through Christ has been gained for us, we shall

lose for ever.

We have the same warrant of truth to assure us, as Noah had for the coming of the flood, that the sun shall be extinguished in eternal darkness, the heavens rolled together like a scroll, the earth vanish into smoke till the place thereof know it no more; and that the soul, in happiness or in misery, shall survive the general wreck. If Noah, therefore, were saved by sted: fastly trusting in Him, who called him unto the ark, what is to become of us, if we listen not to the same voice, which has expressly declared, no man cometh unto the Father but by me, and which has shut upon the hypocrite and ungodly the door of his Father's kingdom, with this sentence of rejection-Depart from me, I know ye not whence ye are.

With death and judgment before us, and looking to Him who alone can shield us from their terrors, we will now close our digression in the very form of prayer, which our Church has adopted, in allusion to the text, beseeching the Almighty God to render this our warning efficacious.

Almighty and everlasting GOD, who of thy great mercy didst save Noah and his family in the ark from perishing by water, we beseech thee by thine infinite mercies, that thou wilt mercifully look upon us; that we, being delivered from thy wrath, may be preserved in the ark of Christ's church into which we have been admitted; and being stedfast in faith, joyful through hope, and rooted in charity, may so pass the waves of this troublesome world, and the last dreadful flood of fire, that we may come to the land of everlasting life, there to reign with Thee world without end, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

SERMON IV.

SERMON IV.

DEUTERONOMY iv. 11, 12.

And ye came near, and stood under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire unto the midst of heaven with darkness, clouds and thick darkness. And the LORD spake unto you out of the midst of the fire.

AMIDST blessings and deliverances, in judgà

ments and in mercy, have we hitherto seen the triumph of the church of GoD, and the destruction of its enemies. Through every generation has it proved true, that faithful is He that has promised; and through every generation will it remain true, that the righteous ness which is of Christ will make foolish the wisdom of this world, and afford us knowledge

G

and consolation, when the vanity of human science shall appear, and the help of man be fruitless. During a series of ages commencing with the original promise made to Adam, and marked by special acts of grace and favour, a worship and religion, founded upon the expectation of a Redeemer, and typical of the nature and glory of his kingdom, has been uniformly continued and protected. From the fall to the flood, from Noah to the call of Abraham, from him to his descendants, and to the appointed close of their afflictions in Egypt, are periods to which no human record pretends to reach, but to which the scriptures of GoD bear ample and accurate testimony. By these, the design and scheme of Providence is developed; the trials and rewards of expecting and patient faith, before the law was given, are detailed; the promulgation of that sacred institute, with the concomitant sanctions and miracles that confirmed it, together with the prophecies which testify its purpose, and the glory that should follow, are all revealed; and all coincide to form one great preparative to that most merciful and glorious event, wherein the seed of the woman