Chap. IV. A N T I E N T iM E T x'\ P H Y S I C S. 12 



J 



As there were but nine generations betwixt Adam and Noali, and 

 during that time, as it does not appear that there was any alteration 

 in the manner of living of thofe anceftors of the Jewifh nation, it 

 is not to be wondered that there was no great difference in the length 

 of their lives : iSut, after the Flood, the decreafe goes on very fafl: ; 

 fo that Abraham, who was only the tenth from Noah, lived no 

 more than one hundred and feventy-five years. And this agrees 

 perfe^ly with my pliilofophy ; for Men after the Flood ate flelli, 

 and drank wine even to drunkennefs ; neither of which they did 

 before the Flood. And, perhaps, fo great a convulfion in Na- 

 ture, as the Flood, may have produced a great change in the air, the 

 foil, and the vegetables, not favourable to the life of Man. The 

 decreafe, however, went on, as every thing in Nature does, by de- 

 grees. Abraham, as I have faid, lived one bundled and feventy-five 

 years; and, when he was one hundred and his wife Sarah ninety, 

 he begot Ifaac ; and after that, when he was about one hundred and 

 forty, he begot fix fons by Keturah. tlis fon Ifaac lived to the age of 

 one hundred and eighty ; and Ifaac's fon Jacob, when he went down 

 to Egypt with liis family, was one hundred and thirty : But then 

 he told Pharaoh, ' Few and evil have the days of the years of my 

 ' life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the 

 * life of my fathers, in the days of their pilgrimage *,' He lived 

 however, to the age of one hundred and forty-feven. 



Thofe, I know, Vvho in fift to make all men after their own image 

 and to bring down antient times to the level of modern, will give no 

 credit to Mofes ; or, if they do not choofe flatly to give him the 

 lie, they will endeavour to explain away what he fiiys, by tell- 

 ing us that Mofes's years are nionths. According to this account 

 Methufalem did not live fo long as many men among us do, and 

 not near fo long as Abraham, Ifaac, or Jacob did, in much later 

 times J about the length of whofe lives there can be no difpute. if 



0^2 we 



* Gencfis, Chap. 47. Verfe 9. 



