III. HAND ON MOUTH.

IT is said, Gen. vi. 11, how before the flood the earth was filled with violence. Some will say, with Nicodemus, How can these things be? violence being relative, and requiring a counterpart. Though such tyrants were hammers, 188others must be patient anvils for them to smite upon. Such persons, purely passive in oppression, were to be pitied, not punished; to be delivered, not drowned in the flood.

But the answer is easy, seeing we read in the same chapter, ver. 5, that God saw that the imagination of the thoughts of man was only evil continually. God plainly perceived that the sufferers of violence would have been offerers of it, if empowered with might equal to their malice. Their cursedness was as sharp, though their horns were not so long; and what they lacked in deed and actions, they made up in desires and endeavours. So that in sending a general deluge over all, God was clearly just, and men justly miserable.

Let such Englishmen who have been of the depressed party during our civil wars, enter into a scrutiny and serious search of their own souls, whether or no (if armed with power) they would not have laid as great load on others as themselves underwent. Yea, let them out of a godly jealousy suspect more cruelty in themselves than they can conceive. Then will they find just cause to take the blame and shame on themselves, and give God the glory that he hath not drowned all in a general deluge of destruction.