_Israelites_; [231] _behold the people of the children of _Israel_ are more and mightier than we_: and to prevent their multiplying and growing too strong, he caused their male children to be drowned. These footsteps there are of the first peopling of the earth by mankind, not long before the days of _Abraham_; and of the overspreading it with villages, towns and cities, and their growing into Kingdoms, first Smaller and then greater, until the rise of the Monarchies of _Egypt_, _Assyria_, _Babylon_, _Media_, _Persia_, _Greece_, and _Rome_, the first great Empires on this side _India_. _Abraham_ was the fifth from _Peleg_, and all mankind lived together in _Chaldea_ under the Government of _Noah_ and his sons, untill the days of _Peleg_: so long they were of one language, one society, and one religion: and then they divided the earth, being perhaps, disturbed by the rebellion of _Nimrod_, and forced to leave off building the tower of _Babel_: and from thence they spread themselves into the several countries which fell to their shares, carrying along with them the laws, customs and religion, under which they had 'till those days been educated and governed, by _Noah_, and his sons and grandsons: and these laws were handed down to _Abraham_, _Melchizedek_, and _Job_, and their contemporaries, and for some time were observed by the judges of the eastern countries: so _Job_ [232] tells us, that adultery was _an heinous crime, yea an iniquity to be punished by the judges_: and of idolatry he [233] saith, _If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart hath been secretly inticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand, this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge: for I should have denied the God that is above_: and there being no dispute between _Job_ and his friends about these matters, it may be presumed that they also with their countrymen were of the same religion. _Melchizedek_ was a Priest of the most high God, and _Abraham_ voluntarily paid tythes to him; which he would scarce have done had they not been of one and the same religion. The first inhabitants of the land of _Canaan_ seem also to have been originally of the same religion, and to have continued in it 'till the death of _Noah_, and the days of _Abraham_; for _Jerusalem_ was anciently [234] called _Jebus_, and its people _Jebusites_, and _Melchizedek_ was their Priest and King: these nations revolted therefore after the days of _Melchizedek_ to the worship of false Gods; as did also the posterity of _Ismael_, _Esau_, _Moab_, _Ammon_, and that of _Abraham_ by _Keturah_: and the _Israelites_ themselves were very apt to revolt: and one reason why _Terah_ went from _Ur_ of the _Chaldees_ to _Haran_ in his way to the land of _Canaan_; and why _Abraham_ afterward left _Haran_, and went into the land of _Canaan_, might be to avoid the worship of false Gods, which in their days began in