om the Deluge, presented the immediate
_occasion_ for this remarkable prophecy; but the actual
_fulfilment_ was reserved for his posterity after they had
lost the knowledge of God, and become utterly polluted by
the abominations of heathen idolatry. The Almighty,
foreseeing this total degradation of the race, ordained them
to servitude or slavery under the descendants of Shem and
Japheth, doubtless because _he judged it to be their fittest
condition_. And all history proves how accurately the
prediction has been accomplished, even to the present
day."[18]

Now, the first thing to be done by those who adopt this view is, to
prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Noah was inspired to pronounce
this prophecy. Noah _had_ been, as a rule, a righteous man. For more
than a hundred years he had lifted up his voice against the growing
wickedness of the world. His fidelity to the cause of God was
unquestioned; and for his faith and correct living, he and his entire
household were saved from the Deluge. But after his miraculous
deliverance from the destruction that overcame the old world, his
entire character is changed. There is not a single passage to show us
that he continued his avocation as a preacher. He became a husbandman;
he kept a vineyard; and, more than all, he drank of the wine and got
drunk! Awaking from a state of inebriation, he knew that Ham had
beheld his nakedness and "told his two brethren." But "Shem and
Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and
went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their
faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness."[19]
It is quite natural to suppose, that, humiliated and chagrined at his
sinful conduct, and angered at the behavior of his son and grandson,
Ham and Canaan, Noah expressed his disapprobation of Canaan. It was
_his_ desire, on the impulse of the moment, that Canaan should suffer
a humiliation somewhat commensurate with his offence; and, on the
other hand, it was appropriate that he should commend the conduct of
his other sons, who sought to hide their father's shame. And all this
was done without any inspiration. He simply expressed himself as a
fallible man.

Bishop Hopkins, however, is pleased to call this a "prophecy." In
order to prophesy, in the scriptural meaning of the word, a man must
have the divine unction, and must be moved by the Holy Ghost; and, in