twenty-seventh day of the same month Tizry, "Noah removed the covering of the ark, and behold the face of the earth was dry." He was in the ark one whole year, the most tremendous one that ever was. Judgment had been passed on all flesh. The Lord had accomplished his holy will and pleasure on the globe, and its inhabitants; and the earth standing out of the water, and in the water, perished. It underwent a strange alteration; the course of nature had been changed, and day and night, summer and winter, had not kept their course. What a most blessed knowledge must Noah have had of the covenant of the eternal Three, that in the faith of it, he entered the ark! What views must he have had of the everlasting efficacy of Christ's sacrifice, and his almighty power to save, that though all flesh, save those with him in the ark, were cut off; yet he rested on the Lord simply for salvation. He had before learnt to know God, the persons in God, the offices of the divine co-equal and co-eternal Three, in the incomprebensible essence, from the hieroglyphics set up at the east of the garden of Eden. He had been well instructed into the nature of the fall. He had viewed the promised Messiah in the instituted sacrifices, and had been made acquainted with him, by typical persons and representations, He clearly understood, that one in the Godhead was to take man's nature, and be cut off as the

purifier; by whose sacrifice and atonement, sin was to be put away, and an everlasting righteousness brought in. The ark, and his salvation in it, served to increase his spiritual light, and improve his faith. Ainsworth observes, that "Noah escaped the waters of God's wrath, wherein the world perished; as Israel after this passed safe through the waters of the Red Sea, wherein the Egyptians were drowned." Noah was baptized into Christ's death, and buried in the ark with him into his death; but raised up again with him also, God giving him victory through faith in Christ; and consequently he had views of his election in Christ, of his urion to him, of his oneness with him, and interest in his life, death, burial, and resurrection; and of his being a partaker of all the fruits and benefits thereof, and was comforted therewith.

We have here before us, full proofs of the pre-existence of Jesus Christ, and of his selfexistence; and also the essential deity of the eternal Spirit. The Psalmist addressing Christ, says, "Thy years are throughout all generations," Psalm cii. 24. He was in Noah's time, long before his incarnation. Peter expressly says, that Christ, by his Spirit, preached to the inhabitants of the old world, in Noah's ministry, 1 Peter iii. 19. yea," he is before all things, and by him all things consist;" and the Pslamist declares in the forecited Psalm, "Of old thou hast

laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands:" and the essential divinity of the Holy Ghost is very plainly evidenced and declared, in the prophecy given out by him, concerning the deluge, for almost a thousand years before it came to pass; and also in his withdrawing his influence, and ceasing to breathe in at the nostrils the breath of lives or life; it is most expressly said, that" All in whose nostrils was the breath of life or lives died." This proves the Holy Ghost to be the breath of life; for he it was who breathed it into Adam's nostrils, and he became a living soul. The eternal Spirit is the Spirit of life; all live, and move, and have their being in him, and from him: it was the breath, or inspiration of the Spirit of lives that communicated natural existence to all the creatures at the beginning, Gen. vii. 22. and when that breath is taken away, they die and return again to their dust, Psalm civ. 29. This most surely is an irrefutable proof of his eternal power and Godhead; because in him, all creatures live, and move, and are sustained; and when he withdraws his power they die. As we consider the ark as a type of Christ, and the dove returning to it, with an olive leaf, as a proof that the waters were abated; they put us in remembrance, how the Holy Ghost descended on our most adorable Jesus, when he was baptized by John, in Jordan, under the symbol of a dove,

consecrating and sealing him as the Christ of God.

Having set forth the dissolution of the old world, by the waters of the flood, with the moral and physical causes thereof, I come, in this second part of my discourse, to speak of its renovation.

The truly great and learned Mr. Jones, gives the following account of the reformation of the earth, after the deluge. "When the purpose of providence was brought to pass, a reformation of the earth took place, similar to its first formation: the solid matter settled into ordinary strata -the waters descended, as before, into the like apertures of the earth-the subterraneous air was restored to the atmosphere-the earth was parted into seas, continents, and islands-and its surface was dried by a mighty wind, which passed over it for that purpose." The renovation of the earth, out of the chaotic state, to which it was reduced by the flood, was as great an act of omnipotent power, as its first formation.

Moses begins his first chapter of Genesis with an account of the creation, and the steps the essential Three took, in forming and establishing this earthly system: and he gives as full and accurate an account of its being destroyed by the deluge. He informs us, the windows of heaven were opened, and the fountains of the great deep were broken up: by this means the

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shell of the earth being broken, and universally cracked, the waters issuing out of the bowels of the earth, with the water spouts falling down from heaven, must have been amazingly terrible; and the consternation of the perishing world, must surpass all description; surrounded with a darkened sky, and the elements in confusion. It was a day of judgment to sinners, who then existed on the globe.

This sacred writer also gives a circumstantial account of its renovation after the flood. It was effected by Jehovah's causing a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters were assuaged. The same agent in nature, spirit, or wind, is employed as at the first formation, which brought all things to order again, as it did then. The fountains of the deep, and the windows of heaven, were stopped. The waters returned from off the earth continually, into the great abyss; and behold, the face of the earth was dry; and the air, by its expanding and consolidatory force, hardened and compressed it, so as to fit it again to be dwelt upon; and it was so reformed as to render diligence requisite, in a more laborious cultivation.

We have with the scripture account of the deluge, most clear and natural proofs of it, to this very day. The wrecks of that universal devastation, have been seen by, and convinced many, such as trees, plants, shells, sea fish,