only be answered by conjecture; and, it must be acknowledged, is more a matter of curiosity than importance. This wonderful occurrence might have happened when God made covenant with Noah-when He came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men buildedwhen He spake, which He on several occasions did, unto Abraham, who sojourned in these parts. A recurrence of this wonder may have happened during the journeyings of Jacob, when he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set, and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep. And when Jacob awaked out of his sleep, he said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not: and he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place. And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him; and when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God's host. And Jacob asked him and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob said, I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.

We should likewise remember, that the extreme longevity of those patriarchs, who were living at the time of, and immediately succeeding that extraordinary event, the universal deluge, (to mention only Noah, who was six hundred years old when he entered the ark, and survived the flood three hundred and fifty years,) enabled them to hand down by oral testimony every re

markable circumstance with which they were acquainted, either by communications from their antediluvian forefathers, or their own personal knowledge, to at least four or five generations of their immediate posterity. Taking also into the account how interesting every particular they recited must have been to the minds of their descendants-how these must have been impressed by the tremendous judgment inflicted on their progenitors; though this awful warning, instead of producing its proper effect, deprecating future judgments, by seeking to please God, stimulated

Though God spake himself to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, And, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you, and I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood, neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. Though God in gracious condescension promised a beauteous pledge in token of this covenant, moreover, saying, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations; I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud, and I will remember my covenant which is between me and you, and every living creature of all flesh, and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh; and the bow shall be in the cloud, and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh, that is upon the earth and God said, This is the token of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh, that is upon the earth. Notwithstanding the dread judgment which, from the event, had been proved to have impressed their minds with fear -notwithstanding God's blessed covenant and beautiful external evidence whereon to fix their faith, their evil hearts of unbelief

the monstrous attempt of eluding God's power and providing for their own safety by the impracticable plan recorded in their history. For they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick and burn them thoroughly, and they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar; and they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.* When we re

projected the preposterous plan we have above recorded. And they said one to another, &c. &c. &c.

Josephus's account of the Tower of Babel is as follows:"Noah had three sons, Sem, Japhet, and Cham, born one hundred years before the deluge. These first descended from the mountains into the plains, and there made their habitation, which, when other men perceived, (who for fear of the deluge had fled the plains, and for that cause were loth to forsake the mountains,) they gathered courage, and persuaded themselves to do the like: and the plain where they dwelt was called Sinaar. And whereas they were commanded by God, that (by reason of the increase and multitude of men) they should send colonies to inhabit divers countries of the world, to the end no quarrels might grow betwixt them, but contrarywise, in labouring and tilling a great quantity of ground they might gather great store of fruits; they were so ignorant that they disobeyed God, and falling into great calamities, suffered the punishment of their offence. Now, God seeing their number continually increase, He commanded them again to divide themselves into colonies; but they, forgetting that the goods which they possessed proceeded from him and his bounty, and presuming that their force was the only cause of their abundance, did not obey him, but rather suspected that God sought to betray them, to the end, that being thus divided, He might the more easily destroy them. Nimrod, the grandson of Cham, one of Noah's sons, incited them in this sort to mock and contemn God. He put them in the head that they should not believe

flect on these things, calculate the generations from Noah unto Jacob, and find them only

that their prosperity proceeded from God-but that they ought to attribute it to their own valour, which furnished them with so much riches; so that in a little space he reduced their estate to a tyranny, supposing by this only means that he might make men revolt against God, if he might persuade them to submit themselves to his government-giving them to understand, that if God should once more threaten a deluge, he would protect them against Him; and to that end, build a tower, to whose top the water should not reach, and also revenge the death of their predecessors. The stupid people gave ear to these persuasions of Nimrod, supposing it to be pusillanimity in themselves if they should obey God. For which cause they began to build the tower with their uttermost industry; neither was there any one idle in all that work; yea, so great was the number of labourers, that in a little time the work was raised to a height beyond expectation. The thickness of it was so great, that it obscured the height; and it was cemented and joined by a bituminous mortar, to the end that it might become the stronger. God, seeing their madness, yet condemned them not to a general extermination, by reason that they had made no profit by their example who had perished by the first deluge; but made them mutiny the one against another, by changing of their tongues, so that by reason of their diversity of language they could not understand one another. The place where this tower was builded is at this present called Babylon, (by reason of the confusion of tongues that first began in that place,) for Babel in Hebrew signifieth confusion. Of this tower and the diversity of languages Sybylla makes mention in these words-' At such time as men used one kind of language, they built a most high tower, as if they meant by the same to mount up unto heaven, but the gods raised winds and overthrew the tower, and sent amongst the builders distinct and several languages, whence it came to pass that the city which was afterwards built in the same place, was called Babylon.' But as touching the field of Sinaar, where Babylon stands, Hestiacus testifieth after this manner-It is said of those sacrifices who escaped from this great disorder,

twelve, there is, we think, good reason to conclude, that mankind, during these early ages, were well versed in the annals of every remarkable event preceding, and subsequent to, the vast and general deluge; and that wheresoever and whensoever that most astonishing of all events, the manifestation of God upon earth, had ever taken place, that such a fact would be indelibly fixed on the memory of posterity, and the place henceforth be set apart as hallowed and sacred.

We have already inserted Dr. Horne's remarks on the traditions and traces of the original garden,* which seem to have gone forth into all the earth; and if such traditions and traces are acknowledged to be handed down in one instance, there is certainly good ground to suppose, that traditions and traces may be handed down in others; and no event could have ever happened so likely to be transmitted to posterity as the appearance of Deity on earth, and the revered spot on which such appearance was manifested. As to keep in mind the primary great axiom is an indispensable essential to the eliciting of truth, we must again repeat, that as there is but one true and only God, there can be but one true and only religion-the worship of Him. The mode of worship must depend upon the circumstances of the worshippers. The worship of those blessed beings who have in triumph terminated their probationary states, and have been received into

that they took the sacred relics of Jupiter, the conqueror, and came into Sinaar of Babylon.'"

* Page 191.