"Be

calm, holy, penitent, submissive, prayerful, believing. strong, and of a good courage." Nothing can harm you; fire consumes the hypocrite and the unbeliever; but it only purifies, sanctifies, and glorifies the believer. The sun may yet be darkened, and the moon not give her light; but the eternal bow of promise will arch the gloom, and we may rest beneath its stable dome; and meeting the eye of God in Christ there, reciprocate in reverence the oath of the covenant, "I will look upon it." "This was the appearance of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw I fell upon my face." (Ezek. i. 28.)

Reader, when you behold the natural bow in the day of rain, are these your reflections upon it? Does it thus speak to you? Do you look upon it with peculiar satisfaction, because God is looking upon it? Do you see in it this twofold bow—the ordinary and the extraordinary enclosed within? Do you see the Mediator between God and man in it? School your mind to do this, that in the day of cloud and calamity you may look steadfastly, undauntedly, upon the promises in God's Word, and know that they are as stable as His throne itself. To the believer there is no cloud without glory.

Just as the river of salvation retained its distinctness in the great waterflood of Noah,-as it rolled down from Ararat to cheer, and to water again our thirsty, parched earth, so it will ever roll, and retain its distinctness, till "at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and

things in earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Phil. ii. 10.)

Is the heathen world without excuse upon the subject of its salvation? Yes, for by the awful judgment of the flood, the world and the Church were reduced to eight persons; the one to go forth a light to the world, a city of refuge for all; the other to be gathered from the kingdom of Satan, and to be translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son. But as we take up the page of history from the foot of Ararat, and trace on the three families, the two generations of the righteous and the wicked through Revelation to the end of time, we find that the dark waters of the flood did not wash away the foul stain of sin, nor did it truly rouse the Church to a sense of her awful responsibility.

What is now the true state of the world? Is not the prince of this world reigning over the generation of the righteous, even over the true people of God as a body? Is not all the worldliness of the Cainites, and the uncleanness of the Hamites crept in amongst us? Is not Satan transformed into an angel of light, and beguiling multitudes as he has never done before in the world's history? to say nothing of the deep darkness that has closed upon the heathen world. The Church must recover her position; grace cannot be continued without holiness. When she is sound, healed, faithful, the rebel, alien, impenitent powers will fall; the dragon, Egypt; the beast, the Apostate of Japheth; and the

false prophet, the seed of Ham, and of Ishmael, will be cast into the lake of fire. (Rev. xix. 20, xx. 2.) For them there will then be no bow in the cloud; their cup of iniquity full, their end will be hell.

But now the bow of covenant grace is arching the whole earth, from whom has it been hidden? (Acts ii. 9, 10, 11.) The natural bow is a volume of Revelation that can never be lost; tradition alone has handed down its true history; and perhaps there is not a people upon the earth that has not some knowledge of its sacred meaning, that it is a token of a covenant between God and man, an everlasting monument of a judgment for sin. Church of Christ, be thou more faithful to send to them the glad tidings, that it is too an eternal token of a covenant of grace; that a Redeemer and Mediator is enthroned therein; and that a reconciled God is saying, "I will look upon it."

CHAPTER XV.

ON THE BOOK OF GENESIS.

Ir is one of the most grand and imposing sights of Revelation to behold the falls of Ararat, the waters of the river of life coming down from the mountain-peak.* "Blessed be the Lord God of Shem;" and through that righteous generation they descended, through Eber, and Peleg, and Nahor, and Terah, through the calling of Abram, Jacob, Moses, David, till He who was full of grace and truth

came.

The everlasting covenant was a transaction between God and man so important, the nature of it so vital, the blessing of it so great, that to lost man He looked like a lever that was to raise him from the otherwise hopeless thrall. I might then trace that covenant in its distinct majesty through the Old Testament, or the Old Covenant Dispensation; but I prefer to trace the grace of God in history, giving the grand outline of the everlasting covenant its due position as we

Ararat is so high as to be seen at the distance of ten days' journey.

proceed; but the reader may if he will track that grand outline for himself.

"The Lord God," Jehovah or God-man, of your fathers, "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations." (Exod. iii. 15.) "The Lord thy God is a merciful God, he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them." (Deut. iv. 31; Ps. lxxxix. 3, 4, 28, xxv. 14, lxxiv. 20, lxxxix. 34; Ezek. xvi. 60.)

"Although my house be not so with God: yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire." (2 Sam. xxiii. 5.)

"Be ye mindful always of his covenant; the word which he commanded to a thousand generations; which he made with Abraham, and of his oath unto Isaac; and hath confirmed the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant." (1 Chron. xvi. 15, 16; Ps. cv. 10.) "Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations." (Deut. vii. 9.) "I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments." (Dan. ix. 4.) And so the holy Book of God became to be