basis of a religion for Adam's race. This was believed, hailed, appropriated, by "the elders" from the beginning. "By grace" were they "saved, through faith" in the promised and eternal Sacrifice. Like the humblest of their followers in the highway of holiness, Noah, Daniel, and Job were first accepted in Christ, renewed by the Spirit of His grace, and every moment kept from falling. In the light of this all-pervading truth let us turn to the delineation, and compare at least one or two of its features. (Gen. vi. 9; Dan. vi. 5, 10; ix. 23; Job i. 1, 5; xiii. 15; xlii. 8.) "Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations." Daniel was "greatly beloved" in heaven, acknowledged blameless by his watchful enemies on earth, and commonly regarded as one of the loveliest subjects that universal history has recorded. The man of Uz was "perfect and upright." Mindful of the source of all this grace, the three were marked by the spirit of prayer. "Noah walked with God.". Daniel "presented" his ceaseless "supplication before the LORD for the holy mountain of his God;" and, in the face of shame and agony and death, still went to his well-known oratory, and -with windows open toward Jerusalem, according to an ancient usage of Jewish devotion-" kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime." Job was not only accustomed to intercede for his sons and daughters, with a father's trembling solicitude lest their festivities had been stained by secret guilt: he was even nominated by the Most High to pray for his three friends,-" Him," said the thrice holy One, "will I accept." And all were marked by fidelity in the midst of abounding sin and heavy trials. Under the mighty hand of God, they were enabled to maintain the temper of adoring and obedient submission. Equally prepared were Noah, Daniel, and Job, to witness for their Master in the multitude, and to hasten at His bidding to the mountain. "Come, my people," said their God, "enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee; "-and they listened to the voice that talked with them. Noah, in reverential silence, heard of the flood. Daniel "gave thanks," though sharing the griefs of his bleeding country. And Job, in the crisis of his woes, glorified God by protesting to his seen and unseen tempters, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him!"-It has often been demanded, What is untested virtue? These three men passed the ordeal. They willingly bore the reproach of Christ. One of them retained his integrity against the formally embattled powers of hell; and another in the highest office of state,-amid the blandishments of a magnificent court,-under two foreign dynasties. And another long braved the scorn of the world, while he prepared an ark for the saving of his house. What though no cloud sullied the brilliancy of that south-eastern sky, and no river swelled beyond its green banks, and no ocean-tide yet threatened to pass the fixed boundary,-Noah had been "warned of God; and, like One greater, he "endured the contradiction of sinners" while the divine long-suffering waited a hundred and twenty years.-Such are the men whom Inspiration honours; men who, awed and governed by the fear of the LORD, know no other fear. Amid all the changes that rock the world, it is our comfort to know that "the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His." Not only so; but (according to the text which follows St. Peter's mention of Noah and "just Lot" as monuments of preserving grace,) He "knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished." (2 Peter ii. 9.) The same thought illuminates the otherwise dark page of Ezekiel. Some divines and expositors, pressed by an apparent difficulty, take the sense here to be that God delivers His people from spiritual sorrows. That He does so, is confessed by all who know and love Him. Yet it is reasonably doubted whether this is the immediate reference of Ezekiel; and, at least, whether any careful students will affirm that it exhausts the subject. Often, as in the exemplary instances named, the godly are screened from temporal calamities also. Noah was delivered from the flood; Daniel, from the wreck of Babylon; Job, from the blast which consigned his children to a sudden grave. Hence, it may be humbly argued, the use of these three illustrative names. The God of Noah, Daniel, and Job, still defends His people who trust in Him; and a thousand means are at His command. The rescue may be effected in a manner beyond all our calculation. Once, in Israel's behalf, the sea was divided,-"Jordan was driven back,"-"the mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs." The sun stood still, till a decisive victory was gained over the Amorites. Modern infidelity must not be allowed to explain away these wonders. The "wall of fire," and the encamping "angel of the LORD," the "hollow of His hand," the "shadow of His wings," and the "apple of His eye," are not mere Orientalisms-to be qualified and reduced by our severer Western taste. They have a sweet and full significance. They imply more than the best among us are apt to think. They are fresh in all their ancient power. We look not for miracles; but when scepticism ridicules our trust in God, our answer is easy, and (if the Bible is not the most enigmatical book on earth) philosophical too. "Shall burning Etna, if a sage requires, O blameless Bethel! to relieve thy breast? When the loose mountain trembles from on high, Shall gravitation cease, if you go by? Or some old temple, nodding to its fall, For Chartres' head reserve the hanging wall?" Such infractions of natural order are not expected, because not believed necessary to the verifying of God's promise. The harmonious sophism assumes that there are no other means of securing the end. Let it be shown that such is the case,-and then, however we may provoke the sneers of learned folly, we will confess our expectation that, rather than the promise shall fail, Etna's fires shall be quenched, and the law of gravitation suspended, at the instance of Him who kindled those fires and imposed that law. But there are more ordinary methods. Providence may call the righteous from a doomed land, and may urge their departure by a hundred circumstances that seem fortuitous. So the angels directed Lot's escape to the mountain; one of them using the memorable words, "Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do anything till thou be come thither." (Gen. xix. 22.) There may be a smile for the just, even amid the indignation that descends on the unjust. Goshen may have sunshine when night spreads over Egypt. The dews may collect on Gideon's fleece, while the dry herbage withers all around it. Caleb alone, of an entire congregation, may be preserved alive to possess the land. That promise may be even literally fulfilled, Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked." (Psalm xci. 5—8.)—Or, the great Deliverer may take His saints away from the evil to come. Death being our certain fate,—the most advantageous mode of our removal from earth, and an occasion of triumph to the believer and of glory to Christ,-it is mercy that foresees the gathering storm, and dismisses us by gentler means to our inevitable resting-place. The sigh-breathed, perhaps, more than once before-is then compassionately heard," O that Thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that Thou wouldest keep me secret, until Thy wrath be past!" The dead in Christ are far removed from danger, as from sin. Their last sorrow has been chased away. War's trumpet is loud; but it cannot disturb their deep, sepulchral quiet. They shall not awake until the heavens be no more, and the tottering earth be dissolved. Pestilence shall not prey on those mouldering relics, watched by angels and destined to a glorious resurrection. Famine can never afflict those beatified ones who "shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." All this is conceded. But what shall be said on a question of fact? It is alleged that many of the righteous have been involved in public calamity, that in this respect as in others, "there is one event to" them "and to the wicked." Yet even then the promises of God do not fail; for the character of the visitation is changed. In this twilight state, and to us who comprehend but a small part of the whole matter, there must be much obscurity,-to be dispelled only by the brightness of the eternal day. But, whether the word on which our Lord has "caused us to hope" be fulfilled in our literal rescue, or in His altered and sanctified visitation, we know that the reconciling point is THE GOOD OF HIS SAINTS. "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death." What means this word of Jesus? "Abraham is dead, and the Prophets." Martyrs and Apostles, and millions more who stand "before the throne and before the Lamb," have passed through the mortal valley to that height of mysterious joy. How then is it said of any man, that "he shall never see death?" Just in the sense now indicated,—that the visitation will be so changed as to lose its horrors and its old penal aspect. It will be death no longer. "With ease," as our sweet Psalmist sings, "the soul through death shall glide into its paradise." Thus a discerning Pastor comforted his flock amid the alarms of other days: "Though nature may startle at the rushing violence of the blast, yet it is but the noise of the chariot-wheels sent to convey me home. It is my Father's chariot, though it should be a flash of fire like Elijah's: my Father's voice, though He spake in a whirlwind as to Job. If lightning lick up my spirits, I know it is not a flash from hell surely God will not shoot the arrows of vengeance at His own image: and though I may die in a common calamity, yet I shall die in peace, as good Josiah, who, though he fell in battle, is said to be gathered to the grave in peace." : Nothing is more certain than that all the events which to purblind reason seem inconsistent with Ezekiel's teaching, the teaching which, in truth, runs through the Bible,-will be explained and harmonized in the world to come. And O, what a burst of light on our freed spirits when first admitted there, to study Providence and Grace at the foot of the throne,-to commune with their innumerable elders in glory, to hear how they, by dying, conquered death; how all the pain of life has tended to heighten for them the bliss of immortality, and all its mystery-now for ever scattered-to discipline them for the fruitions of perfect knowledge. "Thou hast led us by a right way," cry those consenting hosts, "that we might go to a city of habitation." And with accents of angels they repeat the strain (not untried on earth, but here oft mingled with the voice of weeping,)it is "the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb" "Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints. Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name?" (Rev. xv. 3, 4.) With the deepest seriousness it behoves us to observe, in drawing our meditation to a close, that chastisements are always regulated, by the Hand that inflicts them, on THE PRINCIPLE OF OUR DIRECT, PERSONAL, INALIENABLE RESPONSIBILITY. "As I live, saith the Lord GOD," in repeated and immutable oath, "they"-even Noah, Daniel, and Job-" shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness." Good men are blessings to families, and even to nations. Their value the world has not learned to calculate; but the proof is obvious *Dr. Grosvenor. in their example, influence, labours, and intercessions. Ten righteous, we have already learned, would have been the shield of a most abandoned city. Moses was the shield of a whole backsliding people. God threatened to consume them; but (as Cranmer's Psalter reads) "Moses His chosen stood before Him in the gap," till the lifted thunder was allowed innocently to fall. The prayer of faith still prevails; nor is its intercessory virtue diminished. It is heard, not for the suppliant alone: it obtains for others many temporal blessings and deliverances; and, in direct answer, merited punishment is often suspended, opportunities of repentance are multiplied, the day of grace is protracted, and the strivings of the Blessed SPIRIT are renewed. But Ezekiel's doctrine is not confuted. It is A TRUTH. Myriads of prayers, offered with tears of more than blood, cannot save the impenitent from judgment here, or from the more terrible judgment to come. See the evidence supplied in the cases of "these three men." Whatever beneficent influence extended to those among their connexions against whom no special judgment had been commissioned, it is clear that Noah delivered not the old world, nor Daniel the city of his fathers, nor Job his assembled family. FINAL Such, then, is the Prophet's warning voice. To us, surrounded by multitudes of our young people yet unsaved, it suggests most serious reflections. Your sins, children of believing parents, cannot be expiated by the virtue of others. The holiest men have no supererogatory holiness. They know this to be a delusive fiction. They feel themselves ever dependent on the mercy of God in Christ. None are so ready as they, to confess unfaithfulness and demerit. None feel so piercingly the distance which separates the feeble, fallen child of dust from the HOLY, HOLY, HOLY ONE. None weep so freely for having ever sinned against such majesty and compassion as His. None have so impressive a view of the breadth, extent, and spirituality of the Divine law. To none is the Saviour so precious, by none is He so sensibly needed, every moment of every day. Noah came forth from the ark, to sing, amid the stillness of universal ruin, "of mercy and of judgment;" and be it never forgotten, his first work was to build an altar on the side of Ararat, and thereon to offer sacrifices that told of his penitential trust in the great Oblation. The fragrance of the Patriarch's offering reached the skies: God promised that the waters of the flood should return no more. Daniel, with like humility, confessed his own sins, and the sins of his people,-"setting" his "face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting and sackcloth, and ashes." Job, bowing before apprehended God, uttered the pathetic strain, "Behold, I am vile: what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth :" "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." The appeal is yet to be strengthened. Your sins, children of our Noahs and Daniels and Jobs, are aggravated by the neglect of bright parental examples. The obligations of religion have been set before you in the fairest guise. Ethics may teach what ought to be done : |