By STEPHEN SEWALL, A. M. & A. A. S. PRINTED FOR WILLIAM P. & LEMUEL 1796. THE OVERTHROW OF SODOM and GOMORRAH. ODOM and Gomorrah, and the cities and S. country in their environs, have undergone one of the moft fignal catastrophes, recorded in hiftory. "They are set forth," fays the Apoftle Jude, "for an example, fuffering the vengeance of eternal fire." Or as others choose to render it-fuffering the fimilitude, or a fample of eternal fire. So the Greek word, dike, here tranflated vengeance, fometimes fignifies, Afchylm VII. contra Thebos, 1. 85. When the prophets are denouncing the most, terrible defolation to come upon any country, they can use no stronger figure to exprefs it by, than to fay "it fhall be made like to Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities round about them." There are different opinions what kind of desolation befel these devoted cities, and the country in their vicinity.The most generally received opinion, I suppose, is this, That thofe cities, and the neighbouring champain country were not only burnt up by that preternatural shower of brimftone and fire; but were funk alfo; and that the lake of Sodom, most frequently called in fcripture, the falt fea, now occupics their place. In confirmation of their opinion, it is reported by fome travellers, that they have actually feen heaps of ruined buildings in that fea, at some distance from the hore; from which a continual smoke afcends. The Rev. Mr. Maundrell, a very fenfible Englifh clergyman, who visited this fea, March 30, 1697, affirms he could difcover no fuch phænomena. However, he is fo candid to the reports of others, as to fuppofe the reason he did not fee them, might poffibly be, that the waters, at that time of the year, were higher than at fome other seasons: Though he observes at the fame time, that the waters of the Jordan, which is the principal stream, that runs into that fea, * 1 were then at least fix feet depreffed below the furface of its banks. This vulgar opinion of the overthrow of Sodom feems but ill to comport with many paffages of fcripture. It fhall therefore be the bufinefs of this difcourfe, to afcertain, from the holy fcriptures and other ancient monuments, what was its primitive and flourishing state; and to what a defolate condition it was afterwards reduced, as a mark of the divine difpleasure against its abandoned inhabitants. The patriarch Abraham and his nephew Lot emigrated together from their native country, Ur of the Chaldees. They were afterwards fellow-pilgrims, for a little while, in the land of Canaan, where preffed with famine, they retired to Egypt to relieve their neceffities. The famine being over, they returned to Bethel a village in the land of Canaan, about twelve miles north of Jerufalem, and about twenty-five miles to the weft of Jordan. The wealth of these patriarchs principally confifted of flocks and herds. The natives of the land," the Canaanite and Perizzite," it is obferved by the facred hiftorian, ↑ Gen. xii. 5, 13. * Gen. xiii. 3-5. ་ |