it was soon found that the old leaven still lurked in the bosom of the preserved remnant itself; and another race of apostates and destroyers, though of a less ferocious spirit, and under more of restraint in regard to deeds of violence and bloodshed, rose up to prosecute anew the work of the adversary. In Christ, however, the very foundations of evil from the first were struck at, and nothing is left for a second beginning to the cause of iniquity. He came, as foretold by the prophet Isaiah (ch. lxi. 3), “to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God," which was, at the same time, to be the "year of his redeemed." And, accordingly, by the work he accomplished on earth, “the prince of this world was judged and cast out” (John xii. 31); or, as it is again written, "principalities and powers were spoiled," and "he that had the power of death destroyed" (Col. ii. 14; Heb. ii. 14), thereby giving deliverance to those who were subject to sin and death. He did this once for all, when he fulfilled all righteousness, and suffered unto death for sin. victory over the tempter then achieved by Christ, no more needs to be repeated than the atonement made for human guilt; it needs to be appropriated merely by his followers, and made vital in their experience. Satan has no longer any right to exercise lordship over men, and hold them in bondage to his usurped authority; the ground of his power and dominion is taken away, because the condemnation of sin, on which it stood, has been for ever abolished. Christ, therefore, at once destroys and savessaves by destroying-casts the cruel oppressor down from his illgotten supremacy, and so relieves the poor, enthralled, devilpossessed nature of man, and sets it into the glorious liberty of God's children.

The

In the case of the Redeemer himself, this work is absolutely complete; the man Christ Jesus thoroughly bruised Satan under his feet, and won a position where in no respect whatever he could be any more subject to the power of evil. Theoretically, we may say, the work is also complete in behalf of his people; on his part, no imperfection cleaves to it. By virtue of the blood of Jesus, the house of our humanity, which naturally stood accursed of God, and was ready to be assailed by every form of evil, is placed on a new and better foundation. It is made holiness to the Lord. The handwriting of condemnation that was

against us, is blotted out. The adversary has lost his bill of indictment; and nothing remains but that the members of the human family should, each for themselves, take up the position secured for them by the salvation of Christ, to render them wholly and for ever superior to the dominion of the adversary. But it is here that imperfection still comes in. Men will not lay hold of the advantage obtained for them by the all-prevailing might and energy of Jesus, or they will but partially receive into their experience the benefits it provides for them. Yet there is a measure of success also here, in the case of all genuine believers. And it is to this branch of the subject more immediately that the apostle Peter points, when he represents Christian baptism as the antitype of the deluge. In the personal experience of believers, as symbolized in that ordinance, there is a re-enacting substantially of what took place in the outward theatre of the world by means of the deluge. "The like figure whereunto (literally, the antitype to which, viz. Noah's salvation by water in the ark) even baptism doth also now save us; not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter iii. 21). Like the apostle's delineations generally, the passage briefly indicates, rather than explicitly unfolds, the truths connected with the subject. Yet, on a slight consideration of it, we readily perceive, that with profound discernment, it elicits from the ordinance of baptism, as spiritually understood and applied, the same fundamental elements, discovers there the same twofold process, which appeared so strikingly in the case of Noah. Here also there is a salvation finding its accomplishment by means of a destruction--"not the putting away of the filth of the flesh"-not so superficial a riddance of evil, but one of a more important and vital character, bringing "the answer of a good conscience," or the deliverance of the soul from the guilt and power of iniquity. The water of baptism-let the subject be plunged in it ever so deep, or sprinkled ever so much-can no more of itself save him than the water of the deluge could have saved Noah, apart from the faith he possessed, and the preparation it led him to make in constructing and entering into the ark. It was because he held and exercised such faith, that the deluge brought salvation to Noah, while it overwhelmed others in destruction. So is it in baptism, when

received in a spirit of faith. There is in this also the putting off of the old man of corruption-crucifying it together with Christ, and at the same time a rising through the resurrection of Christ to the new and heavenly life, which satisfies the demands of a pure and enlightened conscience. So that the really baptised soul is one in which there has been a killing and a making alive, a breaking up and destroying of the root of corrupt nature, and planting in its stead the seed of a divine nature, to spring, and grow, and bring forth fruit to perfection. In the microcosm of the individual believer, there is the perishing of an old world of sin and death, and the establishment of a new world of righteousness and life everlasting.

Such is the proper idea of Christian baptism, and such would be the practical result were the idea fully realized in the experience of the baptised. But this is so far from being the case, that even the idea is apt to suffer in people's minds from the conscious imperfections of their experience. And it might help to check such a tendency-it might, at least, be of service in enabling them to keep themselves well informed as to what should be, if they looked occasionally to what actually was, in the outward pattern of these spiritual things, given in the times of Noah. Are you disinclined, we might say to them, to have the axe so unsparingly applied to the old man of corruption? Think, for your warning, how God spared not the old world, but sent its mass of impurity headlong into the gulph of perdition. Seems it a task too formidable, and likely to prove hopeless in the accomplishment, to maintain your ground against the powers of evil in the world? Think again, for your encouragement, how impotent the giants of wickedness were of old to defeat the counsels of God, or prevail over those who held fast their confidence in his word; with all their numbers and their might, they sunk like lead in the waters, while the little household of faith rode secure in the midst of them. Or, does it appear strange, at times perhaps incredible, to your mind, that you should be made the subject of a work which requires for its accomplishment the peculiar perfections of Godhead, while others are left entire strangers to it, and even find the Word of God-the chosen instrument for effecting it-the occasion of wrath and condemnation to their souls? Remember "the few, the eight souls" of Noah's family,

alone preserved amid the wreck and desolation of a whole world -preserved, too, by faith in a word of God, which carried in its bosom the doom of myriads of their fellow-creatures, and so, finding that, which was to others a minister of condemnation, a source of peace and safety to them. Rest assured, that as God himself remains the same through all generations, so his work for the good of men is essentially the same also; and it ever must be his design and purpose, that Noah's faith and salvation should be perpetually renewing themselves in the hidden life and experience of those who are preparing for the habitations of glory.

SECTION THIRD.

THE NEW WORLD AND ITS INHERITORS—THE MEN OF FAITH.

IN one respect the world seemed to have suffered material loss by the visitation of the deluge. Along with the agents and instruments of evil, there had also been swept away by it the emblems of grace and hope-paradise with its tree of life and its cherubim of glory. We can conceive Noah and his household, when they first left the ark, looking around with melancholy feelings on the position they now occupied, not only as being the sole survivors of a numerous offspring, but also as being themselves bereft of the sacred memorials which bore evidence of a happy past, and exhibited the pledge of a still happier future. An important link of communion with heaven, it might well have seemed, was broken by the change thus brought through the deluge on the world. But the loss was soon fully compensated, and, we may even say, more than compensated, by the advantages conferred on Noah and his seed from the higher relation to which they were now raised, in respect to God and the world. There are three points that here, in particular, call for attention.

1. The first is, the new condition of the earth itself, which immediately appears in the freedom allowed and practised in regard to the external worship of God. This was no longer confined to any single region, as seems to have been the case in the age subsequent to the fall. The cherubim were located in a particular spot, on the east of the garden of Eden; and as the symbols of God's presence were there, it was only natural that the celebration of divine worship should there also have found its common centre. Hence, the two sons of Adam are said to have "brought their offerings unto the Lord"-which can scarcely be understood otherwise than as pointing to that particular locality which was hallowed by visible symbols of the Lord's presence, and in the