CHAPTER VII.

NOAH, HIS FAMILY, AND THE LIVING CREATURES, ENTER THE ARKTHE BEGINNING, INCREASE, AND CONTINUANCE OF THE FLOOD.

WE read here of the arrival of that era of judgment which was pronounced, or, rather, denounced, by God himself, in the previous chapter; and upon the strong ground that all flesh had so corrupted, irretrievably, its way, that the day of mercy must close, the sun of privilege set, and "judgment must be laid to the line, and equity to the plumb-line.” Judgment is God's strange work, but a work which will come as sure and as soon as he has said that it will come.

First of all, God issues his invitation to Noah, to come himself and all his house into the ark, and upon this ground, "For thee have I seen righteous;" teaching us a lesson, that is very frequently inculcated in Scripture, that the ruler's goodness brings down blessing upon his subjects; that the parent's righteousness is a shelter so far, of a temporal kind, to those who are within his home. You observe, - and it is very remarkable, that, upon the very ground that Noah was righteous, his family was admitted into the ark. It is upon this ground that we, or at least such of us as believe that infants ought to be baptized, think this sacrament, thus administered, to be justifiable; not condemning adult baptism, but defending infant baptism. Here is the fact, that upon the ground of the personal righteousness of Noah his children were admitted into that ark; and we think that, upon the ground of the corresponding righteousness of the

parent, the children may be admitted into the visible church; and we think, too, that such ground is strong, and that it justifies the practice, which we believe to be a scriptural and a right one.

And, in the next place, we read that he took into the ark clean and unclean beasts. It has been asked, How was this distinction known previous to the institutions of Levi, in the Mosaic economy ? Moses tells us what animals were clean, and what animals were unclean, that it might be known that the former were to be eaten, and the latter not. But how is it that, when no animals were used for food, the distinction is here made of clean and unclean? This is one of the corroborative proofs of the fact that I stated before, that animal sacrifice was instituted in Paradise. I have said that the probability was that Adam and Eve were clothed in the skins of animals slain in sacrifice. And here it would appear that those animals were clean and unclean, not for food, but as fit and unfit for sacrifice. The distinction here is, animals which were fit for sacrifice, and animals which were unfit for sacrifice. This distinction in the Mosaic economy, or the last more radical one, is, animals fit for food, and animals unfit for food.

You may notice another indication of deeper thought underlying the passage, namely, that the animals which went into the ark were taken by sevens of every clean beast, but by twos of every unclean beast. How is it, now, that he took of the clean by sevens, that is, three pairs and one over, and that he took of the unclean simply by pairs? The answer, or, at least, the inference, must be, that the seventh clean animal was for Noah to offer up in the ark, in his daily sacrifice to God, in whom he believed, and through whom he looked for happiness and peace. I say, there is nothing in the narrative to show that the odd one was not for sacrifice; and it seems the more probable, when we remember that Abel

worshipped by expiatory, or animal sacrifice, and that Adam did so the moment that sin was introduced.

The flood, we are told, was to be forty days on the earth. "For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights." It is singular that this number occurs so often in sacred history. The Ninevites had forty days' respite; Moses and Elijah fasted forty days; Jesus was forty days in the wilderness; as if there were some hidden meaning, or some reason for it, which we cannot penetrate.

Noah entered into the ark, and his wife, and his sons, and their wives, and the animals, and the flood broke out. God's judgment waited for the shelter of his own, and as soon as they were safe his judgments came.

Noah found that all the animals - the beasts of the earth and the birds of the air forthwith obeyed him. They recognized in him a portion of the ancient sovereignty with which man was first invested, and obeyed him as their king, discrowned in Adam, but to be crowned again in Christ.

It is recorded that "all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered." Now, you are aware, it has been a great dispute, not only amongst geologists who believe the Scriptures, but among the most enlightened Christian commentators, whether the deluge was universal or only partial; and many of those who are the most competent to pronounce an opinion, assert that the deluge was not universal, that there was no necessity for its being universal, and that a partial deluge, covering the limits of the population that was then on the earth, agrees with all that is here stated. I may mention that Dr. King, a minister of the Secession body in Glasgow; Hitchcock, the American divine and geologist, and others, very eminent for their piety, as well as for their scientific knowledge, all hold that the deluge was not universal. Well, I must say that I would go with them if I

could; but it does seem to me that the language of Scripture is so strong, that in holding this interpretation I should seem to myself to be making Scripture dovetail with science; and I would rather wait for more light and more information before I adopted it. The argument of Dr. King on this passage -"all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered" - is, that the "all," there, is used in Scripture often in a limited sense. Thus, "all countries came to Egypt for corn." That cannot mean that all the countries of the earth came when Joseph was raised to power, but, some of many countries. And so it says that all the cattle of Egypt died in the plague; and yet there is the record that some cattle still survived in Egypt. He thinks, therefore, that "all" is used in a restricted and limited sense, and need not be taken to be "all" in a strict or absolute sense; and he thinks that this satisfies the scripture narrative. But there are certain considerations that seem to indicate the reverse of this. There are, certainly, difficulties on either side. One I may state. Animals, we find, are acclimated; that is, the animals belonging to Africa will not live here; animals living in New Zealand cannot be acclimated here. Every country has its own races and peculiarities of animals; so that they all live and die there, and do not migrate to different countries, in different latitudes, and possessing different features. Objectors say, naturally, When all the animals were collected and let out, how did particular animals find their way from Ararat to the plains of America, or other distant parts? We know, they say, that your answer is, It was a miracle; but one does not wish to account for anything by a miracle, if it be possible to account for it otherwise; for a miracle is God's strange work, not his everyday work. Another difficulty is this; the mammiferæ alone amount to seven hundred species, including elephants and other animals of vast size, and they think it impossible that

two of each could have been contained in an ark even of so vast dimensions as those of which we have shown the ark of Noah to have been; and therefore they say, that only a certain number of animals, covering a limited geographical section of the earth, were collected; and that, consequently, the flood only covered a certain portion of the habitable globe. But we also ask, Why did Noah take birds into the ark at all? They could easily have stretched their wings, and found a resting-place on the parts of the earth uncovered with water. Or, why take in such birds as the raven and the dove, which are found in every country, and need not, consequently, have been thus specially preserved if the flood were not universal? And, therefore, there would seem to be indications, from some of the birds taken into the ark, that the deluge was universal, and that these birds would have become extinct unless they had been preserved in the ark. The language, too, is very strong:-"All the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered." And, besides, Ararat, which is some sixteen thousand or seventeen thousand feet above the level of the sea, was evidently covered, because the ark rested from the subsiding sea upon its summit. And if it rose to the height of seventeen thousand feet, it is not very much to believe that it covered the snowy mountains of India, which are twenty-eight thousand feet above the level of the sea. At any rate, there is evidence that it covered one of the highest mountains; and the natural inference is that it covered the rest of the mountains of the earth. And, therefore, if there be reasons for thinking that it was not universal, we are not without reasons for believing that it was universal. And the strong language of Peter, when he says, "The world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished;" and his comparing with that perishing the process to which it shall be subjected, when it shall be dissolved by fire, — would lead any person, who is not biased by geologi