while the children of Shem continued in the neighbourhood of Armenia, and thence spread towards Syria and Arabia. The family of Japheth was more widely diffused; and, stretching towards the northern part of Asia, extended to India on one side, and Europe on the other. From which son of Noah the early inhabitants of America came is uncertain. Our knowledge concerning the rest is chiefly drawn from the likeness which there is in the languages now spoken by different nations. Thus we are assured, that we who live in Europe are akin to the inhabitants of India, because the Indian languages resemble those of the Teutonic, or German family; while the Arabians, who lie between us, must be referred to a different son of Noah, because their language is totally distinct from that of either race.6

This difference of tongues was not first produced, though it has since been increased, by the distance of different nations. But about five generations after the flood, proud men the leaders, probably, of the chief families of Noah's sonswished to build them a great city, that they might not be divided from one another. All the world, they thought, would thus be gathered into one empire, and men would not be scattered without connexion over the earth. This great design has since been set forth, and will one day be fulfilled in Christ's Church; but the kingdom desired by

6" No philologer could examine them [i. e. Sanscrit, Greek, or Latin] without believing them to have sprung_from some common source, which perhaps no longer exists. There is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit " (Sir W. JONES's Third Discourse). "The Arabs sprung from a stock entirely different from that of the Hindoos" (Idem. Fourth Discourse).

B.C. 2247.

NIMROD.

11

men was founded in pride, and ended in ruin. By God's law, authority belonged to Noah, that just man whom God had favoured; whereas this new city was the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom. Noah would have used his authority as a parent to keep his children from idolatry; and, perhaps, for this reason God continued his life for three hundred and fifty years after the flood. But nothing good could be expected from Nimrod, that " mighty hunter," whose power was from strength, not from right, and who was the grandson of Ham, the least godly of those who had escaped the flood. God was pleased, therefore, to defeat this plan for making the earth one kingdom. He confounded men's languages, so that they could not understand each other's speech. They were obliged, therefore, to separate into different nations. "Therefore is the name of" the city "called Babel," i. e. confusion, "because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth."8

7 Gen. x. 9; 1 Chron. i. 10.

8 Gen. xi. 9.

CHAPTER III.

The Assprian, or First Great Empire.

NIMROD-SEMIRAMIS-SARDANAPLUS.

Here Nineveh, of length within her wall
Several days' journey, built by Ninus old,
Of that first golden monarchy the seat.

MILTON.

We have seen how God defeated the attempt to establish by worldly means an universal empire. That plan was postponed till the confusion of tongues was remedied by as signal a miracle as

B.C. 2000.

SEMIRAMIS.

13

had occasioned it, and till the time came for the establishment of the kingdom of God here below. Yet the final consummation was thus early provided for in the arrangements of society, and the order of man's public estate was made a framework which should minister to the purpose of the Most High. With this view the theatre of this world was filled up by four great empires, which prepared the way for Christ's kingdom. Of these, the first was the Assyrian monarchy. Before it was ended, God revealed its fortunes, and those of the three later ones, to His prophet Daniel; and by this means we know that they were the temporal precursors of Christ's kingdom, and that they will not be followed by any other worldly monarchy of like importance. But of this hereafter.

The first great empire was founded by Nimrod, and its original seat was at Babel, or Babylon. This we may suppose to have been about two thousand two hundred years before our Lord's coming, and one hundred and fifty years after the flood. From Babylon "he went out" to the conquest of Asshur, a son of Shem, and builded Nineveh."1 From the name of those they conquered, his followers were called Assyrians. Men's lives were still so long, that it is probable Nimrod was their leader for nearly two hundred years; and he was worshipped by them after his death under the title of Belus, or Bel. The next prince of whom we read was Ninus, whom pagan historians suppose to have lived about two thousand years before Christ. Under him Nineveh became "that great city," "2 of which we are told that its walls were three days' journey in circuit. It was the capital of the East, which by this time was well peopled. Its more dis

1 Gen. x. 11.

2 Jonah iii. 2.

C

tant countries, India, Bactria, and Egypt, had been settled at the time of the birth of Peleg, Shem's great grandson, and Peleg was lately dead, having lived two hundred and thirty-nine years. Now, therefore, we hear of military expeditions. Ninus conquered Bactria, one of the first places in which the wealth of the world was concentrated, and in that early age the chief channel of communication with India. He was succeeded by his queen, Semiramis, to whom Babylon owed its earliest decorations. She was not more distinguished for her splendour than for her warlike enterprises; but she was defeated in an attempted invasion of India, chiefly by means of the elephants, which abounded in that country, and which they used in war. To match them Semiramis made figures "to imitate the shape of an elephant; every figure had a man to guide and a camel to carry it. But these mockelephants stood the shock of the real ones but a little while; for the Indian beasts, being exceedingly vast and stout, easily bore down all that opposed them." The queen, who had crossed the river Indus on a bridge of boats, could scarcely escape herself, with about one-third of her men.

"4

From this time the river Indus was the boundary of this great empire towards the south, while it possessed such part of the rest of Asia as was well peopled. And in this state it lasted for about twelve hundred and sixty years. Of its transac

tions in the interval we know little or nothing. Yet the long existence of this vast empire connects the first attempt of worldly ambition with those great events which God was afterwards about to exhibit among mankind. We see more clearly the several stages of the world's history-four vain at4 Diod. ii. 1.

3 Gen. x. 25.