Behold, in these words the Picture of a great and a good Man, which indeed, like a well-made Picture looks upon, yea, more than so, speaks unto us all; nor is it a common Picture for this also, that the Walk as well as the Face ⟨p. 2⟩of the Person is represented in it. This Chapter contains a Catalogue of those Antediluvian Patriarchs, in whom the Church of God, and the Line of Christ was continued from Adam to Noah. The ancient Heathens expressed their broken Traditions of our Noah in rude Notions of one Janus, a Man, a god, and I know not what, with two Faces on him, because Noah had the Prospect of two World• before him: We may all share with Noah in this Privilege; the Affairs of the Old World as well as of the New do arrive to our Notice; in this Chapter particularly we have a Muster of renowned Men that lived before the Flood. Indeed about the most of them, there is little recorded besides their Age and their End. Ecclesiastical History relates, that a Person of Quality accidentally coming into a Meeting-house, where the Minister was reading the fifth Chapter of Genesis, those words recurring so often in it, And he Dyed! And he Dyed! they struck to, they stuck in the Heart of him, and caused him that was a mortal to become a very serious Man: God grant that another clause in the Chapter may have this day as good an effect upon us all.
BEhold, in these words the Picture of a great and a good Man, which indeed, like a well-made Picture looks upon, yea, more than so, speaks unto us all; nor is it a common Picture for this also, that the Walk as well as the Face ⟨p. 2⟩of the Person is represented in it. This Chapter contains a Catalogue of those Antediluvian Patriarchs, in whom the Church of God, and the Line of Christ was continued from Adam to Noah. The ancient Heathens expressed their broken Traditions of our Noah in rude Notions of one Janus, a Man, a god, and I know not what, with two Faces on him, because Noah had the Prospect of two World• before him: We may all share with Noah in this Priviledge; the Affairs of the Old World as well as of the New do arrive to our Notice; in this Chapter particularly we have a Muster of renowned Men that lived before the Flood. Indeed about the most of them, there is little recorded besides their Age and their End. Ecclesiastical History relates, that a Person of Quality accidentally coming into a Meeting-house, where the Minister was reading the fifth Chapter of Genesis, those words recurring so often in it, And he Dyed! And he Dyed! they struck to, they stuck in the Heart of him, and caused him that was a mortal to become a very serious Man: God grant that another clause in the Chapter may have this day as good an effect upon us all.
