rit," which descended upon Elisha, of His "gifts," which, after His Ascension, "He gave unto men,") surely gives a corresponding impressiveness to the miracle of the Jordan, as that miracle illustrates His ascent. "Elias is received up, but not without water; for first he crosses Jordan, then horses carry Him to heaven." "And wilt not thou, who art, not with chariots of fire, but by water and the Spirit,' to mount up unto heaven, hasten at thy call?" Lastly, combined with these miracles, it will surely appear to be significant, that the substance, of itself heavy and motionless, the iron axe, which sunk, and lay' at the bottom, was, in the Jordan, raised to the surface, touched by the rod of the prophet. It would be said, on modern principles, that these miracles must have taken place somewhere; that the Jordan was the chief river of Canaan; that they would be more likely to have happened there than elsewhere; and the like: but one may surely dwell on the fact, that the Jordan alone is named; that "that ancient river, the river Kishon," might have been the scene of some of them, as well as the Jordan; and though the general meaning would have been the same in that case too, yet surely there is some distinct intimation intended, in that God's Providence concentrated these miracles about the Jordan, and that His Holy Spirit caused it to be recorded that they took place there. In tracing, reverentially, the ways of Providence, it is our very privilege not to be held down to the subordinate means which he employed; we have to do with the results, not with the apparent slightness or greatness, the obviousness or the remoteness, of the means, whereby they were brought about. He willed that His people should enter the promised land through the Jordan, though not the obvious way; or He raised the axe's head, though (as people would now often speak) it "chanced" that it was by the Jordan that the sons of the prophets had, by Elisha's permission, gone to make them a dwelling. The "common sense" view, that such things were "by chance" so and so, is a naked Epicureism;

*2 Kings ii. 9.

+ Eph. iv. 8.

Cyril Jer. Cat. iii, 5. add. xiv. 25.

S. Basil in S. Bapt. §3. T. 2. p. 115. In like way St. Ambrose, (de Elia et jejunio, fin.) "Lastly Elijah was borne to heaven. It again closed," [hav ing already been closed and opened by his prayer, Jam. v. 17, 18.1" but that Elijah opened it, who was carried up in a chariot of fire. And ye also may ascend if ye obtain the grace of the Sacrament." In reference to the same type, "a chariot to heaven" is one of the titles of Baptism in S. Basil, p. 117. S. Gregory Naz. Orat. de Bapt. init. S. Cyril of Jerus. Procat. 16. St. Am brose again, on the same type, Exp. Ev. sec. Luc. i. 37. "That flowing back of the river-waters to the source, when the stream was divided by Elias, (as Scripture says Jordan was driven back,') signifies the future mysteries of the saving laver, whereby the little ones, who are baptized, are reformed from their evil state to the original of their nature."

|| 2 Kings vi. 1—6.

enough for us that they were so; and if so, were designed to be so, i. e. they had a meaning. Separately, each may have had other meanings and objects; and while these were severally subserved, yet may all have been tending to the one further end, to illustrate the place where our Lord deigned to be baptized for us. And, as if to withdraw our minds from notions of "chance," other circumstances are blended therewith, plainly arbitrary, and so chosen, we must the more suppose, for some end. Thus it was in itself altogether arbitrary, that, in the raising of the iron axe (as in the miracles of Moses) wood was the means employed; it might have been raised as well by the prophet's word; and this very arbitrariness (combined with other instances of the like selection*) the rather authorizes or compels us to think that there was reference herein to the mystery of the Cross; that it is from the Cross that Baptism obtains its efficacy. "Elisha," remarks St. Ambrose,† "invoked the Name of the Lord, and the iron of the axe, which was sunk, arose from the water. Behold another kind of Baptism. Why? Because, before" Baptism, every man is weighed down and sunk like iron; when he has been baptized, no longer like iron, but now like some light sort of fruit-bearing wood, he is raised. Lo, then, another figure! It was an axe, wherewith wood was being cut. The handle fell from the axe, i. e. the iron was sunk. The son of the prophet knew not what to do; this only he knew, to ask the Prophet Elisha, and pray for a remedy. Then he cast in the wood, and the iron was raised. Seest thou then that in the cross of Christ all human weakness is raised?" "The priest," he subjoins,+ "comes, says a prayer at the font, invokes the Name of the Father, the Presence of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; uses heavenly words. What are these? They are Christ's; that we baptize in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' If, then, at the words and the inVocation of a holy man, the Trinity were present, how much more when the Eternal Word operates!" And S. Justin," Elisha having cast wood into the river Jordan, brought up the iron of the axe, wherewith the sons of the prophets had gone to cut wood, to build

* Justin M. Dial. 86. enumerates the following combinations : Moses' rod dividing the Red sea; Jacob's rods by the gutters" (on which S. Greg. Nyss. says, "From what time Jacob placed the three rods by the fountain, the polytheist, Laban, became poor, and Jacob wealthy and rich in lambs. Be Laban in allegory referred to the devil, Jacob, to Christ. For after Baptism Christ took away also the troop of the devil, and Himself became rich." 1. c. p. 375.) "Jacob's passing the Jordan with his staff; the twelve wells, and seventy palmtrees after the passage of the Red the curing of the waters of Mara, and above;) the tree planted by the rivers of

Elisha's making the iron to sw sca;

water, which thereupon yields fruit.” Ps. i.

† De Sacr. ii. 4. § 11.

De Sacr. c. 5. § 14.

Dial. 86. add also S. Chrysostome (below, p. 291.)

a house, wherein they purposed to speak of and meditate on the law and commandments of God; and us, being sunk by the great weight of sins which we had committed, our Christ, by being crucified upon the wood, and purifying us with water, hath redeemed, and made a house of prayer and worship." Again, the Holy Spirit has caused it to be recorded, that Jacob "with his staff crossed this Jordan," and, thereupon, was multiplied, and "became two bands;" the two symbols, "water" (and that, the Jordan,) and "wood," are again united, and the enlargement of him who had the blessing of Abraham, is consequent thereon.*

If, again, the cleansing of the leprous Naaman in the Jordan was, typical of the cleansing through Baptism, it will hardly be doubted but that our Lord, when He sent the blind man to wash in the pool of Siloam, gave an intimation of the operation of the Spirit therein, in enlightening our blindness.† St. John, by pausing to comment, "which is by interpretation, "sent,'" plainly indicates the connection of that washing with our Lord; it must be owned that the act was symbolical of some washing, actual or figurative; and our Lord, in that He annexed an actual washing, as the condition of recovery of sight, directs us rather to an actual washing in Baptism (which is also a washing in His Blood) than to one which should be merely figurative, without the intervention of the element which He required.

And if this restoration and cure through the washing in Siloam represented ours through Baptism, then may we the readier think that the annual cure at the pool of Bethesda, when one from above moved the waters, was to prepare the Jews to believe what they could not see, that the diseases, not of the body, but of the soul, should be cured by the same element, in itself so weak and powerless. It stood, as St. Chrysostom observes, as intermediate be

* See Justin M. p. 275, note *.

"He washed his eyes in that pool, which is interpreted 'sent,' i. e. he was baptized in Christ."-Aug. Tr. 44. in Joh. 2. So also Cyril Alex. ad loc. L. 6. in Joh. and Severus ad loc. ap. Corder. Caten. "the pool of 'Siloa, which is, sent,' foresignifies the spiritual re-formation which was to take place through Baptism."

Ad. loc. Hom. 36. (al. 35.) 1."What is this mode of cure? What mystery is here hinted to us? For it was not written without good ground, but depicts to us, as an image and outline, what was to be, so that its exceeding strangeness and unwontedness, when it came to pass, might not injure in the many the power of faith.-A Baptism there was to be given, having great power and a mighty gift; a Baptism cleansing all sins, and giving life to the dead. This then is foreshadowed in the pool, and many other things, as in an image; and, first, water was given, purifying only bodily stains, and unreal defilements, and apparent only, as from a funeral, or leprosy, or the like. And many such may one observe wrought by water under the Old Testament for this purpose. First, then, He removed bodily defilements by water, then divers infirmities. For God, willing to bring us nearer the gift of Baptism,

tween the images of the law, which cleansed only unreal impurities, and the full reality. It cured actual, though but corporeal diseases; they incorporeal, but only figurative; other miraculous cures, Naaman's and that in the pool of Siloam, were transient only, single acts of healing power put forth, and then withdrawn; this was permanent, though still circumscribed in its operation;* Baptism united all, cleansing incorporeal, but still real, diseases; a power, not temporary, but abiding; and inexhaustible. "The figure,t the bodily

now cures not defilements only, but diseases. For the images, whether of Baptism, or the Passion, or any other, as they come nearer the truth, are more transparent than the older.-And an angel descending troubled the water, and deposited therein a healing power, that the Jews might learn, that much more could the Lord of the angels heal all the diseases of the soul. But as then the waters did not heal by any virtue of their own, (for then would it have taken place continually,) but through the operation of the angel, so with us also, the water simply does not effect it, but when it has received the grace of the Spirit, then it frees from all sin.-This was done, that they who had learnt that the diseases of the body could be healed in water, and had been long inured to this, might the more readily believe that the diseases of the soul also could be healed.

*The fathers understood by kaтà kaιpòv, Joh. v. 4. "yearly;" and it was thought that the annual cure was at Pentecost. The one annual cure is dwelt upon by Tertullian: (see below.) S. Cyril Alex. ad loc.; S. Ambrose de Myst. c. 4. § 22. "That pool was in Jerusalem, wherein one was cured; but no one was cured before the angel had descended." "Then one was cured, now all; or rather, only the one Christian people.-That pool, then, was a figure, that you may believe that the Divine power descends into this fount." Ib. and S. Chrysostome, adv. ebrios. et de Res. § 4, 5. T. i. p. 444. "After the troubling of the water, one sick person went in and was healed; one only was cured in the year, and the grace was forthwith exhausted; not from the poverty of the giver, but the weakness of the receivers. The angel' then went down into the pool and troubled the waters,' and one was healed; the Lord of the angels went down into the Jordan, and troubled the water, and healed the whole world. In the former case, then, the second who went down was not healed; for that grace was given to the Jews, the poor and weak; but now after the first a second, after the second a third, after the third a fourth, nay, were you to cast into this pool, ten, twenty, a hundred, tens of thousands, yea the whole world, the grace is not exhausted, the gift not expended, the streams not defiled. A new mode of cleansing, not corporeal; for of bodies the more the streams cleanse, the more they are defiled; but here, the more they wash the purer they become. Seest thou the greatness of the gift? Guard then, O man, its greatness." And again, "That was a servile grace. So great the difference between the power of servants and the self-agency of the Lord.That healed one, this the whole world; that descending and troubling the water, this not so; but it suffices amply to invoke His Name upon the waters, and to deposite in them the whole matter of healing; that cured bodily defects, this the evil of the soul also."-Hom. in Paral. et de Christi Divinit. c. Anom. xii. 1. T. i. p. 548, 9.

†Tertull. de Bapt. c. 3. It is referred to in the Gothic Liturgy; see below, p. 288. These pools being typical, so again was that of the fuller's field, near which deliverance was promised to Judah, and that in connection with the birth of " the Virgin."-See Cyril Alex. L. 1. in Es. Orat. 4. T. ii. p. 117.

remedy, foretold the spiritual remedy, in that proportion in which carnal things ever precede, and figure, the spiritual. As the grace of God was enlarged among men, the angel and the waters had increased efficacy; they which removed bodily defects, now cure the spirit; they which worked bodily health now restore the spiritual; they which delivered one but once in the year, now daily give life to nations, abolishing death by the washing away of sins." It may be interesting to observe how the typical interpretations of the Church centered in their Lord; and the paralytic's confession, after lying for "thirty and eight years," "Lord, I have no man," was to them an acknowledgment, that human nature must lie helpless, within sight of its cure, but powerless to obtain it, until He the second Adam should come, Who being the seed of the woman, was also the Lord from heaven."*

The Christian miracle is increased, not diminished, by the simplicity of the outward sign. Outward miracles were for a carnal generation, which "unless they saw signs and wonders, would not believe." "For a sign that the angel had descended," says St. Ambrose,† "the water was moved, for the sake of the unbelieving. For them was a sign, for thee faith; to them the angel descended, of thee the Holy Spirit; for them the creature was moved, for thee Christ Himself operateth, the Lord of the creature." "Sayest thou, perhaps, 'Why is it not moved now? Hear why. Signs are for the unbelieving, faith for the believing." "Then" [at the day of Pentecost] "there was a manifest witness of His coming; but on us now is bestowed the prerogative of faith; because in the

*Ambr. de Myst. c. 4. § 22, 23. "Lastly, that paralytic waited for a man. For whom, but the Lord Jesus, born of a Virgin, at whose coming the shadow was no longer to cure one, but the Truth, all ?" And de Sacr. ii. 6. 7. "How much greater is the grace of the Church, in which all are saved, whosoever go down! But see the mystery. Our Lord Jesus Christ came to the Pool, many sick lay there. Then He saith to that paralytic, 'Go down;' he saith, "I have no man.' See wherein thou art baptised. Whence is Baptism but from the Cross of Christ, from the Death of Christ? The whole mystery is therein contained, that He suffered for thee. In Him shalt thou be redeemed; in Him shalt thou be saved. 'I have,' he saith, 'no man,' i. e. because by man is death, and by man the resurrection from the dead.' He could not go down, could not be saved, who did not believe that our Lord Jesus had taken the flesh of the Virgin. But he who waited for the Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus, expecting Him, of Whom it was said, 'and the Lord shall send a Man who shall save them,' said, 'I have no man,' and therefore it was vouchsafed him to attain a cure, because he believed in Him to come." And S. Greg. Naz. Orat. xli. 33. Yesterday thou layest, paralytic and helpless on thy couch, and hadst no man to cast thee into the pool, when the water was troubled; to-day thou hast found a Man, Who is also God, or, to speak more truly, God and Man.”

† De Myst. 1. c.

Ib. ii. 5. fin.

De Sacr. ii. 2. § 4.