We will go back to the creation. The first account we have of the earth, it was enveloped in a mass of waters; it was called forth from the womb of liquid elements. Here was the first birth of our creation—the waters rolled back, and the dry land appeared, and was soon clothed upon with vegetable and animal existence. This was similar to all other births; being first encompassed in a flood of mighty waters, it burst forth from them, and was soon clothed with all the beauties of the vegetable kingdom. By and by it became polluted by Adam's transgression, and was thus brought under the sentence of death, with all things connected with it; and as our text says, it must wax old and die, in like manner as the inhabitants upon the face thereof.

The heavens and the earth were thus polluted, that is, the material heavens, and everything connected with our globe; all fell when man fell, and became subject to death when man became subject to it. Both man and the earth are redeemed from the original sin without ordinances; but soon we find new sins committed by the fallen sons of Adam, and the earth became corrupted before the Lord by their transgressions. It needs redeeming ordinances for these second transgressions. The Lord ordained baptism, or immersion of the earth in water, as a justifying ordinance. Said he to Noah, “Build an ark for the saving of thyself and house, for I will immerse the earth in water, that the sins which have corrupted it may be washed away from its face.” The fountains of the great deep, and the windows on high, were opened, and the rains came and overwhelmed the earth; and the dry land disappeared in the womb of the mighty waters, even as in the beginning. The waters were assuaged; the earth came forth clothed with innocence, like the newborn child, having been baptized or born again from the ocean flood; and thus the old earth was buried with all its deeds, and arose to a newness of life, its sins being washed away, even as man has to be immersed in water to wash away his own personal sins.