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them to will and to do of his good pleasure." And this is their condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.”. Not because God has any secret decree against them; for, until a man becomes a reprobate, that is, given up of God, Christ, by the voice of con science, witnesseth in him. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates." 2 Corin. xiii. 5. Thus, according to the Gospel of John, i. 5, "The light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." So that, while men are going on in the practice of the works of darkness, and yet boast of not being so vile in practice as others, they comprehend not what it is that restraineth them from perpetrating the most heinous offences; it is nothing but the principle of restraining grace, the witness of Christ within them, which secretly withholds them from becoming monsters on the earth and when once he withdraws that power from them, then they are ready to do whatever Satan prompteth them to. Therefore, to Christ alone belongs all the praise; for, take Christ from the moral government of the world, and the earth would become a hell; for he saith to the wicked hitherto shalt thou go, and no further. Therefore let not men trifle with sin, seeing it is the poison of the soul, which rankles to damnation: it imbues a man with the nature of demons. And such was the condition of the antediluvians, when God determined to destroy them; for, when the fulness of their iniquity had arrived, judgment immediately followed, as it is recorded in the following verses: "But Noah found grace in the eyes.

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of the Lord. These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generations" he stood up boldly for God, and was the means of preserving his family from the general devastation, who were spared for his sake. And Noah walked with God." Thus God has always had his Church to witness for him in the darkest of times, though reduced to a very small compass. "And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The earth also was corrupt before God; and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them: and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.'

Thus we see, that as they filled the earth with violence, and prostituted the beautiful natural creation to their wickedness, so should that creation be their destruction. Therefore God said,

I will destroy them with the earth." And so is it the case continually with wicked men; their very sinful delights become their torments: and often does God dash the wicked together like a potter's vessel," and give them up to destroy each other. But in the case of the antediluvians, he caused the earth itself to become their executioner.

After the generations of Noah are recorded, from the ninth verse, with God's determination to destroy man from the earth, in the fourteenth verse, Noah is commanded to make an ark of gopher-wood, with, likewise, its dimensions, in which himself, his family, his sons and their wives,

as likewise a portion of all kinds of clean beasts, which were to be taken in by sevens," the male and his female," that is seven of both sexes; and of those which were unclean by twos, the male and female; of the fowls of the air also by sevens, the male and the female, to keep seed alive upon the face of the earth: and Noah was to provide food of every kind for their sustenance. And the chapter concludes, "Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he."

It is no uncommon occurrence, to hear infidel scepticks ridicule the idea of such a number of living animals being confined within the ark; but when its dimensions are duly considered, their insinuation of the impossibility of the thing vanishes. The ark, it states, was made after the following dimensions: its length three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Now, a cubit was taken from the length of an ordinary sized man's arm, measuring from the tip of the elbow to the end of his middle fin ger, twenty-one inches: consequently the ark, according to our measure, would contain three. stories, (according to the fashion Noah was com manded to make it,) each measuring 175 yards in length, 30 yards in width, and about 17 yards high; therefore there was ample room for the respiration of all its inmates.

THE DELUGE.

Chap. vii. In this chapter the Lord commanded Noah, and all his house, to come into the ark, with all the clean and unclean creatures, as described in the preceding chapter; and then, in the fourth verse, the Almighty exclaims, "For yet seven

days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth. And Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him. And Noah was six hundred years old, when the flood of waters was upon the earth." Verse 11. "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

The history of the Deluge has been a subject of ridicule among sceptical unbelievers; and, I am sorry to add, likewise made a matter of doubt by one of our modern Doctors of Divinity, especially appointed to train young men for the ministry of the Gospel, which said D.D. has boldly declared that a universal deluge of the earth could not have occurred. But I will shew in a few words, that the fact can be philosophically accounted for. The first thing belonging to that catastrophe, is the breaking up of "the fountains of the great deep." The fountains of the great deep," appear to me to refer to the avenues by which the waters entered through the crust, or shell, of the earth, when God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear"-when the vast abyss within the earth was filled up-which is called the great deep; and the seas are the floodings produced by the fountains of the great deep, which fountains were broken up in one day.

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Now, the question ariseth, how were they broken up? to which I answer, God is not without

means to accomplish whatever he purposeth in an instant, and it was no difficult matter for him to send an extra portion of atmospheric air into the vast abyss, and drive out the waters, and so break up all the fountains of the great deep in an instant; or he could, by withdrawing a portion of the fluid light from the atmosphere, so derange the balance of nature, that the floodings of those fountains, the seas, losing the pressure of the atmosphere, would, as a natural consequence, burst forth from their bounds, and then, in consequence of the velocity of the earth's revolution upon its own axis, at the rate of about 1036 miles an hour, they must inevitably cover the whole face of the same, seeing that water must find its level; which was the case, according to v. 24, when "the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days," until every thing that had life upon the earth died. And not only were the fountains of the great deep broken up, but the windows of heaven were opened. The word n varubouth, (translated, and the windows,) is from the root arab, signifying to lie in wait, denoting the waters or densities of the atmosphere, as they lay stored up in the clouds for the awful occasion; and, according to Parkhurst, arubouth signifies fissures chinks, or holes; denoting the bursting of the clouds, in order that the waters of the heaven, or atmosphere, might rush forth from their crouching place: And that is what is signified by "the windows of heaven."

And thus did the Almighty sweep off the workers of violence and wickedness from the earth. After which, according to chap. viii. v. 1, it states, "And God remembered Noah, and every