t of man's wickedness was his greatest cross, as
Peter says of Lot in Sodom (2 Pet 2, 8): "That righteous man dwelling
among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day
to day with their lawless deeds."

24. Accordingly, the increase of humanity of which Moses speaks has
not reference alone to the time of Noah, but also to the age of the
other patriarchs. It was there that the violation of the first table
commenced--in the contempt manifested for Jehovah and his Word. This
was followed later by such gross offenses as oppression, tyranny and
lewdness, which Moses explicitly mentions and names first as the cause
of evil. Consult all history, study the Greek tragedies and the
affairs of barbarians and Romans of all times, and you find lust the
mother of every kind of trouble. It can not be otherwise. Where God's
Word remains unknown or unheeded, men will plunge into lust.

25. Lust draws in its train endless other evils, as pride, oppression,
perjury and the like. These sins can be attacked only as men, through
the first table, learn to fear and to trust in God. Then it is that
they follow the Word as a lamp going before in the dark, and they will
not indulge in such scandalous deeds, but will rather beware of them.
With violation of the first table, however, the spread of passions and
sins of every description is inevitable.

26. But it seems strange that Moses should enumerate in the catalog of
sins the begetting of daughters. He had found it commendable in the
case of the patriarchs. It is even enjoyed by the ungodly as a
blessing of God. Why, therefore, does Moses call it a sin?

I reply, he does not condemn the fact of procreation as such, but the
abuse of it, resulting from original sin. To be endowed with royal
majesty, wisdom, wealth and bodily strength is a goodly blessing. It
is God who bestows these gifts. But when men, in possession of these
blessings, fail to reverence the first table, and by means of these
very gifts do violence to it, such wickedness merits punishment.
Therein is the reason for Moses' peculiar words: "The sons of God saw
the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of
all that they chose," without consideration of God or of law, natural
or statutory.

27. The first table having been despised, the second shares the same
fate. Desire occupies the principal place and in contempt for
procreation it becomes purely bestial; whereas God has instituted