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Whenever you behold the rainbow, think of Noah; think of the covenant of grace, the plan of salvation, the Sun of Righteousness, the beauties of holiness, the peace and joy in believing, which are the privilege and the portion of true believers.

Let the recollection of the deluge teach the ungodly, the impenitent, the worldly-minded professor, and the backslider, the certain punishment which awaits the commission of sin. God has threatened it, he will execute it. "He that being often reproved, yet hardeneth his neck, shall be destroyed suddenly, and that without remedy."

And finally, let us view the ark as an emblem of the Gospel of Christ, of that refuge which is set before. This was the only retreat from the flood, and covert from the storm, and no one was advantaged by it, but those who entered it. It was not enough that the people saw it, or knew it, or even assisted in rearing it, all who were without perished. Thus it is still. "There is none other name given unto men whereby we can be saved but Jesus Christ, neither is there salvation in any other." He that fleeth to him for safety and believeth in him to the salvation of the soul, shall not be confounded world without end. But "how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?”

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Whenever you behold the rainbow, think of Noah; think of the covenant of grace, the plan of salvation, the Sun of Righteousness, the beauties of holiness, the peace and joy in believing, which are the privilege and the portion of true believers.

Let the recollection of the deluge teach the ungodly, the impenitent, the worldly-minded professor, and the backslider, the certain punishment which awaits the commission of sin. God has threatened it, he will execute it. "He that being often reproved, yet hardeneth his neck, shall be destroyed suddenly, and that without remedy."

And finally, let us view the ark as an emblem of the Gospel of Christ, of that refuge which is set before. This was the only retreat from the flood, and covert from the storm, and no one was advantaged by it, but those who entered it. It was not enough that the people saw it, or knew it, or even assisted in rearing it, all who were without perished. Thus it is still. "There is none other name given unto men whereby we can be saved but Jesus Christ, neither is there salvation in any other." He that fleeth to him for safety and believeth in him to the salvation of the soul, shall not be confounded world without end. But "how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?"

THE DESIGN AND BENEFIT OF CHASTISEMENT.

REV. J. H. EVANS, A.M.

JOHN STREET CHAPEL, KING'S ROAD, FEBRUARY 15, 1835.

"Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby."-HEBREWS, xii. 11.

THE Apostle had encouraged the saints of God, to whom he had addressed this letter, by telling them that whom God chastened he chastened in love: "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten:" "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth" leading them thereby to draw the opposite conclusion to which sight and sense would lead them, that, (so far are they from being tokens of God's displeasure and wrath), they are among the brightest evidences of their Father's tenderness and love.

He cheered them also by telling them it is not for his own pleasure that the Lord chasteneth his children, though earthly parents sometimes do so. Do not understand the passage as if it were to be interpreted" according to his whim;" because that is not evidence of a kind, tender, and wise Father (and it is the conduct of such a father that is brought before us), but according to the best of their judgment, though often mistaken, often wrong, often out of the way yet He never; always-not only intentionally, but absolutely and directly, for our profit-accomplishing in the end his own purpose, and making it effectual.

But lest they should consider that, after all, the chastening of their Father might be very light things, and consequently might draw very painful conclusions when they found them heavy things, he adds the words of the text: "Now no chastening for the present is joyous, but grievous:" these things are not given as if they were joyous things, nor light, nor trifling things; but because they are grievous things-because they bring grief, and occasion grief. He seems also to encourage them by this; that, even if they did grieve under them, it was no sin, because they are grievous things in themselves to flesh and blood, and often grievous to the spirit; not merely to that which is flesh and blood, but that which is spiritual in us; designed to be so. And he encourages them by the blessed tendency and issue of chastisement: "Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby."

Now in discoursing from these words, there are two points of view in which I desire the subject may be regarded. O that the Holy Spirit may lead our minds into the very marrow, and substance, and sweetness of the truth; that

we may find it to be the truth, and rejoice in the truth, and acknowledge it to be the truth of God, in our own hearts, to the glory of his grace!

In the first place, consider what the Apostle says of chastening: "No chastening for the present is joyous, but grievous;" and secondly, the blessing which a gracious God has attached to it: "Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them that are exercised thereby."

With regard to the first point, it seems almost a truism, an assertion so palpable, and evidently true, that it were needless to make it: and yet we do not find it so, either in our own experience, or in the experience of God's dear people, A chastening that had nothing of grievousness in it, were no chastening at all. If the Lord lays his hand upon us, and we feel and esteem it not to be his hand, all the blessed effects of it are lost to us. I do not wish you to enter into that state of confessing, "I feel it to be no cross at all:" I wish to the Lord that you did; for the Lord so ordained it, and, sooner or later, he will cause you to know it to be a cross. Certainly, his hand unfelt is not the channel by which he conveys blessings to our souls. The Lord chasteneth his child, and sometimes he chasteneth him sorely too. If we look into the history of Moses we find it so if we look into the history of Job we find it so: if we look into the history of Jacob we find it so: and I believe most of us shall find it so in our own history; (which, after all, is the most interesting history to us, the history of our Lord Jesus Christ alone excepted.)

We find from the thirty-ninth Psalm, that David found the chastisement of the Lord to be no light matter: "And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee;" under the precious conviction of God being his God-his hope, his rest, and his delight being in God. "Deliver me from all my transgressions: make me not the reproach of the foolish. I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it. Remove thy stroke away from me: I am consumed by the blow of thine hand. When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth." You find the same truth in Psalm cxviii. 18. By whomsoever the Psalm is written, whether David or not, the experience is to us the same, and the same testimony. "The Lord hath chastened me sore: but he hath not given me over to death." The chastisement was not joyous, but grievous. When the Apostle Paul besought the Lord thrice that that " messenger of Satan" which afflicted him, might depart from him, do you not think he felt it a heavy pressure? He found it no light thing: and I bless God he has not revealed to us what it was. If there had been one peculiarly heavy trial unfolded, we should have individualized that trial, and looked only to that or similar trials: but when we see it was that which made the Apostle "groan, being burdened," drove him to a throne of grace, and made him thrice beseech the Lord for deliverance, we see that he felt it no slight matter to be under the correcting hand of his God.

There is, in the correction that we receive from the hand of God, something which impresses on our mind the solemn reflection that it arises from sin. I do not say, always from the outbreaking of sin; but I do say, from the indwelling of sin. And in that land where sin shall dwell no more in the hearts of God's people, there shall be no correction, for there will be no need of any. In the case of the Apostle, we do not find that "the thorn in the

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