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the joy that was set before him," the joy, not of wearing a brighter crown, but of snatching brands out of the burning, "endured the cross, despised the shame, and is now set down at the right hand of God."

But we must be farther emptied of our own righteousness. Observe, the spirit of holiness is to be worked in us; but the righteousness which is of faith is to be worked for us. Holiness, as the fruit of a sanctifying Christ, is that which of all other things you should desire; but the justifying righteousness which worked salvation for the sinner, is the exclusive property of the Son of God. To touch the ark of this glory is death. If God, brethren, has given you wisdom, or spiritual proficiency, or spiritual illumination, above your fellows, take good heed that you do not anchor your trust upon either of these, or think they can plead before God for you as saviours: you may be thankful for the gift, but to assume that the gift, wonderful as it is, has the merit of the Giver, in ever so small a degree, is to trespass upon the sovereignty of God, and secretly to cherish the lie that salvation is of works. It is no easy thing to be drawn off from our own conceits, to tread the depths of his mercy, to be driven off from our own fulness, to live upon the fulness of Christ: and, indeed, so averse are we to the task of doing what is contrary to nature, that it takes many hard stripes to bring us to it. But this is the believer's trial: thus it becometh him to "suffer with Christ."

I have now, in the last place, to consider WHAT IS MEANT BY THE SAVIOUR AND THE SINNer being glorified togethER. Brethren, the meaning of this great mystery may be told you in the letter of Scripture; but the spiritual privilege who shall tell you! The glorification of a sinner is for eternity, and not for time; it is the all-important, all-blessed, and all-sufficient result of the bringing in an everlasting righteousness by Jesus Christ our Lord; and the glory to be received and possessed is so entirely and exclusively his own, that none others but those whom he has adopted in covenant love as his children, can be sharers in it. The brightness and the radiance of the redeemed will not be owing to the bright lights of heaven; or to the refulgence that may be thrown around them from the crystal wells of the eternal city: but they shine from their high union with the Son of God. They are not lesser suns in a lower firmament, whilst He is a distinct Sun, and immensely above them; but in this way I may, perhaps, by a feeble similitude, express my thought: He is the only Sun transcendantly glorious; they are the poured-out beams of it; and so, from their mystical oneness with him, transcendantly happy. Yes, brethren, if our lives shall be hid in him, we shall live as he lives, and be holy as he is holy; and the crown on our heads will be as unfading as it is on His.

The whole force of this concluding Scripture rests on that one word "together." Once apprehend what it is to suffer with Christ, and thou wilt readily perceive, that the principle which attaches every suffering believer to his Lord will be the same unbroken bond in their glorification. It is on both sides a union of love. From God-man it is love freely given; from the ransomed sinner the same love freely restored. He loved the chosen flock of his pasture, because it was his sovereign pleasure to do it: we love him because he first loved us; and it is not only declarations of abounding grace that we have heard from his lips, but his gracious purpose towards us in respect to glory

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Thus he speaks in John, xvii.; and thus he pleads for the lovers of his cross mightily with the Father: Sanctify them through thy truth; that they may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee, that they may be one in us. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them." And then he ascends from earthly to heavenly privileges, and shows what a vast field of blessings he has in store for them that shall believe on his name: Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory." And here is the word of Jesus, and that word pledged to you, that if you are children you shall be heirs with him, in a close and indissoluble union; fellow-sufferers in a weak humanity, and glorified together in the strength of those covenant bonds, which are immutable and eternal.

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This state of yet unseen, untasted, and perhaps unwished-for blessedness, may be ours. The vilest, the weakest, the most despairing, are not too low for it. But have heard, what the necessary step is, to arrive at it. "If so be that we suffer with Christ, that we may be also glorified together." Ah! brethren, how many are there whom we dearly love, for whose souls we are wrestling in prayer daily, who dream of this glory, but who have never realized the suffering ; who are ready to seize upon mercy, but who hate the way that points to it. It is sad to measure the Christianity of such as these, to know how largely they are in need of every thing, and to see how recklessly they imagine that they are in need of nothing; who cannot fix upon one point wherein Christ is a precious Saviour, or tell in what one way they are distinguished from an ungodly world. This is poor knowledge, miserable wisdom, for dying sinners. I never yet read a Scripture which told me, "Whatever thou art, be at ease, O creature of sense; poor in spirit, or high-minded-deep in the world, or crucified to its power-thou shalt, in any case, have your portion in glory." But thus runs the word of the everlasting Gospel: If ye be dead with Christ, ye shall also live with him-" If so be that ye suffer with him, ye shall be glorified together,"

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NOAH'S PRESERVATION AND SACRIFICE.

REV. W. B. LEACH.

ROBERT STREET CHAPEL, GROSVENOR SQUARE, FEBRUARY 8, 1835.

"And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark; and God made a wind to pass over the earth and the waters asswaged. 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."-GENESIS, viii. 1 and 20.

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THIS passage introduces us to a new world. A period of sixteen hundred and fifty years had now elapsed since the creation. During that space the great scheme of infinite mercy, based upon the covenant of grace, was gradually unfolded. The Redeemer, "whose goings forth were of old from everlasting," had commenced his mediatorial work. The Holy Spirit, although not yet beheld under any visible symbol, sustained his condescending office in the regeneration of the soul. A Church, consisting of true believers in "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," was formed. Sacrifices were instituted, as a significant part of religious worship, as an expressive act of faith in the great doctrine of the atonement, on the part of those who presented them, and an instructive system of appropriate types of the future coming of Christ, who was to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself." Abel was gone to glory as the first martyr to the truth. "Enoch was translated that he should not see death." And many a saint, though less distinguished, but not less known to Him" who is the head of his body, the Church," had entered into rest, having been "redeemed from among men, as the first fruits unto God and the Lamb." But whilst the antediluvian Church was thus gradually rising under the agency of the Son of God, and of the Spirit of God, by the accession of converted persons, principally among the descendants of Seth, the ungodly race of Cain were rapidly multiplying in numbers and increasing in sin, till at length the earth was overspread with infidelity and licentiousness, groaned under the accumulated burden of human guilt, and was ripe for the sickle of destruction. To accelerate this fatal crisis, the professed believers in the promised Saviour, called "the sons of God" in a former chapter, instead of maintaining their integrity by an unflinching adherence to their religious principles, thereby exhibiting a bold and determined front against the corruptions of the age, so far declined in the tone of their piety as to form matrimonial alliances with these licentious pagans, termed "the daughters of men." The consequences of such delinquency were, a total departure from the faith and practice of their pious forefathers—an awful amalgamation of the Church with the world-the abolition of the worship of God-the disappearance of true religion centering in

the sacrifice of Christ, and formed by the Divine Spirit, and, with the solitary exception of Noah and his family, a total abandonment of piety and morality to the unbridled sway of corrupt passions and appetites. The effect of such reckless depravity was tremendous. The Spirit of God was insulted and grieved. Mercy, long slighted and contemned, threw down the olive branch, and retired. Justice, fearlessly defied, came forth to the vacant seat of divine administration. The ark, designed as a refuge for the faithful Noah, being completed, the favoured family, headed by the venerable patriarch, and accompanied by a chosen number of all the diversified classes of the animal creation, entered it; and the judgments of the Lord begun. "The windows of heaven" are opened, and the skies, forty days and forty nights, pour forth an unabating torrent. The fountains of the great deep, hitherto restrained, are unsealed; and the sea, bursting its embankment, deluges the plains, and gains upon the highest hills. The beasts of the field and creeping things of the earth run to and fro in wild confusion, seeking in vain for a shelter. The strong and healthy among men, in a phrenzy of despair, flee to the mountains, leaving the aged and infirm to the incursions of the flood. Parents, with their children clinging to them, in terror pursue the same course, drenched by the pitiless storm; some failing in the attempt, others gaining some neighbouring height, but only to perish there. Still the rain descends: the flood rises; provisions fail; one spot of elevated land after another disappears, till at last every refuge is destroyed-every creature is engulphed-and all, all is silent, but the hoarse triumph of the storm. Thus you perceive, my dear hearers, that God has judgments as well as mercies, and is faithful to his threatenings as well as to his promises. "Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not go unpunished." Though the Great Eternal bear long, he will not bear always. Where now was the arrogant boasting of these impenitent sinners? Where was their security from danger who thought of concealment amid the masses of an ungodly world and who perhaps said, when expostulated with, as many sneeringly reply in the present day, "We shall be as well off as our neighbours?"

Thus the old world was destroyed by a deluge; a solemn type of its final destruction by a sea of fire at the last day, when "the earth and all that is therein shall be burnt up." The Church, now reduced to one family, was delivered from its scoffing enemies. The works and servants of Satan, hitherto triumphant, were overthrown, and brought to nought; thereby proving the truth of the promise, that "the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent," whilst the grace, faithfulness, and power of the Redeemer, were strikingly displayed in the preservation of Noah; which shews us that however few in number, exposed, despised, unpopular, "the Lord knoweth them that are his."

Whilst the eye, traversing this watery waste, thus surveys the justice and mercy of the Most High, there is one object in particular, and only one, which remains untouched by the destroying angel-uninjured by the storm from above, or the waves from beneath; it is THE ARK, fit emblem of the Church in the world. By whom was it planned? By Him who is the author of salvation. How was it formed? Like the great cause of religion, by human instrumentality under divine superintendency. What did it contain? The family of God-the servants of the Redeemer-the holy seed-the only link by which the old and

new world of believers were to be united-with all the different creatures which had been drawn thither by the power of God, as the only refuge from surrounding destruction. How wonderful was their association! How readily did they enter their merciful retreat! How harmoniously did they dwell, although so opposite in their respective dispositions! How well were they supplied, though so numerous! How safely did they exist! Not a life was lost. Not a leak was formed in the stately structure which contained them. All were fed. All were kept by the power of God, until the appointed time of their liberation. Who does not instantly advert to the promise of the Redeemer, in reference to the ultimate success of his reign: " If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto me?" And when his people shall thus be made willing in the day of his power, "when all things shall be subdued unto him," how beautifully will the prediction of the prophet be fulfilled, of which the scene in the ark presented so pleasing a type: "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand upon the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."

But observe the situation of the ark. It was upon the face of the great waters, in the midst of a storm. Thus it is with the Church in the world, where "deep calleth unto deep at the noise of Jehovah's waterspouts; whilst all his waves and billows go over us." Yet, without an earthly pilot, or sails, or helm, or human skill and assistance, how safely did the mighty structure ride! What could Noah do? What could his family do? Not any thing. They had followed divine direction, and had employed the means prescribed, so far as they could be used; and they were now passive in the hands of God, wholly dependent upon his providence and grace. This is our case. We are shut up in the ark of the Gospel: we are navigating the sea of life: we are in a storm. As far as means are availing, they should be employed in humble dependence upon the God of the means; when they fail, we should cast our entire care upon the Lord, and he will sustain us. Nor shall we be disappointed, as we have the promise,"Fear not, for I have redeemed thee; I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee." With such a promise the Christian may be shut up in the chamber of affliction, or in the house of mourning, or in the confines of a vessel, and yet he can enjoy communion with God, and feel perfect safety, sweetly whispering,

"We may, like the ships, by tempests be tost
On perilous deeps, but cannot be lost :
Though Satan enrages the wind and the tide,
The promise engages the Lord will provide."

What the feelings of this favoured family were on entering the ark, as they looked upon the earth for the last time, which was devoted to so severe a visitation, may be better imagined than described. There were the strong emotions

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