Part 17 (1/2)

B. NOAH.

1. Remarkableness of the fact that Noah refrained so long from wedlock 86.

2. He was fit to marry, but had reasons for abstaining 87.

3. What his reasons were 88.

4. His chast.i.ty is highly praised by Moses in few words 89.

5. The Jews' lies about the reasons for his chast.i.ty refuted 90-91.

* The Jews' lies as to why Shem was called the first-born 91.

* Papists without reason take offense at Moses relating so much about the birth of the children of the patriarchs 92-93.

6. Noah s.h.i.+nes like a bright star as an example of chast.i.ty among all the patriarchs 93.

7. Noah remained single, not because he despised marriage; and why he finally married 94.

8. How his sons were born one after the other 95-97.

* Why Shem was preferred to j.a.pheth 96.

* How to meet the objections to the birth of Noah's sons 97.

9. Noah an excellent example of chast.i.ty 98.

* The threefold world.

a. The first world a truly golden age and the most holy. How and why it was punished by G.o.d 99-100.

b. The second world is full of idolatry, and will be severely punished by G.o.d 100.

c. The third world is the worst, and hence can expect the hardest punishment 101.

d. The punishment of these three worlds portrayed in the colors of the rainbow 101.

e. How believing hearts act upon considering sin and the world's punishment 102.

B. NOAH.

V. 32. _And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and j.a.pheth._

86. Here again we meet with surprising brevity. As is his custom, Moses expresses in the fewest possible words the greatest and most important things, which the ignorant reader pa.s.ses by un.o.bserved. But you will say, perhaps, Of what import is it that Noah first begat sons when he was five hundred years old? Why, if Noah had no children all those 500 years, he either endured that length of time the severe trial of unfruitfulness or, as appears to me more likely, he abstained from marriage all those years, setting an example of most marvelous chast.i.ty. I do not speak here of the abominable chast.i.ty of the Papists; nor of our own. Look at the prophets and the apostles, and even at some of the other patriarchs, who doubtless were chaste and holy. But what are they in comparison with this man Noah, who, possessed of masculine vigor, managed to live a chaste life without marriage for five hundred years?

87. Now you will scarcely find one in a thousand among the men of our age who, at the age of thirty, has not known woman. Moreover, Noah, after he had lived a single life for so many centuries, at length took to himself a wife, and begat children; which latter fact carries its own proof that he was in a state appropriate for marriage prior to this, and had a definite reason for practicing continence.

88. In the first place, it is evident that such unequaled chast.i.ty must necessarily have been a peculiar gift of G.o.d. It evinced a nature almost angelic. It does not seem a thing possible in the nature of man to live 500 years without knowing a wife. In the next place these five centuries of chast.i.ty in Noah manifest some signal displeasure with the world. For what other reason are we to conclude that he abstained from marriage than because he had seen the descendants of his uncle and aunt degenerate into giants and tyrants, filling the world with violence? He thought in consequence, that he would rather have no children at all than such as those. And my belief is that he would never have taken to himself a wife at all if he had not been admonished and commanded so to do either by the patriarchs or by some angel. He who had refrained from marriage for 500 years might have refrained during all the rest of his life.