children of men builded," and He said, "now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do." "So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth."[1] In this remarkable history it is expressly said that "the Lord came down." This, however, does not mean a personal manifestation in the natural world, but an open indication of His influential presence. The perversity of men had reached a dangerous height, and the Lord came down, by a special providence to stay its progress. The events that followed plainly reveal the execution of a judgment, primarily upon those spirits in the spiritual world who had induced those delusions and urged on the enormities which were committed, and finally displayed itself among men by scattering them abroad. This may be evident from the check which they received; "they left off to build the city." The spiritual causes which had led to this result were dispersed, and their powers diminished; and so those wicked and insane proceedings of mankind were stayed. The effect ceased when the causes were arrested: and this brought the Noetic dispensation, as such, to a close. It broke up the unity of men in the prosecution of unholy courses, and scattered abroad, in many rude forms, some of those spiritual truths which had been known and cherished in purer times. It was upon the remains of the information thus conveyed that most of the religions of the East were subsequently founded. Although it does not appear that the Noetic dispensation was terminated by any gencral or final judgment, like its predecessor; yet, after the dispersion, we find that some branches of it became too atrocious for preservation. These, therefore, became the subject of particular judgments, by which they were thoroughly destroyed. The cases of
