130 years old when Seth was born, and it is extremely improbable, that, after the divine blessing, "increase and multiply," Eve should have remained infertile for 126 years, the shortest period we can estimate from the birth of her second son Abel. Besides it is contrary to fact; for the first murderer in his reply to his divine judge, after his sentence, expresses his fears that "every one that findeth him should slay him," chap. iv. 14. which clearly proves, that the world was become considerably populous before the birth of Seth. By Mr. Whiston's calculation the descendants of Adam and Eve amounted at the birth of Seth to above 4000 persons. From all that is said before the birth of Seth, in Gen. iv. 25. and v. 3., we can only infer, that Seth was the first son born by Eve after the murder of Abel. Had Seth been only the third son of Adam, there would have been no occasion for setting a mark upon Cain, to prevent others from avenging Abel's death. Seth was the second of the antediluvian patriarchs, and the father of Enos. Chronologists place his birth in the year B. C. 3874. He lived 912 years. Some writers have asserted he was a great astronomer. ENOS, the son of Seth, and father of Čainan, was born B. C. 3769. Moses informs us, Gen. iv. 26. that then "men began to call upon the name of the Lord," or, as others translate it, that "Enos began to call upon the name of the Lord;" or was the inventor of religious rites and ceremonies in the external worship. This worship was kept up and preserved in Enos's family, while Cain's family was plunged in all kinds of immorality and impiety. Several Jews are of opinion, that idolatry was first introduced into the world in the time of Enos. They translate the Hebrew thus, "then men began to profane the name of the Lord." Good men, to distinguish themselves from the wicked, began to take upon them the quality of sons or servants of God, for which reason, Moses (Gen. vi. 1, 2.) says, that the sons of God, that is to say the sons of Enos, who had hitherto preserved the true religion, seeing the daughters of men, that they were fair, took them wives of all which they chose. Enos died at the age of 905; B. C. 2864.

CAINAN, the son of Enos, was born B. C. 3679, was the father of Mahalaleel in 395, and died B. C. 2769; aged 910. MAHALALEEL, son of Cainan, and father of Jared. He lived to the age of eight hundred and sixty-five years, and died B. C. 2710. The Orientals assert that this patriarch was one of the first that undertook to dig mines in the earth, for the discovery of veins of metals concealed therein; and that he built houses. They also impute to him the first founding of the cities Shuster and Babel.

JARED, the son of Mahalaleel. He became the father of Enoch at the age of one hundred and sixty-two years, and died in his nine hundred and sixty-second year. Gen. v. 18, 19.

ENOCH, the son of Jared, and father of Methuselah, was born in the year B. C. 3382. Eminently distinguished by his piety and virtue in a corrupt age, he was translated to heaven in the 365th year of his age, without undergoing the pains of dissolution. An apocryphal book, entitled "The Book of the Prophecies of Enoch," has been ascribed to this celebrated antediluvian, and is quoted, as some say, by Jude, in his Epistle, and more certainly by Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and other ancient fathers. But the book was probably forged in the second century. The Mahometans mention Enoch under the appellation of Edriss, or Idriss, and record many fables concerning him, which it is needless to mention.

METHUSELAH, son of Enoch, was born B. C. 3317, became the father of Lamech, B. C. 3230; and died B.C. 2348, aged nine hundred and sixty-nine years: the greatest age obtained by any mortal man. The rabbins pretend that Methuselah was a very learned man; that he was an hundred years at the school of his father Enoch, that he wrote several works, and pronounced to the number of three hundred and thirty proverbs, or parables.

LAMECH, son of Methuselah, and father of Noah, was an hundred and eighty-two years old at the birth of Noah; and he lived after that event five hundred and ninety-five years. His whole life was seven hundred and seventy-seven years, being born in the year of the world 874, and dying in 1651.

B. C.

PERIOD II.

FROM NOAH TO ABRAHAM.

[B. C. 2948.]

REMARKABLE FACTS, EVENTS, AND DISCOVERIES.

2349 The old world destroyed by a Deluge which continued 377 days.
2247 The Tower of Babel built by Noah's posterity, their language con-
founded, and the people dispersed into different nations.
2237 About this time, Noah is supposed to have left his rebellious off-
spring, and to have led a colony of the more tractable into the
East, where he or one of his successors founded the Chinese
monarchy.

2234 The celestial observations begun at Babylon, where learning and
the sciences first had their rise.

2188 Misraim, the son of Ham, founds the kingdom of Egypt, which lasted 1663 years. About the same time Nimrod founds that of Babylon.

2059 Ninus, the son of Belus, founds the kingdom of Assyria, which lasted above 1000 years.

For the history of men during this period, we are almost as much indebted to the Scriptures as for that of the first. Some time after the flood, we are informed, that the whole, or the greater part of the human race were assembled in Babylonia, where they erected a tower, with the absurd and impious intention of ascending to heaven. The Deity punished them by confounding their language, whence the di

vision of mankind into different nations.

In this period we have placed one character under the head of Philosophy and Literature, but his period is doubtful.

NOAH, a patriarch and prophet, son of Lamech, was born in the year B. C. 2948. In his days a general corruption of manners prevailed among the human race, but he had the fortitude to preserve himself uncontaminated by the evil eter the which surrounded him, and secured to himself the di bation by his piety and other exemplary virtues. and Canaan; perstitions. the office of a public preacher of righteously them. Ham voured, by his exhortations and admonitice, and peopled it morals of his contemporaries, and to restore welt in Egypt, but them. His efforts were of no avail, and nor Mizraim ever deeper under the dominion of vice,,theyttled in this country,

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completion of the prophecy, in the successive cau Be that as it he Greeks and Romans in Palestine and Phori m lxxviii. 54. the Canaanites were settled; but especially in th of Chemia; and of the Carthaginian power by the Romans, Psachemmis,inva sions of the northern nations, as the poster Magog, wherein many of them, probabl town or to the people away captive. The posterity of Canaan were his, a inhabitants His eldest son was Sidon, who at least founded the Nalatians seizd the city of Sidon, and was the father of the Sidonial art, in Phryshoenicians. Canaan had besides ten sons, who were the far prians, ands of so many people, dwelling in Palestine, and in part of Syner. Mich namely, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgasithrygia. the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the S in the regemarites, and

the Hamathites.

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ELAM, one of the sons of Shem, and grandsond by h of Noah, who is supposed to have settled in the southern tractinct, beyond the Tigris or Euphrates. This is inferred not only freeritm the authority of Scripture, in which the inhabitants of the said are plainly and frequently denoted by the name of Elam; but also from the testimony of heathen writers, who mention a country in this tract called Elymias, and a city of the same name. The name Elam, however, is sometimes taken in a stricter sense, as when it is distinguished from Susiana and the adjoining provinces, and sometimes in a larger sense, so as to include Susiana and other adjacent provinces. Hence Pliny and Ptolemy mention the Elymai, as a people inhabiting on the Persian gulf; and hence the prophet Daniel speaks of Shushan, the chief city of Susiana, as lying in the province of Elam, Dan. viii. 2. The Elamites were a warlike people, living by rapine, and fighting with bows and arrows, Isa. xxii. 6. Jer. xlix. 35. and they were joined to Susia, as Strabo says, and there was an ingress to them from Persia, and the Susians and Elamites are mentioned apart.

ASHUR, son of Shem, and progenitor of the Assyrians. ARAM, son of Shem, father of the Aramites, the founder of Aram.

ARPHAXAD, son of Shem and father of Salah, was born in B. C. 2346, a year after the deluge, and died B. C. 1908, at the age of 438. Gen. xi. 12, &e.

HAVILAH, son of Cush, Gen. x. 7, peopled, according to Bochart, the country where the Tigris and Euphrates reunite, and discharge themselves together into the Persian gulf. This is thought by some to be the land of Havilah, Gen. xxv. 18; 1 Sam. xv. 17, which reached as far as Shur, over against Egypt. The sons of Ishmael " dwelt from Havilah unto Shur that is before Egypt, as thou goest towards Assyria."

It is, however, to be observed, that by this Havilah, the paraphrast Jonathan on Gen. x. 29. and the Chaldee para

phrast on Chronicles, understand India. Jonathan says, that the name of the first river is Phison, which environs the whole land of India, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is excellent," by which some think to be intended India at the head I of the Indus, and not the present Hindoostan.

RAAMAH, son of Cush, peopled the country of Arabia, (whence they brought to Tyre, spices, precious stones, and gold. Calmet thinks this country to have been in Arabia Felix, at the ntrance into the Persian gulph, Gen. x. 7; Ezek. xxvii. 22. he late writer observes "the greatest probability is that it is seama, in Arabia Felix, which is described by Barthema as a

ace of considerable trade; and, as Ezekiel characterises tamah as dealing with Tyre, this seems to coincide. Niebuhr paces Rema in N. lat. 154 not far from Sanaa, and this further orroborates the conjecture that here we may place Raamah, says Michaelis."

MIDIAN, was probably the son of Cush, since Zipporah the wife of Moses, who was a Midianite, was nevertheless a Cushite, Numb. xii. 1; and since Habakkuk iii. 7. associates the Midianites with the Cushites, as if they were synonymous, or at least neighbours. This Midian peopled the country of Midian, east of the Red Sea. Into this country Moses withdrew, and there married Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, Ex. ii. 15, &c. It was these Midianites who trembled for fear, when they heard the Hebrews had passed by the Red Sea, Hab. iii. 7. Abulfeda, speaking of the city of Midian, says "Madyan is a city, in ruins, on the shore of the Red Sea, on the side opposite to Tabuc, from which it is distant about six days' journey. At Midian may be seen the famous well, where Moses watered the flocks of Schoaib, for thus the Mahometans call Jethro. This city was the capital of the tribe of Midian among the Israelites. According to Ibusaid, the bay of the Red Sea in this place, is about one hundred thousand paces wide."

It should seem as if the Orientals knew no other Midianites than those on the shore of the Red Sea, near Mount Sinai, among whom Moses took refuge.

ASHKENAZ, the eldest son of Gomer, and grandson of Japheth; said to have been the progenitor of the Germans and Phrygians.

RIPHAT, or RIPHATH, son of Gomer, and grandson of Japheth, Gen. ix. 3. In most copies he is called Diphath in 1 Chr. i. 6. The learned are not agreed about the country that was peopled by the descendants of Riphath. The most prevailing opinion is, that he peopled the Montes Riphæi; and this seems the most reasonable, because the other sons of Gomer peopled the northern countries towards Scythia, and beyond the Euxine Sea.

OPHIR, was the son of Joktan. Moses says, Gen. x. 26-30,