But how is the destruction to be effected? Assuredly, by his seizing the watery element and blotting out everything. The force with which this element is wont to rage is common knowledge. Though the atmosphere be pestilential, it does not always infect trees and roots. But water not only overturns everything, not only does it tear out trees and roots, but it also lifts the very surface of the earth. It alters the soil, so that the most fertile fields are marred by the overflow of salty earth and sand (Ps 107, 34). This was therefore equal to the downfall of the primitive world. 241. The penalty of the present world, however, will be different, as the color of the rainbow shows. The lowest color the extent of which is well defined, is that of water. For the fury of the water in the deluge was so great that limits were set to its havoc, and the earth was restored to the remnant of the godly after the destruction of the evil-doers. But the other arch of the rainbow, the outer, which has no clearly defined bounds, is of the color of fire, the element which shall consume the whole world. This destruction shall be succeeded by a better world, which shall last forever and serve the righteous. This the Lord seems to have written in the color of the rainbow. B. GOD COMMANDS NOAH TO BUILD AN ARK. * That Noah had only three children is a sign of God's mercy 242. 1. The kind of wood used in building the ark 243. 2. Its various rooms 244. 3. The pitch by which it was protected 245. 4. Why God instructed Noah so particularly how each part was to be constructed 246. 5. The form of the ark, and how teachers differ on this point 247. 6. The place Noah occupied in the ark, and that of the animals 248. 7. Whether the ark had the proportions of a human body 249. 8. How the ark was a type of the body of Christ--of the Church 250. 9. The windows of the ark: a. Whether it had more than one window 251. * The Latin version is not clear here 252. b. What kind of a window it was, and how it could stand the rain 253. c. Luther's opinion of the Jews' ideas about the window 253. 10. The door of the ark 254. 11. How to meet the various questions about the ark 255-256. * The deluge was a new method of punishment, hence the non incredible 257-258. * God was in earnest in the threatening of this flood 259. B. GOD COMMANDS NOAH TO BUILD AN ARK. V. 14. _Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch (bitumen)._ 242. God's first thought was to save a remnant through that tiny seed, the three sons of Noah, for Noah ceased henceforth to beget children. This strongly attests the mercy of God toward those who walk in his ways.