FLOOD.
And the flood was forty days upon the earth.—Genesis, vii. 17.
The Lord sitteth upon the flood: yea the Lord sitteth King for ever.—Psalm xxix. 10.
For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.—Matthew, xxiv. 38, 39.
By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.—Hebrews, xi. 7.
God spared not the old world, but saved Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly.—II. Peter, ii. 5.
He preached
Conversion and repentance, as to souls
In prison under dangers imminent:
But all in vain, which, when he saw, he ceased
Contending, and removed his tents far off,
Then from the mountain hewing timbers tall,
Began to build a vessel of huge bulk.
Milton.
And now, the thickening sky
Like a dark ceiling stood; down rushed the rain
Impetuous, and continued till the earth
No more was seen. The floating vessel swam
Uplifted, and secure with beaked prow,
Rode tilting o’er the waves; all dwellings else
Flood overwhelmed, and them, with all their pomp,
Deep under water rolled; sea covered sea,
Sea without shore; and in their palaces,
Where luxury late reigned, sea monsters whelped
And stabled. Of mankind, so numerous late,
All left in one small bottom swam imbarked.
Milton.
Methinks I see a distant vessel ride,
A lonely object on the shoreless tide,
Within whose ark the innocent have found
Safety, when stayed destruction ravens round;
Thus, in the hour of vengeance, God, who knows
His servants, spares them, while He smites His foes.
James Montgomery.
Sunk beneath the wave,
The guilty share an universal grave;
One wilderness of waters rolls in view,
And heaven and ocean wear one turbid hue;
Still stream unbroken torrents from the skies,
Higher, beneath, the inundations rise;
A lurid twilight glares athwart the scene,
Now thunders peal, faint lightnings flash between.
James Montgomery.
Down rush the torrents from above; the deep
Opens in all its fountains, ceaseless, still
Ceaseless: the muddy waters eddying fill
The valleys. High on every mound and steep,
In crowds, men, women, children, cattle, sheep,
Stand shivering with dismay, the horrible
Confusion eyeing; and, from hill to hill,
They shout in agony, or shriek, or weep,
In vain! the waters gain upon them. Lo!
The ark careering past, their hands they stretch
For help; and now you see some drowning wretch
Pursue the sacred vessel; but in woe
No pity must they have; so on they go.—
Now all is one wide sea without a beach.
Morehead.
Behold the awful Deity enthroned
In darkness awful—inaccessible,
And order almost unto chaos changed;
Tremendous gloom! that blots the sun’s bright beams,
And more than midnight horrors shroud the skies,
The faint grey twilight gleaming thro’ the clouds,
Discover, floating on a shoreless sea,
The chosen eight embosom’d in the Ark,
One family preserved to renovate
The world, Jehovah’s judgments have destroyed.
*****
But see the bow its new-created dyes
Begin to beam propitious from the cloud—
“Destructive waters shall no more prevail,
No more become a flood upon the earth.”
S. Hughes.