I. THE SINS OF THE FIRST WORLD, THE CAUSE OF ITS DESTRUCTION.
* How this chapter and the preceding one are connected 1.
* It is terrible that God destroyed by a flood the first world, which
was the best 2.
* Of pride and the proud.
1. How God humbles what is high and grand in the eyes of the
world and has the best gifts 3-4.
* How man can meet the judgments of God 4.
2. The more gifts man has the greater his pride 5.
3. The most terrible examples of punishment God gives in the
case of the proud and such examples should be diligently
pondered 6-7.
* The complaint that the world is hardened by reason of God's
judgments 7-8.
4. How the ancient world was misled into pride through its gifts
9-10.
5. Pride is the common weakness of human nature 11.
6. In what ways man is moved to pride 12-13.
a. The chief sin of the old world 14-15.
* Pride is the spring of all vices 15.
b. How the old world sinned against the first table of the
law, and brought on the sins against the second table 16.
c. How and why God punished the old world 17.
* From the punishment of the first world we conclude that
the last world will be also punished 18.
d. Whether the first world was wicked before Noah's birth; on
what occasion its wickedness increased 19.
* Noah the martyr of martyrs 20.
* Why Lamech called his son Noah 21.
e. How sin greatly increased in the days of Noah 22.
* Why Noah remained unmarried so long, which was his
greatest cross 23.
f. When the wickedness of the old world began 24.
* Concerning unchastity.
(1) It is the foundation of all want and misery 24.
(2) It is the spring of many other sins 25.
(3) How to remedy it 25.
(4) Whether bearing children is in itself to be reckoned
as unchastity, and how far Moses denounces it 26.
(5) Unchastity makes the bearing of children difficult 27.
g. The reason the sons of God looked upon the daughters of
men 28.
h. Why the sin of the first world was not so terrible as the
sin of the second 29-30.
i. How the first world changed through the marriages of Adam
and the other patriarchs 30-32.
* The sons of God.
(1) What is understood by them 32.
(2) The rabbins' fables about the sons of God, how to
refute them 33-34.
* What is to be held concerning the "Incubis" and
"Succubis" 34-35.
(3) How the deluge came because of the sons of God 36.
(4) To what end should the fall and punishment of the sons
of God serve us 37-38.
* Should the Romish church be called holy 37.
* How the children of God became the children of the
devil 38.
* How Noah had to spend his life among a host of
villains 39.
* The conduct of the world when God sends it righteous
servants 40.
I. THE SINS OF THE PRIMEVAL WORLD IN GENERAL THE CAUSE OF ITS
DESTRUCTION.
1. In the first five chapters Moses describes the state of the human
race in the primeval world and the wonderful glory of the holy
patriarchs who governed it. In these five chapters the chronicles as
in the first book, so to speak, the happiest period of the whole human
race and of the world before the flood. Now we shall begin what may be
termed the second book of Genesis, containing the history of the
flood. It shows the destruction of all the offspring of Cain and the
eternal preservation of the generation of the righteous; for while
everything perishes in the flood, the generation of the righteous is
saved as an eternal world.
2. It is appalling that the whole human race except eight persons is
destroyed, in view of the fact that this was truly the golden age; for
succeeding ages do not equal the old world in glory, greatness and
majesty. And if God visited with destruction his own perfect creation
and the very glory of the human race, we have just cause for fear.
3. In inflicting this punishment, God followed his own peculiar way.
Whatever is most exalted he particularly overthrows and humiliates.
Peter says in 2 Peter 2, 5: God "spared not the ancient world;" and he
would imply that it was, in comparison with succeeding ages, a
veritable paradise. Neither did he spare the sublimest creatures--the
angels--nor the kings ruling his people, nor the first-born of all
times. But the more highly they were blessed with gifts, the more
sternly he punished them when they began to misuse his gifts.
4. The Holy Spirit says in the ninth verse of the second psalm,
concerning kings: "Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou
shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." But is it not the
Lord himself who has ordained kings and wills that all men should
honor and obey them? Here he condemns and spurns the wisdom of the
prudent and the righteousness of the righteous. It is God's proper and
incessant work to condemn what is most magnificent, to cast down the
most exalted and to defeat the strongest, though they be his own
creatures. He does this, however, that abundant evidence of his wrath
may terrify the ungodly and may arouse us to despair of ourselves and
to trust in his power alone. We must either live under the shadow of
God's wing, in faith in his grace, or we must perish.
5. After the fall it came to pass that the more one was blessed with
gifts, the greater was his pride. This was the sin of the angels who
fell. This was the sin of the primitive world, in which the grandest
people of the race lived; but because they prided themselves in their
wisdom and other gifts, they perished. This was the sin of the
greatest kings. This was the sin of nearly all the first-born. But
what is the need of so many words? This is original sin--that we fail
to recognize and rightly use the great and precious gifts of God.
6. That the greatest men must furnish the most abhorrent examples is
not the fault of the gifts and blessings, but of those to whom they
are intrusted. God is a dialectician and judges the person by the
thing,[1] meting out destruction to the thing or gift as well as to
its possessor.
[Footnote 1: _ut arguat a conjugatis._]
7. It is expedient to give heed to such examples. They are given that
the proud may fear and be humbled, and that we may learn our utter
dependence upon the guidance and will of God, who resisteth the proud
but giveth grace to the humble. Lacking the understanding and practice
of these truths, man falls continually--kings, nobles, saints, one
after the other, filling the world with examples of the wrath and
judgment of God. The Blessed Virgin sings: "He hath scattered the
proud in the imagination of their heart. He hath put down the princes
from their thrones, and hath exalted them of low degree." Lk 1, 51-53.
8. Full of such examples are all ages, all princely courts, all lands.
Yet, by the grace of Saint Diabolus, the prince of this world, our
hearts are so hard that we are not moved by all this to fear; rather
to disdain, though we feel and see that we also shall incur
destruction. Blessed are they, therefore, who heed, and are moved by
such examples of wrath to be humble and to live in the fear of God.
9. Consider, then, the preeminence of the old world, that perished in
the flood. It possessed apparently the best, holiest and noblest men,
compared with whom we are as the dregs of the world. For the
Scriptures do not say that they were wicked and unjust among
themselves, but toward God. "He saw," says Moses, "that they were
evil." The eyes of God perceive and judge quite differently from the
eyes of men. He says in Isaiah 55, 8-9: "Neither are your ways my
ways.... For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways
higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."
10. These tyrants and giants were esteemed and honored among
themselves as the wisest and most just of men. So in our day kings and
princes, popes and bishops, theologians, physicians, jurists and
noblemen occupy exalted places and receive honor as the very gems and
luminaries of the human race. More deservedly did the children of God
in the old world receive such honor, because they excelled in power
and possessed many gifts. Nevertheless, falling into pride and
contempt of God while enjoying his blessings, they were rejected by
God and destroyed, together with their gifts, as if they had been the
lowest and vilest of the human race.
11. And this is a common failing of our human nature. It necessarily
puffs itself up and prides itself on its gifts unless restrained by
the Holy Spirit. I have often said that a man has no more dangerous
enemy than himself. It is my own experience that I have not without me
so great cause for fear as within me; for it is our inner gifts that
incite our nature to pride.
12. As God, who is by nature most kind, cannot refrain from gracing
and showering us with various gifts: health, property, wisdom, skill,
knowledge of Scripture, etc., so we cannot refrain from priding
ourselves upon these gifts and flaunting them. Wretched is our life
when we lack the gifts of God, but twice wretched is it when we have
them; for they tend to make us doubly wicked. Such is the corruption
of original sin, though all but believers are either unaware of its
existence or regard it a trivial thing.
13. Such corruption is perceptible not only in ourselves but in
others. How property inflates pride though it occupies relatively the
lowest place among blessings! The rich, be they noblemen,
city-dwellers or peasants, deem other people as flies. To even a
greater extent are the higher gifts abused--wisdom and righteousness.
Possession of these gifts, then, makes inevitable this condition--God
cannot suffer such pride and we cannot refrain from it.
14. This was the sin of that primeval world. Among Cain's descendants
were good and wise men, who, nevertheless, before God were most
wicked, for they prided themselves upon their gifts and despised God,
the author. Such offense the world does not perceive and condemn; God
alone is its judge.
15. Where these spiritual vices exist and flourish, the lapse into
carnal ones is imminent. According to Sirach 10, 14, sin begins with
falling from God. The devil's first fall is from heaven into hell;
that is, from the first table of the Law into the second. When people
begin to be godless--when they do not fear and trust God, but despise
him, his Word and his servants--the result is that from the true
doctrine they pass into heretical delusions and teach, defend and
cultivate them. These sins in the eyes of the world are accounted the
greatest holiness, and their authors alone are reputed religious,
God-fearing and just, and held to constitute the Church, the family of
God. People are unable to judge concerning the sins of the first
table. Those who despise God sooner or later fall into abominable
adultery, theft, murder and other gross sins against the second table.
16. The purpose of my statements is to make plain that the old world
was guilty, not only of sin against the second table, but most of all
of sin against the first table by making a fine, but deceptive and
false show of wisdom, godliness, devotion and religion. As a result of
the ungodliness which flourished in opposition to the first table,
there followed that moral corruption of which Moses speaks in this
chapter, that the people polluted themselves with all sorts of lust
and afterward filled the world with oppression, bloodshed and wrong.
17. Because the ungodly world had trampled both tables under foot, God
came to judge it, who is a consuming fire and a jealous God. He so
punishes ungodliness that he turns everything into sheer desolation,
and neither government nor the governed remain. We may, therefore,
infer that the world was the better the nearer it was to Adam, but
that it degenerated from day to day until our time, when the
offscouring and lowest filth of humanity, as it were, are living.
18. Now, if God did not spare a world endowed with so many and great
gifts, what have we to hope for, who, offal that we are, are subject
to far greater misfortune and wretchedness? But if it please God,
spare the Roman pontiff and his holy bishops, who do not believe such
things! I now come to my text.
Vs. 1-2. _And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face
of the ground, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God
saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives
of all that they chose._
19. This is a very brief but comprehensive account. The text must not
be understood to mean that the world did not increase until the five
hundredth year of Noah. The more ancient patriarchs are embraced in
this statement. This is demonstrated by the fact that Noah had no
daughters. The reference in the text to "daughters" certainly must be
understood as referring to the by-gone age of Lamech, Methuselah,
Enoch and others. The world, accordingly, was corrupt and evil before
Noah was born, particularly when licentiousness began to prevail after
the death of Adam, whose authority, as the first father, they feared.
20. I have said that Noah was a virgin above all others; I may add he
was the greatest of all martyrs. Our so-called martyrs, compared with
him, have infinite advantage in strength received from the Holy
Spirit, by which death is overcome and all trials and perils are
escaped. Noah lived among the unrighteous for six hundred years, and
like Lot at Sodom, not without numerous and dire perils and trials.
21. This was, perhaps, one reason why Father Lamech gave his son the
name Noah at his birth. When the holy patriarch saw evil abounding in
the world, he entertained the hope concerning his son that he should
comfort the righteous by opposing sin and its author, Satan, and
restoring lost righteousness.
22. However, the wickedness that began then, not only failed to cease
under Noah, but rather grew greater. Hence Noah is the martyr of
martyrs. For is it not much easier to be delivered from all danger and
suffering in a single hour than to live for centuries amid colossal
wickedness?
23. The opinion before expressed I maintain, that Noah abstained from
matrimony so long that he might not be compelled to witness and suffer
in his own offspring what he saw in the descendants of the other
saints. This sight of man's wickedness was his greatest cross, as
Peter says of Lot in Sodom (2 Pet 2, 8): "That righteous man dwelling
among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day
to day with their lawless deeds."
24. Accordingly, the increase of humanity of which Moses speaks has
not reference alone to the time of Noah, but also to the age of the
other patriarchs. It was there that the violation of the first table
commenced--in the contempt manifested for Jehovah and his Word. This
was followed later by such gross offenses as oppression, tyranny and
lewdness, which Moses explicitly mentions and names first as the cause
of evil. Consult all history, study the Greek tragedies and the
affairs of barbarians and Romans of all times, and you find lust the
mother of every kind of trouble. It can not be otherwise. Where God's
Word remains unknown or unheeded, men will plunge into lust.
25. Lust draws in its train endless other evils, as pride, oppression,
perjury and the like. These sins can be attacked only as men, through
the first table, learn to fear and to trust in God. Then it is that
they follow the Word as a lamp going before in the dark, and they will
not indulge in such scandalous deeds, but will rather beware of them.
With violation of the first table, however, the spread of passions and
sins of every description is inevitable.
26. But it seems strange that Moses should enumerate in the catalog of
sins the begetting of daughters. He had found it commendable in the
case of the patriarchs. It is even enjoyed by the ungodly as a
blessing of God. Why, therefore, does Moses call it a sin?
I reply, he does not condemn the fact of procreation as such, but the
abuse of it, resulting from original sin. To be endowed with royal
majesty, wisdom, wealth and bodily strength is a goodly blessing. It
is God who bestows these gifts. But when men, in possession of these
blessings, fail to reverence the first table, and by means of these
very gifts do violence to it, such wickedness merits punishment.
Therein is the reason for Moses' peculiar words: "The sons of God saw
the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of
all that they chose," without consideration of God or of law, natural
or statutory.
27. The first table having been despised, the second shares the same
fate. Desire occupies the principal place and in contempt for
procreation it becomes purely bestial; whereas God has instituted
matrimony as an aid to feeble nature and chiefly for the purpose of
procreation. But when lust in this manner has gained the upper hand,
all commandments, those that go before and that follow, are ruthlessly
broken and dishonored. Parental honor becomes insecure; men do not
shrink from doing murder; from alienating property, speaking false
testimony, etc.
28. The word _jiru_, "saw," does not merely signify "to view," but "to
view with pleasure and enjoyment." This meaning often occurs in the
psalms, for instance: "Mine eye also hath seen my desire on mine
enemies," Ps 92, 11; that is, shall with pleasure see vengeance
executed upon my enemies. The meaning here is that, after turning
their eyes from God and his Word, they turned them, filled with lust,
upon the daughters of men. The sequence is unerring that, from the
violation of the first table, men rush to the violation of the second.
After despising God they despised also the laws of nature and, as they
pleased, they married whom they chose.
29. These are rather harsh words, and yet it is my opinion that lust
continued hitherto within certain limits, inasmuch as they neither
committed incest with their mothers, as later the inhabitants of
Canaan, nor polluted themselves with the vice of the Sodomites. Moses
confines his charge to their casting aside the legal trammels set by
the patriarchs and recognizing in their matrimonial alliances no law
but that of lust, selecting only as passion directed and against the
will of the parents.
30. It seems the patriarchs had strictly forbidden to contract
alliances with the offspring of Cain, just as, later, the Jews could
not lawfully mingle with the Canaanites. Though there are not wanting
those who write that incestuous marriages existed before the flood,
blood-relationship being held to be no barrier, I yet infer from the
fact that Peter has extolled the old world, that such incestuous
atrocities did not exist at that time, but that the sin of the ancient
world consisted rather in men marrying whom they pleased, and as many
wives from the Cainites as they chose, ignoring parental authority and
controlled alone by passion. It is, therefore, a harsh word--"All
which they chose."
31. I have shown, on various occasions, that the two generations, or
churches, of Adam and Cain were separate. For, as Moses clearly
states, Adam expelled the murderer from his association. Without
doubt, therefore, Adam also exhorted his offspring to avoid the church
of the evil-doers and not to mingle with the accursed generation of
Cain. And for a while his counsel or command was obeyed.
32. But when Adam died and the authority of the other patriarchs
became an object of scorn, the sons of God who had the promise of the
blessed seed and themselves belonged to the blessed seed, craved from
the tribe of the ungodly, intercourse and espousal. He tersely calls
the sons of the patriarchs the "sons of God," since to them was given
the promise of the blessed seed and they constituted the true Church.
Yielding to the corruptions of the Cainite church they indulged the
flesh themselves and took from the tribe of Cain, as wives and
mistresses, whom and as many as they chose. This Lamech and Noah saw
with pain, and for that reason, perhaps, deferred entering upon
marriage.
33. In reference to this point the Jews fancy foolish things. They
interpret the sons of God to signify demon-lechers by whom that
impious generation was begotten, and that they were called the sons of
God by reason of their spiritual nature. The more moderate ones,
however, refute such folly and represent the sons of the mighty. This
has been aptly disproved by Lyra; for the punishment of the deluge
befell, not alone the mighty, but all flesh, as shall the doom at the
last day.
34. But as regards the demon-lechers and strumpets (incubi and
succubi), I do not deny--nay, I believe--that a demon may be either a
lecher or a strumpet, for I have heard men cite their own experience.
Augustine says that he heard this from trustworthy people whom he was
constrained to believe. Satan is pleased when he can deceive us in
this manner, by assuming the form either of a young man or a young
woman. But that anything may be begotten by a devil and a human being
is simply false. We hear of monstrous births of demon-like features,
and I have even seen some. I am of opinion, however, that they have
been deformed by the devil, but not begotten: or that they are real
devils with a human body either simulated or purloined. For if the
devil, by divine permission, may take possession of the whole man and
change his mind, is it strange that he may disfigure also his body,
causing men to be born sightless or cripples?
35. Hence, the devil may so deceive frivolous people and such as live
without the fear of God that when the devil is in bed, a young man may
think that he has a girl with him, and a girl that she has a youth
with her; but that anything may be born from such concubinage I do not
believe. Many sorceresses have at one time or another been subjected
to death at the stake on account of their intercourse with demons. If
the devil can deceive eyes and ears so that they fancy they see and
hear things which do not exist, how much easier is it for him to
deceive the sense of touch, which is in this nature exceedingly gross!
But enough! These explanations have no bearing upon the present text,
and we have been led to them merely by Jewish babbling.
36. The true meaning is that Moses calls those men the sons of God,
who had the promise of the blessed seed. This is a New Testament
phrase and signifies the believers who call God, Father, and whom, God
in turn, calls sons. The flood came not because the generation of Cain
was corrupt, but because the generation of the righteous who had
believed God, had obeyed his Word, and had possessed the true worship,
now had lapsed into idolatry, disobedience to parents, sensuality,
oppression. Even so the last day shall be hastened, not by the
profligacy of Gentile, Turk and Jew, but by the filling of the Church
with errors through the pope and fanatical spirits, so that those very
ones who occupy the highest place in the Church exercise themselves in
sensuality, lust and oppression.
37. It is a cause of fear for us all, that even those who were
descended from the best patriarchs, began to grow haughty and depart
from the Word. They gloried in their wisdom and righteousness, as
later the Jews did in circumcision and Father Abraham. So did the
popes glory in the title of the Church only to replace gradually their
spiritual glory by carnal indulgence after forfeiting the knowledge of
God, his Word and his worship. The Roman Church was truly holy and
adorned by the grandest martyrs. We, at this day, however, are
witnesses how she has fallen.
38. Let no one, therefore, glory in his gifts, however splendid! The
greatest gift is to be a member of the true Church. But take care not
to become proud on that account, for you may fall, just as Lucifer
fell from heaven and, as we are here informed, as the sons of God fell
into carnal pleasures. They are, therefore, no longer sons of God, but
sons of Satan, having fallen alike from the first and the second table
of the Law. So in the past, popes and bishops have been good and holy,
but today they are of all men the worst and, so to speak, the dregs of
all classes.
39. Among this rabble of decadent men who had departed from the piety
and virtues of their ancestors, godly Noah lived in the greatest
contempt and hatred of everybody. How could he approve the corruption
of such degenerate progeny? And they themselves were most impatient of
reproof. While, therefore, his example shone and gleamed, and his
holiness filled the whole earth, the world became worse from day to
day, and the greater the sanctity and chastity of Noah, the more the
world reveled in lust. This is the beginning; it invariably introduces
ruin.
40. When God arouses holy men, full of the Holy Spirit, to instruct
and reprove the world, the world, impatient of sound doctrine, falls
with much greater zeal into sin and plies it with much greater
persistency. This was the situation at the beginning of the world, and
now, at the end of the world, we realize it is still the case.
II. GOD'S JUDGMENT AND GRIEF OVER THE FIRST WORLD; NOAH AND HIS
PREACHING.
A. GOD'S JUDGMENT AND LAMENTATION OVER THE OLD WORLD.
1. The words of the lamentation.
a. Interpreters have shamefully perverted these words 41.
b. The Jewish interpretation, which Jerome follows 42.
c. The Jews' interpretation refuted 42-43.
d. The interpretation of Rabbi Solomon 44.
e. The interpretation of others, especially of Origen 45.
* Why Augustine was especially pleased with the doctrine of
the Manicheans 45.
f. Rabbi David's explanation 46.
* The false idea of the Jews and some Christian interpreters
that the true sense of Scripture is learned from grammar.
(1) Thus ideas most foreign to the sense of Scripture are
defended 46-47.
(2) This method is false and led the Jews into many
fantasies 47.
g. The source of Rabbi David's awkward interpretation of
these words 48.
* Why Luther has so much to say about the false
interpretation of Scripture 49.
* What is necessary to interpret Scripture 50.
h. The true sense of these words 51.
* Scripture definition of "to judge" 51.
2. The author of this judgment and lamentation 51-53.
* Man's conduct upon hearing God's Word preached 54.
3. From what kind of a heart does such judgment and lamentation
spring 55.
* What kind of grief is the grief of the Holy Spirit 56.
* God's severest punishment 57-59.
* What follows when man does not possess God's Word 57-58.
* Why the heathen are so carnal 58.
4. The nature of this judgment and lamentation 59.
* The lamentation and judgment of Luther over Germany because
it lightly esteemed God's Word 60.
* The spirit of grace and of prayer 61.
* The office of the ministry.
a. It requires two things 62.
b. It is the greatest blessing of God 63.
c. To despise it is a great sin, and what follows when it is
taken from a people 63.
d. A complaint of its neglect 64.
e. This office is explained by the expression "to judge" 65.
* Every godly preacher is one who disputes and judges 65.
* Luther's grief because of the stubbornness of the world
66.
* Why Ahab called Elijah a troubler of Israel 67.
* Why the world resents being reproved by sound doctrine. It
is a good sign if a minister is reviled by the world 68.
* The glory of people who boast of being the Church.
a. Such glory avails nothing before God 68-70.
b. Papists wish by all means to have this glory 68-70.
c. Papists need this glory to suppress the Protestants 71.
d. Christ will decide at the judgment day to whom this glory
belongs 71.
e. Although the first world adorned itself with this glory,
it did not save them 72.
5. How and why this judgment and complaint are ascribed to God
73-74.
6. How they were published to the world by the holy patriarchs
75.
7. Why they were made 76.
8. In what way they have been published to the world 77.
9. How the world resented this judgment and complaint 78.
* Time given to the first world for repentance.
a. We are not to understand the 120 years as the period of a
man's life 79.
b. The 120 years the time given these people in which to
repent 80-81.
10. Whether and to what end this time was necessary 82.
11. How the old world felt upon hearing this 83.
* The complaint and judgment of the last world 84-86.
* The nearer the world approaches its destruction the less it
thinks of it 86.
* How the time of the flood is to be compared with the time God
gives man to repent 87.
II. THE JUDGMENT AND LAMENTATION OF GOD OVER THE FIRST WORLD; NOAH AND
HIS PREACHING.
A. GOD'S JUDGMENT AND LAMENTATION OVER THE OLD WORLD.
V. 3. _Jehovah said, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for
that he also is flesh: yet shall his days be a hundred and twenty
years."_
41. Moses here begins by describing Noah as the highest pontiff and
priest, or, as Peter calls him, a preacher of righteousness. This text
has been mangled in various ways, for the natural man cannot
understand spiritual things. When, therefore, the interpreters, with
unwashed feet and hands, rushed into the Holy Scriptures, taking with
them a human bias and method, as they themselves acknowledge, they
could not but fall into diverse and erroneous views. It has almost
come to pass, that the more sublime and spiritual the utterances of
Scripture, the more shamefully they have been distorted. This passage
in particular they have managed so shamelessly that you would not know
what to believe, if you followed the interpreters.
42. The Jews are the first to crucify Moses here, for this is their
exposition: My Spirit, that is my indignation and wrath, shall not
always abide upon man. I will not be angry with men, but spare them,
for they are flesh. That means, being spurred by sin, they incline to
sin. This meaning Jerome also adopts, who is of the opinion that here
only the sin of lust is spoken of, to which we are all prone by
nature. But his first error is that he interprets Spirit as wrath. It
is the Holy Spirit Moses here speaks of, as the contrast shows. "For
man," he says, "is flesh." The meaning is, therefore, that the flesh
is not only prone to sin, but also hostile toward God.
43. Then the matter itself serves as refutation, for could anything
more absurd have been devised? They see with their eyes the wrath of
God swallowing the whole human race through the flood, and yet they
expound that God does not wish to be influenced toward the human race
by anger but by mercy, and this after a hundred and twenty years, the
very time of the flood.
44. Rabbi Solomon expounds it thus: The Spirit which is in God shall
no more strive and wrangle. As if God in his majesty would have
disputed and wrangled about what should be done with man, whether to
destroy or to spare him, finally, wearied by man's wickedness,
determining upon his destruction, nevertheless.
45. Others understand this of the created spirit: My spirit that I
breathed upon the face of man, that is the spirit of man, shall no
longer strive and contend with the flesh, which is in subjection to
its lusts, for I shall take away this spirit and free it from the
flesh, so that when the latter has become extinct, it may create no
more difficulties for the spirit. This is the understanding of Origen,
and it does not differ much from the Manichean error which attributes
sin not to the whole man, but only to a part. And Augustine says that
this had pleased him most in the tenets of the Manicheans, to hear
that his depravity was not altogether his, but only of that part of
the body which is evil from the beginning. The Manicheans posited two
principles, the good and the bad, just as certain philosophers have
posited enmity and friendship. Thus do men not only miss the mark, but
they also fall into ungodly delusions.
46. Rabbi David cites Sanctes, and derives the word _jadon_ from
_nadan_, which means sheath, or shell. But as the interpretation is
very clumsy, so he clothes it also in a very clumsy word: My Spirit
shall not be inclosed in man as in a sheath. Has anything more
unnatural ever been heard? But the Jews make a laughing-stock of
modern Hebraists when they convince them that the Holy Scriptures can
not be understood except through grammatical rules and an exact
science of vowel-points. No exposition is so absurd but that they
defend and polish it with their stale grammatical rules.
47. But tell me, what language has there ever been that men easily
have learned to speak from grammatical rules? Is it not true that the
very languages most thoroughly reduced to rules, like Greek and Latin,
are learned rather by practice? What stupendous absurdity, therefore,
it is to gather the sense of a sacred tongue, which is the repository
of things theological and spiritual, from grammatical rules, and to
pay no attention to the proper signification of things? And this is
what the rabbis and their disciples do almost universally. Many words
and verbs may be declined for which no use is seen in the language.
While they make such things paramount and everywhere chase anxiously
after etymology, they fall into strange fancies.
48. So here. Because the word in this passage can be derived from
_nadan_, they construct from that a prodigious meaning. My spirit,
they say, shall not be held back as in a sheath. They mean the spirit
of man contained in the body as in a sheath. I shall not leave it in a
sheath, they say, but I shall remove him and destroy the sheath. Such
absurdities originate in the stale grammatical rules, whereas usage
rather should be considered; it is that which trains the grammarian.
49. But I recite all this at length, in order to admonish you, when
you come upon such silly commentators, not to follow them and admire
such singular wisdom. For great men even have found delight in the
folly of the rabbis. They are not unlike the Sacramentarians, who do
not deny the words of Christ, This is my body, this is my blood; but
explain it thus: Bread is bread, and yet the body of Christ, namely,
his creature; this is my blood, namely my wine. This passion of
distorting texts no sane man tolerates in the exposition of the fables
of Terence, or of the eclogues of Virgil, and, forsooth, we should
tolerate it in the Church!
50. We need the Holy Spirit to understand the Holy Scriptures. For we
know that the same Spirit shall exist to the end of the world who
existed before all things. We glory in possessing this Spirit through
the grace of God, and, through him, we have faith, a moderate
knowledge of Scripture and an understanding of the other things
necessary to godliness. Hence we do not invent a new interpretation;
we are guided not only by an analogy of Holy Scripture but also by
faith.
51. Through the Holy Scriptures in its entirety, the verb judge,
_dun_, signifies almost invariably a public office in the Church, or
the office of the ministry, through which we are corrected, reproved,
instructed and enabled to distinguish the evil from the good, etc.
Thus, Psalm 110, 6: _Jadin bagojim_, "He will judge among the
nations;" which means: He will preach among the nations. The word
found in this passage is evidently the same. And in the New Testament
this phrase, originally Hebrew, is very much in vogue, especially in
Paul's writings, who uses the Hebrew idiom more than the others.
52. I understand this passage therefore as words spoken by Lamech or
Noah as a new message to the whole world. For it was a public message
proclaimed at some public assembly. When Methuselah, Lamech and Noah
saw that the world was hastening straight to destruction by its sins,
they resorted to this proclamation: My Spirit shall no longer preach
among men. That means: we teach in vain, we admonish in vain; the
world has no desire to be better.
53. It is as if one in the present perverse times should say: We teach
and make ample effort to summon the world back to sobriety and
godliness, but we are derided, persecuted, killed, and all men, in the
end, rush to destruction with blind eyes and deaf ears; therefore we
are constrained to desist. These are the words of a soul planning
appropriate action and full of anxiety, because it is clear that the
human race, at the height of its peril, cannot be healed.
54. This exposition conforms to faith and Holy Scriptures. When the
Word is revealed from heaven, we see that some are converted, who are
freed from damnation. The remaining multitude despises it and securely
indulges in avarice, lust and other vices, as Jeremiah says (ch 51,
9): "We should have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake
her, and let us go everyone into his own country."
The more diligently Moses and Aaron importuned and instructed, the
more obstinate Pharaoh became. The Jews were not made better by even
the preaching of Christ and the apostles. The same befalls us who
teach in our day. What, in consequence, are we to do? Deplore the
blindness and obstinacy of men we may, correct it we cannot. Who would
rejoice in the eternal damnation of the popes and their followers? Who
would not prefer that they should embrace the Word and recover their
senses?
55. A similar exhibition of obstinacy Methuselah, Lamech and Noah saw
in their day. Therefore there bursts from them this voice of despair:
My Spirit, namely the Word of healing truth, shall no longer bear
witness among men. For inasmuch as you refuse to embrace the
Word--will not yield to healing truth--you shall perish.
These are the words of a heart filled with anxiety after the manner
that the Scriptures say God is anxious; that is, the hearts of Noah,
Lamech, Methuselah and other holy men who are filled with love toward
all. Beholding this wickedness of men, they are troubled and pained.
56. Such grief is really the grief of the Holy Spirit, as Paul says,
"Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in whom ye were sealed unto the
day of redemption," Eph 4, 30. This means that the Holy Spirit is
grieved when we miserable men are distracted and tormented by the
wickedness of the world, that despises the Word we preach by the Holy
Spirit. Thus Lot was troubled in Sodom, and the pious Jews in Babylon
under the godless king Belshazzar; also Jeremiah, when he preached to
the ungodly Jews and exclaimed (Jer 15, 10): "Woe is me, my mother,
that thou hast borne me." So in Micah 7, 1: "Woe is me! for I am as
the grape gleanings of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat."
57. The wrath of God is most fearful as he recalls the Word. What man
would not prefer pestilence, famine, war--these being mere bodily
calamities--to a famine of the Word which is always joined to eternal
damnation? An example of the horrible darkness into which Satan can
lead men when God is silent and does not speak, is furnished by the
Gentiles who have been bereft of the Word. Who is not horrified by the
Romans, men of exemplary wisdom and famous before other nations by
reason of their dignified discipline, who observed the custom of
letting the worthy matrons worship and crown Priapus, the foul idol,
and of leading bridal virgins before it? What is more ludicrous than
that the Egyptians adored the calf Apis as the supreme godhead?
58. The Tripartite History gives an account of Constantine the Great
being the first to abolish in Phoenicia and other places the shameless
custom of using virgins, before their nuptials, for purposes of
prostitution. Such monstrous infamies were accounted religion and
righteousness among the Gentiles. There is nothing, in fact, so
ridiculous, so stupid, so obscene, nothing so remote from all
propriety, that it cannot be foisted as the very essence of religion
upon men who have been forsaken by the Word.
59. This is, therefore, the greatest penalty, that God, through the
mouths of the holy patriarchs, threatens no longer to reprove men by
his Spirit; which means that henceforth he will not give his Word to
men, since all teaching is vain.
60. Like punishment our times will bring also upon Germany. For we see
the haste, the unrest, of Satan, and his efforts to defraud whom he
may of the Word. How many sects has he roused during our lifetime, and
this while we bent all our energies toward the maintenance of pure
doctrine! What is in store after our death? Surely, he will lead forth
whole swarms of Sacramentarians, Anabaptists, Antinomians, Servetians,
Campanistans and other heretics who at present, conquered by the pure
Word and the constancy of faithful teachers, keep out of sight, but
are ready for every opportunity to establish their doctrines.
61. Those, therefore, who have the Word in its purity, should learn to
embrace the same, to thank God for it and to call upon him while he
may be found. For when the spirit of knowledge is taken away, the
spirit of prayer is also gone. Zechariah says (Zech 12, 10): For the
spirit of prayer is joined to the spirit of grace. It is the spirit of
grace which reproves our sins and gives instruction concerning their
remission, which condemns idolatry and instructs concerning the true
worship of God, which condemns avarice, lust and oppression, and
teaches chastity, patience and charity. This spirit, God here
threatens, shall no longer continue his work of instruction, since men
refuse to hear and are incorrigible. The spirit of grace having been
taken away, the spirit of prayer has also been taken away. For it is
impossible for him to pray who is without the Word.
62. Accordingly, the office of a priest is twofold; first, that he
turns to God and prays for himself and for his people; second, that he
turns from God to men through instruction and the Word. Says Samuel:
"Far be it from me that I should sin against Jehovah in ceasing to
pray for you: but I will instruct you in the good and the right way,"
1 Sam 12, 23. He is aware that this is his proper office.
63. Therefore, the ministry is rightly praised and esteemed as the
highest favor. When this has been lost or has been vitiated, not only
prayer becomes impossible, but men are simply in the power of the
devil, and do nothing but grieve the Holy Spirit with all their deeds,
and thus fall into mortal sin, for which it is not lawful to pray.
Such other lapses as occur among men are trivial, for return is open
and the hope of pardon is left. But when the Holy Spirit is grieved
and men refuse to receive the witness and reproof of the Holy Spirit,
the disease is desperate and incurable.
64. But how common is this sin today among all classes! Princes,
noblemen, inhabitants of city and country, refuse to be reproved; they
rather reprove and sit in judgment upon the Holy Spirit in his
servants. They judge of the office of the ministry by the lowliness of
the person. They reason thus: This minister is poor and despised; why
then should he reprove me, a prince, a nobleman, a magistrate? Rather
than endure this, they trample under foot the ministers, together with
their office and their message. Should we not, then, fear the judgment
of God, such as he here announces to the old world?
65. These, therefore, are the words of a father who disinherits his
son, or of a severe schoolmaster in wrath ejecting a pupil, when God
simply fixes a hundred and twenty years as the time in which
opportunity is granted for repentance. He threatens, should it not be
improved, his Spirit shall no longer reprove and strive.
This word pertains properly to the office of the ministry and, in a
certain sense, describes it. For every preacher or servant of the Word
is a man of strife and judgment, and is constrained, by reason of his
office, to chide whatever is vicious, without considering the person
or office of his hearer. When Jeremiah does this zealously, he incurs
not only hate but also the gravest dangers. He is moved even to
impatience, so that he wishes he had never been born, Jer 20, 14.
66. And if I had not been particularly strengthened by God, I should
have been wearied and broken down ere this by the contumacy of an
impenitent world; for the ungodly so grieve the Holy Spirit in us,
that, with Jeremiah, we wish often we had never made a beginning of
anything. Hence I often pray to God to let the present generation die
with us, because, after our death, the most perilous times are to
come.
67. For this reason Elijah is called by Ahab the godless king of
Israel, the disturber of Israel; because he openly reproved the
idolatry, violence and passions of his day. Likewise we today are
deemed the disturbers of Germany.
68. But it is a good sign when men condemn us and call us authors of
strife, for the Spirit of God strives with men, reproves and condemns
them. But men are so that they wish to be taught only what gives them
pleasure, as they frankly admit in Micah 2, 6-7: "Prophesy not to us;
for confusion has not seized us, says the house of Jacob." The latter
they use as an argument; because they look upon themselves as the
house of Jacob and the people of God, they decline chastening, and
will not take to themselves penalties and threats. So today the pope
and his accomplices plume themselves solely upon being the Church, and
declare that the Church is incapable of error. But notice this text
and it will appear how frivolous such an argument is.
69. Are not those whom God threatens to no longer judge by his Spirit
likewise the sons of God? What can be more splendid than this name?
Beyond doubt they gloried in this name and rebelled against the
patriarchs when they opposed, or at least despised, their preaching.
For it does not seem likely that God should be thrown into a rage
against the whole human race on account of a few sins. But the
magnificent name did not save them, nor did it avail that they were
strong and great in number. Six hundred thousand marched out of Egypt,
and two only entered the land of Canaan; all the others were prevented
by death on account of their sins.
70. Evidently God will in no way inquire about the magnificent titles
of the Church, pope and bishop. Other testimony will be needed when
they desire to escape the wrath of God than to boast of being the
Church. For it is written (Mt 7, 20): "By their fruits ye shall know
them." And verse 21: "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord,
shall enter into the kingdom of heaven."
71. If ever in the future a council shall be held--which I hardly
believe--no one will be able to take from them the title of Church,
but propped up by this alone they will condemn and oppress us.
Different shall be the judgment, when the Son of man shall come in his
glory. Then it shall appear that among the members of the holy Church
have been John Huss and Jerome of Prague. The pope, however, and the
cardinals, the bishops, doctors, monks and priestly mountebanks, shall
appear as the church of evil-doers, enthroned in pestilence, and as
veritable henchmen of Satan, rendering aid to their father in his
lying and murdering.
72. Such judgment of God we see also here. He does not deny that the
offspring of the saints are sons of God. This magnificent title in
which they took pride and securely sinned, God leaves to them. And yet
these very sons of God who took in marriage the daughters of men, he
warns that he not only will take the Word from their hearts and minds,
but that he will take from their eyes and ears also the ministering
Spirit who preaches, prays, reproves, teaches and sighs in holy
servants, and because they refuse to be chastened and reproved;
knowing themselves to be the sons of God they despise the Word and its
teachers. But they do not escape punishment because of their name. The
same shall likewise befall the papists and other enemies of the Word.
73. In accordance with this I hold that the sentiments of pious men
are here attributed to God himself, according to the usage of the Holy
Scriptures; for instance in Malachi 3, 8, where the Lord says that he
is pierced through, or, as the Hebrew has it, that violence is done to
him because the people were unfaithful in rendering to the priests the
first-fruits and the tenth.
74. But why, you may say, should God need to complain thus? Can he not
when it pleases him suddenly destroy the whole world? He surely can,
but does not do so gladly. He says: "I have no pleasure in the death
of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live," Ezk
33, 11. Such a disposition proves that God is inclined to pardon, to
endure and to remit the sins of men, if only they will come to their
senses; but inasmuch as they continue in obduracy, and reject all
help, he is, as it were, tormented by this wickedness of men.
75. The words "And Jehovah said," I attribute to the holy fathers, who
testified through a public decree that God should be compelled to
exercise vengeance, for they taught by divine authority. When Noah and
his ancestors had preached nearly a thousand years, and yet the world
continued to degenerate more and more, they announced God's decision
to an ungrateful world and disclosed this as his thought: Why should I
preach forever and permit my heralds to cry in vain? The more
messengers I send, the longer I defer my wrath,--the worse they
become. It is therefore necessary for preaching to cease, and for
retribution to begin. I shall not permit my Spirit, that is my Word,
to sit in judgment and to bear witness forever, and to tolerate man's
wickedness. I am constrained to punish their sins. Because man is
flesh, he is opposed to me. He is earthly, I am spirit. Man continues
in his carnal state, mocks at the Word, persecutes and hates my Spirit
in the patriarchs, and the story is told to deaf ears. Hence it is
necessary that I should cease and permit man to go his own way. This
contrast he desires to indicate when he says: "For he is flesh."
76. Noah, Lamech and Methuselah were very holy men, full of the Holy
Spirit. Accordingly they performed their office by teaching,
admonishing, urging and entreating, in season and out of season; as
Paul says, 2 Tim 4, 2. But they reproved flesh and did unprofitable
labor, for the flesh would not yield to sound teaching. Should I, says
he, endure forever such contempt for my Word?
77. This proclamation, therefore, contains a public complaint, made by
the Holy Spirit through the holy patriarchs, Noah, Lamech, Methuselah
and others, whom God took away before the flood that they might not be
spectators of so widely diffused wrath. All these, with one voice and
mouth, admonished the giants and tyrants to repent, and added the
threat that God would not endure forever such contempt of his Word.
78. But the flesh remained true to its nature; they despised faithful
exhortations in their presumption and carnal security, and the holy
patriarchs they treated as men in dotage and as simpletons because of
their threat that God would move in wrath even upon his Church,
namely, the heirs of the promise of the coming seed.
79. The added clause, "yet shall his days be a hundred and twenty
years," Jerome affirms must not be understood as referring to the
years of human life, nor to the age of individual men; for it is
certain that after the flood many exceeded the two hundredth year. If
you refer it to the years allotted to individuals, the promise would
be that individuals should complete so many years, which, however, is
false. Therefore he speaks of the time conceded to the world for
repentance until the flood should arrive.
80. This interpretation agrees with what precedes. God shows that he
is displeased with the perversity of men. He is full of solicitude and
quite ready to forbear. Against his will, so to speak, he permits the
flood to rage. Therefore, he decided upon a fixed and adequate time
for them to come to their senses, and to escape punishment. All this
time Noah admonished men to repent, making it clear that God could not
longer endure such wickedness, while he was yet so kind as to grant
adequate time for repentance.
81. There is a beautiful cohesion between the words and their
significance. A former proclamation threatens: I cannot endure longer
contempt for my Word; my preachers and priests attain nothing with
their infinite labor except derision. Nevertheless, as a father or
good judge would gladly spare a son but is compelled by his wickedness
to be severe, so, the Lord says, I do not destroy gladly the human
race. I shall grant them one hundred and twenty years in which they
may come to themselves, and during which I shall exercise mercy.
82. Horrible was the disaster, because neither the brothers nor the
sisters of Noah were saved. It was necessary that the most earnest
warning should precede, that, perhaps, they might be called back to
repentance. To the Ninevites Jonah announces destruction within forty
days, and they repent and are saved.
83. It is clear, therefore, that the heedlessness of the old world was
very great, inasmuch as in the one hundred and twenty years of grace
it obstinately persisted in its lusts, even deriding its pontiff Noah,
the teacher of righteousness.
84. In our times, at the approach of the day of the Lord, almost the
same condition obtains; we exhort to penitence the papists and our
noblemen; the inhabitants of city and country we admonish not to
continue despising the Word, since God will not leave this unavenged.
But in vain we exert ourselves, as the Scripture says. A few faithful
folk are edified and these are, one by one, gathered away from the
face of sin, and "no man layeth it to heart," as is spoken in Isaiah
57, 1. But when God, in this way, has shaken out the wheat and
gathered the grain in its place, what, think you, shall be the future
of the chaff? Nothing else but to be burned with inextinguishable
fire, Mt 13, 42. This shall be the lot of the world.
85. But the world does not understand how it can be that through the
preaching of the Gospel the wheat should be separated from the chaff,
to be gathered into the barn, while the chaff, that is, the throng of
unbelievers sunk in idolatry and darkness, shall be consigned to the
fire. It is written: "In a day of salvation have I helped thee; and I
will preserve thee," Is 49, 8. Those who will neglect this day of
salvation, will find God as an avenger, for he will not do useless
labor in threshing empty chaff.
86. But the world is flesh; it does not obey. Yea, the nearer and more
immediate the calamity, the more secure it is and the more readily it
despises all faithful admonitions. Though this offense provokes the
righteous, we should, notwithstanding, conclude that God does not
reprove in vain the world through his Holy Spirit, nor that the Holy
Spirit in the righteous is grieved in vain. Christ uses this as an
example when he speaks of the wickedness and heedlessness of our age:
"And as were the days of Noah, so shall be the coming of the Son of
man," Mt 24, 37.
87. It is to be observed here what has been an object of difficulty
for Jerome, that the flood came a hundred years after the birth of
Shem, Ham and Japheth, while here a hundred and twenty years are said
to have been the time of the flood.
B. NOAH AND HIS PREACHING.
1. The time Noah began to preach 87.
2. Why the world took occasion to despise Noah's preaching 88.
* Jerome's reckoning of the 120 years 89.
3. Why Noah married after living so long single, when the world was
to be destroyed 90.
4. How and why Noah was the prophet of prophets and his the
greatest of prophecies 91.
5. His preaching disregarded not only by the Cainites but by the
sons of God 92.
* To what end God's complaint of the first world should serve us
93.
* When was the judgment of God announced 94.
* The generation of the Cainites.
a. Whether it still existed in the days of Noah 95.
b. Why Moses does not record the generations of the Cainites and
of their patriarchs 95.
c. How the holy patriarchs warned their children against the
Cainites 96.
d. How the Cainites tormented the holy patriarchs 96.
6. Why God raised up Noah 97.
7. Noah's faith exceptionally strong 97-98.
8. What impelled Noah to continue his work, and not to turn to the
world 99.
9. How Noah's age was the wickedest and he had to oppose its
wickedness all alone 100.
* Who of the patriarchs were still living in Noah's time 100.
10. What trials Noah had to experience 101.
B. NOAH AND HIS PREACHING.
87. But this passage shows that Noah began preaching about the
impending punishment of the deluge before his marriage, having
hitherto led the life of a celibate.
88. Consider, therefore, what pastime he offered to a wicked world in
its fancied security. He predicts destruction to the whole world
through the flood, nevertheless, he himself marries. Why? Was it not
sufficient for him to perish alone, that he must join to himself a
companion for the disaster? Oh, foolish old man! Surely if he believed
the world was to perish by a deluge, he would rather perish alone than
marry and take the trouble to beget children. But if he himself will
be saved, why, so shall also we.
In this manner they commenced to despise the preaching concerning the
flood with the greater assurance because of the marriage of Noah,
ignorant of the counsel of God, who moves in a manner altogether
unintelligible to the world. How absurd to promise Abraham posterity
through Isaac, and yet to command Isaac to be sacrificed!
89. The divine Jerome argues against the view that God had fixed the
time for the flood at a hundred and twenty years, but saw himself
compelled, later, when wickedness had waxed strong, to shorten the
time.
90. But we shall not make God a liar; we rather give it as our
conviction that Noah had hitherto preached, while in a state of
celibacy, that the world was to be destroyed through the flood, and
later, by a divine command, had taken a maid as a little branch, so to
speak, from the race of women, and begotten three sons. Below it is
written that he had found grace with the Lord; otherwise he who had
refrained from marriage so long, might have continued to do so still
longer. But God, in order to restrain his wrath, wants to leave a
nursery for the human race; therefore, he commands marriage. This the
wicked believe to be a sign that the world shall not perish; they live
accordingly in security and despise the preacher, Noah. But the
counsel of God is different--to destroy the whole world and to leave
through this righteous Noah a nursery for the future world.
91. Noah was, therefore, the greatest prophet; his equal the world has
not had. First he teaches the longest time; then he gives instruction
concerning a universal punishment coming upon the world, and even
fixes the year of its advent. Likewise Christ prophesies concerning
the last judgment, when all flesh shall perish. "But of that day," he
says in Mark 13, 32, "or that hour knoweth no one, ... but the
father."
Jonah foretells punishment for the Ninevites within forty days;
Jeremiah foretells seventy years of captivity; Daniel, seventy weeks
until the coming of Christ. These are remarkable prophecies, in which
time, place and person are accurately described.
But this prophecy of Noah surpasses all others, inasmuch as he
foretells through the Holy Spirit that within a certain number of
years the whole human race shall perish. He is worthy to be called the
second Adam and the head of the human race, through whose mouth God
speaks and calls the whole world to repentance.
92. It is terrible, however, that his message was despised with such
assurance that not only none of the Cainites, but not even any one of
Adam's progeny underwent a change. Therefore Noah was compelled to
witness the destruction of brothers, sisters, relatives and kindred
without number, and all these made a mock of the pious old man and of
his message as an old woman's tale.
93. This awful example is held up to us lest we persist in sin. For if
God did not spare the primitive world, which was so magnificent--the
very flower and youth of the world--and in which had lived so many
pious men, but, as he says in Psalm 81, 12, "gave them up unto their
own hearts' lust," and cast them aside, as if they had no claim upon
the promise made to the Church--if he did this, how much less will he
spare us who do not possess such prerogatives?
94. Therefore, the decree cited in this passage that God would grant
men a hundred and twenty years for repentance, was rendered and
promulgated before Noah had begotten children.
95. With reference to the generation of the Cainites, no mention is
made of their patriarchs at the time of the flood, nor does Moses even
deem them worthy of being named. Previously he has brought down the
generation of Cain as far as Lamech, but whether his sons or nephews
lived at the time of Noah is uncertain. This much is certain, that the
offspring of Cain existed to that time, and were so powerful as to
mislead the very sons of God, since even the posterity of the holy
patriarchs perished in the flood.
96. Before this time the holy patriarchs--the rulers of the true
Church, as it were--admonished their families to beware of the
accursed generation. But the Cainites, incensed at being condemned,
made the attempt to overturn the righteous with every kind of
mischief; for the church of Satan wars perpetually against the Church
of God.
97. Therefore, as the righteous begin to waver and wickedness gains
ground, God raises Noah to exhort to repentance and to be for his
descendants a perpetual example, whose faith and diligent, patient
devotion to teaching, his offspring might admire and imitate. A great
miracle is it and a case of illustrious faith, that Noah, having heard
through Methuselah and Lamech the decree that the world is to perish
after a hundred and twenty years, through the flood, does not doubt
its truth, and yet, when the hundred and twenty years have almost
expired, marries and begets children. He might rather have thought: If
the human race is to perish, why should I marry? Why should I beget
sons? If I have refrained these many years, I shall do so henceforth.
But Noah does not do this; rather, after making known God's purpose
respecting the world's destruction, he obeys God, who calls him to
matrimony, and believes God that, though the whole world may perish,
yet he with his children shall be saved. An illustrious faith is this
and worthy of our consideration.
98. There was in him first that general faith, in common with the
patriarchs, concerning the seed which was to bruise the head of the
serpent. He possessed also the singular virtue of holding fast to this
faith in the midst of such a multitude of offenses, and not departing
from Jehovah. Then, to this general faith he added the other, special
faith, that he believed God as regards both the threatened destruction
of the rest of the world and the salvation promised to Noah himself
and his sons. Beyond a doubt, to this faith his grandfather Methuselah
and his father Lamech earnestly incited him; for it was as difficult
to so believe as it was for the Virgin Mary to believe that none but
herself was to be the mother of the Son of God.
99. This faith taught him to despise the presumption of the world
which derided him as a man in his dotage. This faith prompted him
diligently to continue the building of the ark, a work those giants
probably ridiculed as extreme folly. This faith made Noah strong to
stand alone against the many evil examples of the world, and to
despise most vehemently the united judgment of all others.
100. But almost unutterable and miraculous is this faith, burdened as
it is with strange and most weighty obstacles, which the Holy Spirit
shows in passing, without going into great detail, that we may be
induced to meditate the more diligently upon its circumstances.
Consider first the great corruption of the age. While the Church had
before this time many and most holy patriarchs, it was now deprived of
such rulers; Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch are all
dead, and the number of patriarchs is reduced to three--Methuselah,
Lamech and Noah. These alone are left at the time the decree
concerning the destruction of the world is published. These three are
compelled to witness and suffer the incredible malice of men, their
idolatry, blasphemy, violent acts, foul passions, until finally
Methuselah and Lamech are also called out of this life. There Noah was
the only one to oppose the world rushing to destruction, and to make
an effort to preserve righteousness and to repress unrighteousness.
But far from meeting with success, he had to see even the sons of God
lapse into wickedness.
101. This ruin and havoc of the Church troubled the righteous man and
all but broke his heart, as Peter says of Lot in Sodom, 2 Pet 2, 8.
Now, if Lot was so distracted and vexed by the wickedness of one
community, how must it have been with Noah, against whom not only the
generation of Cain raged, but who was opposed also by the decadent
generation of the patriarchs, and then even by his own father's house,
his brothers, sisters, and the descendants of his uncles and aunts?
For all these were corrupted and estranged from the faith by the
daughters of men. As the text says, they "saw the daughters of men."
III. THE SINS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD IN PARTICULAR.
A. THE FORBIDDEN MARRIAGES ENTERED INTO.
1. Why this is said of the sons and not of the daughters of the
holy patriarchs 102.
2. Why were the holy fathers so emphatically forbidden to let
their sons marry the ungodly 103-104.
3. How this was the beginning of all evils 105.
* What evils have in all times come through woman 106.
4. The sins here sprang from despising the first table of the
law 107-108.
* The sins of the second table follow when the first table is
not kept 108.
5. Everything that is called sin is embraced in this sin
109-110.
6. How marriage with the children of the true Church was
despised 111.
7. Their desire to marry thus resembled Eve's desire to take the
forbidden apple 112.
8. Why the patriarchs' children took this step 113.
9. How these marriage alliances were formed 114-116.
10. Berosus' testimony concerning these forbidden marriages 116.
B. DISORDER IN ALL BRANCHES OF SOCIETY 116-117.
C. THE TYRANNY EXERCISED.
1. By the "giants" or tyrants.
a. What is to be understood by tyrants 117.
* The pope resembles the tyrants before the flood 118.
b. The nature of these tyrants 119.
c. Why called Nephilim 120-122.
d. Whether they received their name from their size or from
their cruelty 123.
* How the Scriptures designate true rulers 123.
e. These tyrants types of Antichrist 123.
f. They were raging, powerful and criminal characters 124.
* Of authorities.
(1) How God wants us to honor the authorities though he
terribly threatens them 125-126.
(2) Why God wants them to be honored, when he himself does
not honor them 127.
(3) Godless rulers are God's swine and are rare birds in
heaven 128.
g. Whether these tyrants were rulers and why God called them
by such a shameful name 129.
h. Moses chose the word Nephilim, which in his day designated
a wicked people, to express the tyrants of the first World
130.
2. By "the mighty men."
a. How Jerome perverts this text 131.
b. What is to be understood by "the mighty men that were of
old" 131.
* The meaning of "Olam" 132.
c. Whence did they receive their power 133.
d. Why called "mighty men" 134.
* The character of the true church 134.
3. By "the men of renown."
a. Why they were thus named 135.
b. Who they were 136.
* They resembled the pope and bishops 136.
c. Lyra's false explanation of it refuted 137.
* How Antichrist is restrained from the world, and true
doctrine maintained 137.
D. THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT 138.
* That one sin follows another until man reaches the highest
degree of sin 139.
III. THE SINS OF THE OLD WORLD IN PARTICULAR.
A. THE FORBIDDEN MARRIAGES ENTERED INTO.
102. But, I ask, why is not complaint made also of the men, or why are
not the daughters of God included in this complaint? He says merely
that they "saw the daughters of men." It was surely for this reason,
that the holy generation of Seth had received the peculiar injunction
to beware of fellowship with the Cainites, inasmuch as they had been
excluded from the true Church, and to mingle with them neither
socially through marriage, nor ecclesiastically through worship, for
the righteous should avoid every occasion of offense.
103. In prohibiting marriage with the Cainites it was the chief
purpose of the pious fathers to maintain their generation pure; for
daughters bring into the houses of their husbands the views and
manners of the fathers. Thus, we read of Solomon in the Book of the
Kings that he was led astray through a woman who was a stranger; and
thus Jezebel introduced the wickedness of the Syrians into the kingdom
of Israel.
104. The holy fathers saw the same would come to pass in their
generation; therefore, after they were separated from the Cainites
through the divine command, they resolved that the sons of the holy
generation should not marry the daughters of men. The daughters of the
race of the righteous could more readily be restrained from marriage
with the Cainites, while the sons were independent and headstrong.
105. In this way Moses wishes to show the trouble began from the time
the sons of God joined themselves to the daughters of men, seeing that
they were fair. The sons of men who were proud and strong and
passionately given to pleasure, without doubt despised the plain
maidens of the pious race who had been reared by the holy patriarchs
not delicately, but simply and modestly, being arrayed in homely garb.
There was hence no necessity of making a law also for the maidens,
inasmuch as they were in any case neglected by the noble Cainites.
106. If you study the history of nations you will find that women have
been the occasion for the overthrow of the strongest kingdoms. Well
known is the disgrace of Helen. The sacred writings demonstrate also
that woman occasioned the fall of the whole human race. This, however,
should be mentioned without reflection upon the sex, for we have a
command, "Honor thy father and thy mother," Ex 20, 12. Likewise,
"Husbands, love your wives," Col 3, 19. It is true that Eve was the
first to pluck the apple; however, she first sinned by idolatry and
fell from the faith, which faith, as long as it is in the heart,
controls also the body; but when it has departed from the heart, the
body serves sin. Guilt is not peculiar to sex but to sin, which man
has in common with woman.
107. Thus Moses gives an account of the prevailing unrighteousness and
lust. But he gives the reader to understand that, before sin was
committed against the second table of the Law, the first had been
violated, and the Word of God treated with contempt. Otherwise the
sons of God would have obeyed the will of their pious parents
forbidding marriage with those outside the Church.
108. Moses, therefore, concludes that, because the sons of God had
forsaken the worship and Word of God and departed from the precepts of
their parents, thereupon to fall into sensuality and lust, and to take
to wife whom they pleased, they also became violent and appropriated
the goods of others. The world cannot do otherwise. When it has
forsaken God, it worships the devil; when it has despised the Word and
fallen into idolatry, it rushes forth into all sins of passion, in
which fierceness of anger and fierceness of desire by turns are
aroused, and thus all the appetites are thrown into a state of the
greatest disorder. When the righteous reprove this, the result is
resentment and violence against them.
109. The sin of the flood, then, embraces everything that may be
called sin, by the first as well as the second table. Wicked men first
depart from God through unbelief; then they disregard obedience to
parents, and finally become murderers, adulterers, etc.
110. I mention this to the end that no one may believe that sex or the
marriage estate in themselves are to blame. It is chiefly
transgression of God's commandments and disobedience to parents which
are condemned. Owing to absence of fellowship between the Cainites and
the true Church, pious parents desired also social separation from the
Cainites, for fear they might be perverted by the manners of ungodly
wives. But God's command being neglected, and the authority of parents
despised, the younger generation lapsed into the passions of
concupiscence and vehemence. In this way the honor of sex and the
dignity of matrimony are conserved: accusation is brought solely
against the unrighteousness which first departs from God and then
manifests itself in injuring the saints.
111. This is the teaching of the words: "The sons of God saw the
daughters of men that they were fair." Why did they not see the
daughters of God and desire those in the Church and possess the
promise of the seed? Are they not convicted of contempt for the
sisters of their own generation, that is the true Church, and of
mingling with the carnal and impious generation of Cain? They despise
the simplicity and reserve of their sisters and prefer the smiles, the
dress, the wiles of the daughters of Cain; the latter they crave and
cultivate, the former they treat either with neglect or dishonor.
112. With such eyes as Eve viewed the apples when she fell into sin,
the sons of God viewed the daughters of men. Eve had seen the
forbidden tree before that, but with eyes of faith looking back to
God's commandment; for that reason she did not crave, but rather she
fled from the same. When, however, the eyes of faith were dimmed and
she beheld the tree solely with carnal eyes, she stretched out her
hand with desire and invited also Adam, her husband.
113. Likewise the sons of the patriarchs had seen long before that the
daughters of the Cainites excelled in form, dress and elegance of
manners. Nevertheless, they did not mingle with them, for the eye of
faith looked back to the commandment of God and to the promise of the
seed to be born from the generation of the righteous. But the eyes of
faith having been lost, they saw no longer either the command or the
promise of God, but followed merely the desire of the flesh. The
simple, good and virtuous girls of their own generation they despised;
the Cainites they married, seeing they were polished, charming and
pleasant.
114. It is not a sin, therefore, that they marry, nor is the sex in
itself condemned. Condemnation lies in this, that with contempt of the
divine commandment they marry unlawfully; that they permit themselves
to be led astray by their wives from the true worship to the wicked
worship of a false church; that, after the fashion of the Cainites,
they pay no heed to parental authority and become guilty of violence,
oppression and other sins.
Moses clearly reveals their sin when he says: "They took them wives of
all that they chose," as if he said: To marry a wife is not an evil
but a blessing, if it be done lawfully. But they sinned in that they
married without judgment, against the will and purpose of the parents,
marrying whom and as many as they pleased, regardless of their own
estate, whether married or single.
115. This is a stern word, by which Moses characterizes it as a great
sin that they arbitrarily married two wives or more, exchanged them,
or snatched them from others, after the manner of Herod, who possessed
himself of his brother's wife. It is this unbridled reign of evil lust
that Moses discloses and condemns.
116. Berosus writes that incestuous marriages also took place among
them, so that they married even their mothers and sisters. But I doubt
whether they were so wicked as that. It is a sin sufficiently grave
that in marrying they dispensed with judgment, the authority of their
parents and even with the Word of God, following altogether the
guidance of lust and desire. They took whom they pleased and whom they
could, and by such license they brought chaos into domestic, public
and churchly relations.
B. DISORDER IN ALL BRANCHES OF SOCIETY
The sin of the primeval world was, therefore, an upheaval of all
established order, inasmuch as the Church was demoralized by idolatry
and false modes of worship. This condition was aggravated by those
oppressors who cruelly persecuted the righteous teachers and holy men.
Public discipline was destroyed by oppression and violent deeds, and
domestic discipline by uncurbed lust. Upon such overturning of piety
and integrity followed universal depravity; men were not merely evil
but plainly incorrigible.
C. THE TYRANNY EXERCISED.
V. 4a. _The Nephilim_ (giants) _were in the earth in those days,_
117. Moses continues the description of the sin and offense which
provoked the deluge. The first point was that the sons of God had
fallen from the fear of God, and the Word had become altogether
carnal, perverting not only the Church but also the State and home.
Now he adds that wickedness had grown to the extent of giants arising
upon earth. He clearly states that there were born from the
concubinage of the sons of God with the daughters of men, not sons of
God, but giants; that is, bold men who arrogated to themselves at the
same time both government and priesthood.
118. Just so the pope arrogates to himself at the same time the
spiritual and the temporal sword. This would not be the height of
evil, if he would only make use of his power for the preservation of
State and Church; but the greatest sin is that he abuses his power for
the establishment of idolatry, for a warfare against sound doctrine,
and for purposes of oppression even in the State. When the Papists are
reproved with the Word of God, they spurn such reproof, claiming that
they are the Church and incapable of error. This class of people Moses
calls "giants," men who arrogate to themselves power both political
and ecclesiastical, and who sin most licentiously.
119. Such men are described in the Book of Wisdom who say: "Let
unrighteousness be our law," 2, 11. Also in Psalms, 12, 4: "Who have
said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is
lord over us?" Again in Psalm 73. "They scoff, and in wickedness utter
oppression: they speak loftily," etc. Such were the giants who
withstood the Holy Spirit to his face, who, through the mouth of
Lamech, Noah and the sons of Noah, exhorted, implored, taught and
reproved.
120. There are those who dispute the meaning of the noun Nephilim and
derive it from _Naphal_, which signifies "to fall." They commonly take
it in a passive sense, meaning that other men, seeing the uncouth
forms and extraordinary size, fell down from fear. Let the rabbis
vouch for the correctness of this; it is ridiculous to call them
"_Nephilim_" because others fell. Some, however, suggest the etymology
that they were thus called because they had fallen from the common
stature of men, and allege as proof-passage Numbers 13, 33, from which
it appears that giants possessed huge bodies like the Anakim and
Rephaim. Which of these are right, I do not decide, especially since
it is certain that a theory of all words can not be given, nor their
origin demonstrated.
121. But here another question obtrudes itself: Why should those born
from the sons of God and the daughters of men alone have differed from
the ordinary stature of man? I have no other answer than that the text
says nothing of stature in this place. In Numbers 13, 33 it is said:
"There we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, who come of the giants:
and we were in our sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their
sight." There hugeness of body is shown, but not here; therefore they
may be called giants for some other reason than massive stature.
122. To give my opinion of the word, I hold it is to be taken neither
in the sense of the neuter nor of the passive, but of the active,
inasmuch as the word "_naphal_" is often used in the sense of the
active, though it does not belong to the third conjugation, in which
almost all transitive verbs are found. Thus in Joshua 11, 7: "So
Joshua came, and all the people of war with him, against them by the
waters of Merom suddenly, and fell upon them." If the verb is
construed as neuter, as if Joshua and his men had fallen before the
enemies, history will object; for the meaning is that they fell upon
the enemies and suddenly overpowered them.
123. Therefore, this passage and other, similar ones prompt me to
understand "_nephilim_" to designate not bulk of body, but tyranny and
oppression, inasmuch as they domineered by force, making no account of
law and honor, but merely indulging their pleasure and desire.
Rightful rulers the Scripture calls shepherds and princes, but those
who rule by wrong and violence are rightly called "_Nephilim_,"
because they fall and prey upon those beneath them.
Thus in Psalm 10: "He croucheth and humbleth himself and _Venaphal Baa
Zumaf Helkaim_ (falls with his strong ones upon the poor)". The Holy
Spirit speaks there of the reign of the Antichrist, whom he describes
as raging so furiously as to crush what he can, and, at all events, to
bend what he cannot crush, so that afterward he may suppress with all
his strength what has been bent. For _baazuma_ can be indifferently
rendered by "with his strength," or "with his strong ones." This
power, he says, he uses only against those who are _Hilkaim_, that is
the poor, such as have previously been in some state of affliction.
Others who excel in power, he worships so as to draw them over to his
side.
124. Accordingly I interpret "giants" in this passage not as men of
huge stature, as in Numbers 13, 33, but as violent and oppressive; as
the poets depict the Cyclopeans, who fear neither God nor men, but
follow only their desires, relying upon their strength and power. For
the oppressors sit enthroned in majesty, sway empires and kingdoms,
and arrogate to themselves even spiritual power, but use such power
against the Church and the Word of God for the gratification of their
lust.
125. Observe here the strange counsel of God, commanding us to fear
the authorities, to obey, serve and honor them, while at the same time
the threats and dreadful reproofs which he administers are almost
invariably directed against those in authority, against kings and
princes, as if God proceeded against them with a peculiar hatred.
Scripture enjoins upon us to honor authority, but itself does not
honor it; rather it destroys it with a threat of the gravest
penalties. Scripture enjoins us to fear authority, but itself appears
to despise authorities, inasmuch as it does not commend but threatens.
126. Does not Mary earnestly declaim in her song against princes, Luke
1, 51-53: "He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their
heart. He hath put down princes from their thrones, and hath exalted
them of low degree. The hungry he hath filled with good things; and
the rich he hath sent empty away"? If we believe this to be true, who
would wish to be found among authorities, for whom so certain
perdition is prepared and imminent? Who would not prefer to live on a
lowly plane and suffer hunger? The second psalm accuses the
authorities of the gravest crime when it says that they place
themselves with united strength and efforts in opposition to God and
his anointed and render violence to his kingdom. "Thou hast made of a
city a heap, of a fortified city a ruin," Is 25, 2. The whole Bible
abounds with like sentiments.
127. Thus, the Bible does not honor the authorities, but threatens
them with danger, and drags them into manifest contempt; and still
with consummate care it commands us to reverence and fear them, and to
render them all manner of service. Why is this? Surely because God
himself desires to punish them, and has reserved vengeance for himself
instead of surrendering it to their subjects. Jeremiah argues in
chapter 12, 1, concerning the prosperity of the way of the ungodly,
and yet the Lord is righteous. But he concludes: "Thou, O Lord,
fattenest them and preparest them for the sacrifice."
128. So might it be said that the authorities are God's swine, as it
were; he fattens them, gives them wealth, power, fame and the
obedience of their subjects. They are not pursued, while they
themselves pursue and oppress others; they suffer no injury, but they
inflict it upon others; they do not give to others, but rob them until
the hour comes when, like fattened swine, they are slaughtered. Hence
the German proverb: A prince is a rare bird in the kingdom of heaven
or, princes are wild game in heaven.
129. Accordingly, those whom Moses calls here "_Nephilim_," which is
an odious and disgraceful name, were without doubt the lawful
administrators of Church and State. But because they did not use their
office as they should, God marks and brands them with this opprobious
name. As we, in this corrupt state of nature, are unable to use the
least gift without pride, so God, most intolerant of pride, thrusts
the mighty from their throne, and leaves the rich empty.
130. I accept, then, the word "_Nephilim_" as having an active
signification, being equivalent to tyrants, oppressors, revelers. I
believe, furthermore, as has been the case with other languages also,
that Moses has transferred the usage of this word from his own times
to those before the deluge, after changing somewhat its meaning,
inasmuch as these degenerate descendants of the sons of God abused
their power and position for the oppression of the good, just as those
Anakim were tyrants relying upon bodily strength, and so Moses will
presently show.
V. 4b. _And also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the
daughters of men, and they bare children to them; the same were the
men that were of old, the men of renown._
131. Jerome[1] renders: _Isti sunt potentes a seculo_ (these are
mighty men from the beginning). But the word _seculum_ (olam) does not
here signify duration of time, nor does it predicate extent. These
giants did not exist from the beginning, they were not born until the
sons of God had degenerated. But _seculum_ (olam) connotes a second
predicate, that of substance, so that Moses explains the nature of the
power in which they trusted to have been secular or worldly. They
despised the ministry of the Word as a vile office; therefore they
seized upon another office, a secular one. The very same thing our
Papists have done. It has pleased them better to hold ample revenues
and worldly kingdoms than to be hated of all men for the sake of the
Gospel.
[Footnote 1: So also the A. V. and the R. V., while Luther has by no
means the philological science against him. Mundus, seculum, aion, and
olam are used to express the same conception. Translator.]
132. As far as Moses is concerned, the noun _olam_ designates the
world itself, and also age or time. Hence it is to be carefully noted
when _olam_ (_seculum_) signifies duration of time, and when it
signifies "world" in the Scriptures. Here it signifies of necessity
"world," for they did not exist from the beginning.
133. This clause, then, aptly describes the power they had received,
not from the Church, nor from the Holy Spirit, but from the devil and
the world. It is, as it were, the counterpart of what Christ says
before Pontius Pilate, John 18, 36: "My kingdom is not of this world."
The servants of the Word struggle with hunger, and they labor under
the hate of all classes. In consequence, they cannot exercise tyranny;
but those who possess kingdoms, who govern states, who possess castles
and domains, are equipped for exercising tyranny.
134. This clause contains also a suggestive reference to the small
Church with her few souls. These are cross-bearers without wealth; but
they possess the Word. Their only wealth is what the world despises
and persecutes. The Nephilim, on the other hand, or giants, usurp as
the descendants of the patriarchs the splendid name of the Church, and
possess also kingdoms. They exercise dominion, and pursue the
miserable Church in their power. In accordance therewith Moses calls
them mighty before, or in, the world; or worldlings and temporal
potentates.
135. What Jerome renders _viri famosi_ (famous men) is, in Hebrew,
"men of name," that is, renowned or famous in the world. Moses touches
here also upon the sin of the Cyclopeans, who, possessing everything
in the world, possessed also a famous name and were renowned
throughout the world; while, on the contrary, the true sons of God,
namely Noah and his sons, were held in the greatest scorn and regarded
as heretics, as sons of the devil, as a blot upon the grandeur of
Church and State. So is it now with us. Christ testifies in Matthew
24, 37, that the last times resemble the times of Noah.
136. Moses had before testified that the Holy Spirit would be taken
from the wicked and they would be sent in the ways of their own
desire. They were, accordingly, such rascals as the pope today with
his cardinals and bishops, who are not only styled princes and possess
kingdoms, but also take to themselves the name of Church, so as to
subject us as heretics to the ban, and securely to condemn us. They do
not permit themselves to be called tyrants, nor wicked, nor
temple-robbers. They wish to be styled most kind, holy and reverend
gentlemen.
137. The meaning, therefore, is not that which Lyra follows when he
understands "famous" as "notorious." As the world does not call the
pope Antichrist, but ascribes to him the name of the greatest saint
and admires him as if he and his carnal creatures were filled with the
Holy Spirit and incapable of error, and therefore humbly worships
whatever he commands or advises--exactly so those giants had a noble
name and were held in admiration by the whole world. On the contrary,
Noah with his followers was condemned as a rebel, as a heretic, as a
traducer of the dignity of State and Church. So today do bishops
regard us who profess the Gospel.
D. THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT.
138. This passage furnishes a description of the sins with which that
age was burdened: Men were averse to the Word; they were given over to
their own lusts and reprobate minds; they sinned against the Holy
Spirit by persistent impenitence, by defending their ungodly behavior
and by warring upon the recognized truth. Yet with all these
blasphemies they retained the name and authority, not only of the
State, but also of the Church, as if God had exalted them to the place
of the angels. When this was the state of things, and Noah and Lamech
with their pious ancestor Methuselah taught in vain, God turned them
over to the desires of their hearts (Ps 81, 12) and maintained silence
until they should experience the flood, the prophecy of which they
refused to believe.
139. This is falling away from God and Church and entering upon
illicit marriage. One sin, unless corrected at once, will lead to
another, and so on indefinitely until the state is reached which
Solomon describes in Proverbs 18, 3, "When the wicked cometh, there
cometh also contempt, and with ignominy Cometh reproach." They who
thus sin, even if afterward rebuked, do not heed. They imagine they
stand in need of no instructor, and think they represent a just cause.
They do not believe in a life after this, or even hope for salvation,
while living in open sin. Notwithstanding, scorn and shame shall
overwhelm them. It was this persistent impenitence and consummate
contempt for the Word that impelled God to visit all flesh with a
universal flood.
IV. GOD'S REPENTANCE AND GRIEF THAT HE MADE MAN.
A. THE REPENTANCE OF GOD.
1. The Words, "The wickedness of man was great."
a. How Luther used these words against the doctrine of free
will; how the advocates of free will falsely interpreted
them, and how they are refuted 140-141.
* Concerning free will.
(1) Augustine's doctrine of free will misinterpreted by
the schools 140.
(2) The schools unreasonably defend it 141.
(3) Man has no free will and without the grace of the Holy
Spirit can do nothing 142-143.
(4) The reproving office of the Holy Spirit makes it clear
that man has no free will 144.
(5) Whether there is hope, if a council be held, that the
Papists will abandon their false doctrine of free will
145.
(6) How the true doctrine of free will leads us to a
knowledge of sin and what we are to hold in reference
to it 146.
(7) Why we should guard against the false doctrine
concerning free will 147.
* The comfort for one who commits sins of infirmities
147.
* All endeavors without the Holy Spirit are evil 148.
(8) We are to distinguish in the doctrine of free will
what is good politically from what is good
theologically 149-150.
b. These words are wrongly understood by the Jews and
sophists 151.
* How we should view the discussions of philosophers in
regard to God and divine things 152.
c. These words should be understood as spoken not only of the
people before the flood, but of all men 153.
2. The Words, "It Repented Jehovah."
a. How the repentance of God is to be reconciled with the
wisdom and omniscience of God.
(1) The way sophists answer this question 154.
(2) Luther's answer 155-157.
* How man should treat questions which lead us into the
throne of the divine majesty 158.
* How the passages of Scripture are to be understood
which attribute to God the members of a human body
159.
* Whether the Anthropomorphites were justly condemned
159.
* Why God is represented to us as if he sprang from the
temporal and the visible 161-163.
* We cannot explore God's nature 163.
* In what pictures God reveals himself in the Old
Testament, and in the New 164.
* The will of God in signs and the will of God's good
pleasure, "signs" and "Beneplaciti."
(a) How we can know God's will in signs 165-166.
(b) Why we cannot know the will of God's pleasure, nor
fathom it 165-166.
(c) What is really to be understood by the will in
signs 167.
b. The way the schools explain these words 168.
c. How they are to be rightly understood 169.
* Disputing about God's majesty and omnipotence places man
in a dangerous position 169-171.
* How man should hold to the signs by which God revealed
himself 171.
* What the will of God's pleasure is, to what it serves and
how it is revealed in Christ 172-176.
* The will of good pleasure of which the fathers speak
cannot comfort the heart 175.
* The only view of the Godhead possible in this life 176.
d. In what sense it can be said that "it repented Jehovah
that he had made man" 177.
IV. THE REPENTANCE AND GRIEF OF GOD BECAUSE HE HAD MADE MAN.
A. The Repentance of God.
Vs. 5-6. _And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the
earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil continually. And it repented Jehovah that he had made man on
the earth, and it grieved him at his heart._
140. This is the passage which we have used against "free will," of
which Augustine writes that without the grace of the Holy Spirit it
can do nothing but sin. The scholastics, however, the champions of
free will, are not only hard beset by this clear passage, but also by
the authority of Augustine, and they sweat. Of Augustine they say that
his language is hyperbolical, as Basil writes of one who in refuting
the other side had gone too far, that he did like the farmers; they
when trying to straighten out crooked branches bend them a little too
far on the other side; and so Augustine, in beating back the
Pelagians, is asserted to have spoken more severely against free will
in the defense of grace than the merits of the case warranted.