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though never fo fertile, yet the evil would be very great upon their great increafe; becaufe the heads of the tribes would be obliged to lead their feveral people almost the fame way for fome confiderable time; and every body knows that the more remote the divifions and fubdivifions of any families are become, the more the reciprocal affection which their fathers had for each other, while under one head, is alienated to their own defcendents; and consequently their feveral views and interefts, now becoming feparate and selfish, would inevitably prove the causes of diffenfions and quarrels, and lead them to destroy one another; which was by no means the design of God ALMIGHTY, who was pleafed to direct Noah in every particular that was necessary to repeople the world, and to preserve them too, in their feveral generations, till they grew fo numerous upon the earth, as to be able to lofe, from time to time, armies of men, according as pride, ambition and tyranny prompted their chiefs to distress and rob their neighbours, and particularly till the great scene of our redemption fhould be brought about.

WHAT an amazing economy is moft manifeftly opened in this whole tranfaction? Here is that great scene of wisdom, and love to mankind; of wisdom, in that fitness and propriety in the ordination of all that could be convenient and requifite for their fafety; of love, in mercifully continuing the race of mankind through that most miraculous catastrophe, the deluge.

HAVING thus fettled Noah and his family in the plains near Mount Ararat in Armenia, we are now to follow them in their fettlements and migrations; taking a short

view of the parts into which Shem and Ham paffed, as we go along; and then pursuing Japhet and his family as far as any intelligence can be had of them, till we find them in their laft receffes; for it is in this line only we hope to find the refidence of the Gomerian and Magogian languages, as yet in almost their original state.

THE Various opinions and diffentions of authors concerning the locality and other circumstances relating to the fettlements, fhall in no wife affect or influence me; for it is easy to difcern, in wading through them, that many have invented their own opinions, and endeavoured: to misplace the names, and even change them; which are so plainly set down in the records of Holy Writ; building their whole structure upon the most uncertain foundation in the world, that of fuppofition. But how fhort foever the Mofaic account may be thought, it contains fufficient matter to begin upon, and then to strike out from it fuch conclufions, as will preferve. the chain of truth without writhing or distorting the subject with forced arguments. I fhall therefore, in this brief account of the matter, adhere to the Scripture history for my support, and follow fuch others as have not relied upon falfe traditions and conjectures, which, to men of common understanding,. must appear idle and childish in the last degree, when they come to be examined impartially; and the incidents and connections belonging to them, thoroughly weighed and .: confidered.

In the eleventh chapter of Genefis, after the account: laid down in the former chapter, of Noah, his fons and grandfons, the fecond verfe has thefe words: "And it

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came to pafs, as they journeyed from the East, that "they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they "dwelt there." It has been faid in a very noble history, a work of great labour and judgment, that, "after the "death of Noah, his fons, Shem, Ham and Japhet, thought fit to remove, with their families, from the "plains near Ararat, where we suppose they till then " continued, and, as the text has it, dwelt there." This may be true of Noah and his three fons, Shem, Ham and Japhet, and of their younger children; but not of their eldest, mentioned by Mofes, who will appear from good authority to have established kingdoms and governments, in Europe, Afia and Africa, long before Noah died: for he lived 350 years after the flood; and the building of Babel and confufion of tongues are faid, by fome, to have happened in the year 101 of the flood, and confequently Nimrod, the grandfon of Ham, with his tribes, which were very numerous, went off from those Armenian plains to Shinar, and there established his kingdom; for in Genefis, the tenth chapter, verfe 3, it is faid, "And Cub begat Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one in the "earth: he was a mighty hunter before the Lord; "wherefore it is faid, even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter "before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom "was Babel, and Erech, and Aecad, and Caluch in the "land of Shinar. And that out of that land he went “ forth to Assyria, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Rhefen between Nineveh and "Calah: the fame is a great city."

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who journeyed to the plains of Shinar, which were only the defcendants of Cush, the father of Nimrod; though Afhur is said to have gone and builded the city of Nineveh, with the others mentioned in the text: which Aur was one of the fons of Shem, who perhaps was blended by marriage, or other connections, with his relations, the fons of Ham; unlefs it can be fhewn that there was one of that name in Ham's defcendants, as well as Shem's fon. But I do not intend entering into the controversy, whether Afbur did really go away from his kinfman, Nimrod, to build Nineveh and the other cities mentioned; whether it was Nimrod himself who built them. It is nothing to my purpose who it was, though it was a fubject which bishop Cumberland took fome pains to unravel; I own I could not but think it was fomething particular, that Mofes fhould bring in Afpur into his account of Ham's iffue, because he was very ftrict in giving fuch relations of Japhet and Shem in their own places; and indeed I am of opinion, that Noah, who was fo much difgusted at his son Ham as to curfe him, would not permit the children of his other fons, whom he bleffed, to have any communication with his children; and therefore I am inclined to think, with the learned bishop, that the marginal translation in our Bibles is the right one; that in the text being," and Afbur went out from that land " and built Nineveh, &c." that in the margin: "and he [Nimrod] went out of that land into Affyria;" for Afbur generally in Scripture fignifies the Affyrian, excepting only. in the genealogies: for fupport of which, our most learned author brings many authentic teftimonies....

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FROM the above confiderations, does it not naturally follow that Noah and thofe more immediately allied to him remained ftill in Armenia, whilft the elder grandchildren and their iffue were filing off on every fide to take poffeffion of new lands for their own establishments? which fhall be fhewn with respect to the iffue of Shem and Japhet, as well as this of Ham; and even this was but the offspring of one of his fons, Cush. Now this opinion is founded upon the following reason, which I cannot but think unanfwerable: fince we fee from Scripture that Nimrod became a mighty man, or a monarch, *or having the chief rule over his followers; fure it would be a very unseemly fuggeftion, that either his great grandfather Noah, his grandfather Ham, or his father Cush should go with him to Shinar to be his fubje&s, when Nimrod alone is clearly faid to be the mighty man in the earth. No, rather let us take up a more natural conclufion that when the elder grandsons of Noah had produced a great progeny, and migrated off to all the parts round about the plains of Armenia every way, the younger children of these patriarchs were kept ftill at home under the care of their fathers, till they were capable, with their offspring alfo, of having new quarters allotted them; for we know thefe patriarchs lived many years after begetting their firft, and continued to beget fons and daughters. Nor is it in any wife probable, that after one hundred years, wherein an innumerable offspring muft have been produced, there was any neceflity, in the nature of the thing, for every individual of the feed of Noah to be prefent at the confufion of tongues; or that

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