Ver. 1. And the whole earth was of one language.] Unity without verity, is no better than conspiracy. A legion of devils could accord to get into one man; and, though many, yet they speak and act as one in that possession. That infernal kingdom is not divided against itself. A shame for God’s saints to be at difference. What should sheep do snarling, like dogs, one at another? The children of this world are wiser, a fair deal, in their generation; (Hebrews 3:10) they can combine and comply, as here; though their society be as unsavoury as the slime and filth that is congealed, when many toads and other vermin meet together.
Ver. 2. In the land of Shinar.] Which was a part of the garden of Eden, as most geographers think, fat and fruitful still above belief (Herodot. lib. i. cap. 93; Plin. lib. vi. cap. 26).
Ver. 3. And they said one to another.] One broached this counsel, and the rest soon consented. Let us consider one another to whet on to love and good works. (Hebrews 10:24) One live coal may set a whole stack on fire. When Silas came, Paul “burned in spirit,” (Acts 18:5) and preached lustily. Let us make brick, &c.] Thus, wanting stones, they devised matter for their cursed building. Good cause hath the Church to be as ingenious and sedulous in building staircases for heaven, as the devil and his imps in digging descents to hell. And they had brick for stone, and slime for mortar.] And yet though the walls were high and huge, this city was taken first by Cyrus, afterwards by Alexander, and plundered at several times by many other enemies. Shusa in Persia was first built by Tithonus and his son Memnon, who was so exceeding prodigal, that, as Cassiodorus writes, he joined the stones together with gold; so rich it was that Aristagoras thus cheered up his soldiers that besieged it. This city if you can take, you may vie with Jove himself for wealth and riches. Here Alexander found 50,000 talents of gold, besides silver. But what is all this to the heavenly Jerusalem, whose pavement is pure gold, and her walls garnished with all precious stones? (Revelation 21:19) Why do we then labour in the fire, to “load ourselves with thick clay”? (Habakkuk 2:6) Why doth not this “kingdom of heaven suffer violence by us, sith the violent take it by force,” (Matthew 11:12) or make a prey, a prize of it (so Hilany rendereth it) as soldiers do of a city they have taken? Oh that we could say of heaven, as Sextus Ruffus doth of Cyprus, Cyprus famosa divitiis paupertatem populi Rom. ut occuparetur sollicitavit! This island was anciently called Macaria: Heaven more truly. συνειχετο. Intus et apud se aestuabat praezeli ardore. Apud Babylone Traianus Imp. vidit lacum bituminis, ex quo moenia Babylonis aedificata fuerant, cuius tanta vis est, ut permixtum cum lateribus, quovis saxo sit aut ferro potentius.— Dio in Vita Trajan. Iam cum Iove de divitiis licet certetis.— Cassiod., lib. vii.; Var., epist. xv. Diripiunt metaph. a castris aut arce quapiam, quae irrumpentibus hostibus diripitur.— Hilar.
Ver. 4. Let us build us a city and a tower.] This tower raised a head of majesty, 5164 paces from the ground, having its basis and circumference equal to the height. The passage to go up, went winding about the outside, and was of an exceeding great breadth, there being not only room for horses, carts, &c., to meet and turn, but lodgings also for man and beast (as Verstegan reports), grass and grain fields for their nourishment. Let us make us a name.] This is a disease that cleaves to us all, to “receive honour one of another, and not to seek the honour that cometh from God only”. (John 5:44) A rare man he is surely, that has not some Babel of his own, whereon he bestows pains and cost, only to be talked of. Hoc ego primus vidi, was Zabarelle’s επινικιον. Epicurus would have us believe, that he was the first that ever found out the truth of things. Palaemon gave out, that all learning was born and would die with him. Aratus the astrologer, that he had numbered the stars, and written of them all. Archimedes, the mathematician, that if he had but where to set his foot, he could move the earth out of its place. Herostratus burnt Diana’s temple for a name. And Plato writes of Protagoras, that he bragged, that whereas he had lived sixty years, forty of them he had spent in corrupting of youth. Cicero tells us, that Gracchus did all for popular applause; and observes, that those philosophers that have written of the contempt of glory, have yet set their names to their own writings, which shows an itch after that glory they persuaded others to despise. These two things, saith Cicero somewhere of himself, I have to boast of, Optimarum artium scientiam et maximarum rerum gloriam, my learned works, and noble acts. Julius Caesar had his picture set upon the globe of the world, with a sword in his right hand, a book in his left, with this motto, Ex utroque Caesar. Vibius Rufus used the chair wherein Caesar was wont to sit, and was slain; he married also Cicero’s widow, and boasted of them both, as if either for that seat he had been Caesar, or for that wife an orator, When Maximus died in the last day of his consulship, Caninius Rebilus petitioned Caesar for that part of the day, that he might be said to have been consul. So many of the Popish clergy have with great care and cost procured a cardinal’s hat, when they have lain a dying, that they might be entitled cardinals in their epitaph, as Erasmus writes. But for men’s ennobling themselves by building, those seven wonders of the world were made merely for a name. Pharos, a watch-tower in Egypt, being one of the seven, was built by Ptolomy Philadelph, all of white marble. The chief architect was Sostratus of Gnidos, who engraved on the work this inscription, “Sostratus of Gnidos, son of Dexiphanes, to the gods protectors, for the safeguard of sailors.” This inscription he covered with plaster, and thereon engraved the name and title of the king the founder: that (that soon wasted and washed away) his own that was written in marble, might be eternised to posterity. This tower, saith Wickam, is a known story. And Phidias, the famous carver, so cunningly set his own countenance into Minerva’s shield at Athens, that it could not be defaced, but the shield itself must be disfigured. The Hague, in Holland, has two thousand households in it. The inhabitants will not wall it, as desiring to have it counted rather the principal village of Europe, than a lesser city. And Sextus Marius, being once offended with his neighbour, invited him to be his guest for two days together. The first of those two days he pulled down his neighbour’s farmhouse; the next, he set it up again, far bigger and better than before. And all this for a name, that his neighbours might see and say, what good or harm he could do to them at his pleasure. Heyl., Geog. Dr Prid., Contra Eudoemon. Joh. Secum literas esse natas, et morituras.— Sueton. Aug. de Civit. Dei., lib. xvi. Plato in Menone Tusc. iii. Pro Archia Poeta. Epist. Famil., lib. vii.—Gabriel Simeon in Symbolis. —Dion Cass. in Tyberio. O vigilantem Consulem qui tuto consulatus sui tempore, somnum non vidit. Heylin’s Geog., p. 750, -B. Godwin’s Catalogue. —Heylin’s Geog., p. 240.—Dio in Tiberio.