XV.

THE DECISION.

"MAKE thee an ark of gopher-wood, and enter thou into it with all thy house, that thou mayest live." Thus spake the Lord to Noah his friend. And Noah conferred not with flesh and blood, but taking his reason captive under the word of the Lord, and paying no attention to the jeers of a scorning world, he began to build the wondrous ves sel, and by this blind submission gave due glory to God.

A dreadful judgment awaited the world. A flood, which, scorning the strongest barriers, would foam even over the loftiest mountains, was selected as the instrument for destroying all flesh from off the earth. What a prospect for the children of Adam! But do not deceive yourselves! The same wrath which once poured forth that destructive deluge, flames to this hour against all those who are not born of God, and still daily washes down its unhappy victims, by the wave of death, into destruction. Are you desirous of building a vessel to save you in the hour of distress? Do not form it out of works and virtues. The justice of the eternal God is a sharp rock. Your bark will dash into a thousand pieces upon it. To the ark, dear brethren, to the ark! whoever amongst you loves his own soul. "To the ark?" Yes, for an ark is also prepared for us. Look towards Bethlehem. There it lies, as it were, still upon dry ground. But soon it will be lifted up, and not have many more pleasant days. We shall perceive it struggling with the winds and the waves. It will cruise between rocks and whirlpools. Every storm will go over

When the fire-enaware that fire has

it; the waves of reproach and persecution will cover it. Nay, at length it will even sink in bloody floods of death, but only in order soon to rise again, for the purpose of unfurling the flag of victory, and of steering full sail into the haven of eternal rest. Do you ask, "For what purpose is this dreadful voyage?" Look at Noah's ark. It, likewise, did not continue lying on the plain, but bent its course through the storm and breakers. "For what pur, pose?" To carry Noah and his family through. For a similar object, Christ the Living Ark, gives himself up to the floods of Divine wrath; for it is by this means that it becomes an ark of deliverance to all who take refuge in it. When Noah's ark lay ready on the strand, it was a prophetic sign of evil to all who saw it. gines rattle along the streets, we are broken out. When the people run with spades and wheelbarrows to the embankments, no one doubts that an inundation is threatened. When a king levies an army, marches out his troops, and causes fortifications to be erected, it is evident what hour has struck in his kingdom. And when the Almighty himself sends not merely a prophet or an angel, but his only-begotten Son for the rescue of the world, what shall we then think? How great must be the existing danger, when such arrangements are necessary to remove it! Yes, the mere existence of Jesus in the world, is the most powerful sermon on the lost condition of mortals that ever was preached. The cross, that wondrous sign of our exaltation, intimates to us, at the same time, in a deeply affecting manner, so as nothing else can, the abyss of destruction, in which by nature we are plunged.

Noah's ark was completed. The fountains of the great deep were then broken up, and the windows of heaven

thrown open; and Noah went into the ark, as the Lord his God had commanded him. The entrance into the true ark takes place under similar circumstances. This is the case when the waters come upon us. No one goes into it dry-shod and with dry eyes. We must first feel the wrath, and then be delivered from the curse. Through anguish on account of sin, to the heart of Jesus; such is the method.

If you now inquire what is implied by an entrance into the true ark-know, first of all, that we can enter into Christ by using our eyes; and this we do as often as we thoughtfully contemplate the fullness of the riches which are treasured up in him. Secondly, by prayer; and we enter into him by this means, when we ask some particular thing of him, even as the lepers, mentioned in the gospel, who exclaimed, 66 Lord, heal us.' But such-like entrances are not sufficient for our eternal deliverance. The entrance into him, which is like that of Noah into the ark, is caused by our feeling the pressure of the wrath of the eternal Judge, and seeing no other refuge either in heaven or on earth, but in his wounds; the entrance into his suretyship and into his bleeding sacrifice, with the entire hope of a heart which ardently thirsts after grace, is the true and proper entrance, and that which saves the soul.

When Noah had entered the ark, the Lord shut the door upon him. This act does not immediately take place in the spiritual antitype. The door continues open a long time with respect to many, who have cast themselves into the arms of Jesus, so that they still possess a free and painful view of the desert of their past life. But before they are aware, the Lord closes the door upon them. The terrific retrospect is suddenly hidden from their view. The mountains of their sins are removed by a mighty hand.

They know that they have obtained mercy, and that everything is atoned for, forgotten, and forgiven.

When the Lord had shut the door upon Noah, the latter was at once separated from a wicked world. And when the Lord liberates us from the world we are really delivered from it. We may be able to separate the body from the world, but not the heart. But if Jesus shuts the door, it is really closed. We are then inwardly estranged from the world. And if we were even desirous of returning to the world and its ways, we should be unable to do so, and constantly find the gates barred, and the barriers insurmountable.

When this was

They travel in.

The Lord shut the door upon Noah. done, Noah was removed from the view of those who were left behind; and thus it is with all who enter into the true ark. The world knows them no more. cognito. Their life is hid with Christ in God. But what do they care, whether the world is able to comprehend and value them or not; it is enough for them that "the Lord knoweth them that are his." They know that they are beloved by him and regarded with acceptance. What more would they have?

The

In a similar man

The Lord shut the door. Noah was then safe. waves could not break in upon him, and he was also secured from falling out into the waters. ner those are shut in, who are in Christ. "My sheep," says the Lord, "shall never perish, neither shall any one pluck them out of My hand. My father who hath given them to me, is greater than all; and no man can pluck them out of my Father's hand."

When the door was shut upon Noah, he was carried out into the watery waste. The flood increased and lifted up the ark, and bore it aloft above the high places of the earth.

How often did the ark, in all probability, cruise between rocks and whirlpools? How many times may the billows of destruction have menacingly broken over it! But what of that? Our mariner sat untouched by them, and even in the most horrifying depths, felt safe in his floating citadel.

Thus courageously do thou also steer through the ocean of life. If thou art in Christ the true ark, let the tempest roar around thee as it pleases; thou art safe. However much the waves of temptation and tribulation may break over thee, be not afraid. If a shock even cast thee down from thy seat or thy couch; still thou art far from sinking into the flood; thou still remainest in the ark; and wilt continue there until the day of landing, and until thou shalt cast anchor on the Ararat, of an eternal and sabbatic repose. Happy mariner, sail away in peace, and rejoice in the olive-leaf of promise in the mouth of the dove! Naaman also enters the ark this day. Come and let us rejoice with him, and wish him happiness on this path of peace!

2 KINGS V. 15, 16.

"And he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came, and stood before him, and he said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel; now therefore, I pray thee, take a blessing of thy servant.

"But he said, As the Lord liveth, before whom I stand, I will receive none. And he urged him to take it, but he refused."

The miraculous cure has been performed; renovated both in body and soul, we beheld the happy Syrian come forth from the waves of the stream. This day we pluck flowers in the garden of his renewed mind. The door is widely opened. Every veil departs. We direct our reflections, first, to NAAMAN'S CONFESSION, and then to HIS