PHIL. IUD. DE ABRAHAMO. §. 7. 8.

Admirable, too, is he who excelled in his own generation, and did not join in what the multitude coveted. This man will attain second place, while nature will bestow the first of the prizes upon those others. Yet the 7 M. second prizes are also great. And what is there that is not great and highly sought after, which God offers and grants? The clearest proof is the abundance of the graces which he received. For since that time bore a crop of injustices and impieties, and every land, nation, city, and household—and each person individually—was filled with wicked practices, they all voluntarily and with foresight, as if in a contest, competed for the prizes in wrongdoing, contending with all eagerness, as each person hurried to surpass his neighbor in the magnitude of his vice, and omitted nothing that belonged to a blameworthy and accursed life.

§. 8. At these things, God was naturally distressed, if the animal thought to be the best, and deemed worthy of kinship with Him because of the partnership in reason, ought to practice virtue, yet instead coveted vice and all the forms of vice. He decides upon the appropriate punishment, contemplating the annihilation of those then existing by a flood; not only those in the plain and in the lower-lying areas, but also those inhabiting the highest mountains. For the great sea, Gen. 7:11 and following rising higher than ever before, flowed through the mouths of the rivers into our seas with a massive rush. The flooding waters submerged islands and continents. Repeated surges of perennial springs, native rivers, and torrents joined together, overflowing into one another, and rising to a height, they advanced. Nor did the air remain at rest; for a deep and continuous cloud covered the whole sky, and...