Line only, which contains the Genealogy of our Saviour CHRIST.

But Seth took care to cultivate and spread the true Worship of God; and with that

Success, that soon after the Birth of his Gen. iv. Son Enos, Men began to call upon the name 26.

of the LORD: The Knowledge of Religion increas’d and was extended, in proportion as his Descendants were multiplied. To the Cognizance and Observation of this particular Branch of Mankind therefore, the Scripture chiefly confines itself; as of those to whom God would, occasionally, make extraordinary Discoveries of Himself; and, out of them, in the fulness of time, manifest Himself in the flesh. From this Root sprung the First of the Four Generations abovemention’d; consisting of these nine principal or Patriarchal Persons; Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah. In the Days of the last of which it was, that

the righteous Progeny of Seth, called in Gen. vi. Scripture the fons of God, went in unto the

daughters of men, took them Wives from among the Descendants of Cain; Men, by that time, having begun to multiply on the face of the earth.

From

2.

From these licentious and improper Marriages, there speedily ensued so great a Decay of Piety, and the whole Earth grew to be so generally deprav’d, and abandon'd to all manner of Wickedness, that God thought proper, at once, to put an End to their sinful Courses and their Lives ; by destroying them by a Deluge of Waters. Only Noah, who was a righteous Man, and upon that Account spar’d with all his Family, escap'd in the Ark; which he built for that Purpose, by God's special Direçtion,

Of the three Sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, some Part of the Descendants of Shem only, continued to worship the true God; those of Ham and Japheth totally revolting from Him. And therefore, of this second Generation, the Scripture takes account of no more than these, Shem, Arphaxad, Salah, Eber, Peleg, Reu, Sen rug, Nabor, Terah.

It is here mention' d once for all, That many of the proper Names are spelt differently in different Places of Scripture, from the different Languages, or Dialect, in which they were wrote.

FROM Eber or Heber, one of the Generation last mention'd, this people began to have the Name of Hebrews. For the Ark, as the Deluge abated, having rested upon

the Mountains of Ararat, or Armenia, Noah and his three Sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, dwelt in the East, as they call’d it; being that Country which lies on this side the River Tigris, and was afterwards, for the most part, known by the Name of Assyria. There are Critics who moreover conclude, that the whole Family of Arphaxad obtain'd the Name of Hebrews, from their going to settle in Chaldæa, which was on the other side of the River; Heber, in their Tongue, signifying

beyond or over. And for this Reason, it is Gen. x. thought that Shem is said to be the father

of all the children of Heber ; that is, of all those that went on the other fide of the River.

After this, the Descendants of Ham and Japheth, finding it convenient also to 4

change

21.

ven.

change their Quarters, came into Chaldæa, in the Days of Heber the Grandson of Arphaxad, and took up their Habitation in the Plains of Shinar. These, at the Instigation of Nimrod, Grandson of Ham, who was a mighty one in the earth, and ambitious of securing to himself a great Name with After-ages, attempted to build a city and tower whose top might reach unto hea

Until that Time, the whole Earth had continued to use the same Language which they had deriv'd from Adam: When God, offended at their presumptuous Attempt, thought proper to put a Stop to their senseless unreasonable Project, by confounding their language, that they might not understand one another's Speech. Hence the Tower was call'd Babel, which signifies Confufion; and, from that, both the City, and Country round about it, took * their Names.

But the Sons of Heber, not concurring with the rest in their audacious Design, retain'd the ancient Language which, from the Time of Shem, had been in use among

* Babylon, Babylonia.

в 4

his

his Posterity. And it is very probable that
the Hebrews deriv'd their Name from this
Heber, fince Abraham, who was but the

sixth from him, was call's Abraham the Gen. xiv. Hebrew, when he dwelt in the Plain of

Mamre. Upon the Confusion of Tongues,
a Dispersion of Families naturally ensu'd ;
and the rest of them being scatter'd abroad
upon the Face of all the Earth, the Fami-
ly of Heber still continued in Chaldæa and
the East; while the Posterity of Japheth
took Possession of the West; and that of
Ham sat down in the intermediate Coun-
try, that lay between the other two.

And here the Sons of Heber continued
to live, in Ur, a City of the Chaldees, un-
till the Time of Terah, the last of this
second Generation. When Terah, taking
with him Abraham his Son, and Lot his
Grandson (by another Son nam'd Haran)
and Sarah his Daughter-in-law, his Son
Abraham’s Wife, remov'd out of Chaldæa,
with an Intent of going to settle in the Land
of Canaan; but, instead of that, took up .
his Residence at Haran in the Country of
Mesopotamia, lying between the Rivers Ti-
gris and Euphrates; and there dwelt the Re-
mainder of his Days.

His