14. It would have been a hard matter for anyone but our author to have found out so plainly, in the text he here brings, that all the nations in that dispersion were governed by fathers, and that “God was careful to preserve the fatherly authority.” The words of the text are, “These are the sons of Shem after their families, after their tongues in their lands, after their nations”; and the same thing is said of Cham and Japhet, after an enumeration of their posterities: in all which there is not one word said of their governors, or forms of government; of fathers, or fatherly authority. But our author, who is very quick-sighted to spy out fatherhood, where nobody else could see any the least glimpses of it, tells us positively their “rulers were fathers, and God was careful to preserve the fatherly authority?” and why? Because those of the same family spoke the same language, and so of necessity in the division kept together.