Noah had none of them before, and begat them from that yeare when
it is said hee was five hundred yeares old and begat Sem, Ham, and
Japhet; Againe, it is said he was sixe hundred yeares old at the flood,
and that two yeares after Sem was but an hundred, therefore Sem must
be borne when Noah was five hundred and two, and some other be∣fore
in the yeare of five hundred and one.
Now whereas the Scripture affordeth the priority of order unto
Sem, we cannot from thence inferre his primogeniture; for in Sem
the holy line was continued, and therefore however borne, his
genealogy was most remarkeable. So is it not unusuall in holy Scri∣pture
to nominate the younger before the elder; so is it said, That Ta∣••ah
begat Abraham, Nachor, and Haram; whereas Haram was the
eldest. So Rebecca is termed the mother of Jacob and Esau. Nor is it
strange the younger should be first in nomination, who have com∣monly
had the priority in the blessings of God, and been first in his be∣nediction.
So Abel was accepted before Cain, Abraham the younger,
preferred before Ismael the elder, Jacob before Esau, Joseph was
the youngest of twelve, and David the eleventh son, and but the cad∣det
of Jesse.
Lastly, though Japhet were not elder then Sem, yet must we not af∣firme
that he was younger then Cham, for it is plainely delivered, that
after Sem and Japhet had covered Noah, he awaked, and knew what
his youngest son had done unto him. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, is the expression
of the Septuagint, Filius minor of Jerome, and minimus of Tremelli∣us.
And upon these grounds perhaps Josephus doth vary from the
Scripture enumeration, and nameth them Sem, Japhet, and Cham,
which is also observed by the Annian Berosus; Noah cum tribus fil••is,
Semo, Iapeto, Chem. And therefore although in the priority of Sem and
Japhet there may be some difficulty, though Cyrill, Epiphanius, and
Austin have accounted Sem the elder, and Salian the Annalist, and Pe∣tavius
the Chronologist contend for the same, yet Cham is more plain∣ly
and confessedly named the youngest in the Text.