prefumptuous are they, felf-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. 2 Pet. ii. 10. -Likewife alfo these filthy dreamers defile the flefb, defpife dominion, and fpeak evil of dignities. Jude 8th verfe. In these perilous times the bonds of parental, filial and fraternal duty will be broken-the strongest bonds of natural affection will be burft afunder, and men will act unreftrained like NATURAL BRUTE BEASTS. But unto the wicked God faith, What haft thou to do to declare my ftatutes, or that thou shouldeft take my covenant in thy mouth? Seeing thou hateft inftruction, and cafteft my words behind thee. When thou faweft a thief, then thou confentedeft with him, and haft been partaker with adulterers. Thou givet thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit. Thou fittest and Speakest evil against thy brother; thou flandereft thine own mother's fon. Thefe things hast thou done, and I kept filence: thou thoughteft that I was altogether fuch an one as thyfeif: but I will reprove thee, and fet them in order before thine eyes. Now confider this, ye that forget God, left I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver. Pfal. I. 16—22,—Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the caufe of the widow come unto them. Therefore faith the Lord, the Lord of Hofts, the Mighty One of Ifrael, Ah, I will eafe me of mine adverfaries, and avenge me of mine enemies. Ifai. i. 23, 24.-The good man is perifed out of the earth: and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood: they hunt every man his brother with a net. That they may do evil with both hands earnefly, the prince afketh, and the judge asketh for a reward: and the great man he uttereth his mifehievous defire: jo they wrap it up. The best of them is a briar: the most upright is fharper than a thornhedge: the day of thy watchmen and thy vifitation cometh; now shall be their perplexity. Truft ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bofom. For the fon dishonoreth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in law; a man's enemies are the men of his own houfe. Micah vii. 2-6.-Now the brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the fon and children fhall rife up against their parents, and fhall caufe them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's fake; but he that fall endure to the end the Jame fhail be faved, Mark xiii. 12, 13. The laft attempt that will be made to turn this ftrong and overflowing current of apoftacy, if poffible, to fave the world from the impending curfe, will be to turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the chiaren to their fathers. The angel-man, the meffenger of the covenant, will now vifit the earth, as the angels afore time went to So. dom; but, instead of effecting a reformation, generally, it appears, that this kind and most gracious attempt will but enflame the brutal paffions, which now have the command, and raife the wrath of men into a furious burft of madness. Some few, indeed, like Lot, will open the hofpitable door to the heavenly meffenger. The covenant people, at that mo ment, will be fnatched as a brand from the burning flame. But, even among the families of the righ teous, there will be many fons in law, who will turn a deaf ear to the call to feparate themselves from an untoward generation, and to haften their efcape from the fiery deluge, now no longer lingering; fo, that in this laft extremity, there will not be found the fre righteous in the city, that it might not be de ftroyed for their fakes! When the Son of Man cometh, fhall be find faith on the earth? Alas! it is manifeft from the fcriptures, that this final overture of mercy, like that towards Sa dom, will be but too unsuccessful. CHAPTER IV. OF BABEL, ZION, AND BABYLON, THE · Section 1. The Confufion of Tongues. The covenant of the ordinances of grace, in the new establishment, had been publicly violated as to the leading article of the inftituted government, in the conduct of Ham to wards Noah his Father; of which conduct Noah himself gave the unhappy occafionbut nothing was attempted, as to a change of the form of fociety, and the fetting up of any human invention or policy, until the time of Nimrod, one of the pofterity of Ham, when a general rebellion broke out against the divine administration. From his bearing this name, which fignifies a rebel; and its being faid that the beginning of his kingdom was Babel; it may be concluded, that Nimrod was at the head, and was the principal mover and agent in this business. It is more than probable, that the whole family of Ham were involved in the guilt of his tranfgreffion--they fhared with him, no doubt, in the fame spirit of unbelief, if not in the overt act-and that Nimrod and others, feeling themselves implicated with Canaan, at least in the dishonour of the curfe of fervitude to Shem, and to Japheth dwelling in the tents of Shem; which tents have been underflood to mean the divine ordinancesthey were, hence, by their unhumbled hearts, led to determine boldly upon the trial, which fhould be emprefs of the world, a fabric of their own contriving; raised to the heavens; or the commonwealth formed by the lowly and despised tents of Shem. Heth was a contemporary with Nimrod, and was his coufin-german; and from his name being taken, generally, for the name of his party, it may be concluded, that he alfo was a principal in this undertaking. Rebekah, complaining to Ifaac of Efau, that he had taken him wives out of the Hebrew fai mily, faid, I am weary of my life, because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, fuch as thefe which are of the daughters of the land, what good fhall my life do me? Gen. xxvii. 46.—And Balaam prophesying of the final overthrow of these citizens, appears to use this as a common name for the men who thus depart from God. There fhall come a far out of Jacob, and a fceptre fhall rife out of Ifrael, and shall fmite the corners of Moab, and unwall all the children of Sheth. And Edom shall be a pos feffion, Sier alfo fhall be a poffeffion for his enemies, and Ifrael fhall do valiantly." "Out of Jacob fhall come he that fhall have dominion, and fhall deftroy him that remaineth of the city. Num. xxiv. 17-19. The word for nations, in the ancient languages, is evidently derived from this name of Heth; and, probably, the English word, heathen, has the fame derivation. To execute fuch a policy, as was now defigned, requires both a council and an army, It may be thought, that Heth was the coun fellor and adviser in this daring and adventurous project; and that Nimrod was the executor, and flood to arms. And first, a movement is made, collecting together a body of body of men, who falling upon a ground favourable to their purpofe, and finding themselves in fufficient force to keep it; which, by the name given to it, Shinar, Spoil, feems to intimate, that they had already exercised fome hoftilities towards those who would not follow them-the new political |