haue hitherto continued thus blacke.

[Sidenote: The cause of the Ethiopians blacknesse.] It manifestly and
plainely appeareth by Holy Scripture, that after the generall inundation
and ouerflowing of the earth, there remained no moe men aliue but Noe his
three sonnes, Sem, Cham, and Iaphet, who onely were left to possesse and
inhabite the whole face of the earth: therefore all the sundry discents
that vntil this day haue inhabited the whole earth, must needes come of the
off-spring either of Sem, Cham, or Iaphet, as the onely sonnes of Noe, who
all three being white, and their wiues also, by course of nature should
haue begotten and brought foorth white children. But the enuie of our great
and continuall enemie the wicked Spirite is such, that as hee coulde not
suffer our olde father Adam to liue in the felicite 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 liuing, hee so caused one of them to transgresse and disobey
his fathers commaundement, that after him all his posterity shoulde bee
accursed. [Sidenote: The Arke of Noe.] The fact of disobedience was this:
When Noe at the commandement of God had made the Arke and entred therein,
and the floud-gates of heauen were opened, so that the whole face of the
earth, euery tree and mountaine was couered with abundance or water, hee
straitely commaunded his sonnes and their wiues, that they should with
reuerence and feare beholde the iustice and mighty power of God, and that
during the time of the flood while they remained in the Arke, they should
vse continencie, and abstaine from carnall copulation with their wines: and
many other precepts bee gaue vnto them, and admonitions touching the
iustice of God, in renenging sinne, and his mercie in deliuering them, who
nothing deserued it. Which good instructions and exhortations
notwithstanding his wicked sonne Cham disobeyed, and being perswaded that
the first childe borne after the flood (by right and Lawe of nature) should