it, and fools have believed it. Such is the language of a tribe of theists, who, while they adore a God, dare to condemn the God of Israel; and who judge of the conduct of the eternal Deity by the rules of our own imperfect morality, and erroneous justice. They admit a God, to subject him to our laws. Let us guard against such rashness; and, once again it must be repeated, let us revere what we cannot comprehend. Let us cry out, O altitudo! O the height and depth! with all our strength.

"The gods Elohim, seeing the daughters of men that they were fair, took for wives those whom they chose."

This imagination, again, may be traced in the history of every people. No nation has ever existed, unless perhaps we may except China, in which some god is not described as having had offspring from women. These corporeal gods frequently descended to visit their dominions upon earth; they saw the daughters of our race, and attached themselves to those who were most interesting and beautiful: the issue of this connection between gods and mortals must of course have been superior to other men; accordingly, Genesis informs us, that from the association it mentions, of the gods with women, sprang a race of giants.

"I will bring a deluge* of waters upon the earth." I will merely observe here that St. Augustin, in his City of God," No. 8, says, "Maximum illud diluvium Græca nec Latina novet historia:"-neither Greek nor Latin history knows anything about the great deluge. In fact, none had ever been known in Greece but those of Ducaleon and Ogyges. They are regarded as universal in the fables collected by Ovid, but are wholly unknown in eastern Asia. St. Augustin, therefore, is not mistaken, in saying that history makes no mention of this event.

"God said to Noah, I will make a covenant with you, and with your seed after you, and with all living creatures."

* See the article DELUGE.

God make a covenant with beasts! What sort of a covenant? Such is the outcry of infidels. But if he makes a covenant with man, why not with the beast? It has feeling, and there is something as divine in feeling as in the most metaphysical meditation. Besides, beasts feel more correctly than the greater part of men think. It is clearly in virtue of this treaty, that Francis d'Assise, the founder of the seraphic order, said to the grasshoppers and the hares," Pray sing, my dear sister grasshopper; pray browse, my dear brother hare." But what were the conditions of the treaty? That all animals should devour one another; that they should feed upon our flesh, and we upon theirs; that, after having eaten them, we should proceed with wrath and fury to the extermination of our own race, nothing being then wanting to crown the horrid series of butchery and cruelty but devouring our fellow-men, after having thus remorsely destroyed them. Had there been actually such a treaty as this, it could have been entered into only with the devil.

Probably the meaning of the whole passage is neither more nor less, than that God is equally the absolute master of everything that breathes. This pact can be nothing more than an order, and the word covenant is used merely as more emphatic and impressive; we should not therefore be startled and offended at the words, but adore the spirit, and direct our minds back to the period in which this book was written,- —a book of scandal to the weak, but of edification to the strong. "And I will put my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of my covenant," &c.

Observe that the author does not say, I have put my bow in the clouds; he says,-I will put: this clearly implies it to have been the prevailing opinion that there had not always been a rainbow. This phenomenon is necessarily produced by rain; yet in this place it is represented as something supernatural, exhibited in order to announce and prove that the earth should no more be inundated. It is singular to chuse the certain sign of rain, in order to assure men against their being drowned. But it may also be replied,

that in any danger of inundation, we have the cheering security of the rainbow.

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"But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of Adam had built, and he said,Behold a people which has but one language. They have begun to do this, and they will not desist until they have completed it. Come then, let us go and confound their language, that no one may understand his neighbour."*

Observe here, that the sacred writer always continues to conform to the popular opinions. He always speaks of God as of a man who endeavours to inform himself of what is passing, who is desirous of seeing with his own eyes what is going on in his dominions, who calls together his council in order to deliberate with them.

"And Abraham having divided his men (who were three hundred and eighteen in number) fell upon the five kings and pursued them unto Hoba, on the left hand of Damascus."

From the south bank of the lake of Sodom to Damascus was a distance of eighty leagues, not to mention crossing the mountains Libanus and AntiLibanus. Infidels smile and triumph at such exaggeration. But as the Lord favoured Abraham, nothing was in fact exaggerated.

"And two angels arrived at Sodom at even."

The whole history of these two angels, whom the inhabitants of Sodom wished to violate, is perhaps the most extraordinary in the records of all antiquity. But it must be considered that almost all Asia believed in the existence of the demoniacal incubus and succubus; and moreover, that these two angels were creatures more perfect than mankind, and must have possessed more beauty to stimulate their execrable tendencies. It is possible that the passage may be only meant as a rhetorical figure to express the atrocious depravity of Sodom and Gomorrah. It is not without the greatest diffidence that we suggest to the learned this solution.

See, in reference to this passage, the article BABEL.

As to Lot, who proposes to the people of Sodom the substitution of his two daughters in the room of the angels; and his wife, who was changed into a statue of salt, and all the rest of that history, what shall we venture to say? The old Arabian tale of Cinyras and Myrrha has some resemblance to the incest of Lot with his daughters; and the adventure of Philemon and Baucis is somewhat similar to the case of the two angels who appeared to Lot and his wife. With respect to the statue of salt, we know not where to find any resemblance; perhaps in the history of Orpheus and Eurydice.

Many ingenious men are of opinion, with the great Newton and the learned Le Clerc, that the Pentateuch was written by Samuel when the Jews had a little knowledge of reading and writing, and that all these histories are imitations of Syrian fables.

But it is enough that all this is in the holy scripture to induce us to reverence it, without attempting to find out in this book anything besides what is written by the holy spirit. Let us always recollect, that those times were not like our times; and let us not fail to repeat, after so many great men, that the Old Testament is a true history; and that all that has been written differing from it, by the rest of the world, is fabulous.

Some critics have contended, that all the incredible passages in the canonical books, which scandalise weak minds, ought to be suppressed; but it has been observed in answer, that those critics had bad hearts, and ought to be burnt at the stake; and that it is impossible to be a good man without believing that the people of Sodom wanted to violate two angels. Such is the reasoning of a species of monsters who wish to lord it over the understandings of mankind.

It is true, that many eminent fathers of the church have had the prudence to turn all these histories into allegories, after the example of the Jews, and particularly of Philo. The popes, more discreet, have endeavoured to prevent the translation of these books into

the vulgar tongue, lest some men should in consequence be led to think and judge, about what was proposed to them only to adore.

We are certainly justified in concluding hence, that those who thoroughly understand this book should tolerate those who do not understand it at all; for if the latter understand nothing of it, it is not their own fault: on the other hand, those who comprehend nothing that it contains should tolerate those who comprehend everything in it.

Learned and ingenious men, full of their own talents and acquirements, have maintained that it is impossible Moses could have written the book of Genesis. One of their principal reasons is, that in the history of Abraham, that patriarch is stated to have paid for a cave he purchased for the interment of his wife in silver coin, and the king of Gerar to have given Sarah a thousand pieces of silver when he restored her, after having carried her off for her beauty at the age of seventy-five. They inform us, that they have consulted all the ancient authors, and that it appears very certain that at the period mentioned, silver money was not in existence. But these are evidently mere cavils, as the church has always firmly believed Moses to have been the author of the Pentateuch. They strengthen all the doubts suggested by Aben-Ezra and Baruch Spinoza. The physician Astruc, father-in-law of the comptrollergeneral Silhouette, in his book (now become very scarce) called "Conjectures on the Book of Genesis," adds some objections, inexplicable undoubtedly to human learning, but not so to a humble and submissive piety. The learned, many of them, contradict every line, but the devout consider every line sacred. Let us dread falling into the misfortune of believing and trusting to our reason; but let us bring ourselves into subjection in understanding as well as in heart.*

"And Abraham said that Sarah was his sister, and the King of Gerar took her for himself."

We admit, as we have said under the article ABRA

* See the article MOSES.