Part 10 (2/2)

Just as if he had said in reference to Lamech: Such are the actions of the seed of the serpent and such are the children of this world. They gather riches, follow their pleasures, increase their power, and then abuse all these things by their tyranny, making use of them against the true Church, the members of which they persecute and slay. And yet in the midst of all these mighty sins, they fear not, but are proud and secure, boasting and saying, ”What can the righteous do?” (Ps 11, 3): ”Our lips are our own: who is lord over us?” (Ps 12, 4): ”He (the wicked) saith in his heart: G.o.d hath forgotten, he hideth his face, he will never see it,” (Ps 10, 11): and other like sentiments.

284. That such is the meaning of the pa.s.sage in question the facts recorded prove, though the words of the text do not so clearly express that meaning. The true Church has ever Satan as its great enemy, and he drives the Cainites into fury, disguised as devotion, against their brethren, the Abels; as Christ also says, affirming that the devil was a murderer from the beginning, Jn 8, 44. It is declared throughout the Scriptures concerning the true Church, that the wicked are ever shedding its blood. The various pa.s.sages in the Psalms speak the same things, ”Precious shall their blood be in his sight,” Ps 72, 14.

Again, ”Precious in the sight of Jehovah is the death of his saints”

Ps 116, 15. And again, ”For thy sake are we killed all the day long”

Ps 44, 22.

285. As, therefore, the Church of G.o.d has at all times, and in all ages, given her blood to be shed by the wicked and by false brethren, so also, in that first age of the world she had to suffer from her enemies, whom the Scriptures call ”giants,” and affirm that those ”giants” filled the earth with ”violence.” Among these giants was also this Lamech now before us, who was one perhaps like Pope Julius II or Clement VII who although they exercised cruelty in the highest degree, yet wished to be called and appear as most holy saints. Just so Lamech here wishes to make it appear that he had a most righteous cause for the murder he had committed, and therefore he threatened greater vengeance on the man who should kill him than G.o.d himself had threatened on the person who should slay his father, the murderer Cain.

286. In this manner, the Church was vexed with the cross and with persecutions from the very beginning of the world until G.o.d, compelled by the wickedness of man, destroyed the whole world by the flood. Just so, also, when the measure of Pharaoh's malice was full he was drowned with all his host in the Red Sea. Just so, again, when the measure of the malice of the Gentile nations was full they were all uprooted and destroyed by Moses and Joshua. In the same manner afterwards when the Jews raged against the Gospel they were so utterly destroyed that not one stone was left upon another in Jerusalem. Other instances are the Babylonians, the Medes, the Persians, the Grecians, and the Romans.

287. The Scriptures therefore do not record whom Lamech killed. They only record that two murders were committed by him, and that Lamech, in his impenitence, wished to protect himself in the same manner as his father Cain had been divinely protected, by issuing his proclamation, thereby making it appear that he had righteous cause for the murder he committed. And if this interpretation be not the true one, it is at least certain that the generation of the Cainites was a blood-thirsty generation, and hated and persecuted the true Church.

288. And it is, moreover, true that Lamech had not the Word, and that, accordingly, his utterance is not to be considered in the same light as that word which was spoken to his father Cain; for the latter was the voice of truth, but the word of Lamech was the voice of his own pride, expressive of the rule of Satan and of a church of hypocrites, which sins securely and yet glories in its sins as if they were deeds of righteousness.

C. THE POSTERITY OF THE RIGHTEOUS IN DETAIL; THE GENERATIONS OF THE RIGHTEOUS.

1. Of Seth.

a. Why Seth is described in detail 289.

b. Why Eve at Seth's birth recalled Cain's murder 290.

* How and why the first parents after Abel's death refrained from bearing children 291.

c. Seth's birth was announced before in a special way by G.o.d 291-292.

* The uncovenanted grace of the Cainites. Also, why G.o.d did not mention that some of them would be saved 293.

d. How Eve manifested special faith and obedience in Seth's birth 294-295.

* Why the Romish church never canonized Eve 296.

* The idle fables of the Jews about Lamech and his wives, and about Adam's abstinence and Cain's increase, are to be rejected 297.

e. A new generation springs from Seth, in which the promise shall be fulfilled 298.

2. Of Enoch.

a. What his name means, and why it was given to him 299.

* The names of the holy patriarchs originated not by chance 299.

b. How true wors.h.i.+p began under Enoch 300-302.

* Of true wors.h.i.+p.

(1) In what it consists 301.

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