lOKGEVITY OF THE ANTEDILUVIANS. 
411 
Longevity of the Antediluvians accounted for. 
One of the most extraordinary circumstances which occurs in the 
antediluvian historv, is the vast length of human lives in those first 
ages, in comparison with our own. Few persons now arrive at eighty 
or one hundred years ; whereas, before the flood, they frequently 
lived to nearly 1000, a disproportion almost incredible, though sup- 
ported by the joint testimonies of sacred and profane writers. Some, 
to reconcile the matter with probability, have imagined that the age 
of those first men might possibly be computed, net by solar years, 
but months, an expedient which reduces the length of their lives rather 
to a shorter period than our own. But for this, there is not the least 
foundation, besides the many absurdities that would there follow, 
such as their begetting children at about six years of age, as some 
of them in that case must have done, and the contraction of the 
whole interval between the creation and the deluge to considerably 
less than two hundred years, even according to the larger computa- 
tion of the Septuagint. 
Josephus, and some Christian divines, are of opinion, that before 
the flood, and some time after, mankind in general did not live to 
such a remarkable age, but only a few beloved by God, such as the 
patriarchs mentioned by Moses. They reason in this manner: Though 
the historian records the names of some men, whose longevity was 
singular, yet that is no proof that the rest of mankind attained to the 
same period of life, more than that every man was of a gigantic sta-^ 
ture, because he says in those days there were giants upon the earth. 
Besides, had the whole of the Antediluvians lived so very long, 
and increased in numbers in proportion to their age, before the flood 
of Noah, the earth could not have contained its inhabitants, even sup- 
posing no part of it had been sea. Hence they conclude, that God 
extended only the lives of the patriarchs, to such an extraordinary 
length. But most writers maintain the longevity of mankind in general 
in the earl}’' world, not only upon the authority of sacred, but likewise 
of profane history. And for such a constitution, the moral reasons 
are abundantly obvious. 
When the world was wholly unpeopled, except by one pair, it was 
necessary to endow men with a stronger frame, and to allow them a 
longer continuance upon earth for peopling it with inhabitants. In 
the infant state of every mechanical art, relating to tillage, building, 
clothing, &c. it would require many years’ experience to invent proper 
tools and instruments to ease men of their labour, and by multiplying 
essays and experiments to bring their inventions to any degree of 
maturity arid perfection. Every part of their work must have been 
exceedingly arduous, from such a penury and coarseness of tools, and 
must 'have required longer time, and more strength of body, than 
afterwards, when mechanical knowledge was introduced' into the 
world. If parents at this period had not continued long with their 
children, to have taught them the art of providing for themselves, and 
have defended themselves froni the attacks of Wild beasts, and other 
injuries to which they were exposed, many families would have been 
totally extinguished. 
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