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was impowered, to foretel the different fortunes of their families: for this prophecy relates not fo much to themselves, as to their pofterity, the people and nations de scended from them. He was not prompted by wine or refentment; for neither the one nor the other could infufe the knowledge of futurity, or infpire him with the prefcience of events, which happened hundreds, nay thousands of years afterwards. But God, willing to manifest his fuperintendence and government of the world, indued Noah with the spirit of prophecy, and enabled him in fome measure to disclose the purposes of his providence towards the future race of mankind. At the fame time it was fome comfort and reward to Shem and Japheth, for their reverence and tenderness to their father, to hear of the blessing and inlargement of their pofterity: and it was fome mortification and punishment to Ham, for his mockery and cruelty to his father, to hear of the malediction and fervitude of fome of his children, and that as he was a wicked fon himself, so a wicked race should fpring from him.

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This then was Noah's prophecy: and it was delivered, as (4) most of the ancient prophecies were delivered, in metre for the help of the memory. (Gen. IX. 25, 26, 27.)

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Cursed be Canaan.

A fervant of fervants shall he be unto his brethren.

Bleffed be Jehovah the God of Shem;
And Canaan shall be their fervant.

God shall inlarge Japheth.

And shall dwell in the tents of Shem,
And Canaan shall be their fervant.

TW

Canaan was the fourth fon of Ham according to the order wherein they are mentioned in the enfuing chapter. And for what reason can you believe that Canaan was fo particularly marked out for the curse? for his father Ham's tranfgreffion? But where would be the justice or equity to pass by Ham himself with the rest of his children, and to punish only Canaan for what Ham had committed? Such arbitrary proceedings are contrary to all our ideas of the divine perfections; and we may fay in this cafe what was faid in another, (Gen. XVIII. 25.) Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? The curse was so far from being pronounced upon Canaan for his father Ham's tranfgreffion, that we do not read that it was pronounced for his own, nor was executed till sfeveral hundred years after his death. The truth is, the curse is to be understood not so properly of Canaan, as of his descendents to the latest generations. It is think ing meanly of the ancient prophecies of scripture, and having very imperfect, very unworthy conceptions of them, to limit their intention to particular persons. In this view the ancient prophets would be really what the Deists think them, little better than common fortunetellers; and their prophecies would hardly be worth remembering or recording, especially in so concife and compendious a history as that of Moses. We must affix a larger meaning to them, and understand them not of fingle perfons, but of whole nations; and thereby a nobler scene of things, and a more extensive profpect will be opened to us of the divine dispensations. The curse of fervitude pronounced upon Canaan, and so likewise the promise of blessing and inlargement made to Shem and Japheth, are by no means to be confined to their own perfons, but extend to their whole race; as afterwards the prophecies concerning Ishmael, and those comcerning Efau and Jacob, and those relating to the twelve patriarchs, were not so properly verified in themselves as in their pofterity, and thither we must look for their full and perfect completion. The curse therefore upon Canaan was properly a curse upon the Canaanites. God foreseeing the wickedness of this people, (which began in their father Ham, and greatly increased in this branch of his family) commiffioned Noah to pronounce a curfe upon them, and to devote them to the fervitude and mifery, which their more common vices and iniquities would deserve. And this account was plainly written by Mofes, for the encouragement of the Ifraelites, to fupport

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support and animate them in their expedition against a people, who by their fins had forfeited the divine protection, and were destined to flavery from the days of

Noah.

We fee the purport and meaning of the prophecy, and now let us attend to the completion of it. Cursed be Canaan; and the Canaanites appear to have been an abominably wicked people. The fin and punishment of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities.. of the plain are too well known to be particularly fpecified: and for the other inhabitants of the land, which was promised to Abraham and his feed, God bore with them, till their iniquity was full. (Gen. XV. 16.) They were not only addicted to idolatry, which was then the cafe of the greater part of the world, but were guilty of the worst fort of idolatry; for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their fons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods. (Deut. XII. 31.) Their religion was bad, and their morality (if possible) was worse; for corrupt religion and corrupt morals usually generate each other, and go hand in hand together. Read the 18th and the 20th chapters of Leviticus, and you will find that unlawful marriages and unlawful lufts, witchcraft, adultery, incest, sodomy, bestiality, and the like monftrous enormities were frequent and common among them. And was not a curse in the nature of things, as well as in the just judgment of God, deservedly intailed upon fuch a people and nation as this? It was not for their own righteousness that the Lord brought the Ifraelites in to possess the land: but for the wickedness of these nations did the Lord drive them out: (Deut. IX. 4.) and he would have driven out the Ifraelites in like manner for the very fame abominations. (Levit. XVIII. 25, &c.) Defile not yourselves in any of these things; for in all these the nations are defiled which I caft out before you. And the land is defiled; therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. Ye shall therefore keep my ftatutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations-That the land spue not you out also when ye defile it, as it fpued out the nations that were before you. For whofo

ever shall commit any of these abominations, even the fouls that commit them, shall be cut off from among their people. But the curse particularly implies fervitude and fubjection. Cursed be Canaan; a servant of fervants shall he be unto his brethren. It is very well known that the word brethren in Hebrew comprehends more distant relations. The defcendents therefore of Canaan were to be fubject to the defcendents of both Shem and Japheth: and the natural confequence of vice, in communities as well as in fingle perfons, is flavery. The fame thing is repeated again and again in the two following verses, and Canaan shall be fervant to them, or their fervant; fo that this is as it were the burden of the prophecy. Some (5) critics take the phrase of fervant of fervants ftrictly and literally, and fay that the prediction was exactly fulfilled, when the Canaanites became servants to the Ifraelites, who had been fervants to the Egyptians. But this is refining too much; the phrase of (6) fervant of fervants is of the fame turn and caft as holy of holies, king of kings, fong of songs, and the like expreffions in fcripture; and imports that they should be the lowest and basest of fervants.

We cannot be certain as to the time of the delivery of this prophecy; for the history of Mofes is so concife, that it hath not gratified us in this particular. If the prophecy was delivered foon after the transactions, which immediately precede in the history, Noah's beginning to be a husbandman, and planting a vineyard, it was foon after the deluge, and then Canaan was prophefied of before he was born, as it was prophefied of Efau and Jacob (Gen. XXV. 23.) the elder shall ferve the younger, before the children were born and had done either good or evil, as St. Paul faith. (Rom. IX. 11.) If the prophecy was delivered a little before the tranf

actions, which immediately follow in the hiftory, it was a little before Noah's death, and he was inlightened in his last moments as Jacob was, to foretell what should befall his pofterity in the latter days. (Gen. XLIX. 1.) However this matter be determined, it was several centuries after the delivery of this prophecy, when the Ifraelites, who were defcendents, of Sheim, under the command of Jothua, invaded the Canaanites, fmote above thirty of their kings, took poffeffion of their land, flew feveral of the inhabitants, made the Gibeonites and others fervants and tributaries, and Solomon afterwards fubdued the reft. (2 Chron. VIII. 7, 8, 9.) As for all the people that were left of the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebuftes, which were not of Ifrael; but of their children who were left after them in the land, whom the children of Ifrael confumed not; them did Solomon make to pay tribute until this day. But of the children of Ifrael did Solomon make no fervants for his work: but they were men of war, and chief of his captains, and captains of his chariots and horsemen. The Greeks and Romans too, who were de scendents of Japheth, not only fubdued Syria and Palestine, but also pursued and conquered fuch of the Canaanites as were any where remaining, as for inftance the Tyrians and Carthaginians, the former of whom were ruined by Alexander and the Grecians, and the latter by Scipio and the Romans. "This fate," says (7) Mr. Mede, "was it that made Hannibal, a child "of Canaan, cry out with the amazement of his foul "Agnofcofortunam Carthaginis, I acknowledge the fortune "of Carthage." And ever fince the miferable remainder of this people have been flaves to a foreign yoke, first to the Saracens, who defcended from Shem, and afterwards to the Turks, who defcended from Japheth; and they groan under their dominion at this day.

Hitherto we have explained the prophecy according to the present copies of our bible: but if we were to correct the text, as we should any ancient claffic author

(7) Mede's Work's, B. 1. Difc. so. p. 284. Livy, Lib. 27. in fine.

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