But while Noah, conformably to the earlier practice, erected an altar to Jehovah, offered typical offerings, and otherwise complied with the ritual, professed the doctrines, and exercised the faith of the revealed system of religion, and was a preacher of righteousness; his early descendants, like those of Adam, were soon separated into opposite parties of true and false worshippers. The false or idolatrous party, originally characterized as the seed of the serpent, the followers and servants of Satan, having, under Nimrod--a name signifying rebel--united in their antagonist scheme, commenced the erection of the tower of Babel--otherwise Bel, Belus, or Baal--in Babylon. From a comparison of the terms employed with reference to this structure, and the object and nature of the idolatry to which it was devoted; its history and that of the structures and idolatry of other countries which were copied from the model here furnished; the descriptions in the Scriptures of that idolatry, both as practised by the heathen and by the Israelites, and the references to it by Herodotus, Thucydides, and other secular historians, the following summary statement in the present and two succeeding chapters is believed to be well founded. This tower or temple was originally destined, as it was afterwards devoted, to the worship of the great Adversary, who palmed himself upon his followers as god of this world, god of providence, bestower of benefits and blessings; the good principle or intelligence of the Babylonians, Persians, and other heathen nations, by whom he was regarded as a creature intermediate between the supreme, self-existent, invisible Being, and the human race, and in that character as creator and ruler of the world; having his residence in the sun as his tabernacle and shekina, and manifesting himself locally and at pleasure to his votaries in fire, as his element, and as the medium of their worship, sacrifices, incense, &c., and in light, and in the effects of the solar heat upon vegetation, and otherwise as causing the chief blessings and comforts of life. These visible objects and benefits appealed directly to the senses and the unrestrained passions of his followers, who, being at enmity with the righteous party, and irreconcilably opposed to the doctrines, duties, and restraints of their religion; and yet, as well from social considerations as from their natures as dependent creatures, requiring a substitute, a rival antagonist system, and a head and leader consistent with it, may well be supposed to have entered into this system with a zeal, a pertinacity and desperateness, not exceeded by their successors in Babylon or elsewhere, nor even by that of the apostate Jews, who, in direct opposition to the doctrines and worship of Jehovah, established in his temple this idol system, with its emblems and rites, and the public and formal worship of its god in the sun, most boldly and impiously turning their faces to the