4. The Manners of the Antediluvians. According to the poet, the first step in the progress of civilization is, Connubio prohibere vago, dare jure 7naritis. The pro priety of the maxim is apparent ; and it evidently rests on higher authority than mere opinion: for the first civil institution which God appointed to man, was the ordinance of marriage, restricted to one man and one woman, by the original proportion between the sexes. It was not long, however, till this wholesome restric tion was violated, and polygamy introduced, by the ex ample of Lamech. A regulation founded on expediency, and obviously conducive to the welfare of society, viz. the prohibited degrees of consanguinity in marriage, must have been unknown in the first age of the world ; and the first marriage, after that of Adam and Eve, must have been between brother and sister.
It has been a question much debated, whether the antediluvians were permitted to eat animal food. There is certainly nothing in the scripture account that can lead us to think that they had such permission, hut rather the contrary. The Almighty specifies, in as precise language as can well be supposed, the particular diet which man was to use ; and there is no mention of animal food, nor any hint that it was permitted. "Be hold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat." Gen. i. 29. The natural inference from this passage is, that the diet of the antediluvians was restricted to the fruits of the earth, and that they were by no means permitted to feed on the flesh of ani mals. The same thing appears from the grant after wards given to Noah ; "Every moving thing that livcth shall be meat for you : even as the green herb have I given you all things ;" which is as much as to say, I give you now as full permission to use the flesh of animals for food, as you have hitherto had, to use the fruits of the earth. In answer to this, it has been said, that the per mission to use animal food was implied in the absolute dominion which God gave to Adam over every living thing. This argument would prove too much ; it would prove that every creature, subjected to the power of man, was allowed him for food, which is more than the ICreatophagists would be willing to admit ; as one of their arguments is, that there was from the beginning a distinction between clean and unclean animals, which, they contend, could only be made with a reference to food. To this we answer, that the distinction was made with a reference to sacrifice, and probably with an allu sion to the future distinction between Jews and Gentiles.
'Hence we find, that, when this distinction was to cease, it was intimated to St Peter by a vision of animals of all descriptions, clean and unclean, let down, as it were, in a sheet from heaven, of which the apostle was command ed to eat promiscuously.
We now proceed to make a few observations on some remarkable circumstances in the adtediluvian history, which cannot be comprehended under any of the fore going heads.
One circumstance, recorded in this history, has been represented as very wonderful, viz. the marriages which are said to have taken place between the sons of God and the daughters of men ; though we are persuaded that the wonder arises solely from the misconceptions of ignorance, or the love of the marvellous. It would be irksome to detail the absurdities which have been advanced, to obscure a subject, which a little attention to the phraseology and contents of scripture might have easily elucidated. Nothing is more common in scrip ture than to denominate the righteous, The sons or chil dren of God, in contradistinction to the children of this world. By the sons of God, then, we understand those who continued to observe his commandments ; and by the daughters of men, we understand the offspring of that degenerate race, which despised and forsook the law of the Almighty. They who adopt this interpreta tion, which seems to be the only one that is rational and admissible, suppose farther, that the descendants of Seth are intended by the former designation, whilst the latter points out the children of Cain. There seem to be good grounds for this opinion ; and the Jews, by whom it has been generally received, not content with the intimations of scripture, have invented many rabi nical fables, in order to confirm it. But we have a hint in scripture worth a thousand conjectures. In Gen. iv. 26, it is said, "And to Seth, to him also there was born a son : and he called his name Enos : then began men to call unon the name of the Lord ;" or, as it is more pro perly translated in the margin of our Bible, " Then be gan men to call themselves by the name of the Lord :" that is, to call themselves the sons of God : and as this circumstance is mentioned immediately in connection with the family of Seth, it is probable that it was to his descendants that this designation was appropriated. II appears, however, that they soon forfeited the title through the example of their fair but wicked consorts ; and they are not the only persons whose happiness and virtue have been lost by such connections.