begging of Noah to let them in; thousands of rams and ten thousands of rivers of oil, if they had them, they would give with all their hearts, for a place in the ark. O Noah, open the door, or we are lost. Were not we thy neighbours? Have we not eaten and drunk in thy presence?—and hast not thou preached many a time in our streets? Ay, might Noah say, that I have, to little purpose. I called indeed, but you refused; I stretched out my hand, but no man regarded; you set at nought my counsel, and would none of my reproof; and now I may laugh at your calamity. Prov. i. 24, 25, 26. Now you see what comes of sin. Your ways and your doings have brought this destruction upon yourselves. You may thank yourselves for your ruin. I offered you a room in the ark, and you laughed at me for my labour; but now God has shut the door, and I cannot open it. Thus it will be in the great day. A remnant will, like Noah, be secured in the ark, and with the wise virgins go in unto the marriage. Matt. xxv. 10. But as for the rest of the poor perishing world, they will seek for places of refuge; will call to the rocks and the mountains to cover them; but that will not do. They will plead hard for admission: Lord, Lord, open to us; but neither will that do. Matt. xxv. 11. They will be glad to scrape acquaintance with the righteous. The foolish virgins would

be beholden to the wise now for a little oil; (Matt. xxv. S;) but neither will that do: it will be too late. Though men may climb never so high by an outward profession, if they do not get into the ark, they are undone; undone for ever. Salvation itself cannot save them. (3.) Of those that were drowned, perhaps some had been assistant to Noah in building the ark; and yet now could not obtain a place in it. This is the case of wicked ministers, that are perhaps instrumental in bringing others to Christ, but do not come to him themselves; that help others to heaven, but are themselves cast into hell. (1.) Concerning the eternal state of these sinners-these sinners against their own souls-it is not within our line to judge, What mercy God might show to some of them, we know not; but we have reason to believe that most of them, if not all, perished eternally; for they are called spirits in prison. 1 Pet. iii. 19. The water of the flood sent them to "the fire of hell. Here's a world of sinners drowned and damned together. A sad change from eating and drinking on earth, to be weeping and wailing in hell.

23 And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and

the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.

24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.

There was mercy in the midst of wrath. When all the world besides were monuments of God's justice, righteous Noah remained a monument of his mercy, his sparing mercy. We may suppose Noah to have been all this time in an afflicted condition; meeting with many difficulties and inconveniences, and yet in the way of duty; ay, and in the way of deliverance too. It is no new thing for God's gracious deliverances of his people to be accompanied with hardships and inconveniences. The way from Egypt to Canaan lay through a vast howling wilderness. The way to salvation, both temporal and eternal, both public and personal, is not always a ready road, nor always a pleasant path. But to fall out with deliverance as the Israelites did, (Numb. xiv. 3, 4,) and to quarrel with the salvation offered, because of the difficulties we meet with in is just as if Noah should have wished rather

the way,

to be drowned in the flood, than to be imprisoned in the ark. As he might comfort himself under the inconveniences of the ark, with the consideration of his deliverance by the ark; so a child of God may comfort himself under the greatest troubles that he meets with in the world, with the sense that he has of his interest in Christ: sick, but in Christ; dying, but in Christ; the way stony and thorny, but life eternal at the end of it.

From the whole history of the destruction of the old world, we may learn (and the Lord teach us) these six good lessons: 1. That God is a holy and righteous God; true to his threatenings as well as to his promises. It appears that he did hate sin, or he would never have drowned the world for it. 2. That the sin of sinners will, without repentance, be the ruin of sinners, first or last, sooner or later. Though sin may be pleasing or profitable in the commission, yet it will be bitterness in the latter end. If God be true, it will. Prov. xxiii. 32. It is therefore our wisdom to stand in awe, and sin not. Psa. iv. 4. 3. That the God with whom we have to do, is a terrible God; and that it is a fearful thing to fall into his hands. Heb. x. 31. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, let us be persuaded to fear before him. 2 Cor. v. 11. 4. That the more divine warnings are slighted, and the longer divine patience is

abused, the greater and more terrible will vengeance be when it comes. 5. That the wrath of God is irresistible wrath. When God judges, he will overcome; and the stoutest sinner will, in the end, find to his cost, that it is in vain to fight against God. Isa. xxvii. 4. Who can stand before him, when he is angry? 6. That though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished. Prov. xi. 21. With men, many times the multitude of offenders prevents the punishment of the offence; but it is not so with God. He cannot be out-witted nor overpowered; no, not by a world of sinners. Though the way of wickedness were then a trodden way, yet they were cut down out of time; their foundation was overflown with a flood; as Eliphaz expresses it, Job xxii. 15, 16,-I suppose with reference to this history,-that we might hear and fear, and do no more presumptuously. Deut. xvii. 13.