were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose."Then even the professors of religion of the seed of the righteous Seth and Enoch saw the daughters of the profane and godless generation of Cain and Lamech, that they were fair; and being overtaken with their beauty, yielded so much to their lust, that, without all respect had to religion and godliness, they matched themselves carelessly in marriage with them.

3. "And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years."]-Therefore the Lord decreed thus with himself: I have used means enow to have reclaimed the world from their wickedness: I have taught, admonished, threatened them: all this prevails not. I will no more strive with the perverseness of man in this kind; for when I have all done, they are still but carnal: I will therefore set him a stint of years before his common destruction. Unless, therefore, within an hundred and twenty years he repent him of his sins, I will then surely destroy him.

"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."]-In those days were men monstrous both in stature and conditions; and not the parents only, but their children: for after that the seed of the righteous had thus lawlessly joined themselves with the daughters of the wicked, and they had borne them children, even these also were men of the same hugeness and disposition, which were in those past ages much spoken of for their strength and tyranny.

6. "And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart."]-Then God, like as a man that repenteth him of his work, purposeth to undo that which he hath wrought, by the effect seemed to our weakness as if he repented him of man's creation, in that he now determined to destroy him whom he had made, and now was both grievously displeased with their sins, and yet loath to revenge.

II. "The earth also was corrupt before God," &c.]—Then, not only the men, but the very earth itself, was defiled with their abominations in the presence of God.

14. "Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch."] -Make thee, by the help of workmen, an ark of the tallest pine or cedar trees, framed and planed for that purpose: thou shalt

make many several partitions in the ark, and shalt cause it to be pitched within and without.

15. "And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits."]-And this shall be the proportion wherein thou shalt make it; the length thereof shall be three hundred of the largest cubits, such as the tall stature of men in thy age affordeth; and the breadth fifty of the same cubits, so as the length may be six times the breadth and ten times the height.

16. "A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it."]—Thou shalt make a clear light of windows in the ark; and in the space of a cubit above them shall be the rising of the roof thereof: the door of the ark shalt thou make in the one side thereof, not in either of the ends; and thou shalt frame it in three lofts or floors, one above another.

VII. 1. "And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation."]-Now, when an hundred and twenty years after that first warning given to Noah were expired, the Lord said to Noah, Enter thou and all thine house into the ark, for thee only have I found, in this corrupt and depraved age, free from the common infection of wickedness, and sincere-hearted towards me.

2. "Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female."]-Of every clean beast, whereof there shall be great use for meat and sacrifice, shalt thou take unto thee seven, of each kind; the one half whereof shall be male, the other, which is the greater half, female: all which shall by pairs come unto thee, as I formerly promised, being sent by instinct from me for their preservation; but of unclean beasts, whereof there is less use, thou shalt take but only a couple of each, the male and his female.

11. "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened."]-In the end of the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month of the spring, the seventeenth day of the month, even in that same day, began the issues of the

lower waters, which are gathered within the earth, to gush forth above their banks; and those which God had bound in the clouds of heaven to pour down vehemently, like as if some full vessels were been at once cast out of the windows of the air.

16. "And the LORD shut him in, &c."]-And the Lord, by whose instinct all these creatures were brought thither, when all were entered which he meant to preserve, closed up the door fast and sure, that he might be safe from the waters.

24. "And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days."]-And the waters violently overwhelmed all the whole earth, (counting from the beginning of those forty days wherein the rain fell, unto the end of an hundred and fifty days,) for the full space of five months.

VIII. 1. "And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged;"]—Then God, who cannot forget his mercy to his, showed by the effect to Noah that he remembered him, and for his sake all the wild beasts and tame cattle that were with him in the ark; therefore God, by his immediate power, caused an extraordinary drying or driving wind to pass about the earth, thus covered with waters, and the fury of the waters began by little and little to decrease :

2. "The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;"]—And God made way for the channels of the earth to receive in the waters which they had sent forth, and shut up the lower waters into their former receptacles, and closed up the passages of the clouds above, and so the fall of the rain was restrained when it had continued forty days and nights:

3. "And after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated."]-And after the end of the hundred and fiftieth day from the beginning of the flood the waters sensibly abated.

4. "And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.”]—And in the seventh month, and in the seventeenth day of the month, the ark, which had hitherto floated uncertainly, and was carried up by the force of the waves that it could feel no ground, now, in the ebbing of the waters, stayed upon one of the high mountains of Ararat, the ledge whereof passeth along from Armenia eastward towards India.

5. "And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month:

in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen."]-And from this resting of the ark, in the space of seventy-three days, which was till the first day of the tenth month, the waters so far abated that the tops of the mountains were seen.

6. "And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made:”]—And forty days after the first of the tenth month, which fell upon the eleventh day of the eleventh month, Noah opened one of the windows of the ark which he had made:

7. "And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.”]—And he let forth a raven, (because that fowl was of a good scent, and used to feed on carcases, which might be found lying upon the mountains,) thereby to have perfect knowledge of the decrease of the waters; which continued fluttering up and down to and fro, not far from the ark, till the waters were dried up upon the earth.

8. "Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground."]-Again, since he could have no information hereof by the raven, about seven days after he sent out a dove from him; a bird that was both more tame and domestical, and which was wont to seek her food in the plains; that, by this second messenger, he might see if the earth were yet lightened of her burden of waters.

9. For the waters were on the face of the whole earth.”]— For the waters were still over all that part of the earth where he should have rested, and still covered all the plains.

13. "And Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry."]—And Noah removed some part of the roof of the ark, that he might look round about him; and viewing it, found that the upper part of the ground, even of the plains, appeared dry, that is, not covered over with waters; though still soft and moorish with the continuance of that former moisture, that it was not yet fit for habitation.

14. And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried."]-And in the second month, in the twenty-seventh day of the month, which was a year and ten days after the beginning of the flood, was the earth fully dry, and firm, and habitable again.

20. "And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of

every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar."]-Then Noah, moved thereto by the godly example of his forefathers, and by warrant from God, built an altar to the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, one, (for God had appointed him one odd of each of these for this purpose,) and partly for expiation, partly in token of his thankfulness, offered them, as a burnt offering consumed to ashes unto God, for preservation of them and all their fellow

creatures.

21. "And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done."]-And the Lord, who was before offended with mankind, now was pacified toward the remainder of them: and pleased graciously to accept this obedience of Noah; and as he had eternally decreed, so he uttered his counsel to Noah, I will not from henceforth send any more such general curse upon the earth for man's sake; for I see, that if I should judge him according to his deserts, I should every day bring upon him a new deluge, for behold, all the thoughts and the whole fashion of man's heart is altogether evil, even from his infancy: my mercy therefore shall exalt itself above his sins; neither will I any more smite all living things, as I have now done, with an universal destruction.

22. "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."]-Hereafter, the course and use of the seasons of the year, the harvest, the spring, winter, and summer; and their tempers of heat and cold, and the differences of the night and day, (which now, in the thick and gloomy darkness, could not well be observed,) shall no more generally cease over all the whole earth at once, so long as the earth remaineth in this state.

IX. 2. "And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered."]-The outward privileges of your first creation I do now, though imperfectly, renew to you; let the fear and dread of you be planted naturally in every beast of the earth, whether tame or wild, and in every fowl of the air, and generally in all that treadeth upon the earth, and in all the fishes of the sea: all these, my will is, shall be sub