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was upon the face of the ground, both man, I course, the creation of the world and the and cattle, and the creeping things, and the flood seemed almost to meet; I say, a few fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed days after Methuselah's death, God comfrom the earth and Noah only remained manded Noah, on the tenth day of the second alive, and they that were with him in the month, answering to the thirtieth of Novemark." "It is a fearful thing to fall into the ber, in the year of the world one thousand hands of the living God." six hundred and fifty-six, and before Christ At length the tempest of wrath spends it-two thousand three hundred and forty-eight, self. At length, after a night so dark, so to prepare that week for going into the ark, dreary, and so long, the morning light begins and to receive all the living creatures which to dawn. Nothing but water is to be seen, came thither by direction of Providence, in except yonder little bark floating on the the course of seven days. mighty surge, which threatens every moment to swallow it up, or to dash it impetuously on some rocky mountain's top. It contains the sad remainder of the human race; the hope of all future generations. It is preserved, not by the power of him who constructed, but of him who designed it, and who directed it to be built. It is guided, not by the skill of the mariner, but steered by the hand of Providence. That a vessel of such construction, should preserve its upright position for so long a time, in such a wild uproar of nature, must be ascribed to a perpetual supernatural interposition.

On the seventeenth day of the second month, or the seventh of December, in the six hundredth year of Noah's life, the deluge began, after the Lord had shut him in with all his family. The rain from heaven, and the flux from the ocean, continued without intermission, forty days and forty nights, till the waters prevailed fifteen cubits above the highest mountains; and then stayed, on the seventeenth of January. It continued flood one hundred and fifty days, including the forty days from its commencement to its full height; that is, to the seventeenth day of the seventh month, or the sixth of May, when the flood abated, and the ark rested upon one of the mountains of Arrarat or Armenia. On the first day of the tenth month, or July nineteenth, the waters still continuing to decrease, the tops of the neighbouring mountains became visible from the ark. At the end of forty days from thence, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, or the twentyeighth of August, Noah opened the window of the ark, and sent forth the raven, which never returned to him. After expecting her for seven days in vain, on the third of September, he sent forth the dove, which returned to him the same day, having found no rest for the sole of her foot, through the continuance of the waters. After seven days more, on the tenth of September, he again sends forth the dove, which returned in the evening, with an olive leaf in her mouth, a

The ark has proved the protection and preservation of Noah; but is it not his prison also? How gladly do we submit to a temporary inconveniency for the sake of a great and lasting good! But the inconveniencies, to which we submit in fulfilling the designs of Providence, shall not be prolonged beyond their needful period, nor increased beyond our strength. What an amiable view of the mercy and condescension of God is presented to us at this period of Noah's history! "O, Lord, thou preservest man and beast!" And "doth God take care for oxen?" "God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged." He who makes sphere to balance on sphere, in the great system of nature, can make one element check, and control the rage of another, in the subor-proof that the waters had decreased below dinate economy of our little globe. Wind stops the progress, and diminishes the fury of water at God's command. The dominion of any one element prevailing too long must soon prove fatal to the whole; but their powers blending with, opposing, balancing each other, produce that wonderful and delightful harmony, on which the being and the happiness of mankind depend. "The waters prevailed one hundred and fifty days, and after the end of them, they were abated."

According to the best chronological calculations, the different eras or stages of this great event, adapted to our reckoning of time, are thus fixed. A few days after the death of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, who was born two hundred and forty-three years before Adam died, and in whose person, of

Gen. vii. 21-24

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the height of that plant. After waiting yet seven days more, Noah again sends forth the dove, on September seventeenth, which returned not again to him, a proof that "the ground was dry," and that this bird could now find food to sustain life, out of the ark.

On the first day of the first month, answering to October the twenty-third, in the year of the world one thousand six hundred and fifty-seven, when Noah entered into the six hundred and first year of his age, on this first day of the new world, he removed the covering of the ark, and beheld that the ground was dry. And finally, on the twentyseventh of the second month of this new year, or December the eighteenth, at God's command, who had shut him in, Noah came out of the ark, and all who were with him, in perfect safety; after they had been con

fined therein the space of one year and eleven days.

And now that he is liberated from so long confinement, what are his first sentiments; what is the first use he makes of restored liberty? It is neither a day of business, nor of pleasure, for himself, but of piety and gratitude towards God. A portion of the animals, hitherto cherished and protected with so much care and tenderness; and preserved in the general wreck of nature, must yield their lives, and pour out their blood by their patron's hand, at God's altar. Was not this a direct acknowledgment, that his own life was forfeited with those of the rest of mankind; but spared by an act of distinguishing grace? The stock of living creatures was awfully reduced by the deluge; and this consideration, with a worldly and selfish mind, might have been pleaded as an excuse for delaying sacrifice till victims were multiplied by length of time. But when works of piety, charity, or mercy, are to be performed, a gracious spirit considers the urgency of the call, rather than the largeness of means. What is saved from God and the wretched, from religion and humanity, will never make any one rich. What is bestowed on works of piety and mercy, is property laid out at more than common interest. Did Noah's six couple of beasts, and of birds, increase more slowly, that the seventh was devoted in sacrifice to his Maker and Preserver? I suppose not. In this, if in any sense, what the wise man says, is true, "there is that scattereth and yet aboundeth; there is that withholdeth more than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty." O how acceptable to God are the sacrifices of an humble, grateful, faithful heart! The ground that was cursed for the offence of one, and deluged for the offences of many, by the faith and piety of one is delivered from the curse, and forever secured from the danger of a second flood: "And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every living thing, as I have done."*

Having satisfied the demands, and received the consolations of religion, Noah and his sons are dismissed of God to their secular employments, to the possession and cultivation of their spacious inheritance. All the grants which had been given to the first man, and all the blessings pronounced upon him are renewed to Noah and his family. The whole animal creation is afresh subjected to their power and authority. And now, for the first time, we read of the flesh of animals being permitted unto man for food. But, in the very same breath, the use of blood is forbidden to mankind. Was it intended to adGen. viii. 21.

monish men to be tender of the lives of the brute creation; and not to take away, wan tonly and unnecessarily, what they are unable to restore? Was it to teach men not 10 use as common food, what was, from the beginning, the symbol of atonement? Is it that the thing prohibited is unfit and unwholesome for aliment? Was it, by placing a fence round that which constitutes the life of a beast, to guard, with the greater sanctity, the life of man? The interdiction undoubtedly has a meaning, for none of the precepts of God are merely arbitrary. Wherever he interposes by a special mandate, there we may rest assured, some end of piety, of purity, or of mercy, is to be accomplished by it.

God never communicates his grace by halves. He is but half preserved, who has escaped one great calamity, if he must afterwards live in perpetual fear. Noah's family has outlived the deluge: but every dark cloud is a memorial of that grievous plague, and a threatening of its return. Every watery cloud, therefore, with the sun in opposition to it, shall be an assurance, written in the most distinct characters, to them and all generations of men following, that "the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh." The bow in the clouds existed no doubt before this; the natural cause always and uniformly must produce the same effect; but it has now a use and a meaning unknown before. It formerly manifested in its most beautiful colours, stupendous size, and exact shape and form, the God of nature; now it has become a witness for the God of grace. It was always an object beautiful to behold; but O, how much greater its excellence and importance, as the token of God's covenant! When natural appearances lead to saving acquaintance with nature's God, then they are truly valuable and useful.

We are now come to the last memorable event of Noah's life; which, though far less honourable for him than those which preceded it, the sacred historian has nevertheless recorded, with the same exactness and fidelity, which he has employed in transmitting the rest of his history. Noah, though advanced to a late period in life, and assured that henceforth the duration of human life was to be greatly abridged, engages with alacrity in the labours of husbandry. That God who thought fit to save him from the flood, by an ark of his own building, will not preserve him alive, but by fruits of his own raising. He who would reap the clusters of the vine, must first plant, shelter, prop, and prune the vine. But behold the juice of the grape in a new state; possessing a quality unheard of before. Eaten from the tree, or dried in the sun, it is simple and nutritious like the grain from the stalk of corn; pressed out and fermented, it acquires a fiery force, it warms the blood, it mounts to the brain, it

dred and fifty years; short of the life of Methuselah only by nineteen. From that period, the life of man began gradually to decrease, till it shrunk into its present little measure. Whether life be long or short, “death certainly is the end of all men, and the living should lay it to his heart."

Noah and Adam may be compared and contrasted in various respects. Adam the father of the first world; Noah of the second. Adam, by one wilful transgression, involved all mankind in ruin; Noah, by many repeated efforts, in vain endeavoured to save mankind from impending destruction. The unbelief and disobedience of Adam affected all; the faith of Noah preserved a remnant. The grant of the whole globe was conferred on these two alone, of all mankind. For the crime of the one, the earth was cursed; through the sacrifice of the other, the curse was withdrawn. In both, their own ill behaviour was punished in the ill conduct and behaviour, and in the punishment of their children. Upon the guilty son of Adam, God pronounces sentence, and executes judgment in person: the injured father himself, in the case of Noah, is made the minister of wrath to denounce the vengeance of God upon his own guilty son.

leads reason captive, it overpowers every faculty, it triumphs over its lord. How often have arts been invented, which have proved fatal to the inventors? Every poison, it is said, contains, or is produced contiguous to, its antidote. Such is the care, such the goodness of God to men. But alas! must it not also be observed, that our very food and cordials contain a poison, through the ignorance or excess of man. Was Noah unacquainted with this intoxicating quality of wine, and overtaken through inexperience? Or did the faithful monitor of the old world, and the father of the new, deliberately sacrifice decency and undersending to this insinuating foe! In either case, who can help deploring his shameful, his degraded condition; and the consequences which flowed from it! We pity the dishonoured father; but we detest the unnatural son who could make sport of his parent's shame. He who intoxicates himself does ill; but he who in cool blood, can take an indecent, or an injurious advantage of the intoxication of another, does worse. The modesty and dutifulness of two of Noah's sons, exhibit a lovely and instructive example to youth; their ingenuous shame, their eagerness to conceal the infirmity of their father. They deserve to be blessed with numerous and thriving families, who have practised duty and obedience to their parents. This accordingly is the blessing entailed upon Shem and Japhet; and Ham's disrespectful and indecent behaviour towards his father, is in like manner, punished in the entail of a lasting and heavy curse upon his offspring. Of all the precepts of the law, the fifth most obviously, directly, and certainly, requites the breach or the observance of itself. Noah awakes from his wine, and meets the reproof of his intemperance, in the knowledge of what his sons had done unto him, when he was not himself. And what reproof so keen and severe to an in-more immoveable foundation than the uncergenuous mind like his, as the reflection, that he had made himself an object of scorn and derision to one part of his own family, and of sorrow and pity to the other.

Adam and Noah were both distinguished types of Christ; and from this they derive their chief dignity and importance. Some interpreters, who wish to find out an evangelical meaning to every the minutest circumstance in the sacred records of the Old Testament, have alleged, that the import of the names of the antediluvian patriarchs, taken in their order, contain a prophesy of the Messiah: with which I shall present you, rather as discovering an honest zeal for the prevalency of gospel ideas, than as containing a solid and satisfactory argument, in support of gospel truth. Blessed be God, our most holy faith is built on a broader, surer, and

tain and arbitrary interpretation of a few Hebrew names. But the speculation is at least innocent, and may perhaps have afforded some degree of consolation to the pious minds At length the period arrives that Noah which have adopted it. The explanation of must die; and he who had seen the world in the names alluded to, is this. Adam, man: three different states, as it came from the Seth, placed: Enos, in misery: Cainan, lahands of the Creator, unless as it was affect-mentable: Mahalaleel, the blessed God: Jaed by the fall-covered over with the waters of a flood-and restored again through the mercy of Heaven, at last sinks into the grave, and ceases to have any farther interest in the world. He survives that great destruction, the deluge, three hundred and fifty years; lives to instruct a new race of men in the knowledge, the love, and the worship of the true God; lives to see his progeny increased and multiplied, and spreading on every side; lives to exhibit to a short-lived race of mortals an example of patriarchal dignity and longevity; and dies at the age of nine hun

red, shall come: Enoch, teaching: Methuselah, that death shall send: Lamech, to the smitten, or miserable: Noah, consolation.— But we are fully warranted, by many clear, indubitable, and explicit applications of scripture, "to preach the unsearchable riches of the gospel of Christ," from the history of Noah. Shall I encroach upon your patience, and proceed to it now? or implore your candour for an attentive hearing of it, extended to its proper length, and displayed in its minuter circumstances, in a future lecture? I must trespass no longer upon the former; but

rather trust to the latter. And the more, Christ Jesus, from that more dreadful dethat I cannot but wish both preacher and luge of fire, which scripture assures us shall hearers might bring freshness of spirits, pa- come upon the "world of the ungodly." tience of attention, and thirst of improve- "Flee now to your strong hold, ye prisonment, to a subject of first-rate importance ers of hope:-behold now is the accepted in the scale of divine truth. And now may time, behold now is the day of salvation."He who, by an ark of Gopher-wood, saved To the God of mercy, through the Son Noah and his household from a deluge of of his love, be ascribed immortal praise.water, deliver us, by the grace of his Son Amen.

NOAH AND CHRIST COMPARED.

LECTURE IX.

For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath hid my face from thee, for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. For this is as the waters of Noah unto me; For as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth: so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord, that hath mercy on thee.-ISAIAH liv. 7-10.

As the lesser streams fall into, and are | mixed with the greater; and as all the rivers empty themselves, and are lost in the ocean; so the whole course of events, from the creation of the world, in their separate currents, and in their general and combined tide, flows towards one grand era, styled in scripture, the fulness of time; and terminates in one event, of infinitely greater moment than all the rest, the "manifestation of the Son of God in the flesh." The patriarchal dignity, prophetic foreknowledge and penetration, the sanctity of the priesthood, and the regal majesty, all point out, all move towards, all centre, and settle in Him, who is "the everlasting Father," "the Prophet who should arise," "the Apostle and High Priest of our profession," the "Prince of the kings of the earth." We are struck with a pleasing awe when we converse with the venerable men who lived before the flood. Adam, the first of men; Enoch, who walked with God; Noah, the preserver and restorer of the human race. But in tracing the history of their lives, a still small voice continually whispers us in the ear, saying, A greater than Adam, a greater than Enoch, a greater than Noah is here: a voice from heaven proclaims, sinners, attend; "Behold my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him." Some, with more zeal and honesty, than wisdom and truth, have laboured to discover and to establish a resemblance between our blessed Lord and those who were types of him, in every the minutest circumstance of their lives, and in every expression they employ to describe their private and personal feel

ings and situations. This has been carried so far as to strain and stretch the penitentia! language of David, in the fifty-first psalm, respecting the matter of Uriah, into expressions suitable to the character and condition of the Messiah, in certain supposed circumstances. Guarding ourselves against every thing like a forced construction and application of scripture; without hunting after fanciful resemblances, which tend to weaken and impair the truth, instead of strengthening and supporting it, we will endeavour carefully to point out and improve those which actually exist; namely, such as the Spirit of God directs us to form, by pointing them out to us in the written word; or such as by fair analogy, that is, from known and admitted facts, or from obvious and incontrovertible reasonings, we are warranted to form for ourselves.

Happily, the History of Noah is one of those, in the use and application of which, scripture has lent us much assistance. The very name of that patriarch was not giver him without a meaning and design, which extended much farther than to his person and the day in which he lived. "This same," said his pious father, "shall comfort us con cerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed."* Noah signifies comfort, rest, peace. And when God is bringing his first begotten into the world, this is his proclamation by the mouth of his prophet, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her,

Genesis v. 29.

that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins."* And that we may be at no loss to what period, and to what person these expressions are to be applied, it immediately follows, "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Was Noah an expected deliverer from the curse pronounced upon the ground for man's disobedience? Alas! the curse continued nevertheless; nay, the very blessings of life become accursed to every impenitent transgressor: but Christ "is our peace, who has redeemed us from the curse," not of the ground, but of the law, "being made a curse for us;" and under whose dominion, when finally established, "there shall be no more curse.

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"Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord;" and of Christ he saith, "Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth." "Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generations:" and of whom speaks the prophet, when he saith, "he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth?" and the Apostle, "who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth?" and again, "such an High Priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners." Noah was a preacher of righteousness; and the spirit of prophesy puts these words into the mouth of the Messiah himself, "I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart. I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart, I declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy loving kindness, and thy truth, from the great congregation."‡ Noah preached, and preached in vain, to a corrupted, hardened generation, ripe for the destruction of a flood; Jesus, with similar mortification and regret, preached to an impenitent, incorrigible nation, devoted to destruction by means of a Roman army. "Noah walked with God:" Christ says of himself, "I and my Father are one;" and "my meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." But Noah, though rightcous, could not by that righteousness, save the men of his generation from the judgments of God: his faith and holiness availed himself, and those who with him feared, believed, and prepared; but could not save * Isa. xl. 1, 2. ↑ Ibid. xl. 3-5.

Ps. xl. 8-10.

another: and there is a supposed state of corruption so great, and a day of vengeance so awful, that though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in the land, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness: but the righteousness of the blessed Redeemer is of such infinite value and perfection, as to deliver, from spiritual and eternal death, an innumerable multitude of transgressors.

But the most memorable incident in the history of Noah's life, was the "building of the ark for the saving of his house." Every circumstance relating to which, exhibited a figure of him who was to come. And first, they exactly coincide in respect of the design or contrivance. The plan of the ark was formed in the eternal mind, long before it was communicated to Noah; thus believers are "chosen of God in Christ before the foundation of the world." To human apprehension at first sight, and to human understanding enlightened by experience, and the astonishing improvements made in naval architecture, a vessel of such construction would be far from appearing the likeliest means of preservation from a calamity like the deluge. Not a seaman or ship-builder in Britain, but would pronounce it a clumsy piece of work, would affirm it could not pos sibly live at sea, and predict its foundering in the deep, even without the attack of a storm. Thus "the cross was to the Jews, a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness; but to them who believe, Christ is the power of God, and the wisdom of God." We read of no other methods of safety being thought of, or attempted, by the thoughtless men of the antediluvian world. When the evil overtook them, they would naturally flee to such wretched refuge as despair pointed out; but whatever other means of salvation, in the great and terrible day of the Lord, human imagination may have devised, the scripture saith expressly, "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved:"* and unavailing, in that day, will be the desponding invocations of impenitent sinners, to "the rocks to fall upon them, and to the hills to cover them from the presence of God, and the wrath of the Lamb."

As the ark was a type of the Messiah, being both designs of infinite wisdom; so do they also coincide in the end or purpose to which they were destined, the salvation of those who fled, and who flee thither for refuge. "Noah prepared an ark for the saving of his house ;" and "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life:" and "after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by ¡Jonn iii. 16.

Acts iv. 12.

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