with his family, entering the ark. entering the ark. And when we connect with it the everlasting events involved in this salvation; the subject riseth to the highest point of sublimity. How blessedly doth it realize what one of the prophets expressed; and all the prophets ministered to, in their successive generations. "Was the Lord displeased against the rivers? Was thine anger against the rivers? Was thy wrath against the sea, that thou didst ride upon thine horses, and thy chariots of salvation?" Here is the answer: Here is the answer: "Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people; even for salvation with thine anointed." (Hab. iii. 8.)

I detain the reader a moment longer, on this passage of the entry into the ark, just to observe, that by the Lord's appointing both of clean beasts, and of unclean; two and two to go in with Noah into the Ark; that the marked distinction between them was not stated simply to intimate that the Lord was pleased to preserve the species alive; for in that case, whether clean or unclean, the thing would have been the same; but the appointment evidently set forth, that they were for sacrifices; and proves also that sacrifices were in use before the flood; not only in the garden of Eden, but immediately after; and as such, all typified Christ. And what a view is hereby given of that one all-sufficient and all-effectual sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom the whole referred; and in whom the whole had their accomplishment; for " by one offering, he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified!" (Heb. x. 14.)

But what a blessed close in this passage the Holy Ghost hath made to the account of the patriarch and his family entering the Ark; "the Lord shut him in." Yes; had not the Lord shut him in, Noah could not have closed the ark upon himself, neither have preserved himself in it. Here indeed is contained the VOL. V.

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glorious doctrine of discriminating grace. the freedom and sovereignty of that grace. same Almighty power which shut him in, rest out. (Acts v. 13.)

Here is For the shut the

And what tends to endear this precious doctrine still more is, that it is all of God himself. To run back to the original idea of what is said in the opening of Noah's history; "he found grace in the eyes of the Lord." Here was, and is, the sole cause of all the blessings wherewith the Lord blesseth his church in Christ. All that follows are but as so many effects. And the same holds good in all ages. For as " no man quickeneth, so no man keepeth alive his own soul. " And they, who like Noah, are in the Ark, Christ Jesus, "are kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time." (1 Pet. i. 5.)

And not to stop here. This blessed assurance ariseth to another most delightful consideration; namely, in distinguishing the Lord's people from the world. The shutting the Lord's people in, while the ungodly were shut out, decidedly marks the dif ference of the "precious from the vile. It was not all that went into the ark with Noah, were alike partakers of grace. So in the present hour, numbers have a profession, a name to live, while yet they are virtually dead before God. There was a Ham in the Ark, one of Noah's children after the flesh; but not of the spiritual seed of Christ. And there was a Judas among the disciples of Christ. "All are not Israel, which are of Israel." (Rom. ix. 6.) And " the children of the bond woman cannot be heir with the son of the free." (Gal. iv. 30.) Oh! what incalculable blessings are folded up in that one divine assurance of the Lord, which he gave to Noah, and is alike given by the Lord in effect to all his seed; "Thou hast found grace in my sight."

One word more on this part of Noah's history.

Amidst all the corruptions of the world, and all the judgments of God, which follow those corruptions: we here learn how the Lord watcheth over his own people. Before the Lord brings a deluge to destroy the world by water; an ark is provided for housing the people of God. Before the Lord rains fire and brimstone from heaven, to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, by fire; Lot shall be sent out of the overthrow. (Gen. xix. 20.) And before the final destruction of the ungodly, at the day of Judgment, the Lord Jesus will gather up his jewels," when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all that believe." (2 Thess. i. 10.) Oh! the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints." (Rom. xi. 33. Rev. xv. 3.) I cannot dismiss this view of the subject, until that I have called upon the Noahs of the present day, to pause over the contemplation, and consider their mercies. Shut in in Christ; made one with Christ, and everlastingly preserved, and considered holy in Christ! Oh! the distinguishing grace of God! This is to find grace in the eyes of the Lord.

HOLY SCRIPTURE.

"And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.”

'In the six-hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

"And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. "And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creep

the earth, and every man.

"All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.

"And Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark." (Gen, vii. 10-23.)

NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS.

SEVERAL Very interesting views might be taken from this portion of Scripture history, in the life of Noah, beside those which are more immediately before us. And were it not that the history itself, as referring to the whole of mankind in those higher concerns, wherein all our temporal, spiritual, and eternal interests are involved: I might call aside the reader to remark, with what a precision the Holy Ghost hath recorded the memorable time when the destruction by the deluge began; and of the duration of the flood until finished. It is indeed highly observable, and meriting particular regard, that throughout the whole Bible, when the Lord is about to make some special manifestation of himself, or his works; the Lord for the most part makes special notice of the time. This introduction by the Lord is so common, that we find the phrase continually used; "In those days, and at that time." And the forty days here enumerated, in which the rain was upon the earth at the flood, became memorable; and not unfrequently used in after ages of the church, in other of the divine appointments. Thus forty days Moses was in the mount with God. Forty days the spies were employed in searching the promised land. The like time, the great enemy of souls, in the person of Goliah, defied the army of the living God. Elijah, the prophet, went forty days and forty nights in fasting to Horeb. Nay, the Lord God of the prophets himself, (Rev. xxii. 6.) when, in the days of his flesh he was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, fasted forty days and forty nights. Ezekiel and Jonah also, on a special ministry appointed them by the Lord, measured out each of them forty days. And to mention no more; it is ex

pressly said, and marked with a special note of observation, that the Lord Jesus Christ, in the interval between his resurrection and ascension, shewed himself alive unto the apostles, whom he had chosen by many infallible proofs, being "seen of them forty days." (Acts i, 2. 3.)

But I

pass from the consideration of these things, though in themselves highly calculated for much spiritual improvement, in order to attend to those, which on the present occasion are more immediately connected with our present purpose; and in which both writer and reader, if their minds are brought under divine teaching, will find subject for the most profound and solemn meditation.

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And first-In the destruction of the world by water, which swept away, as with the besom of one universal death, all flesh, excepting Noah and his family in the ark, we behold the confirmation of the Lord's sentence pronounced on Adam at the fall; “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.", And if a farther demand be made whence all this universal ruin, and now protracted as it is to the present hour through several thousand years, the Lord himself hath answered it by his servant the apostle; " By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." (Rom. v. 12.) By the very nature and constitution of the first man at creation, his posterity was implicated in all the good or evil he himself became the subject of. His seed to all generations were all in him; part of himself. And as it was said in after ages of Levi, who from being in the loins of his father Abraham, when Melchizedeck met him, and blessed him; in that blessing, the child, though then unborn, was included; so in like manner, all the posterity of Adam being virtually in his loins when he sinned, be