answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." Then, we gather from this that the gospel was preached by Noah, as the ambassador of Christ to the antediluvians; and that, hearing that gospel thus preached, they were yet not moved, or melted, or transformed by its sanctifying and its efficient power. And the passage says also, that Christ "went and preached unto the spirits in prison." Who were they? Not the spirits who were in prison in the days of the Flood, as if Christ went down into some fabulous region, and preached to men after they were dead; it means, that Jesus went and preached to those who lived in the days of Noah, but who in the days of Peter were, and in our days are, in prison that prison being an everlasting exile from the presence and the glory of God. In other words, it tells us that Jesus Christ preached by Noah to men, who so little profited by it, that they are now shut up in the prison of condemnation till the last day. It is also added, "The like figure whereunto baptism doth now save us." Baptism has, then, some connection with the Flood. Now, how did the Flood save men? It saved Noah and his family, but it did not regenerate them; it was no proof that they had been savingly accepted of God. In spite of that baptism Ham plunged into grievous sin against God. Now baptism in the case of believers, is a seal of recognition of them as believers; and, wherever it is administered, whether to young or old, it no more preserves the subject of it from the infection of sin in after-life, than the Flood preserved the earth from that corruption which spreads over it in the present day. Thus the gospel was preached to the antediluvians, without any corresponding result equal to the preciousness of those truths which sounded in their ears. Is it not the same still? Men hear the gospel, and they believe it, but they feel nothing of it the preacher's voice

is as the sound of one who playeth well upon an instrument; and thousands who hear it are now what they would have been if Christianity had never been preached to them at all. The antediluvians are not singular in their rejection of the gospel; but wherever that gospel is preached still, it is the "savor of life" unto some, and the " death" unto others.

savor of

We learn, in the next place, that the judgment which Noah proclaimed did not act with any effect upon the vast multitude. He told them that the windows of heaven would be opened, and the fountains of the deep broken up. And to precept he added example; for the antediluvians saw him, for upwards of one hundred years, laying the timbers of his ark. I have no doubt that some most heartily laughed at him, and if they had newspapers in that day, that they caricatured him for the merriment and the amusement of all. I have no doubt scientific men showed that it was absolutely impossible that there could be a flood; they no doubt asked, where is the force that can resist the law of gravitation, and make the waters of the sea rise against that law, and cover the loftiest mountains and pinnacles of the world? And thus the whole world settled itself down into the quiet conviction that the world would last their day at least, and that, if they listened to that fanatical old man, they would only be disturbed in their present enjoyments. Now all their conclusions were very probable and very exact, as far as the data upon which they proceeded were concerned; but they left out one element—they ignored the existence and the word of God, that governs all things

- the element of Omnipotent power was excluded - the element of God's threat to do so was disregarded, and therefore all their conclusions fell to the ground. But, if the antediluvians acted so, let us take care lest we be faithfully copying their example; for we are actually told in the word

of God itself, in the Second Epistle of Peter, in the third chapter, "Beloved, be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the Apostles of the Lord and Saviour: knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, 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." Well, then the Apostle appeals to the era of the Flood, and he says, "For this they are willingly ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water; whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished; but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept stored with fire, reserved against the day of judgment, and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long suffering to us-ward," just as he was in the days of Noah, "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance," just as he was then. "But," says Peter, "the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness?" All this shows that poor humanity, unimproved by the past, will repeat itself in the future; that the human heart in the nineteenth century, will just be the counterpart of the human heart in the two thousandth year of the world's creation. And do not men go on saying, Today is,

and therefore to-morrow will be?

They say 1852 is the guarantee and the pledge of 1853; but it is not so. Because you have seen the end of 1852, you have not the least guarantee that you will see that of 1853; because this year has rolled to its close, there is no evidence that God will continue to us the next. He lives, and is the living God; not the God of the past that was, but of the present that is; and he may step in and terminate the series at any moment and at any hour, like a thief in the night, as he pleases. And yet, stranger still to say, though this is so, men will be engaged upon the eve of the world's destruction by fire, just as they were on the eve of its dissolution by the Flood. Some one has made the remark, "History is an old almanac." The remark was made contemptuously, but there is great truth in it. The dates are changed, and that is all. Hence it is, that as it was in the days of Noah, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. The date is changed, but there is the same human nature, the same facts, the same phenomena - human nature, left to itself, having made no progression, but repeating itself till the cycles of today are only the repetition of the cycles of yesterday, and all teaching us that, without influence from on high, human nature must degenerate, not improve, or attain to that great standard to which it was originally conformed.

Such are some of the features of church and state prior to the Deluge, and such too are some of the proofs that these portraits are too faithfully copied by us, who live in the last days of the world. How humbling it is to us all, that we are the descendants of such a race, the inheritors of so perverted a humanity! How forcibly are we taught by all we have been considering, that the domestic is the first spring of powerful influence, either to corrupt, or to improve mankind! It is in the individual home that influ

ences begin, which go forth, like ministering angels, to bless and beautify mankind, or, like fiends and demons, to curse and to destroy the world. It was by intermarriages that God forbade, that the great elements of corruption were so rapidly generated. It is still the individual home that makes the great home, called the country. And all reforms, ecclesiastical, social, political, however good in themselves, are not for one moment to be compared with that reform which begins in the individual heart, fills with its transforming beauty the individual home, and spreads from it, as from a centre of sanctifying and holy influence, till the whole country, or the large home, becomes a reflection of the little one; and nations are blessed, and mankind are benefited, by what individuals are in their personal and domestic relationships.

One great secret of the inveterate corruption of the heart is its deceitfulness. It is said by the prophet, that it "is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Now, to be aware of the heart's deceitfulness is as important as to be aware of the heart's depravity. It is its deceitfulness that is the vehicle, as it is always the proof, of its great depravity. And this deceitfulness is seen by its deceiving the judgment in the estimate of the heart. There are few men who do not think their hearts far better than they are. How often we hear men say, Well, he did such a thing, but in the main he has a good heart; as if there could be a good heart with bad fruit. Imagination too, like a hireling poet, sings the praises of the heart; and the judgment, ever listening to a poet so sweet and congenial to itself, also joins in the praises, and pronounces, We are, after all, not so bad as Scripture describes us; nor is our condition so dangerous as the preacher tells us.

How often, too, does the heart deceive us in our attachments in the world! You will say to yourselves, I have no