Canaan was however alone cursed:and he became,according to his grandfather's prophecy,"a servant of servants";that is,the vilest and worst of slaves (for I take these words in sense,if not the most natural,the most favorable to the prophecy,and the least absurd)to Sem,though not to Japhet,when the Israelites conquered Palestine;to one of his uncles,not to his brethren.Will it be said --it has been said --that where we read Canaan we are to understand Ham,whose brethren Sem and Japhet were?At this rate,we shall never know what we read:
as these critics never care what they say.Will it be said --this has been said too --that Ham was punished in his posterity,when Canaan was cursed,and his descendants were exterminated?But who does not see that the curse,and the punishment,in this case,fell on Canaan and his posterity,exclusively of the rest of the posterity of Ham;and were therefore the curse and punishment of the son,not of the father,properly?The descendants of Mesraim,another of his sons,were the Egyptians:and they were so far from being servants of servants to their cousins the Semites,that these were servants of servants to them,during more than fourscore years.Why the posterity of Canaan was to be deemed an accursed race,it is easy to account;and I have mentioned it just now.But it is not so easy to account,why the posterity of the righteous Sem,that great example of filial reverence,became slaves to another branch of the family of Ham.
It would not be worth while to lengthen this tedious letter,by setting down any more of the contents of the history of the Bible.Your lordship may please to call the substance of it to your mind,and your native candor and love of truth will oblige you then to confess,that these sacred books do not aim,in any part of them,at any thing like universal chronology and history.They contain a very imperfect account of the Israelites themselves;of their settlement in the land of promise,of which,by the way,they never had entire,and scarce ever peaceable possession;of their divisions,apostasies,repentances,relapses,triumphs,and defeats,under the occasional government of their judges,and under that of their kings;of the Galilean and Samaritan captivities,into which they were carried by the kings of Assyria,and of that which was brought on the remnant of this people when the kingdom of Judah was destroyed by those princes who governed the empire founded on the union of Nineveh and Babylon.These things are all related,your lordship knows,in a very summary and confused manner:and we learn so little of other nations by these accounts,that if we did not borrow some light from the traditions of other nations,we should scarce understand them.One particular observation,and but one,I will make,to show What knowledge in the history of mankind,and in the computation of time,may be expected from these books.
The Assyrians were their neighbors,powerful neighbors,with whom they had much and long to do.Of this empire,therefore,if of any thing,we might hope to find some satisfactory accounts.What do we find?The Scripture takes no notice of any Assyrian kingdom,till just before the time when profane history makes that empire to end.Then we hear of Phul,of Teglath-Phalasser,who was perhaps the same person,and of Salmanaser,who took Samaria in the twelfth of the era of Nabonasser,that is,twelve years after the Assyrian empire was no more.Senacherib succeeds to him,and Asserhaddon to Senacherib.
What shall we say to this apparent contrariety?If the silence of the Bible creates a strong presumption against the first,may not the silence of profane authority create some against the second Assyrian monarchs?The pains that are taken to persuade,that there is room enough between Sardanapalus and Cyrus for the second,will not resolve the difficulty.Something much more plausible may be said,but even this will be hypothetical,and liable to great contradiction.So that upon the whole matter,the Scriptures are so far from giving us light into general history,that they increase the obscurity even of those parts to which they have the nearest relation.We have therefore neither in profane nor in sacred authors such authentic,clear,distinct,and full accounts of the originals of ancient nations,and of the great events of those ages that are commonly called the first ages,as deserve to go by the name of history,or as afford sufficient materials for chronology and history.
I might now proceed to observe to your lordship how this has happened,not only by the necessary consequences of human nature,and the ordinary course of human affairs,but by the policy,artifice,corruption,and folly of mankind.But this would be to heap digression upon digression,and to presume too much on your patience.I shall therefore content myself to apply these reflections on the state of ancient history to the study of history,and to the method to be observed in it;as soon as your lordship has rested yourself a little after reading,and I after writing so long a letter.
