remaining some time torpid, it prepares for a journey to some neighbouring tree; but this of all migrations is the most tedious, dangerous and painful: it often takes a week in crawling to a tree not fifty yards distant: it moves with imperceptible slowness, and often baits by the way. All motions seem to torture it; and in every step it takes, it sets forth a most plaintive melancholy cry." * How lively a description of the manner in which some converts move from the Tree of Death, the world, when it fails to afford them comfort any longer, to the Tree of Life, Jesus Christ; of the shock which they receive by conviction of their lost condition; and of the tardiness, pain and difficulty with which, through the impediments of nature, they approach Him! The whole description seems capable of an instructive application, which the mind of my friend will easily make. But we return to the history of Noah, in order to observe that, as God suspended the flood till all were safely housed in the ark who were travelling towards it, however slow their progress; so all who are drawn to Christ, will be brought to Him before the last trumpet sounds, and "the door is shut." The feeblest and the weakest believer is as much the object of Divine care, as the strongest of them who fly to Him for succour.

*Goldsmith's Natural History, Vol. iv. p. 345.

Our personal danger is equally imminent and unavoidable as that of the contemporaries of Noah, except by a compliance with the Divine command, "Come thou into the Ark." All who disobeyed perished, without a single exception. The flood left no possibility of effecting an escape by any means which human invention could devise. The highest hill and the most stately cedar which adorned its summit, were soon overwhelmed, and those who had climbed them were ingulfed with them. The ark only survived the devastation. "Even so will it be in the end of the world."

The change which took place in the character of the creatures who were admitted into the ark, is another circumstance of coincidence between the type and antitype. There the lion lost his fierceness; the tiger and the leopard ceased to devour. While co-inhabitants of the ark, "the wolf dwelt with the lamb, and the leopard lay down with the kid, and the young lion and the fatling together." Therein "the cow and the bear fed together; and, perhaps, the lion ate straw like the ox." (Is. xi. 6-9. lxv. 25.) In like manner, “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away, behold all things are become new." By those who are IN HIM "all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and evil speakings, and all malice,"

are laid aside. (1 Pet. ii. 1.) There is, however, in the two cases this important difference; that, in the former, the suspension of ferocious instinct was temporary and unnatural; whereas, in the latter, the change is permanent, increases, and is a transformation of our very nature. In the former, the alteration was produced by restraining power; in the latter, it is produced by renewing grace.*

The provision which was made for the wants of the numerous inhabitants of Noah's extraordinary bark, both as to food and security from danger, is another speaking circumstance. Of the former there was an abundance, not of their own providing; the latter was complete, since the warring elements were unable to penetrate the Divinely constructed mansion. So also in Christ, our ark, "all fulness dwells." No want is felt; no evil can come nigh our dwelling. If the question be proposed to those who abide in Him, with a reference to past experience, “Lacked ye any thing;" the reply must be unanimous 66 NOTHING." Christ, like the ark of Noah, affords shelter, food, drink, clothing, and every other necessary and comfort of the spiritual life. Is it any wonder that those who partake of his benefits, should loudly sing of his praise?

* See Bp. Saunderson's admirable Sermon ad Populum on Gen. xx. 6.

My friend will again recollect, that all without the inclosure of the ark perished. The flood came and swept them all away; not one escaped. Most awful scene! By this circumstance an answer is afforded to an argument which some persons are apt to adduce against the doctrine of the Gospel, as if the scheme were uncharitable. The question is simply, whether the danger it describes be real or imaginary. If the former, let it be remembered that true "CHARITY rejoiceth in the truth." Was Noah uncharitable in the warnings and admonitions which he addressed to his contemporaries? No doubt, they thought so; but did the event verify their supposition? What were their views when "the windows of heaven were opened, and the fountains of the great deep broken up ?" Then they began to entertain different thoughts of the preacher and his doctrine. "So SHALL ALSO THE COMING of the SON OF MAN BE.' The CERTAINTY, NEARNESS, and SUDDENNESS of approaching destruction is the same in both cases. In both "a covert from the tempest" has been provided. Jesus "is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him;" and "there is no other name given under heaven among men, whereby we must be saved."

A question will perhaps arise in the mind of my friend, whether Noah was acquainted with the typical character of the temporal salvation

which he and his family experienced by means of the ark-whether he looked beyond it to its great antitype in the salvation of the promised seed? To what extent, as to the particulars of the analogy since disclosed by the great event, his knowledge extended, we cannot say; but we have infallible testimony that he was not ignorant of the spiritual salvation, nor a stranger to its enjoyment. For by faith-he became heir of the righteousness which is by faith; Heb. xi. 6.— that righteousness which St. Paul elsewhere characterizes, as "the righteousness of God," because God is its object,-" of faith," because it is by faith in Christ as its author that it is received and applied for justification. Noah by adoption became heir of this righteousness, and by faith realized its blessed results in peace of conscience and hope towards God. To suppose that when the exercise of faith is attributed to the patriarchs, that faith had no relation to Christ and salvation, is a vapid construction of the Apostle's meaning. It is inconsistent with and contrary to the design, and destroys the force of his argument.

My friend will see that other parallel circumstances in the two deliverances, besides those which are here brought forward, might have been produced. But enough has been said to justify the Apostle Peter's assertion that "baptism," or "the answer of a good conscience towards God,