have spread much fafter, had the whole world, in one body, been under the abfolute dominion of vicious, infolent, idolatrous monarchs. This would have been a ftate of things juft in the oppofite extreme to the antediluvian licentioufnefs, and would have been nearly as pernicious to virtue; as it must have funk mankind into the bafeft fervility of mind, and have stocked the earth with a mean-fpirited race of mortals, who durft not open their own eyes, make any generous ufe of their own faculties, or relish the bounty of heaven with pleasure and thankfulness. Husu yaş τ' αρίτης αποαίνυται δελιού ημας, faith Homer (Odyss. p. ver. 322.}Whatever day makes a man a flave, takes half his worth away. "Thus "I have heard, faith Longinus, Sect. XLIV. +f what I have heard in "this cafe deferve credit, that the cafes in which dwarfs are kept, not "only prevent the future growth of thofe who are enclofed in them, but "also diminish what bulk they already have, by too clofe conftriction "of their parts. So flavery, be it never fo eafy, yet is flavery ftill; and "may defervedly be called, the prifon of the foul, and the public dungeon."

66

For these wife and beneficent reafons, I prefume, the Divine Providence interpofed, and baffled the project; which, in the then circumftances of the projectors, would otherwife have been unhappily fuccefsful, by confounding and altering their language in fuch manner, as that they could not understand one another; and fo were obliged to defift from the work they had begun, to feparate into many fmaller bodies, and to feek for fettlements at a diftance from each other, as the feveral companies, by the fameness of speech, were capable of converfing together, and poffibly in the very countries which God had marked out for them.

Thus the contagion of wickednefs, for fome time at leaft, had bounds fet to it; evil example was confined, and could not stretch its influence beyond the limits of one country; nor could wicked projects be carried on with univerfal concurrence by many little colonies, feparated by the natural boundaries of mountains, rivers, deferts, feas, and hindered from affociating together by a variety of languages unintelligible to each other. And further, in this difperfed ftate, they would, whenever God pleafed, be made checks reciprocally upon each other by invafions and wars; which would weaken the power, and humble the pride of corrupt and vicious communities. This difpenfation, therefore, was properly calculated to prevent a fecond univerfal degeneracy. God therein dealing with men as rational agents, and fuiting his scheme to their prefent ftate and circumftances. This Difperfion probably happened about 240 years of the flood.

СНА Р. XXI.

Of the 1D COUNCIL of GOD; or a Criticifm upon thofe Words Let us go down, Gen. xi. 7.

A

LL allow, that the Lord's coming down to fee the City and Tower, Gen. xi. 5, is to be understood argwroтalws by way of accommodation to our conceptions; and means no more, but that by the effects, he made it appear, that he observed their motions, and knew their intentions. This is a very common, and in our present embodied ftate, a very proper way of representing the actions of Deity. But when Jehovah is reprefented as faying, Go to, let us go down, verse 7, as before, chap. i. 26, he had faid, Let us make man, &c. learned men have fuppofed, that this is to be taken literally, and that God here fpake to fome beings included in his own nature and fubftance. Whereas this alfo is a figure of fpeech, which is to be understood as the foregoing. Kings tranfact their most important affairs in a folemn council. Hence, God is pleafed to reprefent himfelf as having likewife his D or privy council. And the determinations of his Providence are defcribed, after the manner of men, as having been made in that Council, in order to exprefs the wisdom, importance, and certainty of them. Thus, and for this purpofe, Jehovah is here, and in Gen. i. 26, reprefented as fpeaking in his Council, Let us make man, let us go down, and there confound their language.

Of this Council, I apprehend, Job fpeaks, chap. xxix. 4.-when the fecret Council pa of God was upon my tabernacle; when the auguft Affembly, where God's Counfels and Decrees are paffed, was held, as it were over my habitation; and it feemed to be his peculiar care to profper me and my family. To this Council the Prophets in vifion are fuppofed to be admitted as ftanders-by, and hearers of what is there decreed, and refolved upon. Job xv. 8. yown mix man hast thou heard, or been a hearer, in the fecret Council of God. Jer. xxiii. 17, 18. They, the false prophets, say ftill unto them that defpife me, the Lord hath faid, Ye shall have peace; and they fay unto every one that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, No evil fhall come unto you. who hath flood [as a waiter, or fervant, ready to carry God's meffages to his people. So y one that ftands before the King, is properly the King's Minifter. And when Elisha faith (2 Kings, iii. 14.), as the Lord liveth, before whom I ftand, he means, whofe Minifter I am.] in the fect Council, or Affembly, of Jehovah, and hath feen and heard his word? q. d. Which of you hath been wrapt in vifion, and admitted as a ftander-by and hearer in that great Affembly, where God's Councils are held, and hath brought a meflage to his people from thence? No, you

For כי מי עמד בסוד יהוה

go

Verfe 21. I have

go prefumptuously with meffages of your own heads. not fent thefe prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophefied. Dy DN1 But if they had flood in my Council, and had caufed my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings. This connexion of the Prophets with the Council of God, may ferve to explain Jonah's fleeing from the prefence of, or from before, the Lord, Jon. i. 2. He was fent upon a frightful and dangerous meflage; but as he judged, I fuppofe, that the Council of God was held in no other land but that of Ifrael, he hoped to break off his connexion with it, by removing to a remote country among the Gentiles.

The vifion of Micaiah (1 Kings xxii. 19-24.) will fet this affair in the ftrongest light. And he faid, Hear thou the word of the Lord: I faw the Lord fitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven ftanding by him, on his right hand and on his left. And the Lord faid, Who shall perfuade Ahab, that he may go up, and fall at Ramoth Gilead? And one faid on this manner, and another on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and food before the Lord, and faid, I will perfuade him. And the Lord faid unto him, Wherewith? And he faid, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he faid, Thou shalt perfuade him, and prevail alfo: go forth and do fo. Here the Lord is fhewn in Council, after the manner of men, deliberating upon this affair. Now, whether there was any fuch real confultation is not neceffary for us to inquire. Thus it was represented in all its circumftances to the prophet, and ftampt upon his mind in vifion; and it was God who directed him to use it in this form, as appears plainly from the folemn introduction, Hear thou therefore the word of the Lord. And though it should only be a parabolical vifion, yet the drift and fubftance of it was a divine infallible truth, namely, that Ahab's prophet prophefied lies; and this by the Divine Permiffion, and the inftigation of the wicked spirit, who was a liar from the beginning, and the father of lies.

A paffage fimilar to this, is that in the book of Job, chap. i. 6. Now there was a day when the Sons of God, Angels, came to prefent themselves before the Lord, and Satan came alfo among them. And the Lord faid unto Satan, Whence comeft thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, &c. And again, chap. ii. 1, &c. Here we fee is the fame grand affembly in the cafe of Job, as in the foregoing inftance of Abab. The fame hoft of heaven, called here the Sons of God, prefenting themselves before Jehovah, as in the vifion of Micaiah they are faid to stand on his right hand and on his left. A wicked fpirit appears among them, here called Satan, an adverfary, and there a lying spirit; both of them bent on mifchief, and ready to do hurt, as far as God fhould give them leave. And the meaning in both cafes is the fame, that God in his wife providence permitted Satan to afflict Job, and the lying fpirit to deceive hab. Only Micaiah delivers his reprefentation as a Prophet, in the exercise of his office, and as he received it, that is to fay, in a vifion; I faw the Lord fitting on his throne, &c. The other [probably Job himself, who was not unacquainted with the Council of God, as we have seen], as an hiftorian, interweaves it with the history in the plain, narrative stile, There was a day, &c. The things

F 4

delivered

delivered to us by both thefe facred writers, are in fubftance the fame, equally high, and above the reach of mere human fight and knowledge. Note the representations of this kind are founded in the doctrine of Angels, good and bad, efpecially the former, as the inftruments of Providence. A point revealed, no doubt, from the beginning, and well underflood in the earlieft ages; witnefs Jacob's ladder, with the Angels of God afcending and defcending upon it. Gen. xxviii. 12.

The

Ifaiah alfo in a vifion ftood in the Council of God, chap. vi. t, &c. Where he faw the Lord fitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it flood the Seraphim, the angelic hoft, &c. matter in confultation was, verfe 7. Whom Shall I fend, and who will go upon the prophetic errand for us, ufing deliberative language, and the plural number, as in the two texts under confideration, Let us make man

Let us go down.Ifaiah readily offered his fervice, verfe 8. And the Lord delivered to him his commiffion and meffage, verse 9. And he faid, Go and tell this people, &c.

Ezekiel in the fame manner in vifion ftood in the Council of the Lord, chap. i. 1. The heavens were (i.e. the temple was) opened, and I faw vifions of God; namely, the four living creatures, or Cherubims, reprefenting the church of God attending upon the glory of the Lord, or the Shechinah, verfe 28, and feated upon a throne, verfe 26. And he faid unto Ezekiel, chap. ii. 3. Son of man, I fend thee to the children of Ifrael, &c.

Zechariah, too, chap. i. 7, 8, &c. to the end of the fixth chapter, is reprefented as converfing with the Lord in his Council, and with an Angel; though the scene is not defcribed fo diftinctly as in the other places.

John alfo in the fpirit, i. e. in a vision, Rev. i. 10, was prefent in the fame Council of God, defcribed in the 4th and 5th chapters of the Revelation, chap. iv. 1. A door was opened in heaven, in the temple; John was invited to attend, a throne was fet in heaven, with a majeftic Perfonage upon it, attended by the Cherubim, or the Church, and the Angelic Hoft. The matter, which was there very folemnly transacted, was the future ftate of the Church, to the end of the world.

This is the prophetic way of telling us how a thing was done, which really was done, but in a way to us invifible. Thus things of the greatest importance were reprefented in the ftrongest images to the mind of the Prophet; and in this way Infinite Wifdom would have them defcribed and reprefented to us. Nor fhould we quarrel with our Maker for creating us with fuch faculties as are moft affected and impreffed with truths that are conveyed in this manner; for thofe truths make the deepest impreffion which first enter like a picture into the imagination, and from thence are ftamped upon the memory.

Note Homer, previoufly to Events, reprefents the confultations of his fictitious deities in the fame narrative way, to denote, that all things are fubject to an over-ruling Providence. A method practifed long before him, and very probably derived from the truly-inspired.

I fhall only further obferve, (1.) That D is fometimes applied to worfhipping affemblies, Pfal. lxxxix. 7. cxi. 1. (2.) Sometimes it fignifies the thing that is tranfacted, commanded, or established in the

Council

Council of God. Pfal. xxv. 14. Prov. iii. 32. ftood, Amos iii. 7. The Lord God will do nothing, bis fecret Council unto his fervants the Prophets.

So it may be underbut he revealeth D

WE

CHAP. XXII.

Of the PATRIARCHAL RELIGION.

E fhould now advance to the next Divine Difpenfation, the calling of Abraham; but, before we proceed, it may be of use to gain the cleareft notions we are able of the state of Religion among the nations after the deluge.

About 425 years after the deluge, and 185 after the difperfion, the Lord faid unto Abraham, (Gen. xii. 1.) Get thee out of thy country, which was Ur of the Chaldees, (Gen. xi. 28.) and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will fhew thee. Compare this with Josh. xxiv. 2. Joshua faid unto all the people, thus faith the Lord God of Ifrael, your fathers dwelt on the other fide of the flood in Mefopotamia, beyond the river Euphrates], in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor; and they ferved other Gods; that is to fay, they were idolaters. Some learned men fuppofe, that in the days of Reu, i. e. some time before the year 370, after the deluge, the Egyptians and Babylonians began to introduce idolatrous prigciples and practices; which, from the fore-quoted place in Joshua, it is certain, crept into the family of Shem; fome, and fome of the principal of his pofterity, growing vain in their imaginations, and worshipping the heavenly bodies, with a divine, or however with an undue honour. For this fpecies of idolatry feems to have been the most ancient, as this, and no other, is mentioned in the book of Job. Chap. xxxi. 26, 27, 28. If I have beheld the fun when it fhined, or the moon walking in brightness; and my heart hath been fecretly enticed, or my mouth hath killed my hand: this alfo were an iniquity to be punished by the judge, for I should have denied the God that is above.

The worship of the heavenly bodies is fuppofed to have prevailed among the nations in the days of Mofes, Deut. iv. 19. xvii. 3. and was continued long after, 2 Kings xxi. 3, 5. xxiii. 4. Jer. xliv. 17, 19. The fplendour and great utility of the heavenly bodies would naturally ftrike the minds of mankind; and there would not then, any more than at any other time, be wanting artful men, who for their own advantage, and the honour of fuperior wifdom, would supply arguments for this idolatry, as the most effectual mean of fecuring all the enjoyments of life, and inculcate them ftrongly upon the minds of the weak and credulous, who have always been the moft numerous part of mankind. Maimonides, the learned Jew, (as quoted by AINSWORTH upon Gen. iv. 26.) supposes the advocates of this corrupt worship argued after this manner.

They