Havilah was Belodach, which some take to signify pearls, others the Bdellium gum, It is much the most likely, however, that pearls are what are intended; for Moses, in describing the manna, says it was like coriander seed, and the colour thereof as the colour of Belodach. Now it is evident from another description that the colour of manna was white, Exodus 14:31. which is opposite to pearls, as also is the roundness of the manna, but in nowise to the Bdellium gum. Hence the Talmudists, mentioning this description of manna, instead of saying it is like the colour of Bdellium gum, say it is like the colour of pearls; and it is certain that there is no place in the world that produceth so fine pearls, and in so great plenty, as the sea next to the shore of this country, where we place Havilah; as is evident from the testimony of Nearchus, one of Alexander’s captains; of Isidorus; of Chorax, who lived a little after; of Pliny, and AElian, and Origen; of Benjamin,a Navar