2.4 The Explitt~tioN of th: Text. 5ta:te H. ( . . ' all in pieces, when he looked _on it afterwards; would we ltO~ thence Conclucle the frame of it had been .quite mar– red, ·fince it went .out_of his hand, aod that it does not· ferve for that -ufe it was at firlf deGgned for r Howmuch . more, when we fee the holy a<nd wife God, delhoying the work ef ·his own -hands, .once folemaly pr-onou-nced by him 'f:ery good,. we mayconclude that the original fta'mt: there– of is utterly marred, that it cannot b.e mended, b.1:1t it mufl: 11eeds be new made, <>r Jofl a) together ? Gen. vi. 6. 7. And it repented the Lord that he had made man or. the ~ .e-arth, and it grieved him, at his heart: and the Lord faid, I will deflroy ma1t, or blot him out; as a man doth a fen·– .tence out ~f a book, that cannot be correCted by ,cutting off fome letters, fyllabies, .or words, and interlining others here a.nd there; but mufi: needs be wholly new framed. But 'did the deluge carry .off this corruption of man's na" t1.1re? Did it mend the mattet ? No, it did not. God, in his holyprovidence, That every mouth may beflopped, and- - All th( new -u;orld may become guilty before 6'od, as welt , as the old, permits that corruption of nature to break out' ·in Noah, the, father of the new world, after the deluge . was over. , Behold him as another Adam, finning in tl)e fruit of a.-tree, Gen. ix. 20. 2 I. He planted a vine_yard, a.nd he drank of the wine, and rzpa1 drunken, and be was uncovered /in hi.r tent. More than that, God gives the , fame reafon againll: a new deluge, which he gives in our text, for bringing that on the old word-; I will no! (faitlt he) _again curje the ground any more for man'sfa~e , for · the imagination of mim's heart is evil from his yorJth, ' Cien, viii. 21. ~-"hereby it is i-ntimated, th~t there is no wending of the matter by this means ; and that if he would' always take the fame courfe with men that he ha<! done, he would be always fending deluges on the earth, fee ing the corruption of man's na1\_ure remains !till. But tho' the flood could not carry off the corruption of nature, yet it pointed at the way how it is to he done ; to wit, That men mrifl be born of water and of ~he Spirit, raiTed f~.:om fpiritua-l d~ath in fin, by the graee of J efus_r Chri!t, who came hy wat.er and blood; out of which a new world of faints arife in, regeneration, even as the new wo rld of -fin- : aers out of the waters, where they ha._d long lain ~uried . (as
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