a solemn denunciation from God, that if he did eat of it, he should surely die. But neither his residence in the garden of Eden, in which was every thing "pleasant to the sight and good for food," nor his absolute "dominion over all creatures of the earth, and of the sea, and of the air," could render him happy without a rational companion. "And God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him (e)." And God formed the first woman, Eve, out of one of Adam's ribs, and brought her unto Adam as his wife, to prove that this Being was of the same nature as himself, and therefore worthy to be considered as his companion. And Adam said "This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh: therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh (ƒ):" thus was man pronounced to be a social being, and thus was marriage instituted, by divine authority, from the beginning of the world.

But the happiness of our first parents was soon interrupted by the malignity of Satan, or the Evil Spirit, who was permitted to tempt them to transgress the command of their benevolent Creator, in the form of a serpent (g), which is said to be " more subtle than any beast of the field (h)." The serpent seduced Eve, and Eve afterwards seduced Adam, to eat of the forbidden fruit, by exciting the hope that it would increase their knowledge, and exalt the dignity of their nature. (e) Gen. c. 2. v. 18.

Gen. c. 2. v. 23 and 24.

(g) See Patrick's Commentaries, Sherlock's Discourses, and Maurice's History and Indian Antiquities, upon this subject. The prophet Isaiah, c. 27. v. 1. evidently alludes to Satan as "the dragon or the serpent ;" and he is so called in the Revelation, c. 12. v. 9. c. 20. v. 2. Eastern tradition confirms this account, and represents the Evil Spirit under the same form.

By this violation of the express command of God, sin and misery were introduced into the world. A total change, in consequence of the Fall of Adam and Eve from their primitive innocence, instantaneously took place in their minds and dispositions; and a corrupt nature, subject to disease and death, and prone to vice and wickedness, was derived from them to all their posterity. "Unto the woman, God said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also, and thistles shall it bring forth to thee: and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return (i).”

"And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever; therefore, the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken (k).”

As the fall of Adam, and the consequent corruption of human nature, were the original cause of the necessity of a Redeemer, we find that God was pleased to give an intimation of the future redemption of mankind, at the time he denounced punishment upon Adam's disobedience : "And the Lord God said unto the serpent, I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and Gen. c. 3. v. 16-19. Gen. c. 3. v. 22 and 23.

between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel (1)."

To Adam and Eve were born sons and daughters, but their number is not recorded in Scripture. The only three, whose names are mentioned, are Cain. Abel, and Seth; and of these three the sacred historian has chiefly confined himself to the posterity of Seth, probably because from him were descended Noah and Abraham, and consequently the people chosen to preserve the knowledge of God in the world, and to give birth to the promised Messiah.

The race of men quickly increased, and the lives of the patriarchs were extended to more than 900 years. In the time of Noah, who was the ninth in descent from Adam, the wickedness of men became so great, that God saw fit to destroy, by a general deluge, all the inhabitants of the earth, except Noah and his wife, and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet, and their wives, and two, male and female, of every species of animals. These were all preserved in an Ark made by the command of God, who himself prescribed its form and dimensions. “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, because he was a just man, and perfect in his generations, and walked with God (m)." The deluge was 1656 years after the creation of the world, and 2348 before the birth of Christ. "And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven: and they were destroyed from the earth, and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the Ark (n).” After "the waters had prevailed upon the earth an

(1) Gen. c. 3. v. 15. Vide Patrick in Loc.

(m) Gen. c. 6. v. 8 and 9.

(n) Gen. c. 7. v. 23.

2348.

hundred and fifty days (o),” they began to abate; the Ark rested upon the mountain of Ararat in Armenia, and Noah and his family, and every one of the living creatures, having been in the Ark one year and seventeen days, came out of it upon dry ground. Noah immediately offered sacrifices unto God as a thanksgiving for his preservation; and God was pleased to enter into a covenant with him, that there should not any more be a flood to detroy the earth; "and God set his bow in the clouds as a token of this covenant (p).”

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The descendants of Noah and his sons multiplied greatly, and they were all "of one language and of one speech (q).”—After a certain time, the whole race (r) of men moved from their original habitations in Armenia, and settled in the plains of Shinar, near the Euphrates, in Assyria or Chaldea. Here they determined to establish themselves, and began to build a city and tower, whose top might reach to heaven (s)." God was displeased with this work, which seems to have been undertaken from a distrust in his word, and in defiance of his power, and probably in contradiction to some command they had received to spread themselves over the earth to repeople it. "And God confounded the language of those who were engaged in it, so that they did not understand one another's speech; and the (0) Gen. c. 8. v. 3. (p) Gen. c. 9. v. 13. (9) Gen. c. 11. v. 1.

In the first two editions of this Work, I stated that a part only of the inhabitants of the earth" journeyed from the east,” and settled in the plains of Shinar; but from a more attentive consideration of the subject, to which I have been led by the learned and ingenious "Remarks on the Eastern Origination of Mankind," by Mr. Granville Penn, published in the second volume of the Eastern Collections, I have been induced to change my opinion. I think the whole of Mr. Penn's account extremely probable, and recommend it to those who are disposed to attend to disquisitions of this kind.

(s) Gen. c. 11. v. 4.

Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth, and they left off to build the city (t). Therefore is the name of it called Babel (u), because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth.”

From this confusion of the original language of mankind at Babel, and the dispersion which imme- 2247. diately took place, new languages were formed, and the different parts of the world became inhabited. The late excellent Sir William Jones has very satisfactorily traced the origin of all the people of the earth to the three roots, Shem, Ham, and Japhet, according to the account given in the tenth chapter of Genesis. The learned are not agreed whether we have any remains of the primitive language of men (v); and as the Scriptures are silent upon the subject, we must be content to leave it in uncertainty. Perhaps it is most probable, that the old Hebrew or Syriac is the most antient language which has descended to us; and, in support of this opinion, the Jewish historians assert, that the sons of Eber or Heber did not concur with the rest in the attempt to build the tower, and therefore retained the primitive language. Abraham, the sixth from Heber, is called in Genesis "Abraham the Hebrew (x),” and his posterity were called Hebrews by the Egyptians. The general custom of naming the people after the head of the family, and "the division of the earth," which (t) Gen. c. 11. v. 7, 8, and 9.

(u) Babel signifies confusion.

(v) Sir William Jones is of opinion, that the primary language is entirely lost. He says, "it appears that the only human family, after the flood, established themselves in the northern parts of Iran (that is Persia); that as they multiplied, they were divided into three distinct branches, the Indian, the Arabian, and the Tartarian, each retaining little at first, and losing the whole by degrees, of their common primary language ;" and to these three roots, namely, the Hindoo, the Syriac, and the Tartarian, he traces all the languages in the world.

(a) Gen. c. 14. v. 13.