Jeremiah therefore only conformed to the usual custom when he bound himself with cords, and put bonds and yokes upon his neck, as figures of the approaching slavery of those to whom he sent them, and if we attend properly to these things, we shall find the times here spoken of to be like those of an old world, differing in everything from the new society. The laws, the manner of making war, were all absolutely different; and if we only open Homer and the first book of Herodotus, we need nothing more to convince us that there is not the least resemblance between the people of early antiquity and ourselves; hence we ought to distrust our own judgment, when we attempt to compare their manners with ours. Even nature herself is not now the same she was then; magicians and sorcerers had at that time a power over her which they no longer possess; they enchanted serpents, they raised the dead out of their tombs, etc. God sent dreams, and men interpreted them. The gift of prophecy was common. And we read of several metamorphoses, such as of Nebuchadnezzar into an ox, of Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt, and of five whole cities changed in an instant into a burning lake. There were likewise several species of men that no longer exist. The race of giants, Rephaim, Emim, Nephilim, and Enacim, have totally disappeared. St. Augustine, in his fifth book “_De Civitate Dei_,” says that he saw a tooth of one of those ancient giants that was at least a hundred times as large as one of our grinders. Ezekiel speaks of pygmies (_Gamadim_), not above a cubit high, who fought at the siege of Tyre; and almost all writers, sacred and profane, have agreed in the truth of these relations. In fine, the ancient world was so different from ours that there is no drawing any rule for our conduct from it; and if in the earliest ages of antiquity we find mankind mutually persecuting and destroying one another on account of their different faiths, far be it from us, who live under the enlightened law of grace, to copy after such originals. [53] Jer. xxvii. xxviii. [54] Isaiah xliv. and xlv. [55] Malachi i. 1. [56] Deut. xxviii. 28 and seq.