66 denote his glory. Ezekiel and St. John saw it alike, encircling the heavenly throne, and Him that sat upon it: as the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord."* "There was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald." The emblem of God's glory, is the emblem also of his mercy. While the earth remaineth, he grants unto us the seed-time of grace, and allows the harvest of repentance: may we, through faith and love, such as his Spirit breathes into the soul, embrace his offered favour, and clinging to the refuge which Christ's church affords us, be found at the last day righteous through his righteousness, and ascribing our salvation to the longsuffering of the Lord! CHAP. VI. THE DISPERSION. WHEN the surface of the earth, having become dry after the wasting deluge, was again fitted for the habitation of men, it is evident that nothing could be more desirable for their temporal well-being than the rapid increase of their numbers. With a boundless extent of fertile land before them, every child born in the family of Noah became a direct accession to the means of rendering it productive: the necessity of that prudential forethought was then unknown, which in the present day operates as a discouragement to early marriage, making it impera* Ezek. i. 28. + Rev. iv. 3. tive upon every man to consider well before he enters into that state, in what manner he is likely to be able to bring up a family, and to provide for it in after-life. The sons of Noah were not required to entertain any such anxious misgivings as to the future condition of their children; acting under a direct command* of God, secured by his promise of preservation from another deluge, they became respectively the heads of those vast families, by whom the nations were divided in the earth after the flood. Noah himself set them an example of industry, wherefrom they might learn the use to which they might put their still increasing numbers: he began to be a husbandman, and they doubtless all of them, at least in the first instance, attached themselves to the same pursuit. They ate and drank, and enjoyed the good of their labour: the profit of the earth was for them all : they were comforted concerning their work and the toil of their hands, because of the ground which the Lord had cursed. Such was the general effect of God's blessing upon them-it tended to promote the wise designs of his providence, and their own temporal welfare; it did not, however, affect their dispositions, or secure them against the temptations to which the flesh is liable. Even in these primitive patriarchs we find manifest signs of imperfection-we see no pattern that we can follow throughout, till in the fulness of time One came among us who did no sin, leaving us a complete example of every excellence, that we should follow his steps through grace here, and be like him hereafter in his kingdom in heaven. Among the improvements in cultivation which Noah undertook was the planting of a vineyard, and the making wine of its grapes-wine, which, used in moderation, maketh glad the heart of man, giving + Eccles. iii. 13; v. 9. * Gen. ix. 1. * Gen. v. 29. him strength of body and elevation of mind; but which as surely, if indulged in to excess, clouds his brain, and deadens his faculties, and renders him weaker than a child—a pitiable, contemptible, brutish object, lost to all exercise of reason and all sense of decency, as Noah found, who drank of it in this manner and was drunken,* and was uncovered within his tent. Hitherto we have looked on this distinguished patriarch as an object of the highest respect and reverence; alas! how fallen do we find him now; how low does he lie, exposed to the derision of his own child! Ham, the father of Canaan,"+ (informed probably by his son, who had first discovered it,) saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without," taking, as it should seem, a wicked pleasure in thus making as public as possible his father's shame. But Shem and Japheth, the other two sons of Noah, had a better sense of duty implanted in their breasts. They hastened, not to look upon the revolting scene, but to conceal it from the eyes of others: they took a garment and went 66 66 backward, and covered their father; and Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son," (that is, probably, his grandson, who was the first witness of his exposure,)" had done unto him:" and, with returning reason, the spirit of prophecy came upon his soul, and he looked forward into future ages, and foretold the fate of his descendants, with reference to their conduct on that day. "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." The fulfilment of this prophecy will be more clearly seen, when we look at * Gen. ix. 21. + Gen. ix. 22-27. the different nations which descended from the persons here mentioned, in which, not in the individuals themselves, it appears to have had its completion. Why Ham, who seems to have been the principal offender, is passed over in silence, cannot certainly be known. The conjecture seems highly probable, that Canaan in the first instance discovered Noah's condition, and perhaps seduced his father to treat him as he did and if Canaan was Ham's favourite child, he might possibly be sufficiently punished by the knowledge of the future degradation denounced against this portion of his race. For men, who, as in those times, looked for the future Deliverer of mankind to arise each out of his own family, felt any thing calculated to affect the fortunes of that family much more acutely than it is possible for us to feel at the present day; and as they could not suppose it likely that he would arise out of a race, like Canaan's, devoted to servitude, the curse would prove a bitter mortification to Ham, as well as to his son. For some time after this event, however, the families of the three brethren remained undivided in the neighbourhood of their common ancestor; nor was it until after his death, and those of his three immediate children, that any inclination for a change of place appears to have possessed their minds. Then, it seems, they left the mountainous regions in which they had at first been settled, and travelled till they found a place in the land of Shinar, the appearance of which, it being of a most rich and fertile description, tempted them to fix their habitation within it. I am aware that, according to the dates of the lives of the patriarchs found in our present copies of the Hebrew Bible, this event must have happened long before the death of Noah, and still longer before that of Shem his son, who was living so late as the time of Abraham. A great majority, however, of the learned persons who have studied the subject, have, in this instance, given the preference to that system of dates which is to be found in the ancient Greek translation, and which places the birth of Peleg, when the earth is said to have been divided, a hundred and eighty-one years after the death of Noah, and twentynine after that of Shem. Neither is it without the sanction of Holy Writ, for Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the years of whose life it mentions, and who is not found in the Hebrew copies, has been admitted by St. Luke* into his genealogy of Christ. I shall therefore not hesitate to follow it, in supposing that Noah had slept with his fathers before this great migration of his descendants; who would hardly have ventured in the lifetime of that patriarch to have set about so foolish and impious a design, as that of building a tower in the plain of Shinar, whose top should reach unto heaven. The plan in all probability originated with Nimrod, the son of Cush, whose daring genius appears to have acquired him an ascendency over the families of Shem and Japheth : he began to be a mighty one in the earth, and the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, in the land of Shinar. His object being an absolute dominion over all the sons of Noah, who were then occupying that land, would of course have been frustrated by their dispersion; and therefore the proposal to build a city and a tower, and to make them a name, lest they should be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth, was an artful device to retain them under his power. But what are the most ingenious contrivances of men, when they oppose themselves to the purposes of God? they are all vanity-mere "wind and confusion." The Most High determined to separate the sons of Adam,‡ and to divide to the |