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CHAPTER VIII.

THE PREDICTIONS OF NOAH.

ONE of the strongest evidences of divine authority for the accounts transmitted to us, of the various dispensations of God, to mankind, in different ages of the world, is the series of Prophecies which are recorded in the Old and New Testaments.

The vastness of the scale on which some of these have been calculated, requiring thousands of years for their accomplishment, fills the mind with astonishment, at the grandeur of the design; but perhaps the power of an Almighty Architect, is not more displayed herein, than his wisdom, in directing that some part of the process for the accomplishment of his plan, should be carrying on in every age, to put to silence the objections of infidels throughout all generations.

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Noah, having been a preacher of righteousness to the old or antediluvian world, having obeyed the voice of the Lord, in building the ark; thereby giving proof of his faith and confidence in Almighty Goodness, was now endued with the spirit of prophecy; and enabled to disclose, in some degree, the purposes of Divine Providence towards the future race of mankind.

By his sons, the whole earth was to be peopled after the flood; and with him that remarkable prophecy commenced, which has been fulfilling through the several periods of time to this day.

God, foreseeing that the impiety which began in Ham, would greatly increase in his family, commissioned Noah to pronounce a curse upon it. It must have been some mortification and punishment to Ham, for his mockery and cruelty to his father, to hear of the malediction and servitude of some of his children; and, at the same time, some comfort and reward to Shem and Japheth, for their reverence and tenderness to their father, to hear of the blessing and enlargement of their posterity. Noah's prophecy was delivered, as most of the ancient prophecies were delivered, inmetres, for the help of the memory; and it may be thus translated :

Sce the proof of this in Bishop Lowth's Poetical Prælections.

Cursed be Canaan,

A servant of servants shall he be unto his

brethren.

Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem;

And Canaan shall be their servant.

God shall enlarge Japheth,

And shall dwell in the tents of Shem;

And Canaan shall be their servant.

It is plain this account was written by Moses for the encouragement of the Israelties, to support and animate them in their expedition against a people, who by their sins, had forfeited divine protection, and were to be assigned to slavery. Herein the purport and meaning of the prophecy is obvious; now let us attend to the completion of it.

"Cursed be Canaan."

"The Canaanites were an abominably wicked people the sin and punishment of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities of the plain, are too well known to be particularly specified; and as for the other inhabitants of the land which was promised to Abram and his seed, God bore with them, till their iniquity was full. Gen. xv. 16. They were not only addicted to idolatry, which was then the case of the greater part of the world, but were guilty of the greatest enormities in idolatry: "for every abomination to

the Lord which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters, have they burned in the fire to their gods." Deut. xii. 31. And it appears by the 18th and 20th chapters of Leviticus, that unlawful marriages, witchcraft, adultery, incest, sodomy, and beastiality, were common and frequent among them. Divine judgments were, therefore, justly inflicted on such a people and nation.

Moses takes care to inform the Israelites it was not for their righteousness the Lord brought them in to possess the land; but for the wickedness of those nations, did the Lord drive them out. Deut. ix. 4. And he would have driven out the Israelites in like manner, for the same abominations: "Defile not you yourselves in any of these things, for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you. And the land is defiled, therefore do I visit the iniquities thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out its inhabitants. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations. That the land spue not you out also, when you defile it; as it spued out the nations that were before you. For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them, shall be cut off from among their people," Levit, xviii. 24,

But the curse particularly implies servitude and subjection:

"Cursed be Canaan,

A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren."

It is very well known that the word brethren, in Hebrew, comprehends more distant relations. The descendants of Canaan were, therefore to be subject to the descendants both of Shem and Japheth; and the natural consequences of vice in communities, as well as in single persons, is slavery. It was several centuries after the delivery of this prophecy, when the Israelites, who were the descendants of Shem, under the command of Joshua, invaded the Canaanites, smote above thirty of their kings, took possession of their land, and made the Gibeonites and others, servants and tributaries.

Solomon afterwards subdued the rest: "As for all the people that were left of the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which were not of Israel, but of their children who were left after them in the land, whom the children of Israel consumed not, them did Solomon make to pay tribute unto this day. But of the children of Israel, did Solomon make no servants

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