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ries; and by them have been transmitted down to their descendants. There is no physical reason why Ireland should not have been inhabited before the flood. It no where appears to have been a post-diluvian discovery that Ireland existed. On the contrary, the allotment of the isles of the Gentiles to Japhet, appears to have been the effect of ante diluvian knowledge. Many and various relicts of former habitations must, in the supposition of its ante-diluvian population, have remained visible after the waters had subsided: it might consequently have appeared to the first post-diluvian colonists, that the island had been formerly inhabited. These appearances would verify the tradition, which they must have brought with them from the mother country: Nor can it indeed be presumed, that an island so distant from Asia, which was the cradle of the human race, should in such early times have been a chance discovery of adventurers and explorers of lands unknown.

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It appears essential to the intellectual perfection, in Mere origi which God created Adam, that his knowledge should tion of have extended beyond his eye sight; that he should mind and have possessed full and correct geographical knowledge of that earth, which the Lord had created for him and his posterity. The gradual occupation of the globe by our ante-diluvian ancestors could not have been the chance wandering of the parents or

* The observation of Mr. Davies, which has been before referred to, is pointedly relevant to this hypothesis. Spain, and even Britain, were probably colonized by those who were born within a century of the deluge.

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children as their curiosity or conveniency prompted, but was probably effected by the common parents allotting different and distant regions to the heads of different families, as his inspired knowledge suggested for the more speedily peopling the whole surface of the globe.

How know- It must be presumed, that the knowledge, which mitted from Adam had received by divine inspiration, was carefully communicated to his children; that by them it was transmitted to their successive posterity; that it was concentrated in Noah and his sons; that after the deluge it became in like manner diffused through, and transmitted by their respective descendants to future and remote generations. The Irish annals scarcely disagree from the Mosaic accounts of the space of time, which intervened between the deluge and the confusion of tongues, viz. 145 years.*

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The short and simple account given of this wonderful period, by the sacred penman, is beyond example comprehensive and instructive. Gen. xi. v. 6. " And the Lord said; Behold the people is one, and they have all one language: and this they begin to do and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech and so the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel, because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth, and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth." What words could more distinctly connect the scattering over all the earth, with the confusion of the one or common language. This seems not to import an inspiration of as many new languages, as there were human individuals then existing, which would have

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If we particularize the general report of the sacred Allotment text, and if by dropping the imposing glare and awe amongst of great antiquity, we bring the circumstances within cendants of the familiar judgment of our daily conceptions, itthree sons. will clearly appear, that this allotment or distribution of all the earth amongst certain families could only have been made by those, who claimed the paramount right of ownership over the whole: these were Noah and his three sons, upon whom by divine preservation from the deluge, the proprietorship of the restored earth naturally devolved. As the hand of providence had with a special and supernatural manner interposed to give to each family their own tongue, or a new dialect, these patriarchs, perceiving their descendants thus separated by language into distinct communities, judged it wise and necessary to allot them separate portions of the earth, in which to live apart from each other, and to preserve them from confusion, strife, and contention for property. As this

rendered language perfectly useless for all the purposes of social intercourse. Nor was it, as it seems, an extinction of the original tongue, but such a modification or dialect of it, as to render it immediately unintelligible to the retainers of the old, or the acquirers of the different new dialects: this only can be termed a confusion of the language: and as the sacred text enumerates fifty five of the descendants of Noah, amongst whom the division of the whole earth was then made, every one after his tongue, after their families in their nation, it appears reasonable, that as many new dialects or modifications of the original tongue, were miraculously effected, as there were distinct families, amongst which the earth was to be allotted or divided, otherwise each family could not have had its several respective tongue.

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settlement was an allotment or distribution (or according to the frequently repeated scriptural phraze, a scattering over) of all the earth, it necessarily follows, that those, who managed or directed such allotments or distribution, must have possessed a geographical knowledge of the earth, and particularly of the extent, nature, soil, situation, boundaries, and climate of the different nations or divisions, into which the ante-diluvian population of the globe had ramified. Allowing this general settlement of all the earth amongst a given number of the descendants of Noah, not to have been a mere lottery or scramble, but an apportionment by knowledge, judgment, and authority, it will follow, that the islands were not appointed to those, who knew or possessed not the art of navigation.

It must be presumed, that the islands were immeislands. diately occupied by those, to whom they were allotted. The different persons, amongst whom the distribution of the earth was made, then resided in Asia; thence of course were the first post-diluvian emigrations into the isles of the Gentiles. Any vessels then arriving in the Atlantic, would naturally fall upon Ireland sooner than upon Great Britain, which, barring the authority of the Irish annals, renders it probable, that Ireland was peopled before England. There is no other disproof of this assertion, than the suggestion or argument of the Pyrrhonites in matter of Irish history, that the inhabitants of Gaul seeing Britain from the headlands of the Gallic Menapii (the districts of Calais and Bologne), passed over in boats or rafts,

and when they had peopled and cultivated this 'sland, and travelled so far north west, as to arrive at that promontory of Scotland nearest to Ireland, (Port Patrick, whence Ireland in a fair day may be easily seen,) they thence, in like manner, at a distant period, traversed this passage which was shorter. This must have happened after a long space of time, which would be requisite for the first emigrants from Gaul to people, occupy, and cultivate the southern part of this island; for it is to be presumed, that the more northern position, the less fertile soil, and the worse climate would not have attracted these early settlers to the extremities of the inferior parts of the island, till the thickness of population, and the insufficiency of the soil to answer their wants, drove out the needy and young adventurers in search of new places of residence.

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As the authenticity of that portion only of the an- Milesian cient history of Ireland falls under our investigation, 1300 years which traces the origin and descent of the Milesian race of sovereigns; and the Irish annals inform us, that upon their arrival in the island, about thirteen hundred years before the birth of Christ, they found it peopled and cultivated, and that conversation and treaties passed between the new adventurers, and the then natives of the soil without interpreters, there appears suficient probability, that the first post-diluvian possessors of the island had emigrated from the same race or family, (and, therefore, had a common language) as the adventurous colony of Milesius. As far as the Irish annalists agree with the inspired writer of

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