As the history thus furnishes a warning against a sinful carelessness and indifference to God's institution, so does another part of it against that self-willed rigorousness and discontent at its state, such as God has allowed it to be, mingled of the evil and the good, which seduces men to attempt to construct another Church, or form Churches within the Church, from which all evil is to be excluded. The admission of the clean and unclean into the saving ark was to the Jew a hidden prophecy, that "to the Gentiles also was grant ed repentance unto life," such as was authoritatively revealed in the vision of St. Peter; to the Donatists it forbad any narrowing of the communion of the Church by a self-erected standard of purity. "All kinds of animals," says St. Augustine,* " are inclosed in the ark, as the Church contains all nations, which were signified also in the sheet shown to St. Peter.. Clean and unclean animals are there, as in the sacraments of the Church are found both good and bad.""The ark of Noah," says St. Jerome,t "was a type of the Church, as saith the Apostle Peter. As in that were all kinds of animals, so in this are men of all nations and characters. As pard and goats, wolf and lambs were there, so here also the righteous and sinners, i. e. vessels of gold and silver are hard by those of wood and clay. The ark has its stories; the Church has many mansions." It could not be, but that in a history so momentous, other points also, though not touched upon in Holy Scripture, would also bear a hidden meaning. The ancient Church believed that all was significant? that it was full of mysteries, "some things referring to raven returned not, either intercepted by the waters, or enticed by some floating corpse, signifying how men, defiled by the uncleanness of desire, and so, too intent on the things without in this world, are either rebaptized, or are seduced and held by those whom, without the ark, i. e. out of the Church, Baptism slays."-Aug. c. Faust. xii. 20. S. Hilary has the same reference to the "corpse." 1. c. § 11. e. Faust. xii. 15. The first part of this S. Augustine repeats in Joh. Tr. ix. 11. de Civ. D. xvi. fin. Orig, in Gen. Hom. 2. § 5. and St. Cyril of Jerus. xvii. 10. † Adv. Lucif. 22. add adv. Jovin. i. 17. ii. 22. Ep. 123. ad Ageruch. § 9. St. Augustine mentions the like interpretation of the stories of the ark, de Civ. D. 1. c. and Origen, Hom. 2. in Gen, § 3. "The people saved in the Church are compared with all those, men or animals, saved in the ark. But because all make not the same progress in the faith, nor have equal merits, therefore that ark also hath not one mansion only for all, but there are lower, second and third stories above; to show, that although all in the Church are held together within one faith, and are cleansed by one Baptism, yet all make not the same advances, but every one in his own order."-Add § 5. E. g. S. Chrysostome speaks of its "mysteries." Hom. de terra. mot. et Laz. vi. 7. and so S. Ambrose (below.) S. Jerome of its " sacraments," adv. Lucif. 22. and St. Augustine, c. adv. leg. et proph. i. 45. Africanus, "Each of these details signifieth something especial."-Chronic. ap. Routh, Reliq. S. ii. 129. The facts there mentioned, were, if any understand them, also prophecies."-Aug, 1. c. Christ, some to the Church, and thus the whole to Christ."* Specially it is observable how, with the Scriptural reference to Baptism, they love to dwell on the doctrine of the Trinity; the Son, as revealed in the Cross; the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Him, and through Him to believers, as already shadowed forth in the coming down of the Dove to the One Righteous Man.t "Forthwith" [on the cleansing of the world by the flood]" the Dove of the Holy Spirit (that foul bird being first removed) flies down to Noah, as to Christ in Jordan, and with the branch of refreshment and of light announces peace to the world." "Thou seest the water," sa s St. Ambrose, "seest the wood, beholdest the Dove, and doubtes thou of the mystery?" "The wood is that whereon the Lord Jesus Iwas nailed when He suffered for us. 'The Dove is that in whose form the Holy Spirit descended, who inspireth thee with peace of soul, tranquillity of mind." "Noah," says St. Chrysostome," was Christ, the Dove, the Holy Spirit; the olive branch, the loving kindness of God." Tertullian gives the same, with an earnest warn ing against relapse. "For as after the waters of the deluge, whereby the ancient iniquity was purged away, after the Baptism (so to speak) of the world, the herald dove, sent out from the ark, and returning with the olive-branch, announced to the earth peace from the Divine wrath; by the same ordinance of a spiritual washing, does the dove of the Holy Spirit fly to the earth, i. e. to our flesh, as it emergeth from the laver after its ancient offences, bearing the peace of God, sent forth from the heavens, where the Church is the ark portrayed. But the world again sins, whence Baptism should so far ill correspond with the deluge. Therefore is it destined to fire, as also is that man, who after Baptism renews his sins, so that this also is to be taken as significant for our instruction." And S. Ambrose adds the like:** "The raven is the type of sin, which goeth forth, and returneth not, if thou also keep thyself after the pattern of the righteous man." And so, doubtless, our redemption, and the means of its application to ourselves, are portrayed in the minuter details of this great dispensation. The unity of the Church may well be thought to be desig *“Quod totum Christus est.”—Aug. c. Faust. xii. 39. † In another point of view then Noah is the type of Christ, as St. Aug. says, "Christ also was typified in Noah, and in that ark of the universe."Tr. ix. in Joh. § 11. so S. Chrys. inf. Orig. Hom. 2. in Gen. § 3. S. Jerome, Ep. 69. ad Ocean. § 6. The "raven" he regards as an emblem of Satan, as he says, adv. Lucif. 22. "In the Baptism of the Church, that most foul bird being expelled, i. e. the devil, the dove of the Holy Spirit announces peace to our earth." De Myst. c. 3. § 10, 11. 1. c. Greg. Naz. Or. 39. § 16. "Of old, long before, the dove was practised to announce the close of the flood." And others, ap. S. Cyril. xvii. 10. ¶ De Bapt. c. 8. **1. c. 66 nated by the anointing of the ark within and without, so that it was compact together, and at unity with itself;" the "fervent charity," whereby it is so held, by the materials recorded; for "bitumen* is the most burning and vehement cement, signifying the ardor of love, through the force of its great might enduring all things to hold' together the spiritual community; "for not with asphaltus and pitch, but with the Holy Spirit, are its planks anointed:" its " being finished in one, above," that the Church, the body of Christ, "gathered into unity, is raised on high and perfected" in Him: the seven clean animals, "the seven-folds operations of the Holy Spirit ;" the enter ing the ark on the seventh day, "that we are baptized in hope of that rest yet in store, which is signified by the seventh day ;" the resting of the ark on the seventh month, the type of that rest; the return of the dove, that "rest is not promised in the N. T. to the saints in this world;"** its not returning after seven days, "the** end of the world, when there shall be a rest for the saints, not now in the sacrament of hope, whereby the Church is held together in this world, so long as that is drunk which flowed from the side of Christ, but in the very perfectness of eternal salvation, when the kingdom shall be delivered to God and the Father; when in the clear contemplation of unchangeable truth we shall not need the embodying thereof in mysteries." And amid this and other significance of numbers, it may the rather be supposed that that of eight, which St. Peter insists upon, "wherein few, that is, eight souls," had also reference to the day of the Resurrection, "through whichtt Baptism saves us," "because‡‡ in Christ * Aug. c. Faust. xii. 14. add. de Unit. Eccl. § 9. in Ps. 103. S. 3. § 2. † S. Chrys. Hom、 1. de laud. Ap. Paul. The concord is insisted on also by S. Clement of Rome. "The Lord, through Noah, saved all the livin~ creatures who in concord entered the ark.”—Ep. i. § 9. Aug. c. Faust. xii. 16. Orig. Hom. 2. in Gen. § 5. "The whole fabric is brought together into one, because there is "One God the Father, of Whom are all things, and One Lord, and one Faith of the Church, one Baptism, one body, and one Spirit,' and all things are hastening to one end of being perfected in God." Aug. c. Faust. xii. § 15. TIb. 19. tt 1 Pet. iii. 21. Ib. 17, comp. Heb. iii. iv. ** Ib. § 20. Aug. c. Faust. xii. 15. adv. leg. et Proph. add i. § 45. and de Civ. D. xvi. 26. So Justin M. "The number eight was a symbol of the eighth day, whereon our Christ appeared, having risen from the dead, which yet in dignity ever was the first."-Dial. c. Tryph. § 138. p. 229. The number eight was accordingly, throughout all Christian antiquity, regarded as symbolical of our Lord's resurrection, of the complete remission of sins, of perfection, of the new dispensation of eternity. See Coteler on S. Barn. Ep. Patr. Ap. T. i. 45—48. Clem. Al. Strom. L. 6. § 16. p. 810. ed. Pott. Origen, Hom. 23. in Num. § 10. 11. Jerome L. xii. in Ezek. c. xl. 24-29. Basil in Hexaem. Hom. 2. fin. Athanas. in Ps. 6. Ambros. Ep. 44. ad Horontian. § 14, 15.; in Ps. 118. Prol.; Expos. Ev. sec. Luc. L. 5. § 49.L. 7. § 6. and 173. Aug. in Ps. 6. et 11. Chrysostome de compunct. ad Stelech. L. 2. § 4. Hilary in Ps. 118. Prolog. Greg. dawned the hope of our resurrection, who on the eighth day, i. e. the first after the seventh of the sabbath, rose again from the dead, which day was the third from the Passion, but in the number of the days, as they revolve throughout all time, is both the eighth and the first." The more any one can realize these details, the more He must obviously admire the unity and harmony of God's dispensations; but let any narrow the correspondence as closely as he can, yet if he think lightly of Water Baptism, he must surely, if he compare his mind with that of St. Peter, find himself reproved, in that the Apostle held the flood, which covered the face of the whole earth, and the tops of the highest mountains, and prevailed upwards, to be but a shadow and type of the baptismal stream, which each of our little ones enters as a child of wrath," and arises "a child of God, a member of Christ, an inheritor of the kingdom of Heaven.” Passage of the Red Sea. The contrast of destruction and preservation, which is contained in the type of the deluge, is brought out more prominently in that of the passage of the Red Sea ;t and that, both because the destruction is in this case related to have been the means of the preservation, and because one enemy of God and of His redeemed, stands forth most conspicuously. The reference of this type to Baptism (being so distinctly asserted by St. Pault) could not of course be questioned by any Christian; and as little that of the manna to the Holy Eucharist; yet, in modern days, neither has the whole of its instructiveness been realized, nor the light thrown upon the sacramental character of the history. Its special teaching, as dwelt upon by St. Paul himself, is this; the completeness and universality of our deliverance, through Baptism, and the subsequent peril of losing its fruits; and that, although once delivered, we may yet not reach the promised inheritance. The flood portrays the Church, as a small portion only of the world; "wherein few, that is, eight souls, were Naz. Orat. xli. in Pentec. 2. (quoting elder writers) xliv. in Nov. Domin. § 5. * 66 Baptism is a greater deluge than that described by Moses, since more are baptized than were drowned by the deluge."-Luther, Serm. de Baptismo, ap. Gerhard. loci de S. Bapt. § 9. "The water," says S. Augustine, "prevailed fifteen cubits upwards above the height of the mountains,” i. e. this sacrament trancsends all the wisdom of the proud."- -c. Faust. xii. 19. †This was expressed in the old Latin form, which was followed in Edward VI's first book; "and did'st drown in the Red sea obstinate (wicked, Eng.) king Pharaoh with all his, and leddest Thy people through, that this laver of Thy holy Baptism hereafter might be signified."-See Note M. +1 Cor. x. saved by water;" the passage of the Red Sea, and the history dependent on it, that, even of the Church, who had been so saved once, a portion only,-it is to be feared (without insisting on the actual proportions) a small portion only-should enter into their rest. However this may be, the alarming portion of the history is that set forth by St. Paul. He had just inculcated the necessity of earnestness, diligence, temperance, self-discipline, that we may not forfeit "the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus ;" and this he had exemplified both in the rules which men observe in earthly rewards, and in his own case. Then, lest any should think themselves secure in the privileges they had received, he shows how their fathers had all received the corresponding privileges, but, displeasing God, the most had perished. Some had fallen by one sin, some by another; some had been spared for a while, some taken; some had reached almost the borders of the promised land, and then, "at the last hour, had fallen from"* Him all had been saved, yet at last, in despite of every past and present mercy, the past deliverance, the sea, the cloud, the manna, the spiritual meat, the spiritual rock, and God's long forbearance, the most, one after the other, perished. St. Paul (as any one must observe) lays great stress on the universality of these gifts; "all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink, but with the most of them God was not well-pleased." It is a fearful picture, how all had, up to a certain point, been brought safe; all had been "saved from their enemies, and from the hand of them that hated them;" all had been placed safely on the opposite shore; but then a new scene of trial began; and it is a heavy sight to watch how each different trial seduced "some of them," and "they were destroyed:" it is an earnest warning, which closes the list, "all these things happened to them, as types, and they are written for our admonition." St. Paul, then, recognizes the risk, that men, having received privileges, should rest satisfied therewith, and become slothful and careless; his very object here is to meet this case; but how does he meet it? by denying that they had received them, and bidding them seek to obtain them? No! His argument pre-supposes in the strongest way that all had had them, but that this would not alone suffice; they must use them, be watchful in keeping them, or, like their forefathers, perish. "Think‡ not, he says, that because ye have believed, this sufficeth to your salvation. As it profited them not, to have enjoyed gifts so great, so neither will it you to have obtained Baptism, and been admitted to the spiritual mysteries, unless ye shall † Ver. 7, 8, 9, 10. Burial Service. |