Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/59

 removed, but by the execution of a judgment which should consign those wicked spirits to their final abodes, and thus clear the way: for the descent from heaven of a brighter light, and a purer love? That these things were accomplished is plainly revealed, first, by the catastrophe of the flood, and secondly, by the establishment of another Church. Doubtless, the flood was the last judgment upon the Adamic dispensation; and it seems quite clear that the new Church which immediately followed was attended with some new conditions of spiritual life.

That new Church was begun with Noah: he found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and was a just man, perfect in his generation, and walked before God. "And God spake unto Noah and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you." This dispensation so auspiciously begun did not long remain in its integrity. The history of its decay draws attention to several lapses which marked the process of its fall. Soon after its establishment we read that Noah drank wine, was drunken, and uncovered in his tent, Canaan was cursed, and his father died. Thus, after successive offences against the Divine law, the unity of the Church was broken and divisions followed. And then the people proposed to build a city and a tower, whose top should reach unto heaven, to make a name, lest they should be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth This circumstance reveals to us the profane conduct which the love of the world had induced among them. God was practically forgotten in consequence of the eminent selfishness which prevailed among them; and, therefore, "the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the