ever, although commenced under such favorable circumstances, does not yet conduct to the manifestation of salvation; it is interrupted by the renewed degeneracy of man, and, therefore, needs a new commencement, according to a modified plan. For the fruit which it brings forth is not divine salvation, but ungodly heathenism. The unity of the human race, which had re-appeared after the deluge with renewed vigor, and which could have powerfully promoted and accelerated the development contemplated by God, proves to be the source of actions offensive to God; it becomes necessary to terminate the unity and union of the race ( 20), which threaten to frustrate the great plan of God, and commence anew.

§ 19. The Sons of Noah.

Gen. 9: 18-29.- Noah began to be a husbandman, and he planted a vineyard. And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. Ham, his youngest son, mocked him, but Shem and Japheth, with averted faces, covered their father. This unsightly transaction reveals the personal character and natural tendency of each of the sons of Noah; and, since generation is a communication of being, these characteristics are further unfolded in their descendants. Hence, when Noah, after he awoke, knew all that had been done, he prophetically pronounces a blessing and a curse, containing a history of the world in the germ. "Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant."

OBS.- Noah's prophetic contemplation is influenced by the wickedness of Ham, and the filial piety of the brethren of the latter; hence he regards the bright aspects alone presented by the development of Shem and Japheth, and the dark aspects alone in that of Ham. — Jehovah, the God of salvation, who forms and executes the counsel of salvation (? 3, Obs.), is the God of Shem; he is the chosen one of Jehovah; the promised salvation of mankind shall proceed from the family of Shem, and not from those of Japheth and Ham. Japheth shall be enlarged and dwell in the tents of Shem; that is, the descendants of Japheth shall be received as participants of the salvation proceeding from Shem. Canaan was the youngest son of Ham;

thus Ham receives, in his own youngest son, the recompense for the wicked conduct of which he himself, the youngest son of Noah, had been guilty. The curse of temporal and spiritual bondage lies on his house; and while a curse and evil are announced in place of a blessing and salvation, it is not yet revealed to him that his descendants can and shall be hereafter made free in Christ from all bondage, and that, in Christ, the curse which long and heavily oppressed them, since the days of their ancestors, shall terminate. That the bright aspects of their development will assuredly be manifested, even if the time be distant, we already learn from the words: "Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God." (Ps. 68: 31.)

§ 20. The Confusion of Tongues, and the Dispersion of Mankind.

1 Gen. ch. 11.. -The descendants of Noah proceeded from Armenia in an eastern direction, and dwelt in a plain in the land of Shinar, between the Euphrates and the Tigris. Anticipating that an excess of population would ultimately render their dispersion necessary, they propose to establish a central point of union, to ascend, with Titanian arrogance, to the clouds, and, by a combination of all their strength, to defy Him who dwells in heaven. "Go to," they say, "let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name." (See Gen. 12: 2, "name," Hebr. Shem.) Hitherto, the whole earth had been of one language and of one speech — the necessary condition of united action. This bond was broken; the Lord came down and confounded their language, so that they left off to build the city; on this account, it received the name of Babel, (that is, confusion). As their union had been perverted, the Lord scatters them abroad. Henceforth, the nations walk in their own ways (Acts 14: 16) until they meet again on Golgotha before the despised cross, the reverse of the proud tower-until the Lord again comes down, and, on the day of Pentecost, re-unites by his Spirit the divided tongues in one. But Babel is a type of all that is ungodly and anti-Christian a type of the maturity which evil must hereafter reach. (See § 15. 2, OBS. and § 196.)

OBS. 1.—When the words were spoken: "Go to, let us build," &c., the hour of the birth of heathenism arrived. For heathenism

essentially consists, on the one hand, in a denial of the living and personal God, and contempt of the salvation which he had predetermined to bestow — and, on the other, in the opinion of man that he can and must aid himself by his own power and wisdom, and, consequently, in the effort to set forth salvation by his own means. This tendency became visible and recognizable in the attempt of the builders of the tower, and then a development commenced, which, as it is unable to reach the mark set before it, can, and ought to, terminate only in a total failure, in loss of confidence in itself, and in despair. (See 120. 1.)

OBS. 2.-The temple of Belus in Babylon, described by Herodotus I. 181, and Strabo, 16. 1., is generally considered as a later completion of this unsuccessful plan of building. A mass of ruins on the west bank of the Euphrates, of more than 2000 feet in extent, which the Arabs call Birs Nimrud (Nimrod's tower), constitutes, according to tradition, the remains of the tower of Babel.

2 Gen. ch. 10.—Japheth originally proceeded in a northerly direction agreeably to the paternal blessing which had predicted his enlargement, his descendants, who form the active element in history, peopled Northern Asia, and the whole of Europe: even in our own day the influence of that blessing, "God shall enlarge Japheth," is seen in the tendency of these descendants to establish colonies in new regions. Ham proceeded towards the south; the heat of the mid-day sun corresponded alike to his name (Ham, warmth, heat) and to the ardor of his disposition; his descendants occupied the southern peninsulas of Asia, India, Arabia, and the whole of Africa. The race of Shem, constituting the stable element in history, was established in Central Asia, and extended both in an easterly and in a westerly direction. The promised line is seen in this family, which again presents in one period or division an aggregate of ten generations: Shem, Arphaxad, Salah, Eber, Peleg, Reu, Serug, Nahor, Terah and Abraham. But, towards the close of this period, corruption appears even in the line of promise, for Terah, the father of Abraham, already served other gods (Joshua 24 : 2, 14).

OBS. 1.-The time in which the events narrated above, occurred, is indicated in Gen. 10: 25; it is there stated that the great-greatgrandson of Shem received his name Peleg (that is, division) from the fact that in his days the earth was divided. (Others, applying

the term to a physical change, suppose that an abruption or division of the several continents is implied.) — Further details respecting the dispersion and extension of mankind are found in the Mosaic table of nations, which, like a vast genealogical map of the world, exhibits the manner wherein the descendants of Noah established themselves in the regions east of the Mediterranean Sea.- The first government characterized by the culture and power to which it attained, was founded by Nimrod, the Hamite, in the land of Shinar. (Gen. 10: 10.)

OBS. 2.- The confusion of tongues and the consequent dispersion of nations, like the fall of man and the union of the sons of God with the daughters of men in a former period, constituted a crisis in the history of man. For the development which God had appointed is again perverted, arrested and ruined; hence it became necessary that a new period in the events which prepared the way for the promised salvation, should commence. In the natural world, diversities of climate originated in the deluge; the confusion of tongues, combining its influence to a certain degree with that of climate, now led to many distinctions among men, which are perceptible in their respective races, national peculiarities, languages and religious (mythological) systems.

OBS. 3.-The table of nations (Gen. ch. 10), which may seem to be uninteresting and useless, is, nevertheless, very significant in this connection. For at this point, when Sacred History allows the n2tions from which it is turning away, to walk in their own ways, the preservation of their names implies that not one of them shall be ultimately lost to it, or be forgotten by the counsel of eternal love.— This table, besides, exposes the fallacies of the mythical genealogies of pagans, contradicts their fables respecting gods, heroes and periods of millions of years, and also affords a firm foundation for investigations concerning the origin and the traditions of nations.

CHAPTER III.

FROM THE CALLING OF ABRAHAM TO THE BIRTH OF CHRIST.

(2083-4225, after the Creation of Man.)

§ 21. General View.*

1. In consequence of the perversity of men, the manifestation of salvation could not take place during the two preparatory periods (described in the two preceding chapters), which were designed to lead to it. God does not, however, abandon his counsel of redemption, but commences his gracious operations anew. In each of the two former periods the whole race of man was appointed to sustain the development of salvation, for in each the whole race could trace its origin to the same head (Adam and Noah). We now perceive mankind unfolded as a multitude, and no longer characterized by unity; all are now alienated, indeed, from the divine counsel of redemption, but they are not destroyed by a new judgment extending over the whole earth; they are, on the contrary, reserved unto salvation, and can and shall be restored (§ 18. OBS.). If they have become incapable of sustaining a part in the preparation of salvation, they can, at least, be made capable of accepting salvation at a subsequent period, when it is manifested in its completion. Hence, the preparation of it which now. commences anew, necessarily assumes the character of Particularism [that is, a special relation between God and a chosen people]; it is the appointed task of the development of Paganism to awaken the feeling of a need of salvation and lead to a susceptibility of it; while, on the contrary, it is the appointed task of Judaism to manifest that salvation itself. God chooses one man, and intrusts to him and to his descendants the care of the sacred deposit.

* See the [author's] treatise, entitled: "Land und Volk Israel," in the Christoterpe for the year 1853.