mattered not to him how improbable was the event which God foretold, or how arduous the duty that God appointed; he believed God, and therefore, as the apostle says, "He prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith." (Heb. xi. 7.) This is a singular phrase-" He condemned the world!" Whence is this? We hear, indeed, that he was a "preacher of righteousness;" but how could Noah be said to "condemn the world?" Simply by his conduct; by the obedience of faith. He believed, and therefore he obeyed. Every proof he gave that he believed God, when he said he would bring a flood upon the ungodly, condemned the conduct of those who disbelieved him. Every tree which Noah felled, every plank which he cut, every nail which he drove, distinctly proved his dependance upon God's declaration, and as distinctly condemned those who heard and believed not. So it is with the consistent followers of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is not necessary that they should, by word of mouth, condemn the conduct of those who differ from them, of a world that lieth in wickedness; it is enough that they obey the commands of their Saviour, that they come forth, and are separate from that world, whose friendship is "enmity with God." Conduct

such as this, even at the present day, condemns the world, and the world knows it well, and feels it acutely, and returns, as our Lord himself foretold, a full measure of hatred and contempt. "If ye were of the world, the world would love its own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you."

It was thus, that Noah "became heir of the righteousness which is by faith;" it is thus, and thus only, that you can prove before men, that you are "heirs with him of the same promise," and partakers of that righteousness, "which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." (Phil. iii. 9.)

EXPOSITION XIX.

GENESIS vii. 1-5.

1. And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

2. Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.

3. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

4. For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.

5. And Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him.

We have here, first, the gracious invitation of the Almighty to the righteous Noah. God had commanded him to build the ark, and Noah had implicitly obeyed. And now God invites him to enter it, as his appointed refuge from the flood, which was about to come upon the earth. The Almighty does not say, "Go," but "Come into the ark," I am there; and wherever God is, there is security, peace, and comfort.

The command to take of every living thing is repeated, and we are again told that “Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him." His faith never for a moment wavered; he did not obey one portion of God's commands, and hesitate at, or shrink from, any other; but all were honoured alike by that one great principle of faith, which could alone sustain and support him, in consistency and obedience, through such an arduous conjuncture. And this will ever be the case with yourselves, if your obedience flow from the same source the living principle of a living faith. What is the cause of the continual

It

inconsistencies of many nominal Christians? is this: the want of a fixed and permanent principle. They are at times punctual in their attendance upon ordinances, careful in their obedience to the revealed will of God, and apparently anxious to maintain a holy conversation, separate from the world around them, and void of offence towards God and towards man. Then, again, all these great duties seem to be neglected and forgotten. And why? Because men seldom rise above their principles, and these men have not a fixed and determined principle within, to direct and guide them. They do right occasionally, from the impulse or feelings of the moment, but they have not that firm and living faith, that simple reliance upon God, which alone could have enabled Noah to do "all that the Lord commanded him." Therefore, when an unexpected temptation, or difficult duty arises, they too often yield to the one, or shrink from the other, as if totally unprepared to meet it, and are, as the Psalmist expresses it, "at their wit's end." Be careful, then, that united to the living Saviour, you continually draw from him the living principle of an obeying faith: then nothing can arise, that can perplex or overthrow you; and nothing can be required of you, either to do or to suffer, in which you shall not find God's grace amply sufficient for you.

EXPOSITION XX.

GENESIS vii. 6—16.

6. And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.

7. And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.

8. Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,

9. There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.

10. And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.

11. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

12. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

That is, during the whole of this long period of forty days and forty nights, the rain continued to fall in torrents upon the earth. But before this

commenced, we are told,

13. In the self-same day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the

ark ;