nument or even probable tradition of nations planted, empires and states raised, laws enacted, cities built, navigation improved, commerce encouraged, arts invented, or letters contrived, above twelve, or at most fifteen or sixteen centuries, before the birth of Christ." It has been fully proved that in regard to all pagan nations authentic history begins only a few centuries before the Christian era; the ages preceding being clouded by fable.

3. (II.) The Mosaic account of the deluge is corroborated by the origin and progress of the arts and sciences. The history of these clearly proves that they were only in their infancy at a period long subsequent to the flood. Though Egypt has been considered to be the mother of the arts and sciences, there is no evidence to show that they had made great progress in the days of Moses, or even in a much later age. We might be apt to conclude from the mention of physicians in the end of the book of Genesis, that the medical art had attained to a consider. able degree of cultivation; but the persons alluded to as physicians were mere embalmers of the dead; and were held in low estimation by the Egyptians. That people, as Shuckford remarks, could have had no such physicians in the days of Moses as Diodorus and Herodotus seem to suppose it is much more probable that long after these times they were, like the Babylonians, entirely destitute of persons skilful in curing any diseases that might happen among them; and that the best method they could think of, after consulting their oracles, was, when any one was sick, that as many persons should see and speak to him as possibly could; so that if any one who saw the sick person had had the like distemper, he might say what was proper to be done in that condition. Few vestiges have been transmitted to us of the skill of the Egyptians in the arts and sciences. Dr Halley has shown that their earliest astronomical observations are those performed by the Greeks of Alexandria, less than three hundred years be fore Christ.

4. With regard to Greece and Rome, all are acquainted with their history; all know that though they rose to the highest distinction in the arts, and in the attainments of science, it was at a period comparatively recent. The researches of learned men have fully shown how groundless the pretensions of the Chinese are to an antiquity inconsistent with the truth of the sacred history. They are still but children in regard to knowledge, and retain many of the attributes of a rude and barbarous people. Even the Hindoos, perhaps the most anciently civilized people on the face of the earth, and who have least deviated from their originally established forms, have unfortunately no history. Among an infinite number of books of mystical theology and abstruse metaphysics, they do not possess a single volume that is capable of affording any distinct account of their origin. In short, the more the history of nations is closely studied, the stronger is the confirmation which it affords of the truth of the account which Moses gives of what may be styled the second origin of the human race after the destruction of the antediluvian world.

5. (III.) This is further and fully corroborated by the traditionary testimony of all nations. The traditions of the deluge, as preserved in ancient and in modern times, and in all quarters of the globe, are given at length by Mr Faber in his Hora Mosaicæ. The evidence which is thence derived is the stronger as it proceeds from tribes and nations widely separated from each other, and who were unconscious, at least in many instances, of the value of the testimony which they were instrumental in conveying.

6. Similar traditions to those which obtained among the Greeks and Romans have prevailed among the Persians, the Hindoos, Burmans, Chinese, Mexicans, Peru-. vians, Brazilians, and the inhabitants of the South Sea islands. In reference to the opinions which obtain among the latter in regard to the deluge, Mr Ellis, in his

Polynesian Researches, remarks, "I have frequently conversed with the people on the subject both in the northern and southern groups, but could never learn that they had any accounts of the windows of heaven having been opened, or the rain having descended. The anger of the god is considered as the cause of the inundation of the world, and the destruction of its inhabitants. The element employed in effecting it is the same as that mentioned in the Bible; and in the Tahitian tradition, the boat or canoe being used as the means of safety to the favoured family, and the preservation of the only domestic animals found on the islands, appear corrupted fragments of the memorial of Noah, the ark, and its inmates. These, with other minor points of coincidence between the native traditions and the Mosaic account of the deluge, are striking, and warrant the inference, that, although the former are deficient in many particulars, and have much that is fabulous in their composition, they yet refer to the same event. The memorial of a universal deluge found among all nations existing in those communities by which civilisation, literature, science, and the arts have been carried to the highest perfection, as well as among the most untutored and barbarous, preserved through all the migrations and vicissitudes of the human family from the remote antiquity of its occurrence to the present time, is a most decisive evidence of the authenticity of revelation. The brief yet satisfactory testimony to this event preserved in the oral traditions of a people secluded for ages from intercourse with other parts of the world, forms a strong proof that the Scripture record is irrefragable."

7. "Is it possible," says M. Cuvier, "that mere accident should afford so striking a result as to unite the traditional origin of the Assyrian, Indian, and Chinese monarchies to the same epoch of about 4000 years from the present time? Could the ideas of nations who possessed almost no mutual affinities, whose language, reli

gion, and laws had nothing in common-could they conspire to one point did not truth bring them together?"

CHAPTER V.

THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION FARTHER

PROVED.

1. We shall now proceed to consider how far the events which took place after the deluge are confirmed by ancient history and traditionary testimony. It is obvious that the transactions related in the Pentateuch, and which approach nearer to the time of the deluge, because they affect more or less the ancestors of all nations, should be better known by tradition to the Gentiles than those detailed in the other historical books of Scripture, and which concerned merely the Israelites and the kingdoms situated immediately on their frontiers.

2. We might, however, expect that a traditionary account would be preserved of every remarkable event that took place before the dispersion of mankind. A considerable period after the flood, the sacred historian informs us that the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. As the descendants of one common family, they spoke of course the same language in common. "And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the

children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do. Let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel: because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.”

3. From this statement we learn that the family of mankind, or a considerable portion of it, settled in the plain of Shinar, that is, the country around the city which was afterwards called Babylon; that they formed the resolution of erecting a city and an exceedingly high tower; and that as the plain which they had selected contained no stone, they proceeded to carry their purpose into execution by burning clay into bricks, and mingling them with the bitumen with which that region abounds. There is no probability in the notion that they designed this vast building to secure them against a future deluge; on the contrary, the chief object of their leaders seems to have been the acquisition of renown. But as it was the purpose of God that mankind should replenish the earth; and that for this end they should be divided into different nations, and inhabit different countries, he interposed in the present instance to frustrate their design, and to force them to the separation by which his will should be. accomplished. He confounded their language that they understood not one another's speech.

4. Various opinions have been entertained regarding the nature and extent of the confusion of tongues. Some have thought that by this we are merely to understand such a difference of sentiments, and dividing of their counsels, as led to quarrelling and separation. But the variety of languages that has ever since prevailed on the earth tends to prove that by divine interposition their