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 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 ingenuous 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.

At length the period arrives that Noah must die; and he who had seen the world in three different states, as it came from the hands of the Creator, unless as it was affected 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

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.

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 more immoveable foundation than the uncertain 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 which have adopted it. The explanation of the names alluded to, is this. Adam, man: Seth, placed: Enos, in misery: Cainan, lamentable: Mahalaleel, the blessed God: Jared, 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

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.'

"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 righteous, 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

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 possibly 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