they would overwhelm and extinguish it. So God suffers not the smoking flax to be quenched. The drop in itself is wholly water, as the nature of man in itself is wholly corrupt; in the saints, that is, in their flesh, dwells no good thing; they have no light or brightness in them, but only what is immediately from heaven, from the Sun of Righteousness. In the drops of the rainbow is represented both the saints descending to the grave by the flesh, and also their ascending to heaven by the spirit of holiness, for the water descends swiftly to be buried in the earth, but by the fire a beautiful light, in them is represented an ascent as it were up an hill from the earth to heaven.

These drops fitly represent the saints on another account, as Mary's alabaster box of precious ointment represented the heart of a saint; this drop, though itself is weak and frail, yet is clear and pure as alabaster, and contains as it were a spark or show of beautiful heavenly light in it, which represents the same divine grace that Mary's precious ointment did.

[419] Gen. x. and xi. The dispersion and first settlement of the nations. By the descendents of Jophat were the isles of the Gentiles divided, Gen. x. 5. By the Isles, the Hebrews denoted not only such countries as were on all sides encompassed by sea, but also such countries as were so divided by the sea from them as that they could not be well come unto, or at least used not to be gone unto, but by sea: in brief, they called islands, all beyond sea-countries, and all people islanders, which were wont to come by the sea to them and to the Egyptians, among whom the Jews lived a long time, and so called things by the same names, at least in Moses's time, when the people were lately come out of Egypt. Now such are not only the island of Cypress, Crete, and other islands of the Mediterranean, but also the country of the Lesser Asia, and the countries of Europe; and indeed those countries, so many of them as were then inhabited and known to the Jews, were not only beyond the sea, but peninsulas mostly encompassed by the sea, as the Lesser Asia, Greece, Italy, and Spain. And that not only Europe, but the countries of the Lesser Asia were called isles, seems manifest by Isai. x. 10, 11, "The Lord shall recover the remnant of his people from Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and from the islands of the sea." Lesser Asia is either here included under the term, islands of the sea, or wholly left out: but it is not likely the countries of Asia would be mentioned so many of them to the south-east and north of Judea, far and near, and the countries of Europe beyond the Lesser Asia, and all countries of the Lesser Asia wholly passed over.

The sons of Japhet were seven, Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. The sons of Javan were Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodenim, Gen. x. 2. 4.

To begin with Gomer and his sons, to whom we may assign the greatest part of the northern tract of the Lesser Asia for their first plantations. Josephus tells us expressly that the Galatians who lived in this tract were called Gomerites, and Herodotus tells us that a people called Cimmerii dwelt in those parts; and Pliny speaks of a town in Troas, a part of Phrygia, called Cimmeris. All the northern part of Lesser Asia was anciently called Phrygia by the Greeks, which is a word that in the Greek language signifies torrid or burnt country, as Gomer in Hebrew is from the Radix Gamar, which signifies to consume; and its derivation Gumra, or Gumro, signifies a coal, and it is certain there was a part of this country which was specially called by the Greeks, guyía Kexauuevn, Burnt Phrygia,

Ashkenaz, who of the three sons of Gomer is first named by Moses, was seated in the western part of the nation of Gomer, i. e. in the north-west part of the Lesser Asia; as it is hardly to be questioned, there being so plain footsteps of his name to be found in those parts; for in Bythinia there is a bay formerly called the Ascanian bay, together with a river and lake of the same name, and in the lesser Phrygia, or Troas, there was both a city and province anciently known by the name of Ascania, and there was isles lying on the coast called the Ascanian isles; nor is it any way unlikely but that in honour of this Ashkenaz, the king and great men of those parts took the name of Ascanias, of which name besides, Ascanius, the son of Eneas, we find a king mentioned in the second book of Homer's Iliads, which came to the aid of Priamus at the siege of Troy, and from hence probably came name that the Greeks gave to the sea, the Euxine sea. From the family of Ashkenaz, upon the coasts along which lies the entrance into this sea, with some variation of the sound, which length of time might naturally introduce. And the prophet Jeremiah foretelling the taking of Babylon by Cyrus, has this expression, chap. li. ver. 27. "Call together against her the kingdom of Ararat, and Miseni, and Ashkenaz;" where, by the kingdom of Ashkenaz, may very well be understood the inhabitants of those parts we are speaking of, for Xenophon, as Bochart has well observed, tells us that Cyrus having taken Sardes, sent Hystaspes with an army into Phrygia, that lies on the Hellespont, and that Hystaspes having made himself master of the country, brought along with him from thence a great many of the horse and other soldiers of the

Phrygians, whom Cyrus took along with the rest of his army to Babylon.

Riphath, the second son of Gomer, is probably supposed to have seated his family in the parts adjoining eastward to the plantation of his brother Ashkenaz. This opinion is confirmed by the testimony of Josephus, who expressly says that the Paphlagonians, a people inhabiting some portion of this tract, were originally called Riphateans, from Riphat. There are also some remainders of his name to be found here among the writings of the ancient Greeks and Latins. For in Appalloniues's Argonauticks, there is mention made of the river called Rhebaus, which rising in this tract, empties itself into the Euxine sea. The same is called by Dionysius Periegetes, and others Rhebas. Stephanus does not only acquaint us with the river, but tells us also of a region of the same name, and whose inhabitants were called Rheboi; and Pliny places here a people called Riphæi, and another called Arimphæi.

The third and last son of Gomer named by Moses, is Togarmah, whose family was seated in the remaining, and consequently in the most easterly part of the nation of Gomer, and this situation of the family of Togarmah is agreeable both to sacred and common writers; for as to sacred scripture, Ezekiel thus speaks, chap. xxxviii. ver. 6. "Gomer, and all his bands, the house of Togarmah, of the north quarters, and all his bands;" and again, chap. xxvii. ver. 14. "They of the house of Togarmah traded in thy fairs, (i. e. the fairs of Tyre,) with horses, and horsemen, and mules." Now the situation that we assign to Togarmah makes it in a manner lie true north from Judea and Cappadocia, by which name a considerable part of the lot of Togarmah was in process of time known to the Greeks, was very well stocked with an excellent breed of horses and mules, and that the inhabitants were esteemed good horsemen, as is well attested by several ancient heathen writers, as Solinus, of Cappadocia, Dionysius Periegates, Claudian, and Strabo; and there are to be found footsteps of the very name of Togomah in some of those names, whereby some of the inhabitants of this tract were known to old writers. Thus Strabo tells us that the Trochmi dwelt in the confines of Pontus and Cappadocia. And several towns lying on the east of the river Halys, and so in Cappadocia, are assigned to them by Ptolomy. They are by Cicero called Trogmi, and Trachmeni by Stephanus; and in the council of Chalcedon they are called Trocmades, or Trogmades ; there being frequent mention made in that council of Cyriaeus, Bishop of the Trogmades.

We next proceed to say something of the colonies which, coming from the nation of Gomer, in process of time spread

themselves in several parts of Europe. Herodotus tells us that a people called Cimmerii formerly dwelt in that tract of Lesser Asia, which we assign to Gomer. So he tells us withal that these people put out a colony to Palus Mæotis, on the north of the Euxine sea, and so gave the name of Bosphorus Cimmerius to the strait betwixt the Euxine sea and the Mæotick lake, now commonly called the strait of Caffa.

This colony of the Cimmerii increasing in process of time, and so spreading themselves still by new colonies further westward, came along the Danube, and settled themselves in the country which from them has been called Germany. For as to the testimony of the ancients, Diodorus Siculus, (as Mr. Mede observes) affirm that the Germans had their original from the Cimmerians, and the Jews to this day (as the same learned person remarks) call them Ashkenazim of Ashkenaz. Indeed they themselves retain plain marks enough of their descent both in the name Cimbri and also in their common name Germans, or as they call themselves, Germen, which is but a small variation from Gemren, or Gomren, and this last is easily contracted from Gomerin, that is, Gomereans; for the termination en is a plural termination of the German language, and from the singular number, Gomer, is formed Gemren by the same analogy that from brother is formed brethren. The other name Cimbri, is easily framed from Cimmerii, and by that name the inhabitants of the northwest peninsula of old Germany, now called Jutland, were known not only to the ancient, but latter writers, and from this name of the inhabitants, the said peninsula is called Cimbrica Chersonesus, and that frequently by modern authors.!

Out of Germany, the descendants of Gomer spread themselves into Gaul, or France. To prove this, Mr. Camden quotes the testimony of Josephus, when he says that those called by the Greeks Golatæ were originally called Gomerites, which words may be understood either of the Asiatick Golatæ, commonly called by us Galatians, or the European Galatæ, commonly called by us Gauls. If it be taken in the former sense, then it is a testimony for the first seating of Gomer in the tract of the Lesser Asia we have assigned him, and on this account it is before taken notice of by us. Mr. Camden also produces the testimony of other writers to prove the Gauls to be from Gomer, as of Appian, who in his Illyricks, says expressly that the Celtæ, or Gauls, were otherwise called Cimbri. Those barbarians whom Marius defeated, Cicero plainly terms Gauls, and all historians agree that these were the Cimbri. And the coat-armour of Beleus, their king, digged up at Aix, in Provence, where Marius routed them, does evince the same, for the words Beleos Cimbros were engraven upon it in a strange character. Again:

Lucan calls that ruffian that was hired to kill Marius, a Cimbrian, whereas Livy and others affirm him to have been a Gaul; and by Plutarch the Cimbri are called Gallo-Scythians.

Hence we conclude that the ancient inhabitants of Britain were descended from Gomar, for it is not to be questioned but that the isle was first peopled from those countries of the European continent, which lie next to it, and consequently from Germany or Gaul. The name by which the offspring of those ancient Britons, the Welch, call themselves to this very day, is Kumro, or Cimro, and Kumri, and in like manner they call a Welsh woman Kumraes, and their language, Humeraeg; and since the Saxons and Angles were Germans, who as was before observed, were descendants of Gomer, and were near neighbours to the people that were more especially called Cimbri, hence it follows that our ancestors, who succeeded the old Britons, were also descended from Gomer

But now to proceed to the other sons of Japhet, as the nation of Gomer first seated itself in the northern tract of the Lesser Asia, so the nation of Javan seated itself in the southern tract of the same. And this appears not only from the name of a country in this tract called Ionia, but also from the situation of the four families of Javan's sons within this tract, which are mentioned in this order by Moses, Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim, Gen. x. 4.

Tarshish seated himself on the eastern part of this tract, as is probable, on several considerations. For Tarsus is a chief town of Cilicia, and Josephus expressly affirms that Cilicia, and the country round it, was originally known by the name of Tarshish. It is scarcely to be doubted, but this was the Tarshish, to which the prophet Jonas thought to flee from the presence of the Lord, as also that this principally was the Tarshish mentioned so often by the prophets, on account of its trading with Tyre.

To the west of Tarshish, adjoining the portion appertaining to Killim, or Cittim, which word having a plural termination, does, in all probability, imply the descendants of Keth, or the Ketians. Ptolomy tells us of a country here called Cetis, and Homer in Odys. 4, mentions a people called Cetii, who were thought to take their name from a river, Cetius, in the same quarter. But it is remarkable that this is agreeable to the name mentioned by Homer. Josephus will have the isle of Cyprus to have been the seat of the Cittim, because therein was a town called Citium, of good note, but it is not to be questioned, but the continent was peopled before the island, and consequently that the Cittim first seated themselves on the continent, from which they might, probably enough, send in process of time, some colony over into the neighbouring island of Cyprus.