Page:Copley 1844 A History of Slavery and its Abolition 2nd Ed.djvu/40

22 great-grandson of Noah, was proverbially distinguished as a "mighty hunter before the Lord." This phrase, "before the Lord," when applied to a good man, intimates that he acted as realizing the presence of God, and enjoying the Divine approbation and favour. Thus it is said that Noah was righteous before the Lord;" and Abraham was thus addressed,—"I am the Almighty God, walk thou before me, and be thou perfect." But when the phrase is applied to a wicked man, it generally expresses his presumptuous defiance of the Lord. Thus it is said, "the men of Sodom were wicked, and sinners before the Lord exceedingly." It is probable that the phrase, as applied to Nimrod, denotes his daring haughty spirit, which led him, in his ambitious pursuits, to disregard the laws of God and the rights of men. Up to his time, government had been patriarchal; that is, each father had governed in his own family; but Nimrod is the first mentioned king and conqueror. He might hunt wild beasts, but it is pretty evident that he also hunted down men, and made them subservient to his ambition and usurpation. He founded the royal city, afterwards called Babel or Babylon, and thence went forth to conquer and subdue, and usurp dominion over the inhabitants of other places. He was, in all probability, the leader of that presumptuous enterprise, the building of a city whose walls should reach to heaven, and should become the centre of a universal monarchy. In the prosecution of these ambitious designs, we can easily imagine that Nimrod must have reduced vast numbers of his fellow-creatures to subjection, either to the labour of slavery or the captivity of war; indeed we can scarcely suppose it to have been