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 For the crime of the one, the earth was cursed; through the sacrifice of the other, the curse was withdrawn.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 understanding 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 nu- Adam and Noah were both distinguished merous and thriving families, who have prac- types of Christ; and from this they derive tised duty and obedience to their parents. their chief dignity and importance. Some inThis accordingly is the blessing entailed terpreters, who wish to find out an evangeliupon Shem and Japhet; and Ham's disre- cal meaning to every the minutest circumspectful and indecent behaviour towards his stance in the sacred records of the Old Tes father, is in like manner, punished in the en- tament, have alleged, that the import of the tail of a lasting and heavy curse upon his names of the antediluvian patriarchs, taken offspring. Of all the precepts of the law, in their order, contain a prophesy of the Mesthe fifth most obviously, directly, and cer- siah: with which I shall present you, rather tainly, requites the breach or the observance as discovering an honest zeal for the prevaof itself. Noah awakes from his wine, and lency of gospel ideas, than as containing a meets the reproof of his intemperance, in solid and satisfactory argument, in support the knowledge of what his sons had done of gospel truth. Blessed be God, our most unto him, when he was not himself. And holy faith is built on a broader, surer, 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. 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 red, shall come: Enoch, teaching: Methuseof a flood-and restored again through the lah, that death shall send: Lamech, to the mercy of Heaven, at last sinks into the grave, smitten, or miserable: Noah, consolation.— and ceases to have any farther interest in the But we are fully warranted, by many clear, world. He survives that great destruction, indubitable, and explicit applications of scripthe deluge, three hundred and fifty years; ture, "to preach the unsearchable riches of lives to instruct a new race of men in the the gospel of Christ," from the history of knowledge, the love, and the worship of the Noah. Shall I encroach upon your patience, true God; lives to see his progeny increased and proceed to it now? or implore your canand multiplied, and spreading on every side; dour for an attentive hearing of it, extended lives to exhibit to a short-lived race of mor- to its proper length, and displayed in its mitals an example of patriarchal dignity and nuter circumstances, in a future lecture? I longevity; and dies at the age of nine hun- 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 given 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 concerning 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.' 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 nava] architecture, a vessel of such construction would be far from appearing the likeliest "Noah found grace in the eyes of the means of preservation from a calamity like Lord;" and of Christ he saith, "Behold my the deluge. Not a seaman or ship-builder in servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom Britain, but would pronounce it a clumsy my soul delighteth." "Noah was a just piece of work, would affirm it could not posman, and perfect in his generations :" and sibly live at sea, and predict its foundering of whom speaks the prophet, when he saith, in the deep, even without the attack of a "he had done no violence, neither was any storm. Thus "the cross was to the Jews, deceit in his mouth?" and the Apostle, "who a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishdid no sin, neither was guile found in his ness; but to them who believe, Christ is the mouth?" and again, "such an High Priest power of God, and the wisdom of God." We became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, read of no other methods of safety being separate from sinners." Noah was a preacher thought of, or attempted, by the thoughtless of righteousness; and the spirit of prophesy men of the antediluvian world. When the puts these words into the mouth of the Mes- evil overtook them, they would naturally siah himself, "I delight to do thy will, O my flee to such wretched refuge as despair God; yea, thy law is within my heart. I pointed out; but whatever other means of have preached righteousness in the great salvation, in the great and terrible day of the congregation: I have not refrained my lips, Lord, human imagination may have devised, O Lord, thou knowest. I have not hid thy the scripture saith expressly, "Neither is righteousness within my heart, I declared there salvation in any other: for there is thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have none other name under heaven given among not concealed thy loving kindness, and thy men, whereby we must be saved:"* and untruth, from the great congregation." Noah availing, in that day, will be the desponding preached, and preached in vain, to a corrupt- invocations of impenitent sinners, to "the ed, hardened generation, ripe for the de- rocks to fall upon them, and to the hills to struction of a flood; Jesus, with similar mor- cover them from the presence of God, and tification and regret, preached to an impeni- the wrath of the Lamb." tent, 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 righteous, could not by that righteousness, save the men of his generation from the judg. ments 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. 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 wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe."* Both of them fully and perfectly answer the end of their institution. The ark was at once a place of shelter from the storm; contained all necessary accommodation and provision; furnished opportunity and means of the most delightful communion and fellowship; and constituted the dearest bond of union and love. Who does not see in this, that wonderful person of whom prophesy thus speaks, "A man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." In whom "it has pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell;" of whom "the whole family in heaven and earth is named;" who thus declares in his own person, "those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost," who enjoins them to "love one another," and prays for them, that "they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us. The attractive influence of the gospel, and its blessed tendency to tame and subdue the high thoughts, and savage dispositions of the human heart, were beautifully prefigured by the instinctive call of Providence to the brute creation to seek shelter in the ark, and by the placability and gentleness of their dispositions towards each other while they continued in it. The words of Isaiah are literally a history of the deluge, and they contain a prediction equally beautiful and striking, of the peaceableness and concord of Christ's kingdom; "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid and the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." Under the influence of Christ's spirit, the fierce and the proud, the cruel and the resentful, the envious and the passionate, "put on as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering ;" and learn to "forbear one another, to forgive one another." Again; the figure shifting from the ark, to him who built and constructed it, according to the pattern given him of God, Noah himself becomes the type and Jesus the person typified. The plan or design of the ark was of God; the execution was Noah's; in * 1 Cor. i. 21. † Isaiah xxxii. 2. Isaiah xi. 6-9. like manner, the plan of redemption, which was formed of old, even from everlasting, God was at length manifested in the flesh to execute, and in it he laboured and persevered, till bowing his head, "it is finished." What shall we say? The very waters of the flood have a figurative prospect of gospel times and gospel ideas. The deluge was a purifier of the old world, corrupted and defiled by sin; and "a few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water;" the antitype of which remarkable event, we are informed by the apostle Peter, is our salvation by baptism; "The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us, (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ."* When we behold the same element destructive to one and salutary to another, are we not led to think of that doctrine which is "unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved and in them that perish? to the one it is a savour of death unto death, and to the other, a savour of life unto life;" and of that other under which the Baptist represents the power and coming of the Son of God? "Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner: but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."t The wind or spirit which passed over the earth, and assuaged the waters, points out to us not obscurely, the power of that Divine Spirit, who in the beginning "moved upon the face of the deep," and reduced chaos into order and beauty; and who, through the whole course of Providence "sitteth upon the flood;" even "the Lord on high, who is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea." Is it not sweetly figurative of that dawn of hope, that proclamation of mercy, before which the tide of wrath begins to ebb and to subside? The figure of the dove declares its own meaning and import. In the natural purity and innocence of that sweet bird; in her going and returning; in the expressive speed of her first excursion; in the expressive symbol she bore in her mouth at her second return, the olive-leaf; in the clear and explicit information conveyed by her not returning again the third time, it is impossible not to observe a prefiguration of the purity and innocence of the Holy Jesus, the Mediator between God and man. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation!" "Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land." As the state of the world was Matth. iii. 12. 1 Peter iii. 21. gradually unfolded to Noah by the different appearances and conduct of his dove; so was the plan of redemption by Jesus Christ gradually disclosed to the world, in types, in allegories, and by predictions, till the morning light at length became perfect day, and "God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds."* As the ark, after the tossings and tempest of the flood, rested safely on the top of Mount Ararat; so Christ, having suffered all things that were appointed, "entered into his glory," and established the faith of them that believe in him upon "a rock, against which the gates of hell never shall prevail." The ark afforded protection to those only who fled for shelter under its roof, and whom God shut up within it. It was not merely the sight of that wonderful fabric, nor the knowledge and approbation of the plan, nor an active hand in the rearing of it, nor an external adherence to it, when the evil day came, that afforded safety to the miserable. Our Lord himself furnishes us with the application of these important circumstances. "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my Father which in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." And impressed with an awful sense of it, Paul says of himself, "I therefore so run, not as uncertainly: so fight I, not as one that beateth the air; but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a cast away." Farther: when we see Noah at the altar of God, offering the sacrifices of thanksgiving, presenting a victim of every clean bird, and beast, and God smelling a savour of rest; ceasing from his anger, remitting the curse, and establishing a new covenant upon better promises, we "behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world." Christ, the altar that is erected, the priest who officiates, and the victim which is offered up. We behold provision made for the remission of transgressions committed under the second covenant, for which there was no remedy under the first. The passage on which this discourse is built, is a full and particular illustration of this. The whole chapter refers to the bringing in of the Gentile nations to the standard of the Messiah. For thy Maker is thine husband [the Lord of Hosts is * Heb. i. 1,2 † Mat. vii. 21-23. 1 Cor. ix. 26, 27. his name] and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall he be called. For the Lord has called thee as a woman forsaken, and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God. For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I 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." "* Expressions beautifully figurative of the strength, beauty, and duration of the Christian church, and of the immoveable foundation on which the Christian faith is built. Finally, the rainbow, the token of God's covenant of peace with the earth, produced, in the course of nature, by the rays of the sun falling on a cloud impregnated with rain; without straining for a similitude, exhibits mercy rejoicing over judgment; the rays of the sun of righteousness reflected from and dispersing the clouds of divine wrath and human guilt. It represents the dispensations of the Most High towards men, as distinguished from those spiritual beings who never sinned, and those who never shall be saved. In hell, the gloom is not for a single instant dispelled by one beam of light, nor despair relieved by one ray of hope. The serenity of heaven is never obscured by one frown from the face of God. But our world is the theatre, on which are displayed, "mercy and truth meeting together, righteousness and peace kissing each other;" "truth springing out of the earth, and righteousness looking down from heaven." The bow in the cloud is the reverse of that described by the Psalmist: "He hath bent his bow and made it ready, he hath also prepared for him the instruments of death: he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors." No, it is a bow unbent, armed with no deadly weapon, and its dangerous, threatening side averted from us, and turned towards heaven. The bow is never to be seen but when one side of the heaven is clear, and the sun above the horizon; unless it be by the sober, silver rays of the moon's mild, reflected light. Thus every thing useful and pleasing in nature, every thing satisfying and consolatory in providence, in order to be perceived and enjoyed, must be irradiated, explained, and applied, by the eternal Wisdom, the Word of God, "the true Light which enlighteneth |