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quainted with it, and it served to exhibit ideas of what men could not otherwise arrive at; the mode of existence, and manner of acting of the persons in Jehovah. The unity of the incomprehensible essence, is exhibited by its unity of substance; the Trinity of persons by its trinity of conditions, fire, light, and spirit, or air. Thus the heavens in its one substance, in its three conditions, shews the Unity in Trinity, and its three conditions in or of one substance, the Trinity in Unity.

Thus true philosophy was a real foundation to support and give testimony to what was revealed concerning the mode of existence, and manner of acting, in which the eternal Three were engaged by an everlasting covenant, to display and express their grace towards an innumerable company of the sinners of mankind. But men mistaking God's design, in giving them in their heavens and the three conditions, an illustrious proof of his own essence and personality; and perceiving the influence of the heavens, in and over all things in our world, worshipped the visible and material trinity, in the room and stead of the essential, incomprehensible, and uncreated Three, who bare record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. The divine economy of the eternal Three in the covenant of grace, was exhibited in the cherubim which Jehovah placed at the east of the

garden of Eden; which was the antediluvian oracle. We read not of the primary cherubim after the flood; but we read of Nimrod, the rebel, as his name imports, who is considered by some learned men, to be an apostate, who set himself against the appointed way of salvation; persecuted the children of God; and, as the be ginning of his kingdom was Babel, or Babylon, it seems probable he was at the head of those who joined in building a city, and a tower, to worship the heavens; which the Lord put a stop to, by confounding their speech, and scattering them over all the earth, so that they left off to build the city,

Reu, the son of Peleg, was born in the year of the world 1787. Serug, the son of Reu, was born in the year of the world 1819. Nahor, the son of Serug, was born in the year of the world 1849. Terah, the son of Nahor, was born in the year of the world 1878. Nahor died the year after Peleg, to shew the displeasure of God, says Dr. Lightfoot, against the idolatry which was begun in that line. Abram, the son of Terah, was born in the year of the world 2008.

We have a solemn testimony concerning the personalities in Jehovah given us, in what is recorded concerning the building the city and tower of Babel. Nimrod, being a powerful prince, had, doubtless, a great lead and influence with the people in that affair. They,

coming to the plain of Shinar, were unanimous in their speech and talk, and this plain being very delightful, they intended all to settle there. They, therefore, encouraged one another to build a city and tower, or temple, to prevent their separation; but the Lord God miraculously interposed. This was a very suitable time for Jehovah, when men were turning apostates, and setting up the worship of the material trinity, to give his elect in that age, a further evidence of his mode of existing, as Three in One and One in Three, in the essential Godhead. Hence we read, that the Lord, taking a view of what was doing by the sons of men, said, "Let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." Gen. xi. 7. Here is the language of us, which is consecrated by the Holy Ghost, as in use with the persons in the infinite essence, and used by each of them to each other, and therefore recorded in the old and new testament as pronounced by each of them. By the Father, in Gen. i. 26.—iii. 22. Here, I think, in the person of the Son, to whom all judgment is committed, John v. 22. In Isaiah vi. 8. the Holy Ghost speaks personally in the language of us; and our Lord uses it in his address to his Father, in John xvii. 21. One in the infinite and incomprehensible essence, speaks to others in the same Godhead, who must of necessity be co-equal

and co-eternal in the one incomprehensible Jehovah.

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It was the work of God to confound the language, as it was the work of God alone to bestow the gifts of divers languages on the day of Pentecost. By this confusion of speech, the people were scattered abroad upon the face of the earth. Shem's posterity, possessed Asia; Ham's descendants, Africa; Japhet's posterity, Europe. Thus Shem was witness to two most solemn and wonderful dispensations, viz. the deluge, and the dispersion at Babel. He stands on the holy line, and is stiled the father of all the children of Eber. That is, says the learned Mr. Parkhurst, the father of all those who were passengers and pilgrims, who were passing from one line to another, as the holy line were, till their settlement in Canaan, and who also when in it, confessed themselves to be strangers and pilgrims upon earth, and hereby plainly declared, that they sought a better, that is, an heavenly. According to Dr. Lightfoot, Shem lived seventyfive years after Abram came into the land of Canaan, and died six hundred years old, in the year of the world 2158. Eber, his great grandson, from whom Abraham and the jews derived the name of the Hebrews, preserved the Hebrew tongue, and with it the true knowledge and worship of God, notwithstanding the general apostacy of the times he lived in: he was the

longest liver of all born since the flood. He outlived Abraham, and died, according to Dr. Lightfoot, in the year of the world 2187, aged four hundred and sixty-four years. Abraham was the seventh generation from this great prophet and patriarch, as Enoch was from Adam. There were ten generations from the creation to the flood; and Abraham was the tenth generation from the flood. Shem lived to see Abraham's beloved son Isaac, who was fifty years old when Shem died. His long life was a blessing both to himself and them. In both these genealogies, that of Adam to Noah, and from Shem to Abram, we have the lineage of our Lord Jesus Christ, who came from them according to the flesh. In consequence of the dispersion, it seems to me, that Shem and Eber dwelt in some part of the land of Canaan, and Nahor dying, Terah lived in Mesopotamia; he and Abram lived at Ur, in Mesopotamia, when the Lord first called Abram, see Gen. xv. 7. Nahor, Terah, and it may be Abram also, were fallen into idolatry; they lived in an idolatrous country. Ur, signifies light and fire. The Chaldeans had consecrated this place to the worship of light and fire, and named it accordingly. Nimrod having raised a monarchy at Babel, or Babylon, in the land of Chaldea, continued his worship of the material trinity; and the tower built by him and his associates, which we commonly call the

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