predicted conflagration to men of the same character now; for the former might have asked where is a sufficiency of water to be found, whereas the same question cannot be asked in relation to the means to be employed in the final catastrophe: and the actual occurrence of the former shows the possibility and probability of the latter. The truth of God in the fulfilment of the one prediction leaves no doubt that he will fulfil the other also. The catastrophe of the deluge is therefore produced by St. Peter in reply to the daring question, and to the argument on which it is founded; "Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the Creation." The assertion is false; and the inference from it impious and delusive. Every portion of the earth, from the lowest valley that can be found to the summit of the Andes, bears witness to the veracity of Jehovah, and every instance of geological research adds to the evidence before obtained.

The science of Geology, then, as illustrating and confirming the patriarchal history, unites in enforcing the practical inference which St. Peter has drawn, "Wherefore, beloved, seeing ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace without spot and blameless." This is, assuredly, the duty and privilege of the Christian believer, who anticipates his Lord's

coming. It is his duty and interest to consider "what manner of person he ought to be in all holy conversation and Godliness." All these things with which he is now conversant shall be dissolved; let him then not make up his happiness in them, but let him "look for, and hasten unto, the coming of the day of God."

The patriarchal sacraments, like those of the Jews and those of the New Testament, had a direct relation to the grace of Christ. They were outward and visible signs of expected blessings, Divinely appropriated to the purpose of prefiguring them; whereas our sacraments are memorials of those blessings, already bestowed on us. Though every standing symbolic rite of the patriarchal dispensation, "ordained by God Himself," as all such symbolic rites were, had the character of a sacrament; I shall specify but two, viz. Sacrifice and Circumcision. The former was ordained of God to be employed in continual remembrance of the future sacrifice of the death of Christ, and of the benefits to be received thereby. The latter was ordained as a badge or token of profession to mark the difference between the seed of Abraham and the idolatrous world, when a prevailing apostacy from the true religion had rendered such a distinction necessary. The act of circumcision virtually declared, what the adherents of the true faith before the flood literally declared, when they

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began to call on the name of Jehovah," in order to distinguish their worship from that of the Aleim of Apostates. It was a declaration of belief that the original promise of Paradise, afterwards renewed to Abraham, would assuredly be fulfilled, and an open avowal that all their hope of mercy was suspended on that fulfilment. It was an open renunciation of every other foundation of dependence, or source of happiness.

But “sacraments are not only badges or tokens of profession; but rather they be sure witnesses, and effectual signs of grace and God's good will towards us, by the which He doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken but also strengthen and confirm our faith in Him.” (Art. xxv.) Such were the patriarchal sacraments, and such are our own also. They testified God's purpose of mercy to the world; and to the individual who partook of them in the exercise of faith in their intent and object. To partake of a sacrament is like interchanging counterparts of a deed of conveyance, in which one of the parties is beneficially interested. God thereby insures the benefit; and man professes himself to be a thankful recipient of those benefits, and to renounce whatever is inconsistent with the enjoyment of them. Such is the baptismal vow in Christian baptism, and the same was implied in submission to the prefigurative rite of circumcision.

The reason why circumcision was not instituted till the time of Abraham, five hundred years after the flood, while the rites of sacrificature were instituted immediately after the fall, appears to have been this: Till the world had become generally corrupt in its creed and practice, it was unnecessary to make the distinction which circumcision was intended to create. Before the flood believers, in consequence of growing corruption, distinguished themselves from Apostates by invoking the name of Jehovah, the one living and true God; Gen. iv. 26. and as the flood would soon restore a unity in the profession of the true faith, by destroying the world of the ungodly, and as, in the interval, the longevity of man rendered traditionary instruction less uncertain than it became when, after the flood, human life was so greatly shortened, Divine wisdom and pity saw no necessity for such a distinction. But when it pleased God, in the exercise of that wisdom and pity, to set apart, in consequence of prevailing heterodoxy, a single family for the preservation of the true faith, then in danger of total extinction; it appears to have been a wise and gracious measure to mark out that family as a people who, in all their generations, till their separation from the world was fully answered by the fulfilment of the great promise, should "dwell alone, and not be

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reckoned among the nations."* this distinction it was ordained that every male of the seed of Abraham, or that was to be incorporated with his posterity, should undergo this bloody rite, or be exposed to be "cut off from his people," as having broken God's covenant; being excluded by the want of this token from any claim to its provisions.

With respect to the other rite which I have mentioned, that of sacrifice, it also had all the characteristics of a sacrament, being "an outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual grace," and "ordained by Christ Himself" (for Christ was the visible God of the patriarchal dispensation) as a means whereby that grace was to be received and enjoyed, and a pledge to assure thereof. "The outward and visible sign" was a slaughtered animal: "the inward and spiritual grace" was pardon and salvation through His sacrifice whom the slaughtered victim represented. It was, as has been proved, a rite of Divine ordination; and was God's appointed mean of conveying the blessing it exhibited, and a pledge, on the part of Him who ordained it, to assure the believing offerer of an interest in the all-sufficient sacrifice of the Son of God. While circumcision, being the appointed door of admis