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'eight souls were saved by water." But there is a like figure connected with analogous results-"baptism doth also now save us." Not indeed in its mere administration, for this is nothing if separated from the spiritual truths which underly it. What were the waters of the deluge, and what their power to save, but for the faith-built vessel launched upon them? And, so, what is that outward washing, if it is not seen to point to him who not only died for sinners, but who is gone into the heaven, and is on God's right hand? In baptism, however, we are associated with the risen Saviour, and it becomes a sacrament fruitful of blessing, "by the resurrection of Christ;" the point of direct practical power implied in this reasoning being this: You have been begotten, he seems to say, to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1, 3), and following this, certain great practical duties are laid upon you, bearing upon your walk before the world and in your households, into both of which you go as thus separated unto God. Bear this in mind, and, lest ye fall, have those warnings supplied in the history of God's dealings with the world ever before you. In all times God has been teaching this lesson. He taught it to some at the flood, when the waters of the deluge were made the means of saving eight souls alive from the general ruin. Let these sufferings of Christ be full of power to you, by their being looked at in the light of his glory. Your baptism tells not only of his blood of sprinkling, but of that sanctification of the Spirit in which you are set consciously alongside of the electing grace of the Father, as being partakers of it. This Spirit-power comes as one of the fruits of his resurrection. See, then, that ye live the lives of souls raised up out of their graves of spiritual death. In your baptism you are pledged to this.

The first act of Noah on leaving the ark was to rear an altar, and to offer burnt-offerings to the Lord. And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord, and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease" (ver. 20-22).

The seventh pair of clean creatures preserved in the ark come now to be of use in the service of God. It is noteworthy that the offering

was not once. Noah and his household continued for the time worshippers of the God of heaven. Their worship was not the homage of gratitude only. It was the offering of faith likewise. It does not admit of any doubt, that these rescued souls acknowledged and had fully before them the great doctrine of atonement through a substitute. The same One seen by Abel in the bleeding firstlings of his flock, is now looked to by Noah when, as the priest of his house, he stands by the altar.

"The burnt-offerings of Noah, according to this, must have been designed for an atonement in behalf of the remnant that was left; and as Hezekiah said, after the carrying away of the ten tribes, 'for the making of a covenant with the Lord.' This his offering was graciously accepted-The Lord smelled a sweet savour, and bestowed upon him and those who were with him a covenant promise not to curse the ground any more for man's sake. The reason given for this is singular -for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. If God had dealt with man according to law and justice, this should have been a reason for destroying rather than sparing him; and was the reason why the flood was brought upon the earth. But here he is represented as dealing with him through a substitute (for the promise follows the acceptance of the burnt-offering), and in this view the wickedness of man, however offensive, should not determine his conduct. He would, as it were, look off from him, and rest his future conduct towards him on another ground. He would in short, knowing what he was, deal with him on a footing of mercy and forbearance." And thus the deep significance in the fact, that the promises given after the flood were made by God to man in connection with this sacrifice. They were drawn down by the virtue of that great sacrifice of Christ, which was, in the promise, even then before the world. Through it alone all true blessing comes to man still. In this passage we meet for the first time with the expression "burnt-offerings." The reference in such circumstances carries us beyond the time of the flood, and gives us another glimpse into the religious life of man in those early times. As an institution, then, sacrifices are not to be regarded as the haphazard fruit of the longings after peace by an uneasy conscience, the gropings of sin-burdened souls after God, or as the mere contrivance of fallen human nature to pacify an offended deity. They were divinely instituted. The traces of their existence in some form among all nations tell a far different tale than this. For even as those traditions of a great flood which are to be met with in all lands and among most

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widely separated families, are principally suggestive of an ancestral connection with the household of Noah, so this practice, universally prevalent over the earth, of approaching some unseen Power by the way of sacrifices, points clearly to the same original relationship. It is often assumed, that this mode of drawing near to God was instituted first in the days of Moses. But both the present and other records of worship by burnt-offerings wholly discountenance such an assumption.

The promise contained in the eighth chapter relates to the soil, to the living creatures on it, and to the seasons. In regard to the first of these the question may be fairly raised, as it was long ago by Bishop Sherlock, is the expression, "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake," to be regarded as the repeal of the sentence pronounced after the fall-" Cursed is the ground for thy sake?" The nature of this curse has already been brought fully under the notice of the reader. All that seems to be implied here is, that such curses as those which had fallen on the soil twice because of man's sin would not from this time ever be universal. In the days of Adam men were made to feel that the ground which they tilled demanded the whole energy of the hand and the sweat of the brow, in order that it should be made to yield to them the food required. Wherever they went the stern necessity followed them, and they were shut up to the feeling that they were ever in the hands of a sovereign God. If this verse have any bearing, which is doubtful, on the original curse, it points simply to the fact, that there will be no repetition of it. The ground will not be again cursed as it had been. But nothing is said of the repeal of the original sentence. That, as we have seen, still continues. Linking the words with the deluge, which the context really demands, the promise is equal to a declaration, that no such flood as that which came in the days of Noah for man's sake, and which as to him was universal, shall again be sent on the earth. All the soil connected with man was then virtually cursed, for its natural manifestations were interfered with for a whole year. There was no green earth," no trees and flowers, seen on it as before. The dark waters of the deluge covered it. But that there is no withdrawal of God from the habitual exercise of his sovereignty over the soil we know, because we have countless proofs that he still deals with man by means of the soil which man cultivates :

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"He turneth rivers into a wilderness,

And the water springs into dry ground:

A fruitful land into barrenness,

For the wickedness of them that dwell therein.

He turneth the wilderness into standing waters,
And dry ground into water springs.

And there he maketh the hungry to dwell,
That they may prepare a city for habitation;

And sow the fields, and plant vineyards,
Which may yield fruits of increase.

He blesseth them also, so that they are multiplied greatly;

And suffereth not their cattle to decrease.

Again they are minished and brought low

Through oppression, afflictions, and sorrow."-(Ps. cvii. 33-39.)

The second feature in the promise relates to the creatures put under man-"Neither will I again smite any more every living thing, as I have done." We have again an illustration of the association of the destinies of the lower animals with that of man on the earth. The expression claims attention in its bearing upon the extent of the deluge. The object of that judgment was specially moral, and had man in view. Its effects prevailed wherever men were found, and included the creatures in the midst of which he lived. Were another deluge sent having a like bearing, it would be universal as to the earth, because men are scattered over the whole of its surface, and thus universal also as to the living creatures. God promises that they shall not perish as at the flood, for such a catastrophe is no more to overtake man. The world and all that is therein are to be destroyed, but by another agency than that used at the flood. As, however, in regard to the soil, the promise does not forbid the exercise of sovereignty over it in God's dealings with man in order to high ethical ends, so is it with the lower animals put under man. He can permit disease to come among their cattle, or he can "suffer them not to decrease."

From the soil and the living creatures the promise turns to the seasons-"While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. This verse has been considered above. Its scope is, that so long as the earth endures there will be no interruption of the regular change of the seasons. Their course had been broken in upon at the deluge. Harvest did not alternate with seed-time, summer did not precede winter. The very distinction between day and night appears to have been lost. It shall not any more be thus while the world standeth. The regularity of the succession of the seasons is fixed in the promise of God, who, however, holds in his own hand here, as in the other elements of the

promise, complete control over them as regards their character. Neither ever favourable seed-times, nor constantly fruitful harvests, are promised. Yet to the thoughtful there is much in all this for constant profit. "The rolling year" in its changes of seed-time and harvest, summer and winter, cold and heat, day and night, bears on it all the marks of covenant blessing, and is directly associated with a promise given in answer to an act of worship, in which the worshipper expressed his faith in Him who in the fulness of time was to come, but who as set up from everlasting was even from the day of man's sin the great hope of all who loved God. And thus the attitude which the man of God assumes to the so-called constancy of nature, is widely different from that of the man who makes an idol of natural law. The latter still asks-" 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." But the former sees in this constancy the proof of a father's faithfulness, and, for like purposes as Peter had in view, he can appeal to the deluge in proof of God's special control over those laws as Himself above them-"This they willingly are 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 in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men" (2 Peter iii. 5-7). The references at the conclusion of this chapter to the seasons, and to the subject of general temperature, may be illustrated by the diagram given on Plate XXIV., in which the duration of the seasons and the periods of highest and lowest temperature are more distinctly indicated than they were in connection with the cut (Fig. 75) illustrative of the changes of the seasons. The influence which the accumulation of heat near the surface of the earth has in intensifying or in lowering the direct action of the solar rays is also shown. "The oblique circle marked with the signs of the zodiac denotes the varying declination of the sun, and the irregular line which intersects it in something like opposite nodes represents the curve of temperature for a year. The area comprised between the line of temperature and the sun's path, and shaded with parallel lines, represents the cold produced by absorption on the side turned towards Spring; and the nearly similar portion covered with dots, and turned towards Autumn, the heat derived from the atmosphere by the earth's radiation."