we think that the Bible would tell us nothing of the operations of the mind? Is there any book in the world which so clearly indicates its authors to have reflected so profoundly, and understood so well the various emotions and affections of the mind? and though they do not scholastically discuss and explain them, for they had other purposes in view, yet their frequent allusions to them give intelligible hints, which, if carefully followed out, would inform us of the judgment of inspiration on the operations. of the mind, and preserve us from the lamentable errors into which, being led by our own speculations, we have fallen.*

a

*His peculiar system led Bishop Butler into another error— namely, that it is the privilege of reason to judge of the morality of revelation.* He supposes a person first to have acquired a knowledge of God's character from the light of nature, and that he may then decide whether the revelation offered to him be worthy of this character. This opinion necessarily falls, together with the assumption that a man can discern God's character from the light of nature, independently of revelation, and which has been proved illogical and unscriptural. The writer of "Deism Revealed" expresses himself more accurately; he says, that “ person to whom God has first revealed himself is thereby qualified to judge very well whether any religion, pretending to come from God, is in itself reasonable, and worthy of God." It is the province of reason to decide upon the consistency of every subsequent revelation with the first; but the first it must take on trust from God. We are no more qualified to decide upon its morality than upon its fitness to fulfil the divine purposes. Before we can judge of the morality of anything, we must be furnished with a rule on which to form our judgment, or, in other words, we must have a revelation to guide us in our researches into subsequent revelations.

"Analogy," part ii., chap. iii., page 227.

LECTURE VII.

INCIDENTAL PROOFS OF VERACITY FROM THE PROMISE THAT NO SECOND DELUGE SHOULD OCCUR OPINIONS AS ΤΟ THE DIVISION OF THE EARTH EXAMINED THE DIFFICULTY IN THE TEXT ITSELF CONSIDERED IN WHAT THE SINS OF NIMROD AND HIS ASSOCIATES CONSISTED-THE AWFULNESS OF THEIR PUNISHMENT-THE DANGER OF SUFFERING RELIGIOUS TRUTH TO BE CORRUPTED-THE INSUFFICIENCY OF THE PATRIARCHAL RELIGION, AND THE NECESSITY FOR A NEW DISPENSATION.

"And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, with its top toward heaven; and let us make us THE NAME, before we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."-GENESIS vi. 4.

WE have now to examine the conduct of mankind after the flood, and to trace their second apostasy, until their wickedness made the patriarchal form of religion unfit for the preservation and development of the promise, and a new dispensation was required. But we shall first consider one fact recorded as having happened immediately on the descent of Noah from the ark.

In joyful gratitude for his preservation he built an altar, and offered burnt offerings upon it, of every clean beast and fowl, unto the LORD. From his acknowledged piety we might conjecture this of him, even if it were not recorded;

*

but Moses goes on to state, that the sacrifice was accepted, and God did then resolve never again to visit the earth with a curse for man's sake, nor again to destroy the whole human family with the water of a flood, because the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; from youth to age the natural tendency of man's heart is to idolatry. Moses is not content with this; he narrates that God covenanted with Noah, as representing his posterity to the end of time, and with every living creature upon earth, to fulfil this his resolve, and gave to him a token to prevent the promise from being forgotten.

This part of the history has the clearest internal evidence of its truth; it cannot but bring, to any reflecting and unprejudiced mind, conviction of the inspiration of the historian. It would have been a bold and unnatural statement for a forger; a fool could not invent it, nor would a prudent man-such as the writer of Genesis must have been-have exposed his fiction to detection, by recording a promise so entirely at variance, from reasonable deduction, from the previous parts of the history, and from his subsequent denunciation of idolatry. One

* Though.-Marg. Reading.

world had been cut off for this wickedness. Supposing him to have believed his own statement, that this had been done by the immediate interposition of God; and, farther, waiving his claim to inspiration, and considering, for the purpose of this argument, his opinion to be merely that of a pious man reflecting upon that terrible judgment, or accident, or whatever the unbelieving mind of man may call it, would he not rather have inferred from it, that like wickedness should be visited with like punishment, . and admonish his readers of the danger? Would not this course have been more natural for him, writing, as he was, for the instruction of a people whom he describes as rebellious, stiff-necked, and prone to idolatry, and himself as divinely commissioned to authorize them to destroy the Canaanites for this very crime? Would he have supplied his enemies with such apparent grounds for impeaching the truth of the history, and thereby the credibility of his own commission? Would not a pious man have hesitated to place before a rude and grossly carnal people an encouragement to forsake the worship of God, such as a promise of impunity must, in all reason, be taken to be? Moses, however, does not hesitate; he records the facts

in the simplest language; he is at no pains to justify the apparent inconsistency of this promise with his subsequent condemnation of idolatry, or with his repeated denunciations of the divine vengeance against the Israelites, should they relapse into that sin; but, as one fully convinced of the truth, and of his own divine commission, he boldly records the promise, and that in an age when idol worship and its impurities and abominations had overspread the earth, and the world was as ripe for judgment as, from the facts of his own history, it was before the flood. In fine, the narrative is inexplicable, except upon the belief of the historian's inspiration.

We now return to our subject. In the outset, a difficulty lies in our way, which it will be convenient now to remove.

An opinion has had general credence among commentators on the scriptures, that Noah settled, by divine direction, before he died, the different habitations of his children.* So universally has this been received, that it has ceased to be discussed, as a thing merely probable; it has been affirmed, as if beyond doubt, and inferences drawn from it which need

* Under this term all his immediate descendants are included.