warning) to exclaim: "This child shall comfort US concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the earth which the Lord hath cursed *." So our common English version; but, the Greek interpreters render their text with a very observable difference : "This child will cause US to cease from our toil, and from the distress of our hands, AND FROM THE EARTH WHICH THE LORD HATH CURSED!"οὗτος διαναπαύσει ήμας απο των εργων ήμων, και απο των λυπων των χειρων ήμων, ΚΑΙ ΑΠΟ †, ΤΗΣ ΓΗΣ ΗΣ ΚΑΤΗΡΑΣΑΤΟ ΚΥΡΙΟΣ Ο ΘΕΟΣ, In which word "US" we are not, to understand themselves personally, but their family and race. And after the retreat of the waters of the deluge, God did not revoke the curse which He had formerly pronounced, because it had been fully executed in "cutting off the cursed thing;" but He declared that He would not again pronounce a curse, that is, a second curse, upon the earth—the new earth, which He had provided to succeed that which had been cursed and cut ο: ου προσθησω ετι καταρασθαι την γην" non addam maledicere rursus terram :" which implies, that the curse was terminated by the deluge. Neither is there any mention in Scripture of a general

* Gen. v. 29.

"It is evident that the Heb. copy of the LXX. read

". ידינו ומן אדמה

curse upon the earth, except, 1. when it was originally pronounced to Adam; and finally commemorated at the birth of Noah. 2. When God, after the flood, declared that He would not curse the earth a second time. 3. When a warning is given in Malachi, not to provoke a curse upon the earth *.

دو

Now it appears to me, that the express declaration of God to Noah before the deluge, that He would destroy mankind together with the earth, and His promise after the fulfilment of that declaration-a promise confirmed by the appointment of the bow in the cloud to be a perpetual memorial of His covenant, that He would not curse the ground any more for man's sake-that He would not smite any more every living thing as He had done †, that is, that all flesh should not be cut off any more by the waters of a flood, and that there should not any more be a flood to destroy the earth ‡, are quite sufficient to convince the Mineral Geologist, that there was a total destruction of the then inhabited earth, with all that it contained, excepting Noah and his family, and the animals preserved with him in the ark, without having recourse to the necessity of forcing the in

Comparative Estimate, vol. ii. part iii. chap. ii. p. 18, 19,

+ Gen. viii. 21.

Gen. ix. 11.

in

terpretation of Scripture, and making the curse which God immediately after the fall denounced against the earth for the sake of man, to apply eventually to the Noachic Deluge. Notwithstanding the quotation of Mr. Penn from the XXXVIIth Psalm, which has in fact no reference whatever to the Deluge, but which, from the stress laid upon it by Mr. Penn, it would seem, referred immediately to that event, -notwithstanding the doctrine maintained by Irenæus as quoted in the note contained p. 19 of the 2d volume of the Comparative Estimate *,-notwithstanding the triumphal note of admiration after the translation of Gen. v. 29, from the version of the LXX.-notwithstanding this formidable trio, I cannot allow myself to be persuaded to believe that we have any ground whatever for supposing that the Flood in the days of Noah was implied in the curse denounced by God against the earth for the sake of man after the fall, or that such a catastrophe was intimated to any one before the purpose of God so to punish the world was made known to Noah at the period of his life to be deduced from Scripture †.

In the third chapter of Genesis we read that

* See note §, in p. 22.

+ Compare Gen. v. 32, vi. 3, and vii. 6.

God said unto Adam,

"Because thou

hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it:

cursed is the ground for thy ארורה האדמה

sake." And the nature of the curse is thus expressed," In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life-Thorns also, and thistles, (77 Yp-Both thorn and thistle *,) shall it bring forth to thee: and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return 8, in humum, unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return †.”

Surely notwithstanding

the promise

made by God in his curse upon the serpent, and which precedes the curse upon the ground for man's sake, viz. that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head ‡, whereby was intimated the triumph of the promised Saviour over the malice and power of Satan,

ακαν vdas kaι трibolovs. So the LXX. translate the words. The very same expression is used in Heb. vi. 8, in describing barren, unproductive ground. « Εκφέρουσα δε (γη,) ακανθας καὶ τριβόλους, ἀδόκιμος, καὶ καταρας ἐγούς,” (affinis imprecationi) “ ἧς το τέλος εἰς καῦσιν.”

+ Gen. iii. 17, 18, 19. Gen. iii. 15.

and the salvation of the soul of man through His atoning merits - notwithstanding this promised blessing, this denunciation of the Almighty cannot be considered otherwise than as a curse upon man-as a malediction, comprehending in its nature exceeding labour and toil of the body, and constant care and anxiety of mind in working the barren and uncultivated ground, during the period of his short abode upon earth, a period to be terminated by the pangs of dissolution-a malediction, which was to be perpetual—which, notwithstanding the present innate fertility of the virgin soils of the Postdiluvian earth *, when compared, according to the conjectures of Mr. Penn with those of the Antediluvian, we find, has survived the ruins of the Deluge-a malediction, the termination of which shall be coeval with that of time itself. This was undoubtedly the curse, which constituted the heavy punishment-the curse, which, pronounced

* May not a great cause of the probably superior fertility of the soils of the Postdiluvian above those of the Antediluvian earth arise from the rain, which affords a suitable degree of moisture to the vegetable kingdom, and brings the different soils into a fit state to perform their office?

+ Comparative Estimate, vol. ii. p. 39.