shall he be unto his brethren. Blessed be Jehovah, God of Shem!-and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japhet, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant."

The only explicit part of this prophecy is the curse upon Canaan, Ham's youngest son; of whose descendants it is openly foretold that they should live in a state of the lowest subjection to nations which should issue from the two other sons of Noah. And yet here we find some obscurity; for how was Canaan to be in slavery both to Shem and Japhet? The evangelic maxim, "that no man can serve two masters," seems applicable here in a literal sense. This difficulty, the apostle's maxim, of applying for the explication of the sacred oracles to the occurrences of the world, readily removes. It appears from sacred history, that so early as in the time of Abraham, the Canaanites were governed by petty princes of their own, who were the tributary vassals of the Assyrian monarchy, then newly arisen under princes of the family of Ashur, Shem's second son. And from profane history we learn, that when the Canaanites fled from the victorious arms of Joshua, and when the remainder of them were expelled by David, they settled in those parts of Africa which first fell under the dominion of the Romans, the undoubted descendants of Japhet. Thus Canaan in early ages was the slave of Shem, and in later times of Japhet.

But this is neither the most difficult nor the most interesting part of the prophecy. Let us turn our attention to the blessings pronounced upon the two other branches. And we will first consider Japhet's part, because it seems of the two, the most explicit. "God shall enlarge Japhet, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem." The most obvious meaning of the words, I think, is this, that the gracious purpose of Providence was to bless Japhet with a numerous progeny, which should spread over an ample tract of country; and that, not satisfied, or not sufficiently accommodated with their own territory, they would be apt

to encroach upon Shem's descendants, and make settlements within their borders. And as this is the most obvious sense of the words, so it is justified by the apostle's rules: for history supports it. The whole of Europe, and a considerable part of Asia, was originally peopled, and hath been ever occupied by Japhet's offspring, who, not contented with these vast demesnes, have been from time to time repeatedly making encroachments on the sons of Shem; as was notoriously the case, when Alexander the Great, with a European army, attacked and overthrew the Persian monarchy, when the Romans subjugated a great part of the East, and still more notoriously, when the Tartar conquerors of the race of Genghis Khan demolished the great empire of the Caliphs, took possession of their country, and made settlements and erected kingdoms in all parts of Asia and the East; and again, when Tamerlane settled his Moguls, another branch of Japhet's progeny, in Indostan, whose descendants gradually got possession of that immense country, a part of Shem's original inheritance, which forms the present empire of the Great Mogul. These events, not to mention other less remarkable incursions of Scythians into Shem's parts of Asia, may well be deemed an accomplishment of the patriarch's prophetic benediction; not only because they answer to the natural import of the terms of it, but because every one of them had great consequences upon the state of the true religion, and the condition of its professors in various parts of the world, and some of them have been the subjects of later prophecies. So that, in this interpretation, we find the two circumstances which, according to the apostle, are the best characteristics of a true interpretation,—an agreement with the truth of history, and a connexion of this particular prediction with the system of the prophetic word.

It may seem, however, that some amicable intercourse between certain branches of the two families, some peaceable settlement of dsescendants of Japhet in nations arisen from the other stock, may be no less conveniently

denoted, by the expression of "Japhet's dwelling in the tents of Shem," than the violent encroachments of conquerors of the line of Japhet. And this interpretation does not ill agree with history, or, to speak more properly, with the present state of the two families. The settlements of Portuguese, English, Dutch, and French-all of us descended from the loins of Japhet, made within the three last centuries in different parts of India—all of it a part of Shem's inheritance, have given the prophecy in this sense a striking accomplishment. Nor, in this interpretation, is the necessary connexion wanting of this particular prediction with the prophetic system; for consequences cannot but arise, although they have not yet appeared, of great moment to the interests of the true religion, from such numerous and extensive settlements of professed Christians, in countries where the light of the gospel hath for many ages been extinguished.

Thus, you see, history leads us to two senses of this prophecy, of which each may contain an unlimited variety of particular accomplishments; since every settlement of Europeans or of Asiatic Tartars in the Lower Asia and the East, whether gained by war or procured by commercial treaties, connects with the prophecy in one or other of these

two senses.

A third sense is yet behind: but, to bring it the more readily to light, it will be proper previously to consider the sense of Shem's blessing, a blessing obliquely conveyed in this emphatic ejaculation, " Blessed be Jehovah, God of Shem!"-an ejaculation in which this assertion is evidently implied, that "Jehovah should be Shem's God;" and this is the whole of Shem's blessing, a blessing, indeed, which could receive no addition or improvement. It can admit of no dispute, that Jehovah is here styled the God of Shem, in the same sense in which in later times he vouchsafed to call himself the God of a particular branch of Shem's progeny-of Abraham, Isaac, and of Jacob, and of their descendants the Jewish people.-Jehovah is

indeed the God of all the nations of the earth--the Uni-> versal Father, whose tender mercies are over all his works; but, to a particular branch of Shem's family, he was for a time more peculiarly a God, inasmuch as he chose them to be the depositaries of the true religion, while the rest of mankind were sunk in the ignorance and abomination of idolatry. Their temporal concerns he condescended to take under the visible direction of his special providence, -to them he revealed his sacred, incommunicable name,-~ among them he preserved the knowledge and worship of himself, by a series of miraculous dispensations, till the destined season came for the general redemption; and then he raised up, among the offspring of that chosen stock, that Saviour, whose divine doctrine hath spread the knowledge and worship of the true God among all nations, and whose meritorious sacrifice of himself hath made atonement for the sins of the whole world. These were the privileges in store for a select branch of Shem's family, when this prophecy was delivered; privileges by which they were put in a condition to attain the highest blessings both in this world and in the next-the height of national prosperity, and the sum of future bliss; and Shem being yet alive, and his family not split into its branches, it was natural, and agreeable to the usage of the prophetic style, that the future blessings of the offspring should be referred to the ancestor. This, therefore, is the oracular sense of the patriarch's emphatic compellation of Jehovah as the God of Shem. "Thou, O Jehovah! shalt be the God of Shem, the object of his worship and the guardian of his fortunes; while the progeny of his brethren shall place their foolish trust in those which are no gods."

This exposition of Shem's blessing will naturally lead to a new sense of Japhet's, if we only recollect what external means were used by Providence to preserve the knowledge of the true God in the chosen branch of Shem's family. These means were-the call of Abraham; the personal intercourse holden with him and his two next

descendants; and, in due time, the institution of the Mosaic religion; of which religion, you will particularly observe, the tabernacle and the service performed in it were the chief external instruments. The magnificence of the tabernacle; its stately support of upright pillars, resting on their silver sockets, and transverse beams overlaid with gold; its gorgeous hangings within, of purple, linen, blue, and scarlet, with the buttons of gold; its noble covering without, of the shaggy skins of goats; its rich furniture, the seven-branched candlestick, the altars, and the implements of sacrifice, all of brass or gold, pure or overlaid; the ark, containing the tables of the law, with the mercy-seat overshadowed by the wings of the cherubim ; but above all, the glorious light which filled the sacred pavilion, the symbol of Jehovah's presence, this glory of the tabernacle in ancient times, and of the temple afterward, was probably what most caught the admiration of the Jewish people, and attached them to a religion which had so much splendour in its externals, and in which something of what is visible of the majesty of the Divine Being met the senses of the worshippers.

Bearing this remark in mind, let us now turn again to that part of the prophecy which concerns Japhet's family, especially the latter clause of it, "he shall dwell in the tabernacles of Shem." The blessing promised to Shem, we have found to be the miraculous preservation of the true religion in a chosen branch of Shem's family. Might not the prediction of this merciful design of Providence naturally introduce an allusion to the external means by which it was to be effected? Among the external means, we have seen reason to think that the Jewish tabernacle was the most generally efficacious: but under what description is it likely that the tabernacle, not erected till the days of Moses, should be mentioned in prophecy so early as the days of Noah, and in this prophecy in particular, in which Jehovah, for the intention of maintaining the true religion in a branch of Shem's family, is characterized as