GEORGE BESTS DISCOURSE a.d. 



naturall infection of the first inhabitants of that Countrey, 

 and so all the whole progenie of them descended, are 

 still polluted with the same blot of infection. Therefore 

 it shall not bee farre from our purpose, to examine the 

 first originall of these blacke men, and howe by a lineall 

 discent they have hitherto continued thus blacke. 



It manifestly and plainely appeareth by holy Scripture, The cause of 

 that after the generall inundation and overflowing of *?f & thl0 P iam 



• • blackness? 



the earth, there remained no moe men alive but Noe 

 and his three sonnes, Sem, Cham, and Japhet, who onely 

 were left to possesse and inhabite the whole face of the 

 earth : therefore all the sundry discents that until this 

 present day have inhabited the whole earth, must needes 

 come of the off-spring either of Sem, Cham, or Japhet, 

 as the onely sonnes of Noe, who all three being white, 

 and their wives also, by course of nature should have 

 begotten and brought foorth white children. But the 

 envie of our great and continuall enemie the wicked 

 Spirite is such, that as hee coulde not suffer our olde 

 father Adam to live in the felicitie and Angelike state 

 wherein hee was first created, but tempting him, sought 

 and procured his ruine and fall : so againe, finding at this 

 flood none but a father and three sonnes living, hee so 

 caused one of them to transgresse and disobey his fathers 

 commaundement, that after him all his posteritie shoulde 

 bee accursed. The fact of disobedience was this : When The Arke of 

 Noe at the commandement of God had made the Arke Noe - 

 and entred therein, and the floud-gates of heaven were 

 opened, so that the whole face of the earth, every tree 

 and mountaine was covered with abundance of water, 

 hee straitely commaunded his sonnes and their wives, 

 that they should with reverence and feare beholde the 

 justice and mighty power of God, and that during the 

 time of the floud while they remained in the Arke, they 

 should use continencie, and abstaine from carnall copula- 

 tion with their wives : and many other precepts hee gave 

 unto them, and admonitions touching the justice of God, 

 in revenging sinne, and his mercie in delivering them, 



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