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Q. Does the earth afford any testimony to this great

event?

A. Yes: geology furnishes the most satisfactory proofs to every unprejudiced inquirer.*....

calamity in like manner. He also made use of a dove to ascertain the abatement of the waters.

The Britons, a Celtic tribe, affirmed that the Great Lake having burst, the whole world was deluged with water, and every living thing destroyed, save Dwyfan and Dwyfac his wife, who, with a male and female of every creature, escaped in a vessel without sails.-See HUGHE'S Hora Britannica.

The flood said to have happened in the reign of Ogyges, king of Attica, and that in the reign of Deucalion, king of Thessaly, resemble, in many particulars, the Noachic deluge. That the Greeks were not ignorant of this event, is evident from a coin struck at Apamea, in the reign of Philip the Elder: "On the reverse of this medal is represented a square chest floating upon the waters: a man and woman are advancing out of it to dry land, while two other persons remain within. Above it flutters a dove, bearing an olive branch; and another bird, possibly a raven, is perched upon its roof.› In one of the front pannels of the chest is the word NOE."—HORNE'S Introd. to Crit. Study of the Scriptures.

The Mexicans have a tradition that four men saved them. selves, in a general deluge, by taking refuge on the top of a high mountain. The Chinese relate that Peyran, a mortal beloved by the gods, escaped a like calamity. Traditionary fragments, relative to a similar event, have been found also among the Egyptians, Persians, Syrians, and Goths; establishing not only the fact of the deluge, but also the derivation of all these tribes from one family.'

* Some individuals doubt, and others deny the Mosaic nar rative of the flood; and some who believe that a deluge took place, deny its universality. "The Hebrew historian, however, expressly asserts that it was universal, and his relation is confirmed by the fossilized remains of animals belonging to a

Q. To what was this lustration of the globe analogous ?

A. To Baptism, supposed to have been instituted in commemoration of that event.*

Q. What may we learn from this awful judgment? A. The antediluvians are an ensample to those that after should live ungodly;" and from this judgment we may learn the power of God to deliver his servants, and to reserve the ungodly for punishment.†

Q. What was Noah's first care on leaving the ark?

former world, which are found in every quarter of the globe. Thus the Alps, the Appenines, the Pyrenees, Libanus, Atlas, and Ararat,-in short, all the mountains of every region under heaven, where search has been made, conspire in one uniform and universal proof that the sea was spread over their highest summits; for they are found to contain shells, skeletons of fish, and sea-monsters of every kind. The mouse deer, a native of America, has been found in Ireland; skeletons of the elephant and rhinoceros, natives of Africa and Asia, have been dug up on the steppes or table-lands of Tahtary and Siberia; crocodiles, chiefly of the Asiatic species, have been discovered in various parts of Europe; the gigantic mammoth has been found in Russia, in North America, and in Ireland: to which we may add trees, of vast dimensions, with their roots and tops, and some also with leaves and fruit, discovered at the bottom of mines and marl pits, not only in regions where no trees of such kind were ever known to grow, but also where it is demonstrably impossible that they should grow, which effect could only be produced by the fountains of the great deep being broken up."-HORNE'S Introduction to Crit. Study of the Scriptures.

1 Peter iii. 20, 21.

↑ Job xxii. 15-17. 2 Peter ii. 5, 6, 9.

A. To offer sacrifice to God, by which, like Abel, "he being dead, yet speaketh."*

Q. What were the properties of this sacrifice?

A. It was expiatory, eucharistical, and fæderal..
Q. In what respect was it expiatory?

A. Because offered by faith, as a sacrifice typical of the offering of the body of Christ, by which the sins of the world were to be taken away.

Q. How was it eucharistical ?

A. Because indicative of gratitude, testified by this act of obedience.

Q. How can it be called fæderal ?

A. Because by this solemn ordinance he covenanted to be the Lord's; laying hold of Christ, the covenant head, by faith.

Q. Was this offering accepted?

A. Yes; "the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; though the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more any living thing as I have done. While the earth remaine th, seed time and harvest, and cold

* Moses mentions only one sacrifice previous to the deluge; and that on account of the disastrous circumstance which arose out of it. Sacrifices were common to all nations, and were too well understood as being propitiatory, to require particular description in this part of the history; especially as under a new dispensation, all sacrifices of Divine institution were to form an important part of the Jewish ceremonial law. + Gen. viii. 21. ix. 11.

and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease."

Q. If God has promised not to destroy the earth again by the waters of a flood, how will he punish sinners in succeeding ages?

A. "The heavens and the earth, which are now, by the SAME WORD, are kept in store, reserved unto FIRE against the day of judginent, and perdition of ungodly men."* Q. How will that day break upon the world?

A. Suddenly: "the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up."

Q. How did Jesus Christ admonish his disciples concerning that day?

A. He said unto them, "Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come upon you unawares."†

Q. How is the believer consoled in the contemplation of that awful crisis?

A. By the promise of “ new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."

* 2 Peter iii. 7. The doctrine of the final conflagration of the world and its subsequent renewal, common to many of the mythologies, seems to have originated in the knowledge of some prophecy, probably Enoch's, Jude 14, 15, relative to this catastrophe.

+ Luke xxi. 34.

Isa. lxv. 17. 2 Pet. iii. 13.

1

Q. What token was appointed to remind Noah and his posterity of the Divine promise, that the earth should not again be deluged with water?

A. The rainbow.‡

Q. What indulgence was granted to Noah and his family respecting their food?

A. They were permitted to eat animal food, but were forbidden to use the blood.

Q. What law was enacted to prevent the shedding of human blood?

A. Every man, and every beast guilty of slaying a man, were doomed to die for the offence; because of the reverence due to HIм in whose image man was created.

Q. What was Noah ?

A. A husbandman.

Q. To what did he pay particular attention?
A. To the cultivation of the vine.

Q. Into what intemperance was he betrayed?

A. "He drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent." In this condition he was seen by Ham, who told his brethren without.

Q. What was the consequence?

A. When "Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him," he said,

+ Tradition having described the rainbow to the pagan world as a Divine portent, it was deified under the name of Iris.

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