ing, that to prevent the Ruin of himself
and Family, he resolv'd to build him a Ship to have recourse to when the
Water should come over the Rest of the World.

What Jesting, what Scorn, what Contempt did this Work expose the good
old Man to for above a 100 Years? for so long the Work was building, as
antient Authors say; let us represent to our selves in the most lively
Manner how the witty World at that Time behav'd to poor old _Noah_; how
they took their Evening Walks to see what he was doing, and passed their
Judgment upon it, and upon the Progress of it; I say, to represent this
to our selves, we need go no farther than to our own Witicisms upon
Religion, and upon the most solemn Mysteries of Divine Worship; how we
damn the Serious for Enthusiasts, think the Grave mad, and the Sober
melancholy; call Religion it self Flatus and Hyppo; make the Devout
ignorant, the Divine mercenary, and the whole Scheme of Divinity a Frame
of Priestcraft; and thus no doubt the building an Ark or Boat, or
whatever they call'd it, to float over the Mountains, and dance over the
Plains, what could it be but a religious Frenzy, and the Man that so
busied himself, a Lunatick? and all this in an Age when divine Things
came by immediate Revelation into the Minds of Men! the _Devil_ must
therefore have made a strange Conquest upon Mankind to obliterate all
the Reverence, which but a little before was so strangely impress'd upon
them concerning their Maker.

This was certainly the Height of the _Devil_'s Kingdom, and we shall
never find him arrive to such a Pitch again; he was then truly and
literally the universal Monarch, nay the God of this World; and as all
Tyrants do, he governs them with an arbitrary absolute sway; and had not
God thought fit to give him a Writ of Ejectment, and afterwards drown
him out of Possession I know not what would have been the Case, he might
have kept his Hold for ought I know till the Seed of the Woman came to
bruise his Head, that is to say, cripple his Government, Dethrone him
and Depose his Power, as has been fulfill'd in the Messiah.

But as he was, I say, drown'd out of the World, his Kingdom for the
present was at an End; at least, if he had a Dominion he had no
Subjects, and as the Creation was in a Manner renewed, so the _Devil_
had all his Work to do over again: Unhappy Man! how has he, by his weak
Resistance, made the _Devil_, recovering his Hold too easy to him, and
given him all the Advantages, e