hed 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 God 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 God, 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 God
291-292.

* The uncovenanted grace of the