th.

74. But why, you may say, should God need to complain thus? Can he not
when it pleases him suddenly destroy the whole world? He surely can,
but does not do so gladly. He says: "I have no pleasure in the death
of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live," Ezk
33, 11. Such a disposition proves that God is inclined to pardon, to
endure and to remit the sins of men, if only they will come to their
senses; but inasmuch as they continue in obduracy, and reject all
help, he is, as it were, tormented by this wickedness of men.

75. The words "And Jehovah said," I attribute to the holy fathers, who
testified through a public decree that God should be compelled to
exercise vengeance, for they taught by divine authority. When Noah and
his ancestors had preached nearly a thousand years, and yet the world
continued to degenerate more and more, they announced God's decision
to an ungrateful world and disclosed this as his thought: Why should I
preach forever and permit my heralds to cry in vain? The more
messengers I send, the longer I defer my wrath,--the worse they
become. It is therefore necessary for preaching to cease, and for
retribution to begin. I shall not permit my Spirit, that is my Word,
to sit in judgment and to bear witness forever, and to tolerate man's
wickedness. I am constrained to punish their sins. Because man is
flesh, he is opposed to me. He is earthly, I am spirit. Man continues
in his carnal state, mocks at the Word, persecutes and hates my Spirit
in the patriarchs, and the story is told to deaf ears. Hence it is
necessary that I should cease and permit man to go his own way. This
contrast he desires to indicate when he says: "For he is flesh."

76. Noah, Lamech and Methuselah were very holy men, full of the Holy
Spirit. Accordingly they performed their office by teaching,
admonishing, urging and entreating, in season and out of season; as
Paul says, 2 Tim 4, 2. But they reproved flesh and did unprofitable
labor, for the flesh would not yield to sound teaching. Should I, says
he, endure forever such contempt for my Word?

77. This proclamation, therefore, contains a public complaint, made by
the Holy Spirit through the holy patriarchs, Noah, Lamech, Methuselah
and others, whom God took away before the flood that they might not be
spectators of so widely diffused wrath. All these, with one voice and
mouth, admonished the giants and tyrants to repent, and added the
threat that God woul