delivered from the bondage of corruption, I know not; but that they can be in such a state; and that it is good in the sight of God so to be, I well do know from that bene-placitum of God which concluded his work of creation, God saw every thing that he had made, and behold ́ it was very good. I for my own part, therefore, dare not but believe that the rainbow is the sign of God's covenant, that the earth, and the animated dust of the earth, its numerous tribes, shall have an existence beyond the period of death's dominion as they had an existence above it.

Let no one suppose by this, for they lie in wait to wrest my words, that I mean hereby the resurrection of the inferior creatures. I mean only their continuance as a part of God's creation, which sin and death possessed by the fall of man, and of which by the resurrection of the Second Man, sin and death shall be dispossessed; for I hold it to be a principle, and not a notion, an eternal principle of God's being, and not a fleeting notion of man's brain, that the complete work of creation should be completely redeemed from the lowest base, to the loftiest pinnacle, and that it hath been so by the presentation of Christ's body, holy upon the cross, and glorious in the heavens. Again, to take, if possible, the subject out of the mouth of mine enemies, who are many, and who cover their sectarian malice under the cloak of their reverence for orthodoxy, I further clear this great truth by declaring, that I nevertheless believe in a hell eternal as the being of God, into which shall be cast beings possessed of a responsible will; men and angels, who having known God have not obeyed him, but preferred to obey themselves. All such as would not believe him, nor listen to him, shall be cast into hell, and shall know thereby, and thereby with trembling believe, that God is the Lord. But of men, and of angels too, there is a holy portion, an elect and chosen portion, who shall preserve the continuity and eternity of that creature-work, which man and angels are; and so believe I, that not by resurection, but by continuance of being, shall the inferior forms of creation subsist in the redeemed world, whereof the Son of Man is King and Lord. The assurance of this great truth, even the continuance of the earth, and of the animal life thereon, was the grace given to Noah, whereof the rainbow

is the appointed sign; and methinks, like all the signs and symbols of God, it hath a great appropriateness to the thing which it signifies. For upon the bosom of the dark cloud, its resplendent colours shew themselves like the beauty of an eternal world arising out of the darkness of this world's present sinful estate. It is produced from the light of the sun, yea, it is nothing different from the light of the sun, of whose pure whiteness it discovereth the hidden parts of beauty. It is light disclosed in its essential component parts, for beauty and for glory. But in order to this glorious manifestation of the mystery of light, it must first pass through the rain drops of the falling shower, whose waters as they fall catch the beams of the glorious sun, and spread their parts of beauty upon the dark clouds of the sky. Now the falling showers, the rain and the small rain, and the dew drop, and water in all its forms, are symbols of the Holy Ghost; and the effluence pro ceeding from the matter of light, the very light of very light, the effulgence of the glory, are the continual symbols of the Son; and the rainbow, thus produced, becomes the proper symbol of the attributes of Godhead, manifested by the coming forth of the Son, and his dissemination through the Holy Ghost. And whereas the rainbow, light's revealed glory, displays itself upon the bosom of the wintry cloud which threatens to deluge, and once did destroy all life; even so, upon the bosom of the deathproducing creation, upon the bosom of this world and its animated dust, now death-stricken, shall the varieties and the beauties, and the glories of the Divine goodness, through redemption, be for ever and ever revealed. And, oh, much further, if I were not speaking to a dull-eared generation, who scoff and sport themselves with their infidelity, could I say concerning this glorious symbol and assurance, of a creation washed from sin with the washing of regeneration and the purifying of the Holy Ghost.

Having thus ascertained that, whereof the rainbow is the token, even the covenant of Noah, as distinguished from the covenant of Circumcision and the covenant of Baptism, I may be permitted to confirm it by a reference to the livth chapter of Isaiah, where where the Lord being engaged in comforting his people Israel, with the assurance of the everlasting kindness with which he will yet

have mercy on them, and the great mercies with which he will yet gather them, and desiring to make the assurance of this doubly sure, doth for that purpose refer to this very covenant which he had made with his servant Noah : "For 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. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord, that hath mercy on thee" (9, 10). This passage doth place upon the same level, in respect of dignity and distinctness in the Divine purpose, the covenant made with Noah, and the covenant made with Abraham; yea, doth confirm the latter by the former. Now men do not confirm by a lesser, but by a greater; and therefore we may be assured that nothing, which God hath constituted is more certain and durable than the covenant he made with Noah. We see also from this passage that the proper subject of the covenant of Noah, is the earth, the habitable earth, with its animated tribes, from man downwards, just as the proper subject of the covenant, made with Abraham is the natural seed of Isaac. But as the covenant made with Abraham, for the natural seed of Isaac, did not prevent the grafting thereon what was always implied therein, even the privileges and prerogatives of the children by regeneration of Abraham's Seed, which is Christ, their spiritual life, their spiritual body, their spiritual glory, their spiritual kingdom; so doth not the covenant made with Noah, for the earth's perpetual continuance preclude the further benediction of it, the further purification of it, the eternal purgation of it by fire, which is contained in the Scriptures of the New Testament; as, for example, 2 Pet. iii.;-where the coming of the Lord is declared to have two blessed ends to accomplish the first of which is, "the judgment and perdition. of ungodly men," which is treated of in the preceding chapter; and, secondly, the purification of the heavens and the earth, and all the elements of creation, by the instrumentality of fire,-out of which complete purification (for by the law vessels that would stand the fire were required to be purified therewith) shall come new heavens

:

and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness,—as out of the heavens and the earth of the antediluvian time came the heavens and the earth which now are, and which are by Peter distinguished from the heavens and earth that were before, as much as those which are to be hereafter are distinguished from these which now are. I say that this purification by fire of the elements of nature, though it be not expressed in the covenant of Noah, is not denied therein, is not contrary thereto, doth not supersede it, any more than the spiritual covenant of baptism is denied or contradicted in the natural covenant of circumcision. And my own opinion is, that as the covenant made with Abraham for the seed of Jacob, the twelve tribes of Israel, shall be realized upon the earth to them at the same time that the spiritual covenant of baptism shall be realized to us who believe, by the first resurrection; so the covenant of Noah shall be realized upon the earth to all creatures, and to all men abiding thereon, at the same time that to us in the New Jerusalem, in that spiritual locality of the earth, shall be realized the superadded, or rather unfolded, part of that covenant which the New Testament contains: and my opinion further is, that at the end of the Millennium, when the period of God's justifying his faithfulness is over, the whole earth will be brought into the glorified state of matter in which the New Jerusalem during that time subsisteth. The covenant with Noah is therefore, in few words, the eternal permanency of the earth and its animated tribes; the earth and its animated tribes redeemed from the dominion of death into an everlasting life; and the rainbow is the appointed sign of the earth redeemed out of death's hand. This point, this very important point, being ascertained, we are ripe for interpretation.

The rainbow round about the throne of Him which was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone, is a token that in heaven God hath not forgotten the covenant of Noah, is a token that the God of heaven deemeth it not low-thoughted to think upon the earth. Yea, verily moreover, the throne of God insphered with a rainbow glory, as Ezekiel and John did see it, doth denote that his seat of government and of power is the earth bespanned with the rainbow's arch. A very daring thought were this for mortal man to think; a very daring word for

mortal man to utter, were it not most certainly declared in all the Scriptures, and held up in the promise to the church of Philadelphia (iii. 12), as the great object of the church's desire; and delineated in ch. xxi. as in very being, where the New Jerusalem being come down from heaven, God is said to have his tabernacle with men (ver. 3), and there to sit upon his throne (ver. 5). If any stagger at the thought of the glory of the Father being exhibited on this earth, let him consider what hath been said above, concerning the cloud that abode with the Israelites for a thousand years and more; this Jehovah's dwelling proves to be the Father's dwelling, by what was exhibited on the Mount of Transfiguration, when it insphered not Christ only, nor Moses and Elias only, but likewise Peter, James, and John; and the Father's voice came forth from it, saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." And if the Father's glory there clothed the glory of the Son of Man, for he was seen both in the glory of the Father and in his own glory, why should men doubt that it shall be so seen again on the earth; yea, that it shall be so seen for ever thereon; seeing Christ himself declareth, that when he comes again, he is to come in his own glory and in his Father's, and of the holy angels? Nor is it for nothing that in the three Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the act of the transfiguration follows next upon that declaration of Christ's; nor that the transfiguration is said to have occurred about an eight days after these sayings; nor that the transfiguration should be referred to by John in his Gospel, as the instance of that glory he is to come in, opposite from that tabernacle of flesh in which he hath already come (John i. 14); and by Peter as the great proof that the kingdom and glory of Christ is a matter of fact (2 Pet. i. 16—19): but, on the other hand, all this much-making of the transfiguration by the Holy Ghost, doth, beyond a doubt, demonstrate to me that it was intended to be the standing instance, the experimentum crucis, the realized fact, that Jesus Christ, in the glory of the Father as well as of his own glory, in the glory of the Godhead as well as of the manhood, should yet be exhibited upon the earth; yea, dwell upon the earth; yea, abide upon the earth for ever. And be it plainly spoken, I consider the man who disbelieves and denies that the