The Arabs or the Egyptians, indeed, might possibly have borrowed from the Jews; but the Chinese and the Hindoos, the Goths and the Americans, were effectually precluded by local circumstances from having had any knowledge of the favoured people of God. We must therefore conclude, that, whatever their popular belief might be, it descended to them, not through the medium of Jewish antiquities, but down the stream of an universal and uninterrupted tradition. The singular phenomenon of a general agreement among a vast variety of nations, widely separated from each other, and effectually prevented by their mutual distance from having had any recent intercourse, can only be accounted for upon the supposition, that they all sprang originally from one common ancestor. To Noah alone we must look as the primordial source, to which all pagan nations were indebted for their knowledge of antediluvian events: and as for those, which took place immediately after the deluge, they can only have been diffused over the face of the whole earth by the posterity of the first descendants of that Patriarch. Hence, although the Mosaical documents are the grand and genuine repository of all those ancient facts; yet, profane traditions must, for the most part, have been derived, not from the records of the Jews, but from certain mutilated accounts of the facts themselves.

Upon this statement depends the whole of the ensuing argument in favour of the authenticity of the books of Moses. If pagan traditions are bor

rowed from the Pentateuch, instead of being derived, through the different gentile lines of Shein, Ham, and Japhet, from the circumstances themselves; however they may tend to show the antiquity of the sacred volume, they undoubtedly cease to be undesigned coincidences.

III. The narrative contained in the Pentateuch naturally divides itself into four distinct portions: the account of the creation; the history of the time which elapsed between the creation and the deluge; the description of the deluge; and the annals of certain remarkable postdiluvian events.

Upon inquiry, it will be found, that the remembrance of these circumstances has been preserved, in a very remarkable manner, by almost every nation upon the face of the earth. The same facts are related both in the east and in the west, with a singular degree of accuracy; and the variations, which occur in the several narratives, serve only to shew, that the knowledge, which was originally possessed by all the immediate descendants of Noah, has in process of time been gradually corrupted.

1. According to the sacred historian, the heavens and the earth were created in six days, by the agency of an all-wise and an all-powerful Being, who revealed himself to mankind by his incommunicable name of Jehovah. On the sixth of these days, man was formed in the spiritual image of God; his soul free even from the slightest taint of evil, and all his inclinations in perfect unison with the will of his heavenly Father. Thus holy and

thus upright, he was placed by the Deity in the garden of Paradise; and entered upon a life of immaculate purity and unmixed happiness.

2. This blissful state of innocence however was soon forfeited. Man yielded to the temptation of a malignant spirit lurking under the disguise of a serpent, and violated the express commandment of God. The sentence of death was pronounced upon him in consequence of his disobedience; though its bitterness was alleviated by the promise of a mighty Conqueror, who was destined to bruise the head of that reptile which had seduced him from the paths of holiness."

1 There is a peculiarity in the denunciation of the penalty, which deserves some notice.

Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for, IN THE DAY THAT THOU EATEST THEREOF, thou shalt surely die. Gen. ii. 17.

Such was the original denunciation: and it has been asked, how it was fulfilled; for, though Adam did undoubtedly die at length, yet, so far from dying in the day that he eat of the forbidden tree, he did not die until he had reached the age of nine hundred and thirty years.

The true answer to the question I take to be this.

In holy Scripture, the term day is used both literally and mystically. Thus, with the prophets, a day is employed to denote a year and thus, by a yet greater involution, a day of God is equivalent to a whole millenary. Psalm xc. 4. 2 Pet. iii. 8. From this ancient and well known mode of computation originated the idea, so familiar both to Jews and to Christians, that the world is to last in its state of labour six thousand years, and that then it is to enjoy a seventh millenary of holy rest. See Mede's Works, book v. c. 3. For, as it was created in six perhaps natural days, which were sue

3. The baleful workings of sin appeared with their full horror in the next generation; and human blood was shed for the first time by the hand of a brother. As mankind multiplied, wickedness likewise increased; and the advanced age, to which they attained at that period, served only to augment the general corruption. At length the avenues to divine mercy were closed; and those wretched victims of sin were sealed up in final

ceeded by a seventh sabbatical day; they argued, that it would remain six days of God, which should be succeeded by a seventh divine day of sabbatism. Now I apprehend, that the day, of which the Lord speaks to Adam, is a day of God or a thousand natural years. The prophetic denunciation therefore is, that he should die in the millenary that he eat of the forbidden fruit. This, accordingly, was accomplished; for Adam died before he had attained the age of a thousand years that is to say, he died in the course of the same great day of God wherein he had transgressed the divine command. It is further worthy of observation, that, after the fall, the life of man was confined within the limits of one of these great days of the Lord; for not a single antediluvian patriarch reached the age of a millenary: so that, through sin, he literally became an ephemeral being.

We may observe some traces of such a mode of reckoning among the Hindoos; which I suppose them to have received, though with a corrupt exaggeration, from patriarchal antiquity. A thousand divine ages, each age comprehending a stupendous number of natural years, is said to constitute only a single day of the creative Brahma. Instit. of Menu. chap. i. § 72.

On the same principle, the day of judgment, or the great day of Jehovah, must be viewed as commencing with the overthrow of Antichrist and as extending through the whole millennium. See Mede's Works. book iv. epist. 15. p. 762, 763.

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impenitence. The elements waited to receive their commands from God; and the whole world trembled upon the verge of unexpected destruction. Suddenly the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. A tremendous flood deluged the surface of the globe; and every soul perished, except the household of one pious Patriarch. Inclosed within a capacious ark, this favoured family remained secure amidst the wreck of universal nature; perfectly free from the least danger, because under the immediate protection of Omnipotence.

4. The waters at length abated; and Noah with his offspring prepared to quit the ark, in which they had been preserved. Their attention was first engaged by the cultivation of the earth and by the planting of vineyards: but the harmony of the new world was soon disturbed by the wickedness of Canaan. His unworthy treatment of his aged parent called down a curse upon his head; while the piety of Shem and Japhet procured a prophetic blessing for their posterity.

5. Unniindful of the late judgments of God, the descendants of Noah soon corrupted themselves under the conduct of Nimrod the son of Cush. With a view of laying the foundation of an universal empire and of preventing themselves from being scattered over the face of the earth, they prepared to build a city and a tower: but their im

See the history of this transaction fully discussed in my Origin of Pagan Idolatry. b. i. c. 1. § iv. 7.