DESIGN OF THE BABEL-BUILDERS
By M. E. Cornell
Interesting Extracts. No. 5.
The celebrated Dr. Barnes remarks: Two things are here to be noted; 1. The truth is to be spoken—the simple, unvarnished truth. This is the way to avoid error. In opposition to all trick, and art, and cunning, and fraud, and deception, Christians are to speak the simple truth, and nothing but the truth. Truth is the representation of things as they are; and there is no virtue that is more valuable in a Christian than the love of simple truth. 2. The truth should be spoken IN LOVE. There are other ways of speaking truth. It is sometimes spoken in a harsh, crabbed, sour manner, which does nothing but disgust and offend. When we state truth to others it should be with love to their souls, and with a sincere desire to do them good. Where a minister pronounces the awful truth of God about depravity, death, the judgment, and future woe, it should be in love. And in like manner, if we go to convince one who is in error, we should approach him in love. He has done about half his work in convincing another of error, who has first convinced him that he LOVES him; and if he does not do that, he may argue to the hour of his death, and make no progress in convincing him." DESIGN OF THE BABEL-BUILDERS.
Josephus says of Nimrod:—"He also said, 'He would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach, and that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers.' Book i. chap. iv. The Tower of Babel was six-hundred feet high, and had a gold image placed on its top in the days of Nebuchadnezzar worth $15,575,000. See Herodotus, Bochart, and Strabo. Brattleboro Bible, 1816. Josephus remarks concerning the Pharisees. "They are long-lived also, inasmuch that many of them lived above a hundred years, by means of the simplicity of their diet; nay, as I think, by means of the regular course of life they observe. They contemn the miseries of life and are above pain, by the generosity of their mind." Book ii, chap, 8. He also speaks of their having a rule to "wash themselves often." Ib. The following is from "Jews' Letters to Voltaire," pp. 181, 182: "Perhaps too you find swine's flesh good and wholesome, but many, even among Christians, think otherwise, and look upon it as a food hard of digestion. This is not all; this animal is subject to a contagious distemper, which was formerly very common in Palestine and the neighborhood. For this very reason your ancestors, having brought the leprosy back with them in their expeditions to the Holy land, forbade swine's flesh to be sold in the markets, except the beast had been inspected by officers, called 'experts,' who were appointed for this purpose. Lastly: even the filthiness of this quadruped was sufficient to give a distaste for it. And agreeably to this, the Egyptians, Arabians, and almost all nations, from Ethiopia to India abhorred it. How much more must a people have detested it to whom the law recommends so strongly cleanliness and purity, even in externals. In short, swine's flesh is hard of digestion, it is subject to the leprosy; swine is the most filthy of animals. These three things are, we think, causes sufficient for banishing it from our tables."