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drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage, and knew not till the flood came and swept them all away!"

The subject of the present Lecture is, THE DELUge; and the arrangement which we propose is-To establish the fact: to state the hypotheses of some writers who have attempted to account for it: to meet some objections raised against it: and to suggest an im. provement of it. We shall endeavor

I. TO ESTABLISH THE FACT.

The evidence upon which we would fix your attention, is simply:-The general and concurrent consent of nations; and the existence of vast quantities of marine productions on the tops of mountains, and under the surface of the ground to considerable depths, over the whole earth, and at all distances from the sea.

1. THE GENERAL AND CONCURRENT CONSENT OF NATIONS. This is an argument in favor of an universal deluge, which has never been fairly met: nor indeed does it appear capable of satisfactory solution on any principle but the admission of the fact. It has been most forcibly maintained, that antiquity is full of testimonies relating to this singular event; that the whole heathen mythology sprang from traditions of the deluge; and that Prometheus, Deucalion, Atlas, Theuth, Zuth, Xuthus, Inachus, Osiris, Dagon, and others, were all different names by which Noah was intended. *The traditions of the destruction of the globe, partially or entirely, by waters, are found among the fragments of the most ancient heathen writers; pervade India;

The ingenious writer, who has, with equal ability and success, col. lected all the testimonies of antiquity, and unveiled the mysteries con.. cealed under their fables, is Mr Bryant, in his System of Mythology. Those who wish to find an epitome of his reasoning, and some consider. able extracts from his work, may be gratified by consulting the Encyclo pædia Britannica-Article Deluge.

live among the wandering tribes of America; and meet the inquirer in the distant islands of the Pacific ocean. Eusebius has preserved a passage from Abydenus' history of Assyria, to the following effect:

"After these reigned many others, and then Seisithrus: to whom Saturn foretold, that there should fall a prodigious flood of rain on the fifteenth day of the month Desius; and commanded him to deposit all his writings in Heliopolis, a city of the Sipparians. Having obeyed this injunction, Seisithrus, without delay, sailed into Armenia, and found the prediction of the God realised. On the third day, after the waters were abated, he sent out birds, that he might ascertain whether the earth had yet appeared through the flood, But these, finding only a boundless sea, and having no resting place, returned to Seisithrus. In the same manner did others. And again he sent the third time: for they had returned to him, having their wings polluted with mud. Then the gods translated him from among men; and his ship came into Armenia, the wood of which is there used as a charm."* He refers also to the dove of Noah, when speaking of the sagacity of animals, he says, "Deucalion's dove, sent from the ark, upon her return, brought a sure indication, that the tempests had yielded to tranquillity.

Concerning Berosus' history of Chaldea, Josephus, in his first book against Appion, thus writes: "This Berosus, treading in the steps of the most ancient writers, has recorded the same facts as Moses, in relation to the deluge-the destruction of mankind by it the ark in which Noah, the father of our race, was preserved and its resting upon the tops of the Armenian mountains." After the relation to which,

Euseb. Præp. lib. ix. cap. 12.

Josephus alludes, Berosus adds, "It is reported that part of the ship now remains in Armenia, on the Gordyæan mountains; and that some bring thence pitch, which they use as a charm.”+

Lucian speaks of a very remote history of the ark, laid up in Hierapolis of Syria; and the account which, according to him, the Greeks gave of the deluge is as follows: "That the first race of men were self-willed, perpetrating many crimes, regardless of oaths, inhospitable, uncharitable: for which cause, great calamities fell upon them. For suddenly the earth threw out much water: a deluge of rain fell from heaven: rivers overflowed exceedingly; and the sea itself overspread the globe to that degree, that all things were overwhelmed by the water, and the whole of mankind perished. Deucalion alone remained, the source of another generation, on account of his prudence and piety. He was preserved thus: In a great ark, which he had prepared, he placed his wives, and his children, and entered also himself. After them went in bears, and horses, and lions, and serpents, and all other living creatures upon the face of the earth, by pairs. He received all these animals, which had no power to injure him, but were extremely familiar, being overruled by Divine influence. These all floated together, in the same ark, so long as the waters were upon the earth."+

We have already remarked, that the same person was intended by a diversity of names; and Grotius says, that "Seisithrus, Ogyges, and Deucalion, are all

*Same as Moses calls Ararath. See Grotius de Verit. Relig. Christ, § 16 notes.

Josephus contr. Appion, primo; et Antiq. His. lib. i. cap. 4.

Lucian, libro de Dea Syria, et de templo vetustissimo quod erat Hierapoli.

names signifying, in other languages, the same as Noah does in the Hebrew, the language in which Moses wrote." Now it is a fact well known, that the ancient writers, in copying from any original, did not give in their translation the names used in that original: but changed them for some other that had the same meaning in the language into which they translated them, as the original names had in that, from which they transcribed. For instance, Alexander the historian, writing concerning Isaac in Greek, does not adhere to the original name, but calls him Gelota (FéλWTR) or "Laughter:" which is the interpretation of the Hebrew name Isaac; and was given him by Sarah in remembrance of some circumstances relating to his birth. Thus, by the different names used in the accounts which different nations give of the deluge, the same person is intended-and that person is Noah. Diodorus says, it is the tradition of the Egyptians, that "Deucalion's was the universal deluge." Plato corroborates this testimony by saying, "that a certain Egyptian priest, related to Solon, out of their sacred books, the history of the universal deluge; which took place long before the partial inundations known to the Grecians." There is another remarkable coincidence and correspondence with the Mosaic account: the very day fixed by Moses as the beginning of the deluge, agrees exactly with the day in which, Plutarch tells us, Osiris went into the ark, the seventeenth of Athyr; which is the second month after the au tumnal equinox, the sun then passing through Scorpio. It is thus that the evidence of the universal del. uge, in this particular branch of it, corresponds with

†Grotius de Veit. Relig. Christ. § 15-notes: where also these ex. tracts from Lucian and others, are quoted at length, with many similar

ones.

that of the creation: that it is equally the subject of tradition; and that tradition, varying a little in circumstance, is equally prevalent over the face of the whole earth. This fact is farther proved by,

2. THE EXISTENCE OF VAST QUANTITIES OF MARINE PRODUCTIONS UPON THE TOPS OF MOUNTAINS, AND UNDER THE SURFACE OF THE GROUND, TO CONSIDERABLE DEPTHS, OVER THE WHOLE EARTH, AND AT ALL DISTANCES FROM THE SEA.-The earthquake that shakes the towering palace, and the proud battlements of the city to the ground, rends the bosom of the earth, and discloses the shells and teeth of fish-the bones of animals entire or partial vegetables—evidently transported thither from their respective elements, by some grand and universal commotion, affecting at one and the same time, the sea and the dry land, and destroying the limits of their mutual separation. This was considered as a decisive argument till the recent hypotheses of some modern philosophers have furnished an evasion of its force.† It has been proved that volcanoes are capable of forming mountains of very considerable magnitude: that the fire of them lies deep, and often below the waters of the ocean itself. On this account, marine substances may be found at all depths in these volcanic mountains, and yet afford no proof of a deluge. There would be some weight in this argument if these marine substances were found only in the neighborhood of volcanoes: but with all its plausibility, it is incapable of universal application. It may be thought to account for marine substances lying deep in volcanic mountains, or lands stretching along the borders of the ocean, and liable to volcanic irruptions: but it will furnish no sat†Sir William Hamilton.

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