trition and love. Ye who are tempted, look and be delivered. Ye who are agonized with doubts respecting your adoption, look again and gain a clearer vision and a firmer assurance. Whatever be your infirmities or your sorrows, look,-from every part of the house look, to him who is lifted up in the midst of this congregation. As the serpent was erected in the centre of the camp, so Christ has been lifted up in the centre of the world, that all eyes from east, west, north, and south may centre there. There he hangs, and every lacerated vein bleeds balm for the healing of the nations. He sheds influence in every direction to heal all other wounds but his own. And from the top of the bloody tree I hear a voice trembling in death, "Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." While millions of eyes are turned thither from all the regions of the globe, and millions of souls are healed by a look, my heart exclaims, "How much is this like that wondrous scene in the wilderness !" I ascend the high and trembling mount, whence I have a view of a world gazing at the cross by which I stand. I see ten thousand eyes, glistening with joy and tears, meet in this centre, from Asia, Africa, Europe, and America. I see new faces turned this way. I see their distorted features settle into heavenly peace as they gaze and now they brighten, and now they shine as Moses' did. I stand and enjoy the transports of nations. Ye kingdoms of redeemed sinners, roll hither the volume of your united praise. Shout, for the healer of the nations is lifted up. I fol

low him up to heaven. I see him, with solemn formality, take his throne. Every eye which lately gazed at Calvary, follows him hither. He takes the reins of government, and a voice, deep as ten thousand thunders and sweet as the "influences of Pleiades," issues from the glorious throne, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." A mingled sound, as "of many waters," responds, "We come, Lord, we come." And let us go with them. Let us go and commit ourselves eternally to him who is our righteousness, our strength, our all in all. Amen.

SERMON III.

NOAH'S ARK.

HEB. II. 7.

By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.

During the 1656 years which were before the flood, if men increased as fast in proportion to their longevity as they do now, a much greater population must have accumulated on the earth than there is at present. In that period when the age of man was more than 900 years, the temptation to put death out of view was great. A Church there was; but by intermarrying with the wicked world it had become corrupt, and at last almost extinct. This was the first illustration of the fatal consequence of too close a connexion between the Church and the world. The children of the Church became ambitious of power and fame, and sought renown by violence and war. By these means the Spirit of God

was provoked to depart, and general licentiousness ensued. The Church became reduced to a single family, and the rest of the world sunk into infidelity and vice. "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually ;"—that "the imagination of man's heart” was "evil from his youth." Thus the universal and complete effect of the fall was publicly ascertained. This done, God determined to cast away the world as ruined, and to make a new beginning on the foundation of grace, commencing a new stock in the family which included the whole church. This rejection of the world is expressed in the following strong eastern figure: "And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart."

"And God said to Noah, the end of all flesh is come before me ;-behold I will destroy them with the earth." Noah, who was born 69 years after the translation of his great grand father Enoch, was now 480 years old, and seems to have been childless. Except his grandfather Methuselah, who, though born 243 years before the death of Adam, lived till the year of the flood, and his father Lamech, who, born 56 years before the death of Adam, died five years before the deluge, he was perhaps the only religious man on earth. But though God determined that his Spirit should "not always strive with man," he graciously allowed the antediluvian sinners a respite of "a hundred and twenty years ;" and in the meantime ordained Noah "a preacher of