separate ability, to pour contempt upon the man of God. When the matter was sufficiently known to become a topic of general conversation, crowds of persons would assemble to look at the work as it advanced, and to laugh at the labour and the apprehensions of the patriarch. One would ridicule its form and dimensions; another the absurdity of a ship upon a mountain; the philosopher might demonstrate the physical impossibility of the predicted fact; and the poet might exercise his wit in contemptuous ballads on the doating enthusiast. All this I think likely; and to sustain it all, year after year, to preach without success,-to oppose year,―to apparently the intelligence as well as the frivolity of the age,-to act only to become a by-word and a jest,-this would require a faith of no ordinary character; and Noah's actual perseverance in defiance of it all, proved his to be distinguished by incomparable strength.

3. The last circumstance from which we illustrate the faith of Noah, is the calm confidence with which he committed himself to the Supreme protection, at the time of the actual catastrophe. It is true, this confidence would be greatly encouraged by two circumstances, by the miraculous approach of many animals to the ark, and the commenced infliction of the threatening judgment. Both of these

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would assure him that he had not been deluded by imaginary impressions. There was still, however, a demand for firm and steady faith, as, at the moment of first entering upon danger, we often experience misgivings, which in prospect we anticipated not. After his protracted trials of another kind, this moment arrived to Noah. He was called to the commitment of himself to the Divine disposal in a way which none had ever been called before. His work was finished, his testimony given,the world and himself were about to witness the truth or falsehood of his personal predictions. I know not but that a rabble attended his entrance into the ark, and shouted defiance to his warnings, and taunted him with the necessity he would soon find, of leaving his romantic retreat, and returning to the very same scenes he had been dooming to destruction. But he persevered-too sensibly persuaded both of the faithfulness of God and the infatuation of mankind. "He entered the ark," says the historian, "and the Lord shut him in." What a moment must that have been! What a feeling must have succeeded this act of security! "The Lord shut him in." What a new and indefinable sensation must then have absorbed his mind! He had taken his last look of the world and man; he was now,

if we may so speak, sensibly suspended upon Deity. The windows of heaven and the fountains of the deep were opened; the elements descended, and the waters advanced; now, perhaps, numbers of those who had rejected his testimony were heard crowding to the ark, expressing penitence and imploring aid, when it was too late; at length, one by one, the voices were hushed; the water was perceived to prevail, to destroy each individual as he became too weak to grapple with their force,till, rising over all, extinguishing for ever their importunity, diffusing the silence of death,and lifting the ark from her foundations,-the prophet would feel the increasing necessity of reliance upon God, as he felt left alone amid the ruins of nature, abandoned to the agitated element, in danger of being tossed by contending currents, or dashed upon some yet uncovered elevation.

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SERMON VI.

PRINCIPLES AND LESSONS ILLUSTRATED BY THE HISTORY AND FAITH OF NOAH.

HEB. XI. 7.

By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is by faith.

HAVING already attempted the exposition of this passage, by adverting to the cause and circumstances of the deluge, and by illustrating the faith of Noah as connected with that event; we proceed to deduce those general lessons and inferences, which the whole subject seems calculated to suggest.

I. In the first place; we are reminded by this subject of one of the great sources of unbelief

in the facts and doctrines of Divine revelation. Many of these facts are miraculous, and many of the doctrines partake more or less of a mysterious character. Some pretend, that, from this very circumstance, the rejection of both, by them at least, is inevitable. This arises, they affirm, from causes which they cannot control; over which they have no power; whose operation involves no responsibility. The necessary laws of the human mind render it incapable, it is said, of admitting what is repugnant to its primitive perceptions; and subjects distinguished by the above properties are held to be such. In this way, many, we believe, have imposed both upon themselves and others, as if with reluctance they rejected, in consequence of a commanding necessity, a system of principles "worthy of all acceptation." It may be urged, however, in general, that reason, legitimately exercised, would seem to expect, in connexion with divine communications, something both of miracle and mystery;-of mystery, because it might be presumed, that revelation, like nature, would have its ultimate facts, beyond which it is impossible to penetrate; and that divine ideas conveyed in human language might contract some obscurity from the imperfection of the vehicle of miracle, because, admitting the fact of a revelation at all, it is only