The fear of man is now lodged in the heart of every other creature. Henceforth the service, rendered by the inferior orders of creation to man, must be the constrained result of "fear and dread." In life, and in death, the lower animals were to be at the service of man. All creation is delivered, by God's everlasting covenant, from the fear of a second deluge. Judgment is never again to take that shape. "The world that then was, being overflowed with _water_, perished; but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto _fire_ against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." The earth was once purged with water; and it will be again purged by fire; and in this second purgation none will escape, save those, who have fled for refuge to him who has passed through the deep waters of death, and met the fire of divine judgment. "And God said, This is the token of the covenant ... I do set my bow in the cloud ... and I will remember my covenant." The whole creation rests, as to its exemption from a second deluge, on the eternal stability of God's covenant, of which the bow is the token; and it is happy to bear in mind, that when the bow appears, the eye of God rests upon it; and man is cast, not upon his own imperfect and most uncertain memory, but upon God's. "I," says God, "will remember." How sweet to think of what God will, and what he will not, remember! He will remember his own covenant, but he will not remember his people's sins. The cross, which ratifies the former, puts away the latter. The belief of this gives peace to the troubled heart and uneasy conscience. "And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that _the bow shall be seen in the cloud_." Beautiful and most expressive emblem! The beams of the sun, reflected from that which threatens judgment, tranquillize the heart, as telling of God's covenant, God's salvation, and God's remembrance. Precious, most precious sunbeams, deriving additional beauty from the very cloud which reflects them! How forcibly does this bow in the cloud remind us of Calvary. There we see a cloud indeed,--a dark, thick, heavy cloud of judgment, discharging itself upon the sacred head of the Lamb of God,--a cloud so dark, that even at mid-day "there was darkness over all the earth." But, blessed be God, faith discerns, in that heaviest cloud that ever gathered, the most brilliant and beauteous bow that ever appeared; for it sees the bright beams of God's eternal love darting through the awful gloom, and reflected in the cloud. It hears, too, the words, "It is finished," issuing from amid the darkness, and in those words it recognizes the perfect ratification of God's everlasting covenant, not only with creation, but with the tribes of Israel and the Church of God.