what more did he forfeit in his worst, with respect to this life, than what is contained in these blessings? If he neither had more, nor lost more, all these blessings you see expressly restored to Noah and his posterity; and can you still believe that the curse on the earth remains?

All this laid together amounts, I think, to this; that the old curse on the ground was finished and completed at the deluge. And when the whole race of men, eight only excepted, were destroyed, the serpent had sufficiently bruised the heel of the woman's seed; and the time was come to relieve the world with respect to this part of the curse so fully executed. Accordingly a blessing is once more pronounced on the earth; and a covenant of temporal prosperity confirmed to Noah, and by him to all mankind, making good the prophecy of his father at the time of his birth, This same shall comfort us,' &c.

You may think, perhaps, that we see but little effect of this new blessing; that the life of man is still labor and toil; that he still eats the bread of sorrow and carefulness in the sweat of his brow; and that the earth still abounds in thorns and thistles. Such complaints as these are but the effect of prejudice: men speak in this case as if they thought there were no thorns and thistles till after the fall, but that they were created on purpose to be a curse; for if there were such things (as undoubtedly there were before the fall), why should you expect to have them removed by the restoration of the earth?

For

For what employment do you imagine man was made? 'a little sleep, a little slumber, and a little folding of the hands to sleep? Surely this was not the case: even in paradise it was Adam's business to dress and to keep the garden. How much labor this required we cannot tell; some it required, without doubt. After the fall labor increased and multiplied, and continued to be very burdensome unto the time of the flood; and God's promise of regular seasons after the flood seems to intimate that they were very irregular and confused before; which one circumstance will account for all the change we suppose. What the case was in the old world during the curse, may probably be collected from the curse denounced against Israel when disobedient: I will break the pride of their power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your

earth as brass, and your strength shall be spent in vain : for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits:' Levit. xxvi. 19. 20.

There are serious writers who think that the earth was very much damaged and rendered less fertile by the flood; but is it not obvious to observe that this judgment ought to be grounded on the knowlege not only of the present state of the earth, but also of the state before the flood? For whoever compares two things together, and judges on the comparison, must be supposed to know them both; and yet it is certain that we know nothing of the antediluvian state but this only, that it was a very bad one; which is not enough to support us in judging that the present state is a much worse.

We meet with frequent allusions to this covenant with Noah in later times and later books of Scripture: the Son of Sirach tells us, that an everlasting covenant was made with him:' xliv. 18. dιaðñкαι aiŵvos, Gr.: testamenta seculi, Vulg. The covenant of the age was given him; for Noah was the father of the age, and had the covenant of the age after the flood, in like manner as Christ was the father, and brought in the new covenant of the succeeding age.

The prophet Jeremiah introduces God appealing to his own fidelity in the execution of his first covenant, as a reason why he ought to be trusted and relied on for the performance of the second. 'If you can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night,-then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign on his throne:' xxxiii. 20. 21. 25. In like manner the prophet Isaiah: This is as the waters of Noah unto me : for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee:' liv. 9. The lxvth Psalm seems to be a comment on God's covenant with Noah: thou makest the outgoing of the morning and evening to rejoice. Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: thou crownest the year with thy goodness, and thy paths drop fatness. The pastures are clothed with flocks; the vallies also are covered with corn; they shout forth joy, they also sing.' It seems also to be with reference to this covenant that the Psalmist appeals to God's

faithfulness in the clouds, to his mercy established in the heavens, and to the moon, the faithful witness in heaven. Wisdom, and power, and goodness are shown forth in the creation, but mercy and faithfulness relate to God's dealings with men ; and when we hear of his faithfulness in the clouds, it naturally leads us to think of his promise for seed-time and harvest, for the former and the latter rain; things evidently depending on the government of the clouds.

During the age of this covenant, the character by which God was known and applied to was relative to this covenant and the blessings of it: Unto God would I commit my cause, which doth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number; who giveth rain on the earth, and sendeth waters on the fields: Job v. 8. 9. 10. Sing praises on the harp unto our God, who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow on the mountains. He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry:' Psalm cxlvii. 7. 8. 9.'Let us now fear the Lord our God that giveth rain, both the former and the latter in his season: he reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest:' Jer. v. 24. To the same purpose, and with respect to the same times, the Apostles Paul and Barnabas tell the people at Lystra,' that God in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways, nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness :' Acts xiv. 17. Our blessed Saviour does likewise commend and extol the mercy of God in the works of this first covenant; 'He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.' Which words are directly a comment on the terms of Noah's covenant for fruitful seasons, which were to continue without being interrupted again for the sake of man's iniquity; or, as the text itself expresses it, though the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth' Gen. viii. 21. With respect to this covenant of temporal blessings given to Noah, and to the second covenant of future glory given to Christ, must St. Paul be understood to speak, when he says, 'godliness is profitable to all things,

having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.' In any other view the words are capable of no exposition consistent with experience, or with the admonitions of the gospel, which warn the righteous to expect sufferings in this world: but true it is, that for godliness-sake the promise of the life that now is was confirmed with Noah; and for the same reason was the covenant of better hopes confirmed with Christ.

These allusions and many more suppose a restoration of the earth after the flood, and a new blessing given to it in virtue of God's covenant; and without this supposition I know not how to account for some passages in Scripture, which speak of the goodness of the earth, and the great plenty it affords. How comes it to pass that this very earth, cursed with barrenness, and to be a nursery for thorns and thistles, is afterwards represented as flowing with milk and honey, abounding with oil and wine, and every thing useful and pleasant in life? Can you imagine this land of plenty to be part of the cursed earth, doomed to bear thorns and thistles, and to weary out its inhabitants with toil and labor? Yet this is the case, if no alteration has happened; and it will be no easy work to reconcile these contradictions. But if the curse on the earth was expiated at the flood; if the earth has been once more blessed by its Creator, there wants no art or invention to solve this difficulty: the thing speaks for itself.

I will leave this point on these reasons: whether they are sufficient to establish an opinion so contrary to the prejudices of mankind I know not; they seem to me at least to be worth considering.

Let us consider now the state of prophecy after the flood, and on what foot the religion of the new world subsisted.

I find no new prophecy given to Noah after the flood, nor to any of his children till the call of Abraham. The reason of it seems to be this: the power and sovereignty of God were so manifestly displayed in the deluge, and made so strong impressions on the few persons then alive, and came so well attested to the succeeding generation, that religion wanted no other support: when idolatry prevailed, and the world was in

danger of being quite lost to true religion without the interposition of God, the word of prophecy was renewed; as we shall find when we come to that period.

It may seem surprising perhaps, that after so great a revolution in the world as the deluge made, God should say nothing to the remnant of mankind of the punishments and rewards of another life, but should make a new covenant with them relating merely to fruitful seasons and the blessings of the earth. All that I can say to this difficulty is this; I think I see plainly a gradual working of Providence towards the redemption of the world from the curse of the fall; that the temporal blessings were first restored as an earnest and pledge of better things to follow; that the covenant of the age given to Noah had, strictly speaking, nothing to do with the hopes of futurity, which were reserved to be the matter of another covenant in another age, and to be revealed by him, whose province it was 'to bring life and immortality to light through the gospel.'

The law of Moses, though a divine revelation, and introduced to serve and advance the great ends of Providence with respect to mankind, yet being given in the age of the first covenant, was in all things made conformable to it; and was founded in no other express promises than those of temporal happiness and prosperity, in no other express threatening than those of temporal loss and misery. Abraham's temporal covenant was the same in kind with Noah's, though much enlarged and re-established on farther promises and assurances: as the curse on the ground for the wickedness of Cain was of the very same kind with the curse of the fall; differing from it. not in kind, but in degree.

But though the first covenant, given to Noah, and the law of Moses founded on the terms of that covenant, contain no express promises of future rewards, yet is it not to be imagined that all who lived under this covenant were void of such hopes and expectations. If there were any such hopes before the flood, grounded on the prophecy consequent to the fall, the coming in of the flood could not destroy them; and the covenant of temporal blessings given to Noah was so far from superseding better hopes, that it did mightily strengthen and confirm them. For if Noah and his forefathers expected deli