walls, fire the buildings, and fo demolish and destroy it, would be a much more rational fufpicion, and indeed the only fuppofeable one. Thefe From the feveral texts, now remarked upon, it appears that the kind of overthrow the cities of the plain, and the plain itself, fuffered, can be afcertained only by the caufes and confequences of that fignal catastrophe, which are recorded in the facred hiftory. The immediate caufes, or, perhaps more properly, the inftruments in the hand of the Deity, were "brimftone and fire rained from the Lord out of heaven." were caufes, or inftruments, the fitteft imaginable to burn up the cities, destroy the inhabitants and to confume all the vegetables. But these are the only causes, and the only effects or confequences, of that overthrow, mentioned in the first hiftory of it, recorded in Genefis. If more is couched in this short account, than is expreffed, it will probably be hinted at, in fome of the many references to it, in the future parts of facred scripture. In the twenty ninth chapter of Deuteronomy, Mofes donounces to the Ifraelites that, in cafe of disobedience, all the curfes of God's law should come upon them, and upon their country. He foretels what queries would be made by future generations, and by foreign travellers; and what anfwers would be given them, when they fee "that the whole land of Canaan is brimftone and falt burning; that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grafs groweth therein, like "the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Ad "mah and Zeboim, which the Lord overthrew "in his anger and in his wrath." If there is any propriety, as most certainly there is, in this comparison of the land of Canaan, under the marks of divine difpleasure, to the country of Sodom, we may fairly infer, that the latter was not funk or deluged ; but only that the foil was fo impregnated with brimstone and salt, burning together, that it was rendered abfolutely incapable of vegetation. Again, if the country of Sodom had been funk or deluged, there would have been the fame impropriety in comparing the defolation of Edom to it, as the prophet Jeremiah does in his forty ninth chapter. And there would have been a still greater abfurdity, if poffible, in the comparison, which the prophets Ifaiah and Jeremiah* make of the forlorn state of Babylon to * Ifaiah xiii. 19. Fer. i. 35-40. ། the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the neighbouring cities thereof :" For the latter of these prophets expreffly mentions this, at the fame time, as one of the judgments of Ba bylon, that " a drought is upon her waters, and "a they shall be dried up. Further, it is only upon the fuppofition of a conflagration, that we can difcern the pertinency of the comparison, which the prophet Amos makes, addreffing himself to the ten tribes in the name of the Lord; "I have overthrown fome of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a fire brand plucked out of the burning,"* viz. as Lot and his family were. In fine, from a careful examination of every text in the Old Teftament, relating to the overthrow of these devoted cities, I cannot difcover the leaft intimation, that they were funk or deluged. The only effects or confequences of this catastrophe the fcriptures of the Old Teftament acquaint us with, are, that the cities were reduced to ashes ; and that the land or ground, on account of brimftone and falt, was parched up, and rendered forever barren. The writers of the Amos iv. II. New Teftament give the fame account ;* ' that these cities were turned into afhes,'-and that they are set forth for an example, fuffering the vengeance of eternal fire.': Upon the whole, I cannot but conclude, that the vulgar opinion, that the dead sea or lake of Sodom owed its origin, or even enlargement, to the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbouring cities, must be ranked among vulgar errors. Some of the ancient writers indeed have fo defcribed the qualities of this fea, that if credit be given to their reports, we should be induced to believe its waters, if they may be called waters, were nothing but a mixture of brimftone and bitumen, liquified by that fiery tempeft. They affirm, that this lake is of fuch a fuffocating quality, and is continually emitting steams of fuch intolerable ftench, that it is not only untenantable by the watery fires; but even fatal to the airy tribes, which prefume to fly over it. But without dwelling upon these reports, which favor too much of fable to be relied on; we pafs to the accounts of eye witneffes. * 2 Peter, ii. 6. Jude, ver. 7. Luke xvii. 2, 9. + See Reland, vol. 1, page 38. A The first shall be that of Galen, the physician, who flourished in the reign of Trajan and fome fucceeding emperors. made pretty accurate Being a physician, he obfervations upon the Some other things he relates of this lake, he feems to have taken up from vulgar report. The account is this. "The water of the lake in Palestine Syria, which "fome name the dead fea, and others, the Af ἐσ phaltite lake, is, to the taste, not only falt, but "bitter too. It produces a falt alfo of the fame "mixed favour. At first view, the water of the "whole fea appears very white and thick, fimi"lar to pure falt. And if one should caft falt "into this lake, it is already fo impregnated "with that fubftance, that it would not dif"folve. And should one plunge himself into "it, he would, upon emerging, appear all over 'ર besprinkled with fine falt. In a word, on ac"count of the exceffive faltness of these waters, σε they are as much heavier or more buoyant, "than those of other feas, as they are than fresh "or or river water." The fame author relates, "That fo great is the excess of the specific gravity of these waters, above that of the hu D |