right and honest in your religious profession, and in your worldly calling, in the sight of God and of all men if you are not willing to deny yourselves, and even to sacrifice your rest, your ease, your property, yea, your own life, for the service and the glory of God. What means that loud and noisy profession, what means that boasted faith, which leave the man wedded to his earthly delights, his covetousness, his idols, and which move him not towards high and heavenly things? It is no better than the faith of devils. It deludes and destroys the soul. "A man may soon deceive himself, and think in his own phantasy that he by faith knoweth God, loveth him, feareth him, and belongeth to him, when in very deed he doth nothing less. For the trial of all these things is a very godly and christian life. He that feeleth his heart set to seek God's honour, and studieth to know the will and commandments of God, and to frame himself thereunto; and leadeth not his life after the desire of his own flesh, to serve the devil by sin; but setteth his mind to serve God for God's own sake; and for his sake also to love all his neighbours, whether they be friends or adversaries, doing good to every man as opportunity serveth, and willingly hurting no man, such a man may well rejoice in God, perceiving by the trade of his life, that he unfeignedly hath the right knowledge of God, a lively

faith, a stedfast hope, a true unfeigned love and fear of God. But he that casteth away the yoke of God's commandments from his neck, and giveth himself to live without true repentance, after his own sensual mind and pleasure-such a man clearly deceiveth himself and seeth not his own heart.""Deceive not yourselves, therefore, thinking that you have faith in God, or that you love God, or do trust in him, or do fear him, when you live in sin."

We proceed to notice the faith of Noah,

III. IN ITS REWARD. He saved his house, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.

Had Noah disbelieved the warning of God, or, believing, had he despised the instruction, and disobeyed the command, of God, he would have perished with the ungodly. But he believed and he obeyed, and he was saved. His temporal deliverance or salvation from the destruction of the ungodly, was a striking emblem of his eternal salvation in Christ. He became heir of the righteousness which is by faith;" he was justified or accounted righteous through faith, with respect to the heavenly inheritance. Being, by faith, a member of Christ, a child of God, he was also an 7 Homily of Faith. Part 3rd.

Noah

heir of the kingdom of heaven. They who are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, are heirs of glory, as the apostle states: "And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together." As Noah, by believing and obeying God, was saved from the destruction of the old world, and also became heir of eternal salvation, so all who believe God's record of his Son, and prove the reality of their belief by obeying God's revealed will, will be saved from wrath, and constituted heirs of eternal life. in the ark was safe from the awful judgments which came upon the wicked,—he heard their bitter lamentations and wailings over their madness, unbelief, and disobedience. He saw them vanquished by the arm of Omnipotence which they had defied. He beheld the threatenings which they had despised executed upon them in full weight. But he was safe. None of the evils came nigh unto him. And thus will it be at the last, every one who by faith cometh to Christ, is in Christ, is delivered from condemnation: and when the wrath of God shall be poured out on all the impenitent, the unbelieving, and the disobedient, then the righteous, like ark, shall be saved from all evil:

Noah in the

"Only with

thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked."" Would you, my brethren, be delivered from the condemnation of the wicked?— would you become heirs of everlasting salvation? -O! flee while you may flee from the wrath to come! Search the word of God, behold there an ark of grace provided for you; into that ark you are invited to enter. There is a sure refuge for you. There is "a hiding-place" from the floods of divine judgments. Christ Jesus is that refuge. Embrace him by faith and you are safe : reject him through unbelief, and you perish. The gospel reveals Him to you; and the gospel offers to you his free and full salvation.

We must just notice the consequence to others, of Noah's faith and obedience: "he condemned the world." He condemned the men of that generation. He did not as a judge condemn them; but he left them without excuse, and by his conduct aggravated and ensured their condemnation. For, by his warnings he warned the ungodly; and by his persevering labours in preparing the ark, he gave them a sufficient proof of his certain expectation that God would destroy the ungodly. His friendly admonitions and his work of faith did, probably, provoke their hatred, their mockings and railings, just as we now see the consistent and per

9 Ps. xci. 8.

severed faith and obedience of the Christian drawing forth the revilings and opposition of the ungodly and the infidel. Noah, by his faithfulness and obedience to God, shone forth as a light among that dark generation; yet was he unheeded, unrespected, and despised. His observers or neighbours loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were deeds of darkness. So it is now. The ministers of God warn and exhort, invite and persuade, the ungodly around them, to flee from impending wrath; yet their message, like Noah's warning, is disregarded-mocked and reviled. The godless men of this generation see, they cannot but see, some few who are seriously attending to the concerns of their souls, who are through divine grace preparing to escape the condemnation of the wicked; yet, like the unbelieving in the days of Noah, they laugh and mock at all this, as a needless trouble, as mere enthusiasm, as an indication of mental weakness. But they see not the day approaching when their own certain calamity will come upon them, and when they will in the bitter agony of disappointment have to acknowledge: "This was he whom we had sometimes in derision and a proverb of reproach. We fools accounted his life madness, and his end to be without honour. How is he numbered among