-- CHAPTER IV: The instance of Noah, and his being saved in an ark, and God's covenant made with him

-- CHAPTER IV: The instance of Noah, and his being saved in an ark, and God's covenant made with him

CHAPTER IV

The instance of Noah, and his being saved in an ark, and God's covenant made with him, proved more largely and fully to be a great exemplar and typical representation of election and the covenant of grace.

In that draught of the line of election that runs through the whole Scriptures, I could but briefly touch upon that one particular instance of Noah and his sons; but my meditations have been since more especially enlarged about this Noah, that not only himself, in his own person, as recorded in his story, to have been a special instance and example of electing grace, and of the covenant thence flowing, but farther, that God's covenants made with him and his seed, and God's dealings with him according to those covenants, were prophetic figures of his covenant with his church, in the times of the New Testament; who were, by virtue of the election of grace, to be raised up out of his loins. And the demonstration of this out of the Scriptures is the design and subject of this appendix, which I chose thus to sever from the former, because it would have taken up too much room in that brief enumeration of so many other persons that are instances of election in that catalogue; and yet it subserveth to the same end and purpose. I therefore annex it thereunto, as an appendix to that discourse.

I have a long time looked at that which both the Old Testament and the New style the 'covenant of grace,' or the 'new covenant,' to be but election purposes and designs put into promises; God expressing therein the gracious intentions and resolutions of himself towards his elect, which had been taken up by him from eternity; only whereas election in God's heart then did design the individual persons, together with the things decreed to them; he hath in the promises and revealed declarations of the covenant of grace, concealed the particular persons, and doth only indefinitely

propound the subjects of those promises, touching the persons intended, that they are 'sinners of mankind,' and that of all sorts and conditions, to whom, and upon whom, God therein declareth that he will certainly and infallibly make good that covenant and the promises thereof. And himself hath therein undertaken to perform it in them, though not for them, as to give them 'new hearts and new spirits,' to 'teach them to know him' and his Son Christ, the mediator of that covenant, and the like; and in such absolute terms of promises on God's part doth that covenant run, with difference from the covenant of works, so as the materials of the covenant of grace are all one with election decrees in the things decreed, though the persons are not named whom God will infallibly bestow them upon, but yet with greater certainty declared that God will perform it to and amongst mankind; and yet the persons who being left indefinite, that ought to set all a-work to seek to come under it, in such ways as God hath commanded all men that [are] within the hearing of it [to] seek him in [it].

Noah's story doth partly in the reality to his own person, partly in the type of things in that story, [contain] these two eminent parts concerning our salvation.

1. God's covenant of grace, and God's everlasting kindness therein, which is the spring of that covenant, and for that I take Isa. 54:9, 10 for my text.

2. The type of the mediator of that covenant, Christ, which was the ark; and how that Christ, as signified in our baptism, is the sole author of salvation to us; and for that I refer to the 1 Peter 3:20, 21,

'Which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a-preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away the filthiness of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward

God), by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.'

3. The work of the covenant in us and upon us, namely, of faith, &c., which God hath as peremptorily also ordained to be the means of the application of Christ for salvation to us, and without which we shall not be saved. And for this take Noah's instance: Heb. 11:7, 'By faith

Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteous[ness] which is by faith.' The example of Noah there in the type set out, gives us a lively pattern of the work of salvation in us, answering to his faith about the ark (that is) through the work of application to us by faith on Christ.

4. The difficulties, distresses, hazards, temptations, through which we pass (after our being in Christ), under the covenant of grace, ere we arrive at heaven; and for this I take those words in the fore-cited

Isa. 54:11, 'O thou afflicted, and tossed with tempest, and not comforted!' speaking to his church, which in their coherence with the verses afore, 9 and 10, have manifestly a respect to Noah's condition in the ark, which in those 9th and 10th verses God hath first made mention of.

And it is the first of those, upon Isa. 54:9, 10, which I single forth for my present argument; which is an exemplification of election, and of the covenant of grace in Noah's person and story.

SECTION I

Of election, and the covenant of grace, and the church of the New Testament, the subject of both, as typified forth in Noah's story.—

That Noah, in his own person, was intended as an example of election; the covenants made with him before the flood, and with him and his sons after, were types of the covenant of grace; proved in a discourse on Isa. 54:7–11.

For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment;

but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. For this is us the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I will not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills shall he removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted!—ISA.

54:7–11.

That these words speak, in the first place, the pure covenant of grace, and the everlastingness and perpetuity of that grace and covenant, as it flows in God's heart in and from election, may be apparent in the very reading the words; and, secondly, that they refer to the story of Noah's covenant and waters at the flood, as the figure and exemplification thereof, I hope, through God's grace, to make evident throughout this whole discourse; but at present,

1. For the first, you have not only the very word covenant in express terms,—ver. 10, 'My covenant,' and that 'of my peace,'—but also the pure grace and kindness of God, out of which he made the covenant, and which he exerciseth throughout in all the dispensations of it.

This those many words that surround the text do declare; as that, 'with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee,' ver. 8; 'my kindness shall not depart from thee, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee,' ver. 10. And that the grace of election, though it be not under that term or word mentioned, yet in sense and reality is specified, that word, 'with everlasting kindness,' insinuates, as grasping within it both everlastings; a kindness everlasting for time to come, being but the continuation of an everlasting mercy and kindness that hath been for ever of old: Ps. 25:6, 'Remember, O Lord, thy tender mercies and thy loving-kindnesses; for they have been ever of old;' that as God's own everlastingness comprehendeth both,

—Ps. 90:2, 'Even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God,'—so doth and is his loving-kindness towards us. And those other words,

'Says the Lord that hath mercy on thee,' miserator tuus; which is a

periphrasis of election, and is tantamount as to say, 'The Lord who hath chosen thee,' as Rom. 9 (where election is handled), the apostle expressly doth shew.

2. For the second of those, that these things are found in and may be fetched out of Noah's story and covenant, declared to him upon occasion of the flood, appears from this in the text, that God, to verify the truth of his covenant to his church, allegeth and referreth both himself and us to the waters of Noah: 'This is the waters of Noah to me‚' saith he.

Three general heads of the first part of this discourse drawn forth out of the words, ver. 9.

In which words, and those that follow, God doth (for they are his words by the prophet, as his mouth), 1, at once point us both to Noah's person (whom therefore he twice mentions), and his waters in his salvation from them, as an example of that covenant and mercy which now he promiseth unto his church, and all her children

(as ver. 13 they are called), to perform the same to them as he had done it then to him; as likewise, 2, that the story of him and his waters or flood, and God's covenant with him, his sons, &c., and oath thereabouts, though in the letter the semblance they bear was but of the temporal salvation and deliverance from the flood, yet in the mystery thereof they were (as is here signified) intended as figures of God's eternal covenant and mercies unto his elect church, which were to come out of Noah's and his sons' loins; 3, which church, that is here specially pointed at concerning his covenant, with which he says, 'This is to me the waters of Noah,' is the church under the New

Testament, and the seed of Japhet especially, whom this covenant and promises do more particularly concern, as in ver. 1, 2, 3 of this chapter will appear.

And these are the three heads and branches of this general part of this discourse.

1. The first of these three heads hath two branches in it.

(1.) The first, concerning Noah's particular person, that he was first intended in it as an example as well as a type of that grace, and election, and covenant here declared to the church.

(2.) The second, that the covenants made with him afore the flood, and with him and his sons after, were figures of the same, &c.

(1.) Noah in his own person was intended as an example of the covenant of grace.

That himself was the principal and first covenanter, declared heir of the covenant of grace, and that made known to him by God himself upon that occasion of the flood, is evident by this, that he is said by faith to have entertained it, and accepted on his part God's declarations made then to him, as understood by him to be the declarations of the covenant of grace. And therefore it must be that God also on his part had with that intention uttered that covenant unto him personally. Now that Noah did well understand and apprehend that under the type of the ark and his salvation thereby, that a further salvation than temporal was signified thereby to him, and another manner of ark than that of gophir wood, even Christ the promised seed, to save him from a more dreadful inundation of wrath to come, and so from a greater destruction than that which the waters only brought upon the lives of the ungodly of that present age; that, I say, he understood by faith those things, the Holy Ghost, that knew both Noah's heart and God's also in his covenant to him, and transactions thereupon with him, hath informed us: Heb. 11:7, 'By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith,' which last words, 'he became heir of the righteousness which is by faith,' do give us the true intent of the former words, by shewing us that Noah had in those dealings of God with him the very same righteousness for the object of his faith, which our gospel now proposeth to us, and

which our faith doth lay hold upon; for why else doth he propose it as an example of that, faith he exhorteth us now to have? which the same apostle in his other epistles doth in the same phrase and language style the righteousness of God, and the righteousness of Christ, which is by faith: Philip 3:9, 'Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith;' which righteousness for justification he more setly treateth of in the epistle to the Romans, under the same very words: Rom. 3:21, 22, 'But now'

(that is, under the gospel) 'the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ.' Now Noah was a prophet, Gen. 9, and among other prophets witnessed to this righteousness, himself first believing in it, and then being a public preacher of righteousness, as the other apostle calls him; and not only of that righteousness of an holy life, in which he himself so exceeded, which follows upon believing, but of that righteousness which is by faith, as it hath Christ for its object. And certainly, if he were a righteous preacher, as he was, then that righteousness himself had recourse to [for] himself and his own salvation, that he preached unto others for their salvation. Now it was that righteousness Noah had an eye upon (as typified by his ark, and from thence had learned it), and had recourse unto for his eternal salvation, as the apostle to the Hebrews testifies; although he were, as is testified of him in respect of his own inherent righteousness, the most righteous man in his generation: 'A perfect and just man.' And in sign and token that yet he had his eye upon this righteousness out of himself to save him, it was through the same faith he betook himself to that ark, a means wholly out of himself, to save him from the waters, which otherwise all his own righteousness would never have done; for why else is it there said, that by preparing the ark, 'he became heir of the righteousness which is by faith'? Which righteousness by faith, to be

Christ's righteousness, all sound protestants do profess; and as the righteousness he believed on, and was made heir of, was this gospel righteousness, signified to him by the ark, so the rest of those things there mentioned did in their several designs much type out to him

things spiritual, and of like spiritual mystery. As the flood typed forth the wrath of God unseen by carnal eyes; and the condemnation of the world there spoken of was the condemnation to hell, and not to the waters only, as Peter informs us; yea, and he condemned the world more by preparing that ark, and by preaching a gospel righteousness to men, or the Messiah to come, whom he is also said to have preached in the figure, 1 Peter 3:19, 20, than by all his holiness, as that Heb. 11:7 doth witness.

Let as now approach to bring together what I premised concerning the covenant, and grace, and election, which are the subject of the text in Isaiah, and mine also, and the passages which we find in Genesis concerning Noah, together, and see how appositely they correspond and agree to this my purpose.

[1.] It is greatly observable, that in the sacred story Noah was the first of the sons of men unto whom God ever spoke of a covenant. There was promise indeed of Christ, the woman's seed, uttered before, which all the patriarchs before the flood lived upon; but under the title of a covenant never no mention, no, nor of the word grace till now. Noah had the first honour of both these expressions, grace and covenant. And therefore most properly and meetly hath God here in Isaiah singled out the instance of Noah for both; for, primum in quolibet genere est mensura reliquorum. The first in every kind is the measure of the rest of that kind that do after follow. This of covenant you find in Gen. 6:18, 'But with thee will I establish my covenant;' there is the first; and, 2dly, the expression of grace is to him, and first to him in ver. 8, 'But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.' And it is God's own speech unto him, though spoken by God as in the third person of himself. And it is not the addition of Moses the penman, but it comes in a continued sermon made to him by God himself, and uttered privately to none but him; and that speech is pure New Testament language: to 'find grace,' and 'obtain mercy,' as Heb. 4:16. And after it had been thus first uttered to Noah, this speech came after into more frequent use, both in the Old and New Testament, as unto Moses, Exod. 33:12; 'Unto David his

chosen,' Acts 7:45; and the blessed, Luke 7:70, thou art 'ingratiated,' gratia donata‚ endowed with God's favour; and the sense is the same.

And this title Noah was the first that bore it, as a new addition to the coat of arms of God's elect, which from that time they have worn as the highest title of honour.

[2.] And it was not afore now given to Noah; yea, grace in the Hebrew (as Ainsworth observes) is in a manner the anagram of Noah his name, though, the letters in the name Noah do in their direct order signify rest; yet such a rest as is out of grace given and bestowed, which an inverted order of the letters signifies. See for this

Ainsworth on Gen. 6:6.

[3.] And, thirdly, it was the grace that is and was in God's heart towards him, that is meant, as that additional shews, 'in the eyes or mind of Jehovah;' and not that grace which was in Noah's heart: that was but the effect. To find grace in one's eyes, is indeed a phrase used likewise of man's being favourable to another (as in those places Gen.

34:11, 1 Sam. 1:18, and many other); which yet comes then to be used, when the kindness sought, or to be bestowed, depends merely on the good will of the man who is to cast it upon the other, and wherein they that seek it, when that manner of speech is used by them, do acknowledge no merit or worth in themselves, why that favour should be shewn them; and therefore much more it hath that import, when It is spoken of God, and of his grace towards man, of whom the apostle says, 'who hath first given to him?' &c.; and moreover imports, that God's eyes and foresight saw nothing in the creature why he should endow him with it; yea, furthermore, to find grace in God's eyes, is when God prevents the creature, in its very seeking of it; as Isa. 65:1, 'I am found of them that sought me not;' which was because they had found grace in God's eyes afore they sought it, and without their having done any thing to move him to it.

And the word found‚ also, which is added unto grace (as here), doth superadd to this import. The Grecians call a thing unlooked for, not dreamt of, or freely cast on one (by chance as it were) without his looking for it,—they call it ἕυρημα, a thing found; and such is God's

grace, as that word, 'found grace,' intimates: all which expressions suit perfectly with grace in God electing, or with electing grace. The eminentest person to whom grace (as electing) is attributed, was

Moses, who bears that title, 'Moses his chosen,' Ps. 106:23; and the election of him is expressed by this very phrase: Exod. 33:12, 'I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight;' that is,

God had chosen him freely, to be personally and individually his.

And we find God's foreknowledge is put to express election, as it is 'God's foundation:' 'The Lord knows who are his;' and God's people

'whom he foreknew,' in Rom. 11:2, are in ver. 5 but 'a remnant according to the election of grace;' and so towards Moses, God's grace cast on him was the sole product of God's will: so ver. 19 of Exod. 33 interprets it, and applies it to him, 'I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious,' God therein giving Moses the true ground and account why he was gracious unto him, when not to others; and therefore those very words are cited under the instance and case of Moses, by way of discrimination from Pharaoh, as the opposite person whom Moses had to do with, to prove election, Rom. 9:15; and in the same tenor and meaning of speech, it is, that God declares of Noah, Noah hath 'found grace in the eyes of Jehovah;' and it may also be said of him, that God knew him by name; for to testify his having pre-ordained him, and separated him from the womb (as Paul speaks of himself), unto salvation; as also that deliverance in the flood, out of his mere free grace, he inspired his father with a prophecy about him at his very birth. Look as God inspired his great prophet Enoch, to give his son Methuselah a name that foretold the flood, and the year of the coming of it, being by interpretation, he dieth, the emission‚ or dart cometh, meaning the flood: Enoch, being a prophet, foretelleth this his son should die, and then the flood should be emitted; and therefore our days, as Methuselah's were, are appointed and set; in like manner God inspired Noah's father with a name, which foretold the restoring of the earth from that curse,* even from Adam, all along due to it, from the flood; and for the giving both the earth, and a new world of inhabitants, rest in it again, by that Noah, who was then born unto him: thus Gen. 5:29. And this being foretold of him at his birth,' when he had done neither good

nor evil' (as in the case of Jacob's election out of grace, and Esau's rejection, the apostle argues), doth plainly argue it was God's free grace towards him, which had separated him from the womb hereunto, and no righteousness at all of his; and out of the same grace still continued towards him, now when he acquaints him with his purpose to bring the flood, he tells him he would deliver him out of it; and that it was his sole grace, borne to him from the first, that was the cause and designer of that his salvation, 'thou hast found grace in my sight,' and therewith utters a covenant, obliging himself so to do. And though God mentions the grace, or righteousness, that was in Noah also, yet as that which that free grace which had been in God's heart towards him from his birth, yea, from everlasting, had wrought in him, to make him meet for that mercy and deliverance.

Yea, and further, to testify he knew him by name, and had ordained him out of pure grace unto this, he gave him a name, that in the letters inverted bore the stamp and impress of the grace of God (as was before observed); even as at the Baptist's birth, he by a wise disposement ordered him a name, signifying in the indirect placing of the letters, grace, shewing that he was out of that grace separated from the womb unto his work, &c., as Noah here had been.

[4.] And, fourthly, this was done (as I added) with a discrimination or difference put between Noah and the rest of the world, out of special grace to him; and election, or choice, which is to single one out from others, always supposeth a leaving out of others; and the occasion whereupon it comes in, is with a but; 'But Noah found grace,' &c., which is spoken even whilst on the other hand God just afore had told him, in the verse afore, 'I will destroy man whom I have created from off the earth,' ver. 17; and then, at the 18th verse,

'But with thee will I establish my covenant.' He is at his but again; thereby denoting the same discriminating grace of election, as if he had said, But with thee (singling thee forth personally, and by name, from the rest of the world) I will establish my covenant (that is, make this as a sure and stable covenant with thee: as afterwards David speaketh of God's covenant of grace with him, 2 Sam. 23:5); which I do not with others. So then, do but join ver. 8, 'But Noah found

grace,' &c., together with the words of ver. 18, 'But with thee will I establish my covenant;' and then you have, 1, grace declared to be the foundation or spring of this covenant, ver. 18; and, 2, that covenant itself declared to be stable and irrevocably firm from out of the same grace, 'I will establish,' &c.; and, 3, all put together rising up to this, as if he had plainly styled it, the covenant of grace. Thus it was to Noah's own person; yea, and such a covenant as we usually describe the covenant of grace to be, proceeding from election grace at first, and continued stable and firm out of the same, as we have before in Noah's example explained it.

And, that it was the covenant of grace unto Noah's person, and proposed in him as a pattern and example to us, who were after to believe, there is further reason for it. If the same covenant, as it was afterwards estated upon Abraham and David, are so to be understood (as generally we acknowledge), then surely the first covenant that under that title and notion God did promulgate to mankind, and whereof grace by name was the foundation, established with this man; a man of as great holiness and acceptation with God as any of them were, for which you may take the judgment of God himself, who ranks him in the head of the first three (I allude to David's) worthies of the Old Testament, Ezek. 14:14; a man perfect in his generation, and singled forth of an whole world destroyed before his face, unto which he had been the preacher of righteousness, the 'righteousness of faith,' whereby men are to be saved in all ages, and thereby condemning them for neglecting and refusing that salvation, Heb. 11:7, even to hell, 1 Pet. 3; and further, the beginner and founder of a new world; and, in that respect, a type of the second Adam, yea, and the father of him, namely, Christ according to the flesh, yea, and with him of all the elect, whether

Jews or Gentiles, that after succeeded; then surely, I say, this covenant was to himself the covenant of grace, as well as unto any of them, and promulged to him, as the father and head, as on behalf of the elect his sons, to proceed out of him; as theirs also was in them to their children.

If it be said, that this covenant respected only the temporal salvation of Noah in the ark, Besides, that it may be answered, that so did the covenant declared to David (in the first delivery of it, in 2 Sam. 7 from ver. 12, and so on) speak but of his house, and establishing of his kingdom to his seed; whilst yet his own salvation (2 Sam. 23:5, 'God made with me a covenant, and this is all my salvation') and the salvation of the elect through Christ, was intended therein; so here, it may also be replied, that the word grace, as it is spoken of God, and to express his grace, is too deep a word to be bestowed only upon a mere temporal salvation; but only used where the eternal grace and love of God is the fountain of it. The favour God bore even to Adam in innocency is nowhere so far ennobled as to be styled grace; nor are the gifts in temporaries termed grace, though they be called 'spiritual gifts,' in their kind, and freely given to the rebellious also.

But, besides such returns as these to this objection, that which will make the answer complete, is the consideration of the second branch afore proposed, namely, (2.) That Noah's covenant, over and besides its being to his person the covenant of grace, and he an example thereof to us therein; that also both that covenant afore the flood for his temporal salvation in the ark, Gen. 6th and 7th chapters, and that other after the flood,

Gen. 9, were figurative or prophetic types in God's intention of eternal salvation, unto himself, and the elect of his posterity to come, especially under the New Testament.

When this is joined and added to the former, and proved that it was the covenant of grace to Noah's person, &c., makes not only the answer to the objection sufficiently complete, but also will prove a foundation to the main things to be built up in this following discourse.

This position, the apostle Peter doth in terminis affirm, in his 1st Epistle 3d chap. ver. 20, 21, 'God waited in the days of Noah, whilst the ark was a-preparing, wherein few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us.' It is express, that the salvation of him and his sons was intended as a figure, and a figure that did bear a likeness, or parallel in it, unto our everlasting salvation, and the things thereof.

And further, that it was not only to Noah himself a figure of his own everlasting salvation, as figuring forth to him thereby that God would save his soul eternally, but prefiguring that salvation which is now revealed unto us (as his words are) and therefore prophetic of ours; for what under the Old Testament is called a figure, or a type of things of the gospel, that did God and his Spirit intend by that as a shadow, to signify and foretell a substantial reality of those things to come under the New, in the truth and verity of them; for so in the like case the apostle warrants us to understand: Heb. 9:8, 9, 11, 'The Holy Ghost signifying thereby,' says he, ver. 8, &c., 'they being a figure for the time then present,' as ver. 9, 'of good things to come;' so ver. 11, namely, those good things under the gospel, and the same must hold here in this; for the apostle as expressly calls it a figure here as therein those mentioned.

If that salvation, then, in the ark was a figure of that gospel salvation now, then Noah's covenant out of special grace (in compare to the world) for that salvation of him and his sons, was in like manner intended for a figure of that covenant for our salvation under the gospel; yea, and also of that discrimination of grace, which was the foundation of Noah's covenant. And, moreover, this must have been the figure also of a far more transcending grace, to be the foundation of our covenant, proportionably in an excelling glory of it, unto what the greatness of our salvation bears (as being the effect thereof as the cause) in compare with that temporal salvation of Noah's; and that grace of ours is no other than that 'exceeding riches of grace' our gospel so extols, Eph. 1st and 2d chap. These all are of a like commensuration and elevation in this their kind and proportions, as an everlasting covenant, an everlasting salvation, proceeding from an

everlasting grace and love. And then that which was the sole outward means of Noah's salvation, the ark, must have, it being a figure in this round, a super-excelling outward means answerably thereunto; as the sole means prefigured, and that is Christ, the mediator of that covenant, in whom alone we are graciously accepted, and who is the author of that eternal salvation. These all hang together (as we say) on one string; are all connexed, coherent, and inseparable, covenant and salvation: 'Thou hast made a covenant with me,' saith David,

'sure and stedfast, and this is all my salvation,' 2 Sam. 23; and grace and salvation joined: 'By grace ye are saved,' said twice over, Eph. 2.

But you have them all joined, even Christ our ark, and all use and universal suffrage of all the prophets that have been since the world began: Luke 1:69–73, 'And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began; that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he sware to our father Abraham;' yea, and I may say, which in the figure he sware to Noah too. And my argument for this is fetched, not from the real inseparable connexing and hanging together of the things themselves; and that therefore if but one of them be set forth in the type, the other must be, by consequence, and from the conjunction of the things themselves in the verity itself, be supposed also to exist. This argument, though it might hold (I say) to prove the existence of those other things that are so connexed together, yet might prove an argument that would fail us, if we should go about to argue from the type itself; for then the things argued must be also found to have a lineament of similitude in the typing of it forth in the type itself. Now no one type also is in all things a complete representation of the whole substance of all that are connexed with, and appertain to, the thing signified in the type. And therefore it was, that God hath drawn and painted out the things of the gospel in so many several pictures, that one might foreshadow more specially the resemblance of one thing, another of some other. Yet this I will affirm concerning this type of Noah's, that this our of Noah, as it is instanced in by our apostle Peter, hath the

likeness of as many, and specially of all those four we have insisted on (which are the main studs and substantials of our salvation), as perhaps will be found in any other single instance of any type whatever. Our apostle in that place terms our gospel salvation not barely figure, τύπος, but ἀντίτυπος, a like figure (as we translate it); a correspondent figure (as others). τύπος, a figure, imports a likeness, but ἀντίτυπον, a like likeness;* that is, an exceeding likeness, as far as a shadow may be supposed to represent a substance; at least, that there is a more than usual likeness than is found ordinarily in other figures; if not a nearer, yet that a larger extensive likeness shall be found in this, if narrowly observed; the parallel lines of each, run along further, and correspond in very many things alike. Now, therefore, it being thus spoken in respect of similitude or likeness, we might warrantably go by this rule (which in expounding the signification of types, is a good and sure rule), that when and where we find a type of the Old Testament applied by the Holy Ghost, to some good thing that was to come under the Now, which is the main substance of that type; yea, and although it prove to be the thing prefigured in the New be instanced in, and pointed at, but in some one particular; yet this warrants our application of other parts wherein a likeness or resemblance doth appear between the figure in the Old and the thing figured, as we find them scattered up and down, though they be not punctually and precisely applied to each of the particulars, between which and the figure the likeness proves to appear. The Holy Ghost pointing us, though but to one parallel, sanctifies all the rest that appear parallel also. This rule holds in expounding parables, and it must needs be safe in expounding types.

So then, if Peter had only instanced but in one particular, that the salvation in the ark, &c., was a type of gospel salvation, sealed up in baptism, we might warrantably have made up those other we have mentioned; as that this ark was the figure of our Christ, as he is applied to us in baptism; yea, and of whatever else we find to be in baptism touching our salvation, analogous, or bearing resemblance with those passages about Noah's salvation in the ark. We see that the apostle himself makes an application of the very number of persons that were saved in Noah's ark, to have had a significancy in it

of the paucity or fewness of the persons who shall find the like special grace under the gospel, to be effectually partakers of salvation, although multitudes shall profess Christianity, and be outwardly partakers of baptism, as in Noah's days there were many that professed themselves to be the sons of God, that perished in the waters. Thus our apostle makes use of that small circumstance of the paucity of the persons; and because our Lord had foretold in his hearing, that there be few that find the narrow gate and way that leads to life, Mat. 7:14, and few that shall be saved, Luke 13:23, and that for this cause that few are chosen, in comparison of the many that are called; especially of the many that go to hell, therefore Peter observeth the fewness, but of eight persons that were saved in the ark, puts that into his figure, there, of the ark: 'wherein few,' says he,

'that is, eight souls were saved.' He intends not, though retaining the number of eight, the definite number of persons, that is, of eight only, under the gospel to be saved, the number of his fellows, the eleven apostles, exceeding in his view that number; but he set down few‚ as indefinitely signified by that eight, then comparatively to the whole world.

Now, then, to confirm my argument, that the Holy Ghost by Peter's pen, having pointed us to Noah's salvation, and his sons' with him, as that which was the figure of our like, though far super-transcending salvation now under the gospel, God hath by that one particular instance (if there were no more) sent us to the story of Noah, and therein unto all that concerned that of his salvation in the ark. And therein we finding also not a promise, but a covenant established with Noah for that salvation; a grace likewise in the heart of God to have been the foundation of that covenant; an outward means, an ark, the only means that could have been of that salvation, and this wholly of God's inventing, and therein Noah to have been preserved in midst of waters; and then viewing over the New Testament (and the Old too, so far as pure gospel is up and down manifested therein), we there do find up and down a covenant made, and established with, and for the said salvation (which salvation Peter expressly guides us unto) of God's elect under the gospel; and an

exceeding abundant grace, the original cause and fountain of that salvation and covenant; and Christ, whom God hath set forth as the only means, or name under and whereby men should be saved from that wrath, that, if found out of him, will fall upon all the world.

These things, and all these things, being so expressly set out unto our view, both on the one hand in Genesis, and in this conjunction mentioned, and those other, all of them which are the substantial points of our Christian religion, we finding in our gospel as causes of our salvation, χάρις ἀντὶ χάριτος, grace for grace, covenant for covenant, salvation for salvation, and an ark for Christ, how shall we otherwise but conclude that these are parallels? Or in Peter's language, ἀντίτυπα, 'like figures,' the one of the other, for in likeness and resemblance they correspond one to the other.

But we are not put to it for the proof of all this, to proceed by this way of consequential inferences; for behold they are all the four of them more than impliedly specified and yoked together, in this one text of the apostle Peter; for as there is Noah's salvation for our gospel salvation, so his ark typifying forth our Christ, and that as expressly; for his adding as his last words in the verse, 'saved in baptism by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,' is a manifest reference unto and resemblance of the manner how Noah was saved in the ark from out of the waters, and in being carried through the waters safe to land, it still rising up under them as the storms did fall, by parts or by wholesale, upon it, and endangered the overwhelming of it, till at last it arrived safe, and rested on mount Ararat: an exact figure and semblance of Christ in passing through the waters of death, storms of that wrath and curse due to us, poured forth upon him, by and under which it was not possible for him to be holden, as Peter speaks, Acts

2; and so Noah received it as Abraham did that of Isaac's delivery, as a figure of the resurrection of his ark Christ, and of all in him.

And whereas, here, baptism is said to be the figure of the ark, not Christ, I answer, 'Know ye not' (as Rom. 6 the apostle Paul speaks)

'that as many as were baptized into Christ, were baptized into the likeness of his resurrection?' as also of his death first, 'that like as

Christ was raised up,' &c., so we being planted together in and with him, should after baptism walk in newness of life. So then it is Christ, in whose name we are baptized, and into whom we are implanted, which is the significancy of baptism.

Again, 3dly, that the baptism is made the thing figured, doth as evidently prompt us to the covenant of grace, as included in baptism, and so to have been prefigured therewith; for what more properly doth baptism serve, or was instituted for, as an end containing in it, than to be the seal of the new covenant of grace, even as circumcision was of the old covenant? Gen. 17. And baptism also succeeding in the place and office of it, as Col. 2 tells; yea, and circumcision was then suddenly* the seal of the covenant of grace, to the elect that were then, Rom. 4:11 compared with Gen. 17. This will perfectly convince us, that therefore baptism now much more is the seal unto us of that covenant, yea, and the broad seal too of the whole covenant; that is, of all things that are contained in the covenant, and is therefore administered but once for all; because it at once comprehendeth all that belongs to the covenant for our salvation. For therein not only the grace of Jesus Christ, the mediator of the covenant, and of our implanting into him, and into his death and resurrection, are represented; but we are baptized 'in the name of the Father, as of the Son,' yea, and also 'in the name of the Holy Ghost.' And therefore 'the love of God the Father,' who is the founder of the covenant, 'and the communion of God the Holy Ghost,' the applier of the covenant, are sealed up unto us, even all of these, and whatever the covenant doth comprehend, and all these things at once. And therefore full well might the apostle (as he doth) tell us, that Noah's salvation was the figure of ours; for in the figuring our baptism, it contained, as in a figure, all these things in it; all that belong to us now‚ that is, under the gospel; both which words he with an inculcation urgeth upon our observation, that we might be deeply apprehensive of the abounding significancy of this though but one type, how much of our gospel truth's substantial salvation were included in it alone, to the end to engage and set our thoughts a-work, to search out the full mystery thereof at large in all the particulars of it.

This as to Noah's covenant afore his entering into the ark, &c.

There was a covenant (I must not call it another covenant, but yet) a second time renewed with enlargement, and withal said to be

'established' with Noah and his sons after his and their coming out of the ark, and promulged upon his having offered up that famous sacrifice in Gen. 8 the last verses. And then in Gen. 9 in the 8th verse, 'God spake unto Noah, and his sons with him' (so it runs there unto them as well as to him), 'saying, And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and your seed after you;' and again, ver. 11, 'And I will establish my covenant with you: neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.' This, say I, was the figure of the covenant of grace, to the church of the new testament, that were to be the seed of him and his sons (of which hereafter). And unto the words of this second covenant with Noah more especially, it is that the words of my text in Isaiah relate: ver. 9, 'For as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I will not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee;' that is, my everlasting wrath shall never overwhelm thee; for of that wrath, that universal flood, that passed over the rest of mankind, children of wrath, was the figure. Which words, 'not to destroy the earth,' are found in and do belong to that covenant in Gen. 9, as you will clearly see if you compare the even now fore-cited words out of verse 11 of Gen. 9. And this covenant God styles here in Isaiah 'the covenant of his peace,' ver. 10; for as that covenant in Genesis 8, 9 chapters was upon Noah's offering that sacrifice and peace-offering in it, chap. 8:20, with which God professed himself so well pleased as it is said, 'he smelled a sweet savour,' ver. 21, so signifying himself at peace, and atoned with Noah and his sons, and propitious unto the new world they were to be the restorers of (for that was the season God took to express this covenant in). Now, this sacrifice was in the figure, as the former salvation in the ark had been (as you heard out of Peter) a figure, &c., of a greater sacrifice than this of Noah's, even of Christ's; with which, and for which, and in the intuition of which, God establisheth this covenant, which he termeth 'the covenant of his

peace,' both because he [is] pacified by Christ's sacrifice, 'who is our peace,' Col. 1:20, 21. As also because he promiseth peace, his peace to those the elect of mankind, to come out of Noah's sons' loins.

And that Christ's sacrifice was figured out by that of Noah's, the apostle hath discoursed; whilst in speaking of Christ's, he useth the very words wherewith God's acceptance of Noah's is expressed by:

Eph. 5:2, 'And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour;' which latter are the very words in Genesis. And besides it is certain that, unless God had smelt so far off aforehand this sacrifice of Christ's that was to come, the smoke of beasts sacrificed had but an unsavoury scent in God's nostrils as well as man's; but the smell and savour thereof (though so long afore) perfumed this of Noah, and went up into the nostrils of Jehovah.

But not only Christ's sacrifice is thus in these speeches pointed at by the apostle, as signified in Noah's (and a covenant was then, and at all times, used to be ratified by a sacrifice, Ps. 1:5, Heb. 9:18, 20, and so on); but furthermore, as touching our covenant of grace, it is evident that when God himself did most solemnly proclaim and set forth that covenant as to come in the days of the new testament, that he hath likewise recourse unto like words and passages, taken out and borrowed from that latter covenant of Noah, thereby to express that new covenant of grace by, and confirm the stability of it to us; which is a consideration of some moment to our subject afore us.

There are three chapters in Jeremiah following one another, wherein this covenant of grace is set by, and professedly handled, by way of prophecy, so as nowhere else the like in the Old Testament: first, chap. 31 ver. 33, 34, 'But this is the covenant that I will make with the houses of Israel,' thus speaking with difference from the old covenant then more in view, and it is his new gospel covenant, the same which,

Heb. 8, the apostle citeth, as that 'to write the law in their hearts,'

&c., as you may read in those verses. Now, to confirm to them this covenant, he adds in that place, ver. 35, 'Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and

of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The Lord of hosts is his name; where what our translation reads, 'which divideth the sea,' &c., our English

Annotation out of the Hebrew renders, which 'stilleth or maketh quiet the sea,' or 'settleth the sea when the waves thereof roar;' that is, (as they) do keep the sea within compass, and make it rest within its bounds. The tendency of this to my present purpose you will perceive when I have added what in the other chapters we find to follow. Then again in the 32d chapter, God rehearseth more pieces that belong to the same covenant of grace: ver. 38–40, 'And they shall be my people, and I will be their God: and I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children after them: and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me;' though promised to begin upon his elect people that were to return from Babel to their own land, as the rest of that chapter shews; for the covenant of grace had a secret efficacy to the elect in the old testament as well as in the new. Then, thirdly, in the 33d chapter God receiveth* other particulars belonging to the same covenant, and that as they were more evidently to be performed in the days of the new testament; for to those days do the words of the 15th verse refer (which comes in amongst the midst of those promises in that chapter): 'In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land;' and verse 16,

'In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The Lord our

Righteousness;' that is, when Christ, who is the mediator of that covenant, should come in the flesh, in which days the covenant of grace should appear nakedly and openly in its pure glory; and the outward crust of the old covenant with the Jewish church (under which this of the new did then run undermost, hidden, as arteries under the veins) should decay as grown old, as the apostle in the said

Heb. 8 doth argue.

Now, God having thus so explicitly set forth the substantial materials of this new covenant in these three chapters, then for a close to all he had said about them there cometh a special word to Jeremiah: ver.

19, 'And the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah, saying,' &c. And it is to verify the stability or everlasting sureness of this covenant, as in Isa. 55, the next chapter to my text, is celebrated. He doth insert, and (as it were) call in for witnesses to attest and confirm the said stability thereof, divers of those passages which we find in the covenant made with Noah, which purpose they serve most aptly and suitably unto; for in making that covenant with Noah, God had uttered himself in these words of everlastingness, 'I will establish my covenant with thee,' so to certify and assure the like stability of this covenant of grace, the materials whereof had been in these three chapters so largely insisted on. Now, moreover, as his transition, ver.

19, is, a special word must come, and is added on purpose, and alone, and over and above the former, to verify the unalterableness of it, and that as exemplified by those unalterable things promised to Noah in his; for what follows first in verse 20? 'Thus saith the Lord,

If you can break my covenant of the day, and of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season;' there is one passage in Noah's; and verse 21, the reddition follows, 'Then may also my covenant be broken with David.' Then may also my covenant

(that is, my gospel covenant) be broken with David, unto whom, as we all know, was made the promise of Christ, who himself was the spiritual David, the mediator, and with whom the new covenant for all the elect was published by God in David's time (which I need not enlarge upon the proof of to be meant in this place of Jeremiah).

Then again a second passage of Noah's is inserted in verse 25, 'Thus saith the Lord, If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth;' and it follows, ver. 26, 'Then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and of David my servant.' As God produceth the materials promised and specified in Noah's covenant, so he expressly utters them under the word covenant; yea, and calls that with day and night his covenant: my covenant‚ twice mentioned, ver. 20 and 25, thereby manifestly calling us to look back to Noah's covenant, made for day and night;

as in the making of which he had an eye to his like ratification and firm establishment of his covenant of grace, and as hiddenly intended by him then, when he uttered this of Noah's.

And now let us but review those passages in Genesis and in Jeremiah, and compare them together. First, those in Jeremiah: ver.

20, 'If you can break my covenant with the day, and my covenant with the night,' &c., where do we find mention of a covenant that God made with the day and with the night, which God should term his covenant with them or about them, not a covenant‚ one with another? And observe the language in both: in Gen. 8:22, 'Day and night shall not cease,' saith God there upon his sacrifice; which are in the sense of them the very words used in Jeremiah 33:20, 'If you can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, that there should not be day and night in their season.' This is all one as to have said, I have made a covenant that they shall not cease—and even so we find in Genesis, and where else it is* to be found under the name of a covenant—and if you can break that my covenant, &c., then may also my covenant of grace with David be broken. Again, in Jeremiah, the 25th verse, he joins to his covenant with day and night

(as his too) an alike settled appointment of the ordinances of heaven and earth: 'If I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth;' appointed‚ that is, settled in a certain, constant, and perpetual course, with which sense the fore-cited words, chap. 31:35, 36, do agree, and withal explain them: 'Thus saith the Lord, that giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, If these ordinances depart from me, saith the Lord.' And we all see that these have not failed nor departed, or (as God's word is) ceased from or before him. But you will say, These last mentioned in Jeremiah are the ordinances of heaven only, and they are not mentioned in Genesis; and again, demand what are those on earth; I answer, these two, or both, come all to one in the real intention of them; for the ordinances for revolutions and courses of the heavens, sun, moon, and stars, being the causes of the ordinances and vicissitudes of seasons on the earth, as the effects of them, which are indeed the ordinances of the earth. And of these we

read, Gen. 1:14, 18, 'And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years; and to rule over the day, and over the night; and to divide the light from the darkness.' Hence, then, seeing both these ordinances do coalesce in one and the same issues, for those in the heavens are ordained for those on earth; and that also you find these ordinances of the earth in Gen. 8:22, 'Whilst the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease. Hence, therefore, all that Jeremiah says of the ordinances in the heavens, of sun, moon, and stars, are in effect comprehended in Gen. 8:22, as if there they had been named. And although the settlement of both these ordinances began at the creation (as in Gen.

1), yet God having cursed the ground for man's sake upon Adam's fall, which God in the 21st verse afore of that Gen. 8 professedly doth make a recognition of to this intent, to shew that he now began with Noah upon a new covenant; and that else there had been an end and dissolution of both sorts of ordinances, whether on earth or heaven; but that God upon a new account and score, even the intuition of Christ's sacrifice, typed forth in that of Noah's, did anew say in his heart, and declared also to Noah, 'I will not again curse the earth for man's sake. But whilst the earth remains, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease. So, then, it is not the natural covenant by the first creation, if appointments of these then might be called his covenant, for God declares that to have been void by his curse for sin; and therefore the appointment for the continuance of these ordinances, now, since

Noah's time, renewed by a covenant of mercy, its making and institution, whereby the grand charter of these was de novo‚ begun to be verified and confirmed.

And now will you take notice of that other piece of God's covenant with Noah about the waters, their not returning any more to cover the earth, which you find in Gen. 9, which is expressly alleged by God in terminis in my text in the prophet Isaiah, and to the same effect in Jeremiah, and in both still ascertaining the firmness of the covenant

of grace. Now, in Jeremiah the words run, 'Thus saith the Lord, that stilleth the sea when the waves thereof roar;' and he says it to the end, to confirm his covenant of grace. And then it is said, he stilleth them when the waves raged most, roaring to recover their lost prey, and threaten another deluge, but that God restraineth them from overflowing the earth again; for in order to their not overflowing the earth again, it is there spoken elsewhere, his stilling them, and setting bounds to them, is noticed to be with that intent: Ps. 104:9,

'Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over, that they turn not again to cover the earth; and Jer. 5:22, 'Who hath placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it; and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it?' and Ps.

65:7, 'Who stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people.' Now, bring this to Genesis; is not this express in Noah's covenant? Gen. 9:11, 15, 'And I will establish my covenant with you: neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there be any more a flood to destroy the earth. And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you, and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.' And so now you have God's promise and covenant for and with both earth, heaven, and sea, and the waters thereof, alleged by God as witnesses long ago, forelaid and ordained,—shall I say, suborned?—yea, and you see God gageth and pawneth one covenant to perform another, the covenant of Noah to make good this covenant of grace. And that whenever we read this covenant, he would have our faith look back to this in Genesis, which we see hath not to this day failed in performance, thereby to confirm us in the belief of this gospel covenant, made and delivered under David's name for the whole election. We all acknowledge David's covenant to have been an example of, at least figurative of, the covenant of grace.

The rest of the passages in that covenant of Noah, I shall have occasion to meet with in the application of several other particular parallels that are found between Noah's covenants and this of the

covenant of grace; if these alleged, and thus compared, be not sufficient for the proof in the general.

SECTION II

The application made by God himself of Noah's covenants to exemplify and confirm his covenant of grace, as it is in Isa. 54:9.

For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah shall no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee.—ISA. 54:9.

Having hitherto been a-producing other scriptures to prove that both Noah's covenant to his own person is an example and pattern of the like grace to the elect, and likewise that those his two covenants, afore and after the flood, were figurative of the same covenant of grace to the church of the new testament, I return now anew with the more confidence to further exposition of this text, which I chose for the ground of this subject; as in which I found God himself alleging it, and applying it to the foresaid intents and purposes; and this is the first application that was made of it by the prophet Isaiah; and the other out of Jeremiah, &c., which I have run over, followed after this of Isaiah. And this in Isaiah is so signal as God doth plainly point to it: 'This is as the waters of Noah to me.'

And that the thing aimed at here is the covenant of grace, the coherence of the words with what went afore, and follows after, doth in the general shew.

In the words just afore, the 7th and 8th verses, the promises to the church of the Gentiles, under the new testament, are: 'For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy

Redeemer.' After which immediately succeed the words of this 9th verse. Now these promises in verse 7 and 8 are a prophecy of what mercy and grace he would shew, in saving those his elect from first to

last; and these words that follow my text come in as a confirmation and illustration thereof, by alleging a most lively figure and correspondent type that had long before passed between God and Noah; in a way of covenant, as on God's part, declared by God towards him, which upon this occasion of his prophesying this new covenant to his church, the sons of Noah, God calling that of Noah to his fresh remembrance, breaks out thereupon: 'This is as the waters of Noah to me.' As if he should say, This is that very thing which I intended to prefigure and fore-signify, then when I sat at the flood

(as Psalm 29:11) in and by those passages with Noah, which were at and about his flood, which God calls the waters of Noah. This‚ even this‚ which I even now have spoken of, my grace and mercy to my church, who are his sons and posterity, in the words immediately afore; even this was the mind and mystery of those my promises, which I made then to him upon occasion of and about those waters which is just such a like speech, as I shall after in the particular explication shew, as that of Christ to the Jews, where, pointing to the type of himself, he says, I give you the sign of Jonas. And this Noah's waters were to me‚ which latter word hath also a great emphasis in it, as to this import in hand. They were such in my account, and ordination in mine own secret intent, which I had within myself when I uttered them; and this I therefore now upon this occasion declare to have been the mystery of them according to this matter; that so you may have your faith confirmed in this covenant of grace the more, in that it was in my heart so long afore, and in my intentions then fore-signified, by what I spake and acted toward

Noah.

Then in the words after he doth in express terms call those promises of ver. 7, 8, 'The covenant of my peace,' or 'my covenant of peace,' as others; because those promises contain (as I said) in them the principal substance of the covenant of grace and peace; and by expressing it thus under the title and notion of his covenant, he gives us to understand what he meant by Noah's waters, and sends us to the story of the things that passed then about it to know the meaning of his saying, 'This is the waters of Noah.'

About which we shall find that he had established two covenants with Noah, both before and after them waters; whereof the first prefigured some eminent pieces of the covenant of grace; the other signified other particulars thereof, and in a special manner the stability of it; and therefore it was they were two in a figure, because no one figure is sufficient to signify the whole; and therefore God revealed it at those sundry times, by parts, but yet so as in their tendency both served to be figures of that covenant; for so the covenant of grace is, which is but one, and is therefore styled in the singular, the covenant of his peace, but typified forth by those two of Noah's, which in that respect do coalesce in one.

Now‚ 2dly‚ there be two eminent things contained in those promises, verse 7, 8.

First, That whereas God had for some time (which in comparison of eternity he calls a moment, though it had been a space of two thousand years) forsaken the Gentiles, as if he had rejected them from ever being a church to him, that yet he had in his eternal purposes designed a gathering of them—observe that word, ver. 7—a taking of them into his bed, as an husband his spouse (for he carries it under the metaphor of an husband taking again his wife unto him: ver. 5, 'Thy Maker is thy husband'); so that his forsaking and rejecting of them so long had been but to magnify and greaten his own mercies towards them in the end the more; and this first piece of his prophetic covenant, to gather them, you have in ver. 7, 'For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee;' wherein observe also how he puts the attribute of great mercies upon this their gathering, and great in two respects therein.

(1.) In relation to what they should be so long afore this grace breaks forth upon them, which you exactly find set out, even then when accomplished (as here it is promised and prophesied of), Eph. 2, where the apostle impresseth this very consideration upon them; ver.

11, 'Wherefore remember,' says he, 'that ye in times past, Gentiles in the flesh, that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from

the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.' And in speaking this to the Ephesians, he speaks the same to all the rest of the converted Gentiles, Romans, Colossians, Philippians, &c. And he remembers them of this, to that end they might thereby acknowledge that infinite great love and riches of mercy in electing them from everlasting; and out of that electing love and grace freely first set upon them, it was that he had now called and gathered them. The consideration of this he had promised, and forelaid into the apprehensions of them, in chap. 1 ver. 4, which he drives home in the same chap. 2 ver. 4, 'But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us;' his great love and mercy, that is his word, and it is God's own word in Isaiah, you see, upon the very same consideration.

(2.) Observe, it is the grace and mercy of his first gathering and converting them that God in Isaiah puts this greatness of mercy upon; and the same doth the apostle there, in Eph. 2:5, 'Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ; by grace ye are saved;' quickening here in the apostle's language, is gathering of them in God's here. It was their first gathering then, and so on of their posterity, that God speaks of in that 7th verse in Isaiah.

The second eminent thing in God's prophetic promise in Isaiah to his Gentile church, is in the other following, ver. 8, 'In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer.' In which the eminent thing to be superadded to the former is the everlastingness of the kindness, after their being gathered. And otherwise the other words in both verses come unto one. The meaning of which is, that he would continue unto the persons of them, after he had gathered and converted them, an unchangeable kindness—'with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee'—to last; and that is, which shall not only not fail to follow them unto everlasting, and never be taken away or removed, but further, should be so rich a treasury as should last the spending upon them in ages to come, even to eternity (as in

Eph. 2:7, 'That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace, in kindness towards us through Christ Jesus'), and never be spent.

Now, answerably, there are two eminent distinct parts or pieces in God's application of Noah's covenants, which in their principal scope do correspond, as in the figure, with the eminent matters of those two aforesaid promises of God's: the one more specially respecting the one; the other, the other of them. And, if you observe withal, there are two rational particles of for‚ which (according to what our translation hath rendered) are distinctly placed and set afore each.

1. 'For this [is] the waters of Noah to me.' There is the first for; and that serves more especially as the reason or illustration of the matter of that first promise in ver. 7, and likewise in further correspondency to that 7th verse, I take it, those words have a more special reference unto the first covenant of Noah's, made afore his entering into the ark, and whilst in the ark, to save him in and from the waters or flood; for that bears a resemblance with God's promise to gather, of which by and by.

The second for‚ afore the second sentence that follows it: 'For as I have sworn that the waters should no more go over the earth; so have

I sworn I will not be wroth with thee,' &c. This passage doth evidently, and without possibility of contradiction, refer to that second covenant made with Noah, after he was come forth of the ark, and had escaped the waters; and unto that alone doth that passage refer, as by comparing Gen. 8:21, and Gen. 9:11 appears: 'And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth: neither will I again smite any more every living thing, as I have done. And I will establish my covenant with you: neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.' And this latter passage hath a more peculiar and proper respect unto the matter of the promise in the 8th verse, namely, the

everlasting continuance of that kindness of God's; the unchangeable fixedness of his mercy not to be removed or taken off from that Gentile church, or his elect therein, after they are gathered. And for the confirmation and illustration of this everlastingness, &c., it is that he refers unto that latter covenant of Noah's, whereof he speaks thus: 'For as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee.' In which words he gives the greatest evidence and demonstration of that fixedness of his mercy that could be, in that the matter of his oath sworn unto is, that from out of that mercy, and the resolved everlastingness of it, he undertakes to have so watchful a care to prevent whatever it be, might, and would otherwise provoke him unto everlasting wrath against them. And that must be supposed to be such sinnings as by the rules of his word should put them into a state of wrath again; for in that he says, 'I will not be wroth with thee,' &c., there must be supposed, yea, and intended, a preventing the cause of such a wrath in the person he swears for; for if they in such a manner sin, as unregenerate men do, which the apostle terms doing sin, in a continued course, with full consent of will, then according to the rules of his word an eternal wrath must fall upon them, and they become 'children of wrath' again after gathering,

'dead in sins and trespasses,' as afore. Again, this effect and fruit of his everlasting kindness in the 10th verse answers to the figure of God's oath to Noah, to see to it, and take order by his omnipotency, to still the rage of the waters, that they overflow the earth no more in wrath. And he here says he hath sworn he will do the like to the hearts of his elect, and thereby professeth himself to be as able to take order, and rule men's hearts and lusts, as he doth the waters; and both are alike joined: Ps. 65:7, 'Who stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people.' Tumults are from the raging of men's 'lusts that war in their members,' James 4:1,

2. And this everlasting kindness, and the firmness and fixedness of it, and the unchangeableness, unalterableness of the covenant that proceeded from it, he further amplifies and enlargeth upon, ver. 11, upon occasion of this oath: 'For the mountains shall depart, and the hills shall be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee;

neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.'

If any be not satisfied in this order and disposement of these two several sentences in ver. 9, both in these two references to the 7th and 8th verses respectively, and then also concerning that other unto

Noah's two covenants respectively, under so distinct and different an allusion peculiar to each, I shall further add this account touching either of them.

1. As to the first sentence, 'this is the waters,' &c., its special reference to Noah's first covenant, about his salvation in the waters, there is this reason to induce me, which ariseth from putting these few considerations together.

(1.) A fresh remembrance is had and uttered by God of Noah's covenant, in this 9th verse, to confirm his covenant of grace, that appears by what hath been said.

(2.) That in the pursuit of this allegory, from the mention made of Noah's waters, ver. 9, we meet with a most passionate exclamation, proceeding from God's deepest affection, uttered in ver. 11, 'O thou afflicted and tossed with tempest,' but with and under so manifest an allusion unto the like compassionate bowels towards Noah and his doleful condition, whilst he was a-saving him in the waters and in the ark,* as no man that will look to and again upon the aspect which the words, ver. 9, and of these ver. 11, do cast one upon the other, can be able rationally to deny. Now those affections towards Noah, as considered in that condition, and whilst in that condition, were as manifestly stirred up in God's heart upon the remembrance of that first covenant made with Noah when he was to enter into the ark, and which in the letter of it concerned God's saving him in the waters, which punctually agrees with what we read in the story of Noah's waters in Genesis, where, after the continuance of so many days' tempests, by flood-gates of waters from heaven, and prevailing of waters from beneath, related chap. 7, it is thereupon said, chap.

8:1, that 'God remembered Noah, and those with him,' &c. It was a remembrance, that, of tenderest compassions, as we know that word remembrance useth to connotate and import. And in allusion unto this, you have his passions and compassions break forth towards his church, and uttered with a most pathetic outcry, 'O thou tossed,' &c., proceeding from the remembrance of his covenant towards his elect, which had been the main subject of the fore-part of the chapter; and you know how frequently in Scriptures it is spoken, God did this or that, 'remembering his holy covenant.' And so it was here.

(3.) Hence, thirdly, there being first a memoir, a mention, or remembrance of Noah's waters, as notifying (by a metonymy) God's covenant with Noah about his waters, ver. 9, whereby to set out this his covenant to his church, and then afterwards by occasion thereof, and in coherence therewith, these sympathising expressions break out in ver. 11. Certainly, then, that covenant with Noah, the remembrance of which was it that is said to have caused that commiseration in God towards him at that time, that must be found somewhere in the 9th verse, at the bottom of those words, if we will dive unto the bottom of the scope of the mention of them. Now that covenant was (of his two) the first of them, touching God's saving him in the waters, as by the story is undeniable. And therefore that covenant must necessarily have been alluded unto; for otherwise the correspondence in the allusion between the two parts of it, had fallen quite besides, and had been disproportioned. For Noah's second covenant was to secure him against the waters any more to return upon him and his posterity. And that cannot in any reason be supposed that such this passionate exclamation, 'O thou tossed,' &c., should be referred unto; for it looks upon Noah as viewed in the height of those waters and tempests, and supposeth him in the midst of those waters: so as between Noah's first covenant, and such an exclamation as that which was occasioned by it, there is a full congruity and proper coherence. The first part, giving just occasion for the latter, these suit as cause and effect; but not so at all doth

Noah's second covenant and this condolement match and correspond. But that alone considered gives not an occasion for it,

and cannot comprehend in it the whole scope of Noah's waters, which yet generally interpreters would have it do.

So then, here being these two sentences or speeches in the 9th verse, —'For this is the waters of Noah to me,' the first; 'For as I have sworn the waters of Noah shall go no more over the earth,' which is the second,—and there being two covenants made with Noah about his waters (as they are called), differing in this, that the first was with promise to save him in the waters which were inevitably decreed to come upon the world for their destruction; the other only to secure him, that they should not any more return to drown him and the earth; it seems most probable, if there were no more reason on our side, that the first of those speeches should cast its eye of allusion and aspect upon the first of those covenants, as its pretended correspondent, and the second sentence upon the second covenant.

The latter is apparent in the words, and was it that drew interpreters' eyes wholly thereupon, to attend that, and overlook the first.

But that so emphatical an indigitation, or pointing so as with the finger in the first, 'This is the waters of Noah to me,' which are in the first uttered, seem to me to point rather to those waters which we read, de facto‚ did come upon the earth, and which Noah escaped, than to speak of another flood which did not come upon him, and which is yet termed the waters of Noah in the sentence following, meaning only that not the like waters, to those that did come upon Noah, should any more go over, &c., yea, that not another such; whereas in this first instance he points to the flood itself that did come, from which the other not to come hath its denomination of Noah's waters, but tralatitiously, or at a second derivative hand, taken from the waters that had foregone, supposeth that positively such a flood had been. And that is it which properly and originally bears the name of Noah's waters, which is all one as we use to say

Noah's flood, meaning that flood which de facto did come, and the latter mention of it is but the promise of a negative, a preventive promise, namely, that God would not again overflow the earth a second time with the like, and supposeth the danger of the flood

already past, or at least Noah saved in it. Is it not, then, more proper and direct (may we not think) for that first speech, 'This is the waters,' &c., to intend rather that positive salvation which Noah then was to have, and had, upon the first covenant, and which must necessarily be first supposed he should have ere the latter could be so much as spoken of, and which the promise of it necessarily implies in that word, 'no more go over the earth,' that this first flood to have gone over is afore, yea, and that salvation of Noah's from that flood being that great salvation of which the Scripture speaks? Can we think that God, in making a remembrance of his covenant about his waters, and so of his promise to save him in them, should omit and pass that over altogether in silence? Now, and if it be to be found at all in this 9th verse, it must be in these first words, 'This is the waters of Noah to me,' as pointing to those then present waters that came upon the whole earth, which Noah was saved out of by virtue of that first covenant with him, and therefore must be supposed to have been intended.

If any object, and say, Yea, but the second sentence, and the very explication he gives why and for what purpose he had spoken the first, as first proposing the mention of Noah's waters in general, 'this is the waters of Noah,' but with a purpose, and no otherwise but to bring in and declare this alone, that as he swore of those waters, they should no more return, so nor his wrath, &c., and so that this is the sole and whole intent of his mention of them. And to this do the generality of interpreters narrow it, and make both sentences to be in the scope of them, all one, and adequate, and only to serve to express

God's faithfulness in not casting off his people, or in not giving them up to wrath again, after he hath taken them to be his people.

I answer, 1, That it often falls out in alleging of a type more generally, that but some one particular part or branch of what it typifies proves to be instanced in, when yet there may be many other particulars of as great moment that are not explicitly mentioned. As when Christ says to the Pharisees, Mat. 12:39, 40, as his after words shew, in indignation for asking of him a sign, who had given them so many, to

testify invincibly that he was their Messiah, 'An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall be no sign given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.' The sign of the prophet Jonas; that is, who was an intended sign by way of type of me to come, and that in more respects than one. Yet our Saviour seems expressly to instance but in that one particular of his being

'three days and three nights in the whale's belly;' as which signified (as Christ explains it) his own being in the grave, or 'the heart of the earth three days,' so is it here. The like might be instanced in the case of many other types, as in that, of Noah's salvation in the ark, to be the figure of baptism, 1 Peter 3:20, 21, which yet contains many other parallels not mentioned.

Ans. 2. It is true that the mention of Noah's waters here doth serve fitly to usher in, leads on unto that one particular that follows; but yet if any will allow me but that this speech, 'This is the waters of Noah,' is a general proposal of them first made, as notifying in general God's covenanting with Noah about those waters, whereof that one that succeeds is a particular comprehended in it, I should not much contend; but to confine the scope of God's allegation of it unto that one branch instanced in, and thereupon so to exclude altogether its aspect, or any reference to the waters or flood of Noah that de facto came upon the earth, and in which, though Noah was saved, yet was tossed with tempests, this cannot be allowed; for that in the remembrance of God's covenant made with him, God did commensurate* him in those waters, as a type of our great initial salvation from a state of wrath, which those that would make the scope to concern only God's oath, that the waters should return no more, do and must thereby include† it. This I do and must contend for to be included and intended (yet with profession to submit to cogent reason, that shall be made to the contrary); having this further to be added as a reason for it, that if this part of Noah's first covenant and salvation from the waters be excluded here, then is the great type of our main, great, and first salvation by Christ excluded,

to be meant here also, whilst yet his purpose is to illustrate and set out to his church his covenant of grace for the whole of their salvation, which in this chapter, yea, and in the two following chapters, he insists on, by way of promising and prophesying thereof, and inviting men to come under it as offered. See chap. 55 and 56.

If any shall yet object that the second for‚ set afore the said speech, 'for as I have sworn,' &c., is apparently the reason why he said first,

'This is the waters of Noah,' and therefore it is to be restrained unto that one particular, I answer, I do as yet rather incline to think that there being two of these causal conjunctions of for‚ the one set before the first speech,

'for this is the waters of Noah,' another afore the second speech, 'as I have sworn.' And although the latter for is otherwise rendered by some interpreters, yet I take the version of the word as our translation and most others have turned it; for‚ warranted by the same use of the word in the Hebrew so signifying, in 1 Sam. 15:15, as Mr Gataker hath observed; and so I understand the two fors as partitively to notify two distinct reasons of two several matters or things about these waters, in the sense before explained, and not that jointly they fall into one and the same thing only. I take the latter for not to denote a subordinate reason of the former for‚ or reason, but each I to be distinct and co-ordinate, and to stand alone in their connection with the matter in the former verses; and that the first should be a reason specially of that part of the covenant mentioned in the 7th verse foregone; the latter specially as the reason and confirmation of that part of the covenant in ver. 8. And the like distinct references made by causal particles, though immediately following one another, yet the first to relate as a reason of some matter foregone that is further off, and another later to somewhat that went more immediately afore, you meet so ordinarily withal in the Scriptures, specially in Paul's discourses, as I need not give instances of them.

Thus much for the account of the first branch proposed, why these first words, 'For this is the waters of Noah to me,' should have, and especially have respect to Noah's first covenant to save him in the waters; and as for the words that follow, 'as I have sworn,' that they respect his second covenant there is no question; I must further add the second branch proposed, and so I shall make this head complete; viz., The special analogy that is between Noah's first covenant and waters, and the matter of the promise in the 7th verse; and for the other, the correspondency between the matter of the 8th verse (in what it differs from that in the 7th verse) with Noah's second covenant, namely, the everlastingness and stability of the covenant to be the thing aimed at in both; this doth more clearly upon first sight appear, that there needs no large discourse more than in order to clear the first.

1. In general, as touching both.

Noah's two covenants were both of them for his salvation from the waters, but with this difference: the first was with this promise, to save him from, those present waters that did drown the rest of the earth; the second, to preserve him, and the earth for his sake, from any more such a flood of waters its coming upon the earth, and so to secure him from all fears of destruction thence; which considering the danger of their so doing, and sinners' desert of it, might truly be called a salvation preventive; and a securing to him that great salvation positive, which God had vouchsafed him in and from the waters past; and that second promise for the future, made that first salvation in the waters to be salvation indeed, and without which it had only been but a reservation of him and his unto a second destruction from another flood. Thus you see in Noah's case, that these two are distinct, and yet both concur to make that his salvation perfect and complete.

Answerably unto the type of these in general, the like difference may be discerned, and must be acknowledged to be in the matter or point of our eternal salvation, to perfect it; and so both of which are distinctly provided in that one covenant of his grace, whereof those his two covenants were imperfect shadows, Gal. 1; first, our being called out of this evil world, or the rest of mankind, and by faith put into Christ, and thereby into a state of salvation, or the grace wherein we stand. This is everywhere in Scripture termed salvation, as in Eph. 2, 'By faith ye are saved,' even upon their first believing; and 'by grace ye are saved.' Ye are at present, both from the wrath that is inevitably coming upon all the world of ungodly, and by having the inheritance of eternal salvation (as to the jus‚ or right, or title to it) settled and established upon you; but there being an interstition or space between this of the right and entering into the full enjoyment and possession, there are therefore promises for perseverance, to keep and preserve you safe unto that possession, which is termed also salvation: 1 Pet. 1, 'Being the end and final period of your faith, the salvation of your souls.' And unto this possession of salvation we are said to be 'kept by the power of God,' 1 Pet. 1:5; and to that end the promises are for perseverance: 1 Thes. 5:23, 24, 'And the very

God of peace sanctify you wholly: and I pray God that your whole spirit, and soul, and body, be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it;' as also, 'sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are under grace,' or in the covenant of grace; and both these are promised together in the covenant of grace, as to 'give a new heart and a new spirit,' Jer. 31, whereby we are first wrought upon, so 'to put his fear within us, that we shall not depart from him.' In the succeeding chapter of the same prophet, Jer. 32:40, 'I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me;' and again, you have both together as parts of his covenant

(as it is here called) Luke 1:60–72; whereof one main part is, ver. 74, 75, 'That he would grant unto us, that we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all our days.' Now it is the first salvation

that puts us into the state thereof in the right of it, which is Noah's first covenant, to be saved in the waters, which the apostle Peter makes the figure of our baptism.

Now the promise to put us into the state of salvation in the whole right thereof, is that which answers to God's promise to Noah, to save him from and in the waters; and it is the main and great promise of the two, and which the promise afterwards to keep us doth and necessarily first suppose to have existed. And this salvation we call initial salvation; that of our being kept to persevere, and that sin shall never have dominion over us totally and finally, is but the continuation of us in that state of first salvation, until we come to the full possession, even as providence is of creation; 'in them is continuance, and we shall be saved.' And God's estating us at first therein is the performance of his covenant, and from out of the same grace out of which he after continues and preserves us in that estate; and it is the whole covenant, for the performance of it, which God calls to remembrance with himself, 'the waters of Noah to me;' and as a witness and attestation thereof, here produced unto as: so as we must either wholly cut off that great first performance of it in calling us, as no way here intended, or we must take it into the figure,

Noah's waters, hero remembered upon occasion of it. These things in general.

As for the particular analogies between Noah's first covenant for his salvation in the waters; and this of our salvation at first.

1. As that was made in order, Noah's first covenant, &c., so this initial salvation is also the first, and foundation for perseverance.

2. We may be certain that our first initial salvation was typified out by Noah's first covenant; for the Holy Ghost so applies it: 1 Pet. 3:20,

21. Noah was saved in the waters, which is a figure of our baptism, which now saves us. Now baptism is first the sacrament which seals up initial salvation; our being put into Christ, and born again; and seals up the whole of salvation as in the right thereof unto us. And

most pertinently doth the apostle make Noah's waters the figure; for as Ainsworth* has fully, though briefly, expressed it: 'Noah was baptized into Christ's death and burial (in the ark), but raised up again with him also.'

And 3dly, How congruous a correspondency and affinity doth the first part of the covenant, for gathering his church at first, and calling them by grace, and their first being put into union with Christ (and this to do is certainly the performance of his covenant, and the first part thereof also); hold with both those, as the 7th verse doth utter it:

'For a little moment have I forsaken thee;' and left thee to thy natural darkness and deadness; 'but with great mercies will I gather thee.'

This denotes his first making of the Gentiles his church, and bringing of thorn unto, and uniting of them to his Son; for the first and second verses tell us, that they had been barren, and had brought forth no children for a long time. And as it denotes their being gathered out of the world, so especially unto Christ, and their union with him. And under that word Jacob prophesied of him: Gen. 49:10, 'Unto him shall the gathering be.'

4. And how fitly doth Noah and his family, their being called out from the whole world,—'Come thou, and all thy house, into the ark,' saith God, Gen. 7:1,—yea, and the beasts, which bear the resemblance of the foregone state of the Gentiles that were newly gathering, made a church unto him, as I shall after shew; gathered out of the rest, and by special instinct coming unto Noah, and into the ark. And how great a correspondency doth the working by God upon Noah's spirit upon the fore-belief of the flood (and he fearing the wrath of God therein, prepared the ark), hold with the work of conversion and gathering souls into Christ, whereby men 'save themselves from the rest of a froward generation,' as Peter's word is,

Acts 2, will afterwards be shewn in the uses. And though Noah was a godly man afore, yet that high dispensation of God's saving him in the ark was as new conversion to him, and bore the lively resemblance of a soul's first gathering to Christ.

5. And, as upon his entering into the ark, there endued storms and tempests, and rains from above, and waters from beneath, and this for some months, so the time of souls' first conversion and gathering into Christ, is usually accompanied with violent temptations, doubts whether in the state of grace or no; fears at every cast that comes, lost they should be overwhelmed, split upon rocks, and overturned by mountains; which occasioneth God to cry out in pity to them, 'O thou afflicted and tossed with tempest!' though viewing them in a safe condition in their ark, Christ. This Peter gives notice of to his converted brethren, 1st Epistle, chap. 5, ver. 10, 'The God of all grace, after you have suffered awhile, make you perfect: stablish, strengthen, settle you!' The suffering here is not chiefly those outward, of persecutions, for they were not freed from them all their days; but these were such as arose from the special malice of the devil, who is 'a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour,' ver. 8.

But these are such afflictions as they are settled against, and yet common, more or less, unto all converts throughout the world, ver.

9, after their conversion, and whilst they are weak: the issue of which is some better strength and rest unto their souls.

These parallels you see between Noah and his first covenant and salvation, &c., and our first gathering, &c., in the 7th verse.

As for the second part of the 9th verse, which contains the promise of preservation, and a security against the return of that curse of these waters any more, that this alludes unto Noah's second covenant, after he came out of the ark, as none can deny that reads the words; so the parallel between them is more obvious, and that the scope thereof is to confirm ns of the everlastingness of God's kindness that shall follow us all our days after conversion, which is promised, ver.

8. This I partly have shewed afore, and shall furthermore, in the explication of the words that follow that passage, in declaring and engaging an everlasting unchangeable kindness and mercy, and that by oath, against all such fears of sins in our hearts that threaten to overflow again; and that 'sin should never have dominion over us, because we are under grace.' This I need not largely insist upon.

But instead of an enlargement that way, it will be more behoveful to answer some objections that may be made against this latter part, to have been intended as a type, but at all only brought in by God, as a mere allusion and bare similitude, by which God illustrates only and confirms the stability of his covenant of grace.

And the objection is this, That that covenant with Noah, Gen. 9, was but a covenant of common providence, and the concerns thereof, as that summer and winter, day and night, should not cease; yea, and was made with every living thing, as well as with Noah; and answerably had but an outward natural sign to confirm it, the waters should no more destroy the earth; and hath nothing to do with the covenant of grace, nor can be supposed to be a figure of that covenant under gospel times.

For answer, 1. As to that, that it is but a providential promise of continuance of the world from the judgment of waters any more; outwardly it was no more; but this hinders not from its being in the mystery a typical promise to Noah, and those of his seed elect that were to succeed, to signify the perpetuity of the covenant of grace to them, and that God would never suffer his loving-kindness to depart; this, I say, no more hinders, than that that promise under that other former covenant to Noah, to preserve him and the beasts in the ark, should not be the covenant of grace (in the figure), as yet we have for certain heard out of Peter that it was; for both were but for outward salvation in the letter.

2. To that next part of the objection, that it was made with the very beasts.

Nor doth this rationally prejudge it from bearing this figure.

1. No more than that because the beasts and cattle came forth of Egypt with the Israelites, that therefore their redemption typified not forth redemption by Christ.

2. Nor no more, than that because the cattle drank of the rock, as well as the Israelites; that, therefore, that rock was not Christ figuratively and sacramentally; which yet the apostle expressly telleth us it was, 1 Cor. 10.

Nor, 3dly, was that covenant made primarily, or in a direct and principal respect, with the beasts, but with Noah and his sons; and with the beasts but secondarily for his sake, and as appurtenances to man, and belonging to him; otherwise they are not capable of a covenant, because no way to be made sensible of it; and, therefore, but as an accidental appendix of man's charter, or lease granted, it is that they are put in. And, again, look as for man's sake the earth, and all things in it, were accursed, Gen. 3, and then they were destroyed for man's sake by this flood, as God professeth, Gen. 6:6, 7; so, on the contrary, God declareth, that when he saw* those creatures in the ark, that it was for his sake; and therefore this clause is twice added,

Gen. 6:19, 20, to keep them alive with thee; that is, for thy sake. And in like manner it is said, Gen. 9:1, 2, 3, 'And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea: into your hands are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you: even as the green herb have I given you all things.' So as it was to preserve mankind that those creatures were preserved, and that they might have subjects to have dominion over.

4. Yet further; all the creatures may well be said to come under this our covenant by Christ; for we profess and believe, not only that Christ, by his death, made a purchase of all, and by his sacrifice procured the standing of the world, in order to the elect for their good, and so their preservation comes to be included in the elects' covenant and promises; but there is by Christ a liberty one day to be conferred upon the whole creation, in their being 'delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the sons of God:' so as in their capacity they have a share in the privileges of the new

world, that world to come, typified forth by Noah's now world, and promised upon his having offered his sacrifice, wherein he was

Christ's type. So that this is so far from being an objection, that it serves, on the contrary, to render the analogy more complete.

But as to this of the beasts and the rainbow, there is another notion yet to be cast, in, of a figurative representation, that these beasts in the ark did hold with the elect themselves to be converted under the gospel, as will put a farther and to this or any other objection of this sort; but I reserve it to a greater advantage, to bring it in the particular parallels between these of Noah's covenants and our covenant of grace.

SECTION III

A more particular explication, both of the phraseology, manner of speech, and matter in the 9th verse, confirming the foregoing interpretation.

This is‚ he says it of the promises he was speaking of, and of his covenant to his church, ver. 7, 8.

But you will ask, how is it such promises, and the matter of them, should be called the waters of Noah?

The waters of Noah are in this first sentence metonymically used to signify all those passages at and about the flood, concerning Noah's salvation, figuratively applied to promises of God's covenant; it being usual in all languages, by mentioning one circumstance or eminent occurrence, as the day or the place whereon or wherein such memorable things were done or spoken, to denote the things or facts done on that day or place, together with that eminent occurrence; as when it is said, 'The day of provocation in the wilderness,' it serves to mind and notify all the singular provocations of that day or time; so in like manner, as when our Saviour said, 'The days of Noah,' he

intends thereby to notify the things done in those days, Mat. 24:37 and 38 verses compared. In like manner, by 'the days of Lot,' Luke

17:28, he intends to notify the thing then done: 'They did eat, they did drink,' says he, 'they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded,' &c. In like manner it is usual to mention some one eminent occurrence instead of all the rest, to hint all the rest that were at the same time acted together with it or that belonged thereto. Thus here,

'the waters of Noah;' that is, all the occurrences, passages then, or things done; and the remembrance of those things being so like, yea, in many things the same, occasioneth him in the midst of his declaration of those promises of grace to cry out, 'This is the waters of Noah to me,' the very same I did then.

Now the things that were then done at those waters, were an uttering a covenant by God for Noah's salvation in those waters; likewise

God's secret purposes and intendments, then only known to himself, by those transactions with Noah as in a type did fore-signify his like gracious purposes towards his church, which he utters and declares; also Noah, his tossing and trials in the waters, and God's remembrance of him then in the midst of them.

And thus, in saying 'this is the waters of Noah to me,' it is as if God had there said, the promises and covenant I have but now declared towards my church make me call to mind what I said to Noah at the flood, when the waters would have destroyed him; and also to remember what my grace, my intentions, purposes, my affections, my heart was then, and at that time; and those my transactions with him then. I intended, and aimed to prefigure, and portray out these my like gracious purposes to my church, to come out of his loins, which I meant in after ages and in due time to declare and open the mystery of; and accordingly I now upon this occasion do declare it in my prophet Isaiah: 'This is the waters of Noah to me;' I then had them all in contemplation afore; I had all my elect church to come in my view; all my promises of grace, all my promises of salvation were afore me then; I intended them all in the figure and type of Noah's salvation, and of his sons; and when the time of the accomplishment

shall come, I shall further and more amply declare this to have been in my heart and design by my apostles.

To me. There is a great deal of emphasis in that adjection, and serves for confirmation of these things which have now been spoken.

1. It imports that God so looked at it, and intended it as such. A man useth to say of thing that we account to be such and such, it is so to me: 'To us there is but one God,' &c., says the apostle in the name of Christians, so we judge and believe; these waters were my covenant; so it stood in my thoughts, and so it should stand in yours.

2. It imports that a thing is privately and secretly, and within one's breast, so or so intended and esteemed. It is to me, who am privy to my own intentions; so to God, between God and himself. And this imports the next sentence suggested, 'For as I have sworn, the waters of Noah shall no more go over the earth.' Now, look over all that story in Genesis, then over the whole book of the Old Testament, and you find not the least intimation of an oath which God had taken about this matter. And if God had kept his own counsel, we could never have challenged him with this parallel of an oath to both his covenant and ours; his intentions therein were known only to himself; but himself knowing his own mind utters it here; for it is to me that the waters of Noah are my covenant of grace.

3. Lastly, This to me imports God's acknowledging himself obliged to fulfil his covenant of grace to the elect; for though none did know this to have been his intentions in it, yet it was enough for him, within himself to have intended it so. And it is enough to us for him to say,

'This is to me the waters of Noah;' and as I performed that then, so I hold myself obliged now. My own purposes had then, are my bonds between me and myself; and I can no more alter my purposes in it than I did recall my covenant made to Noah then, when I made it.

This being the true intent and meaning of these words; further, as for the form of speech itself, to say of the promises of his covenant of

grace, 'This is the waters of Noah;' this form or manner of speech is usual. As, 1. When we would parallel two things that are alike, we use to say, this is such or such a thing, namely, to which it is like. Thus Christ speaks of John Baptist: Mat. 11:15, 'This is Elias;' he speaks it of John in coherency with ver. 13. And why, but because he was such another man in his course of life, zeal, office, and way of ministry as Elias was, and living in like corrupt and depraved times; as the angels described him, and foretold against his birth: Luke 1:17, 'In the power and spirit of Elias, to turn the disobedient to the wisdom of the just.' Thus here, God paralleling his covenant with Noah, &c., with that to his elect church, and upon the remembrance of the likeness and sameness, says, 'This is the waters of Noah.' Even as Christ calls Jonah's being in the whale's belly three days and three nights, 'the sign of Jonah;' that is, of being in the grave, and rising then up again.

2. But specially this is and may be used when one thing is the prophetic figure, type, or sign of another, that they are mutually and indifferently named the one the other, 'That rock was Christ,' the figure hath the name of Christ that was intended and prefigured in it,

1 Cor. 10:2. And vice versá‚ or on the other way, 'Christ our passover is sacrificed for us,' 1 Cor. 5:7. There Christ, the thing prefigured, is styled the figure; and in this case it is not by way of simple metaphor, in that the things are like one the other, but there is this further special foundation for it, that when one thing is intended for the type of another it is all one, and to be a fore-running prophecy of the other, which must therefore necessarily be fulfilled, and come to pass. If Adam be the type or figure of Christ, then what follows, but as the apostle argues it, that Christ is 'he that is to come'? Rom. 5:14.

Adam, says he, was 'the figure of him that was to come.' And so the thing prefigured by any type must of necessity be things to come, and to come to pass; for they are prophecies, and prophecies must have their accomplishment.

And in this case, the figure and thing figured do both bear the same name: therefore Christ being the prefigured, in and by the 'first

Adam,' is termed the 'last Adam,' 1 Cor. 15. But you shall find the very same form of speech used, and the same indigitation made in the like case, Gal. 4, when the apostle would prove the different conditions of two sorts of persons, into one of which all mankind do fall, namely, either to be under the covenant of works, or the law, or of grace, that is, the gospel; having for the proof of these (for types rightly applied are argumentative) alleged how Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond woman, the other by a free woman, and dilated thereupon, he claps his hand down upon it, and with the like indigitation cries, 'For these are the two covenants;' terming the intended types or figures under the Old, by the name of the substance, or things signified under the New. So in like manner, Rev.

11:4, of the two witnesses under the New Testament, typified out by Zechariah's two olive-trees under the Old: 'These are the olive trees,'

&c. Again, Eph. 5, when the apostle had related the passages at Adam and Eve's marriage as they are found in Genesis, of a man's being

'joined to his wife, and they two being one flesh,' he in a like form of speech, quasi digito monstrans‚ instantly subjoins, 'this is a great mystery,' as being intended of Christ and his church. God in his secret intention had that aim in it. So here, whilst God had began to express his loving-kindness, and was going on to do it, he as it were, suddenly struck with the remembrance of it, claps down his hand,

'This is the waters of Noah to me.' This; there is indeed this difference, that whereas in that of Adam's marriage he takes, as I may say, his finger off from his relating the thing signifying, and lays it upon the thing signified: 'This is a great mystery;' but here, vice versá‚ on the contrary, as Jacob his hands, he takes off his speech from the thing signified (namely, his covenant of grace), and lays it upon the thing signifying: 'This is no other than the waters of Noah.'

But it is all one (as I observed) for the thing figured to be denominated by the name of the figure, as è contrà‚ the figure by the title of the thing figured. And so the paraphrase upon the words may run thus, as if God had said: In the passages of the waters of Noah I was a-drawing a model, a shadow of what I meant to form up, and

make a substance and reality of in after ages, in my covenant of grace.

This to be the import of that weighty addition, to me‚ the paraphrase of some doth concur in, Tale quid concepi apud me. I was in my thoughts conceiving, and forming such a like thing within myself: that is, whilst I was making those transactions with Noah. Others thus: Videor mihi esse in diebus Noe; that is, whilst I am declaring, and speaking, talking of, and resolving to perform my covenant of grace, I think with myself, I am at the flood, as in the days of Noah; and doing the same things over again, which I did then about Noah's salvation, and with the same heart, and out of the same gracious resolutions; and being privy to big own intentions, he tells us plainly,

'This to me was the waters of Noah.' And now I utter my secret purposes therein, that were as then private to myself.

SECTION IV

Some special particular parallels between what is found in Noah's covenant and the covenant of grace.

1. Absoluteness; which, how, and what it will appear by comparing things with things spoken of in that history, and the order of their being spoken of first in chapter 6. When God's counsel or intention within himself about saving Noah and destroying the world is held, and there laid open, God's grace towards him is in the first place solely and abstractly mentioned as the cause thereof, whilst no mention at all, not the least, is made of Noah his holiness as mingled therewith; as for which, and upon which, God did cast that grace upon him, it, ver. 8, 'But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.'

But pure and unmixed grace, which* works, by being alone mentioned, is made the total and only cause of that matter: ver. 8,

'But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.' And then, indeed, in the story or his generation which follows, ver. 9, &c., there comes to be recorded Noah's holiness, 'These are the generations of Noah:

Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generations, and Noah

walked with God.' So as Noah's personal righteousness follows as the effect of that grace which God bore to his person, and is no way connected with that grace, as that for which God cast that grace upon him. He was first found the object of God's grace and favour, and not grace first found in him; thereby plainly to insinuate, that for no righteousness in him it was that God did first absolutely pitch his grace upon him, abstractly from the consideration of his holiness, and that was the fruit of that grace of God's; as was also the case of the blessed virgin, 'Oh thou that art graciously accepted or graced.'

That thou of all other women shouldest be the mother of the Messiah, the Son of God, says the angel, Luke 1:28, 32. To be sure this privilege could by no worthiness in herself come to be bestowed upon her, so nor this of Noah. Nor is anything of his inserted as a condition of that grace. Again, at the 18th verse, 'But with thee will I stablish my covenant.' Hence again, there is no mention of condition on Noah's part, but only of what God by covenant would do on his; and therefore absolutely declareth himself, that he not only makes a covenant, but establisheth it; and under this word undertakes to perform it, and bring it to a full perfection, so as whatever should be necessary and requisite on Noah's part, God at once undertakes to work in him as part of his own covenant. If you read over the whole covenant of grace, as it is prophesied of by Jeremiah, chap. 31, and quoted by the apostle, Heb. 8, you will find that all that is requisite to salvation on man's part, God undertakes to work it in them, and causeth effectually their hearts to concur therein.

But it may be said (which also the Romanists object), that in chap.

7:1, when God did put Noah into the ark, he said, 'Come thou into the ark: for thee have I seen righteous afore me in this generation.'

I answer, That the performance of promises, when they are to come to execution, do require such and such qualifications in the persons to whom they are performed, when yet the decree and purpose of those promises, and the making of those promises, depend wholly and immediately upon God's grace as the spring and fountain of them. Thus heaven and glory, as they are in God's purpose designed,

are merely of grace, when yet God executively bestows them not, nor brings us to salvation [but] by and through faith and holiness. As 2

Thes. 2:13, 'God hath chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth.' Now, observe how this was spoken of Noah, when the thing came to be done, and he was to set his foot into the ark. And it comes in order after the declaration which God's grace utters of his counsel and purpose, which we read in the aforesaid chapter 6:8, 18. God considered not Noah's being first righteous ere he did cast his grace upon him, and thereupon did it. The like language unto this of God's to Noah will Christ use to his saints when they are at latter day to enter into heaven, but shewing withal how his grace hath put a difference between them and others, and had made them meet for that inheritance: Mat. 25:34, 35, 'Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in.' So first, and it imports God the Father's first choosing of them to have been the cause of all they inherit.

For any man to interpret the absoluteness of the covenant to be that God saves men absolutely without any requisite qualifications wrought in them, is manifestly to cast a reproach upon the grace of God itself in the doctrine of it. Whilst it is professed that his grace covenanteth to work in them, and accordingly worketh both the will and the deed, according to his good pleasure, where he means to save, and never saved any without they be wrought in them; nor doth that doctrine (if not perverted by men's presumptuousness) encourage men to use no endeavours, because God covenants to work all; for God, when he will save, setteth men's will a-work to use all endeavours in a subordination to his grace; as in that exhortation you find it, 'Work out your salvation; for it is God works the will and the deed,' yet still, 'according to his good pleasure.' And this absoluteness of electing grace the apostle sets forth, Rom. 9, 'It is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs,' that useth means and endeavours, 'but of God that sheweth mercy.' Yet without men's willing and running (such as wherewith souls trust not therein, or

think to obtain by their endeavours), God that sheweth mercy saveth no man; yea, shews his mercy in causing so to will and to run as to obtain. 'According to his abundant mercy he begetteth us,' 1 Peter

1:3. He shews the mercy in working that; and being savingly wrought on, keeps us through the same mercy; so says my text here in Isaiah,

'My kindness shall not depart from thee, nor the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.'

Nor indeed are those we call conditions of the covenant on our part, as believing on Christ, turning from sin, other than necessary means of being made partakers of Christ and salvation. As if one should say to an hungry man, there is meat which shall be yours, to live by it, if you will eat it and digest it, else not. In this case, who will say this is barely a condition, for it is the very partaking of the meat itself whereby a man makes it his own. So for a father to say to one he bestows his daughter upon in marriage, Lo, she is your wife, take her and marry her. This is not a condition of her being his wife, as external to it, but it is that very intrinsecal and essential act whereby she becomes his, and he her husband. Take the instance in hand.

Noah's preparing the ark, and his entering into it to be saved, are not so properly to be styled conditions which God took from him, and so thereupon to save him, but they were necessary means for Noah to save himself; yea, his entering into the ark and abiding therein

(whereunto the act of our faith on Christ answereth) was his salvation itself. God himself says to him, 'Come, enter thou,' Gen. 7:1, and he was safe and saved by so doing. Unto which that of Christ's answers, 'Whoever sees the Son, and comes to him,' John 6:35; 'And he that cometh I will raise up at the latter day,' ver. 37, which is interpreted, 'he that believeth,' ver. 40, 44, 45. All Noah's holiness would not have saved him from the waters, but his being in the ark saved him from the waters. And that salvation as so considered, is that which bears the figure of our salvation. And when he was in the ark all the while, although his meat and drink kept his bodily spirits alive as a man, yet his salvation, considered as it was a salvation in the waters and from the flood, was his being in the ark; and that

salvation, precisely as such, is that which is in the figure. This for the first absoluteness of this grace and covenant.

2. The second parallel is the everlasting stability, sureness, fixedness, and constancy of the grace of the covenant, which, ver. 8, is termed,

'everlasting kindness;' and the covenant itself as unmoveable as are the mountains; 'Then may the covenant of my peace be removed,' ver. 10, and this signified by the stability of Noah's covenants, both first and second. And therefore the word, 'I will establish my covenant,' is used of the first, Gen. 6:18, and of the second, Gen. 9:11.

And the same word is repeated here in Isa. 54, 'In righteousness shall be established,' ver. 14. And to typify forth this stability of the covenant did Noah's second covenant in a special manner serve; and therefore the very words thereof are to this very purpose rehearsed in this verse of my text. And to this very purpose I shewed how many of the words and passages thereof are referred unto and transposed into the grand charter of the covenant of grace, to confirm the perpetuity thereof, as in three several chapters set together of Jeremiah you find them, which I must remit the reader unto. And for this purpose it is that God produceth his oath in the text, as that which he professeth to have intended in this covenant with Noah, 'As I have sworn,' &c. And the like parallel oath, in correspondency thereunto, he affixeth to his covenant of grace here, 'So have I sworn

I will not be wroth with thee;' that is, with a wrath to destruction; even as he had sworn 'the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth to destroy it.' And an oath, we know, is immutable, as Heb.

6:18. Yea, moreover, God professeth himself resolute and peremptory in it, concluding, 'Thus saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee;' that is, that God who is set in his heart, and purposes to exercise nothing else but mercy towards thee‚ even as God, to express his peremptoriness in shewing mercy to Moses, 'I will be merciful to whom I will be merciful.' And truly there is this considerable about God's alleging his oath to Noah, that if God had not said that he intended an oath, in that he intended an oath in that his covenant with Noah, we could never have challenged him of it if he had kept his own counsel. For read the whole story there, and there is no

mention of an oath, or any words that tend that way, only that God should have said in his heart, 'I will not curse the ground any more,'

Gen. 8:21. But God was privy to his own intention, and so upon this occasion declares it; and his manner of speaking here secretly imports it, 'This is the waters of Noah to me;' that is, between me and myself, who knew my own intentions.

But you will say, will not men's sins break this covenant, though God will not?

I answer, They would infallibly break between God and us, if God should not take order to keep us from such ways of sinning as would bring everlasting wrath upon us. Promissis se curaturum (saith

Piscator well). He will have a watchful eye and powerful hand to prevent such sinnings. As upon occasion of his like oath to the perpetuity of his covenant of grace, he declares to David, in Ps.

89:30–32, 'If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.' And by those chastisements I will reduce them again. But, as ver. 34, 'My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.' And that God had all our sins before him, and well considered what they would be, when he takes this deliberate oath, the very parallel instance (afore us) of what is inserted by God in Noah's covenant, may inform us. The words in Gen. 8:21 are, 'God said in his heart, I will not curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth: neither will I again smite any more every living thing, as I have done.' Thus the oath in the figure speaks. And that which answers it in the covenant of grace is, that God foresees what our sins will be; and yet he knows what he hath to do, obliges himself with a non obstante‚ thus everlastingly to save us; for he views them aforehand, and takes care they shall not be such that he should be everlastingly wroth with us; 'He knows our frame,' as Ps. 103, and considers it to be merciful to us, and nevertheless goes on to establish this covenant with us. This for the stability of his covenant.

3. A third parallel is, that God hath made and confirmed his covenant of grace sure and stable, and in and through the sacrifice of Christ the Mediator. Covenants, we know, were wont to be made with sacrifice, Ps. 50:5. Now God's covenant on his part was to be ratified,

Heb. 9:18–20. And when God's covenant is in this 9th verse styled 'the covenant of his peace,' it imports as much as, not of grace simply, but of peace; as of God being pacified by an atonement of a mediator. And the aspect this word peace may seem to have here unto what in the chapter afore had foregone, where the sacrifice of Christ being prophesied of, it is said, 'He was bruised for our iniquities, and the chastisement of our peace* was upon him;' through which, God being pacified towards us, makes a covenant of peace with us. Now as Christ is styled our peace, Eph. 2, and so it being made by him, through the appointment of the Father, it is called by God the covenant of his peace: Col. 1:20, 'It pleaseth the Father, that Christ, having made peace by the blood of his cross, to reconcile to himself,' &c. And in this respect the parallels fall most fitly between that covenant, Gen. 9, made with Noah, a figure of God's with us. It is worth our comparing the one with the other; for not only, de facto‚ it is found to have been so, that ere God established his covenant with Noah, when come forth of the ark, he offered burnt-offerings on the altar to God, and that God was well pleased therewith: Gen. 8:20, 21, 'The Lord smelled a sweet savour,' a savour of rest, as in the Hebrew, that is, of peace; 'and said in his heart, &c., he would curse the earth no more,' and thereupon established that covenant that follows. And that Noah, the father of that new world to come, was herein a type of Christ, and that this sacrifice of his was the type of Christ's sacrifice, we all acknowledge from the warrant of that allusion, and sameness of language the apostle useth of Christ's sacrifice that had been uttered of this of Noah: Eph. 5:2, 'Christ gave himself for us an offering, a sacrifice to God, for a sweet smelling savour,' which I insisted upon afore. But it may further be noticed, how that he makes the parallel yet more conspicuous, and as setly designed, by comparing the order and coherences of this 54th chapter of Isaiah with the foregone chapter, the 53d. That that chapter treats of Christ's sacrifice, and then this

54th chapter, and also the 55th and 56th chapters, do treat of the covenant of grace, the covenant following thereupon. And they succeed each other in the very same immediate coherence that Noah his sacrifice and covenant did one the other in those two forementioned chapters in Genesis. For look, as in the latter part of that 8th chapter he relates the story of Noah's sacrifice, that then in the 9th chapter he records that covenant thereupon, just answerably in Isaiah, after he had in the foregoing 53d chapter foretold Christ's great sacrifice of himself: 'Bearing our sins and sorrows, making his soul an offering for sin,' with promise that 'many should be justified thereof; and he should see his seed,' &c. Immediately after this he subjoins, how upon this sacrifice God covenants to rear up a new

Christian church (of which the next branch is to treat), and establisheth this covenant therewith under this very figure of the waters of Noah. And as no prophecy speaks more fully and clearly of Christ's sacrifice than that 53d chapter of Isaiah, so nor none more perspicuously and evangelically of the gospel covenant than the 54th chapter, and the two other that follow. And in the 55th chapter, the 5th verse, this covenant is called 'the sure mercies of David,' that is, of Christ‚ having purchased them for us by his death, and by rising again having applied them to us.

4. The fourth parallel is, the tenderness of God's mercies to his elect, whom he takes into his covenant, in all these distresses and extremities. This is by the parallel of Noah's story set forth to us; for what can he supposed more sympathising with his people, or argues a deeper sense and sounding of bowels, than to hear God, in the midst of their afflictions and temptations, cry out on the sudden, and with the greatest vehemency, 'O thou afflicted, and tossed with tempests, and not comforted!' There is no speech or passage which we find our God to utter in Scripture more pathetic or passionate than this; and yet you see (as before I touched) it is represented under a perfect allusion to and compassionate remembrance that God's heart still had retained of Noah whilst in the ark, floating in those waves and horrible tempests, which coming in immediately with coherence with the remembrance of Noah's waters, 'This is the

waters of Noah,' &c., in verse 9, as a remembrance of his covenant with his people, could not have been more probably carried over to any other similitude or allusion in Scripture whatsoever, suppose this coherence had not been; but for the pertinency of it, I shewed before what remembrance God had of Noah whilst in the ark, Gen.

8:1. And if Noah's instance had not been alluded to, I appeal to any what exemplification they can find to set out to the life the sympathisings of a condoling heart of another in misery like unto it, nor could the movings of God's bowels have been more elegantly uttered. Methinks it is as if the dearest friend, or most loving husband or father, having his dearest relations of wife, and children, and friends in a ship at sea, and viewing them to sit within the rage of wild waves and winds, which he, standing himself safe on the immediate shore, sees and beholds with his own eyes, and at every bending of the ship near to a suppression under those waves, his heart beats, and he lamentably cries out at every toss and motion, and thinks with himself, how must their hearts be afflicted, and not comforted in the midst of all, that are shiftless and helpless in this storm, and know not what to do! Like to such an one doth God express his affection here.

5. As touching the eminent subject of this new covenant, and of election of grace, that is, the persons to be saved, or that church this covenant is established withal, our comparing together what is prophesied thereof in this 54th chapter of Isaiah, and the prefigurations thereof in Noah's ark and story, and his own prophecies given out about it, will afford another (if I may not call it a parallel, yet) concordant harmony, yea, identity, to be the same in both.

Who and what that church should be, is lively set forth in Noah's story, under a double notion or consideration of them.

(1.) Of their persons, whom that church should specially be made up of.

(2.) In respect of their condition, viz. all sorts of sinners.

(1.) For the first, this 54th chapter of Isaiah informs us, that the church which God applies all these promises unto, and intends all these his comforts to, was the Christian church of the new testament, which was to rise up soon after Christ's death (which many other prophecies had foretold), and in a special manner the coherence of the 53d chapter, and this 54th chapter, shews; this also (as it served afore for the former purpose, so now for this) you have in chapter 53, the most renowned of all other records in the Old Testament, prophesying of Christ's death, and therein a promise as his purchase and reward: ver. 10, 'Thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin; he shall see his seed,' &c. And as in the event it proved, that soon after Christ's death a new Christian church began to be reared, so in order follows next in the prophet a prophecy of that church; for immediately upon it, in chapter 54, from the first verse and so on, succeeds this church, as therefrom existing, which was to be both his seed and spouse,—'Thy Maker is thy husband,'—and children to be brought forth to him. See the first verse: 'Sing, O barren, [that didst not] bear; and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate, than the children of the married wife.' Here is a former wife-mother spoken of, and here is a new wife (that formerly had been barren and desolate), and a new seed, or children more numerous than those by the former wife, and these are manifestly discriminated, the one from the other; and it is to this new spouse that God applies this his oath of Noah's covenant and waters, which is nowhere else to any such purpose at all mentioned in all the Old Testament. Well, but who is this barren woman, this anew received spouse? Let us hear the apostle's interpretation of it, who those are whom he applies it unto: Gal. 4:25,

'Jerusalem that now is.' He speaks of that Judaical church under the name of the mother city, which then was existing, and as not yet destroyed, when he wrote this epistle. And this church, the old wife would needs hold up in opposition to that new church and wife; that frame and form of worship of the old testament, though she kept thereby herself and her children still in bondage, as it is there; but

there is (says he) 'another Jerusalem, which is above, and is free, the mother of us all;' which new Jerusalem was now‚ under the new testament, declared to be the mother of us all, the venter of a new generation. To prove which, he citeth this very place, Isa. 54:1, as a prophecy thereof: 'Rejoice, O barren,' &c. So, then, here is a new church this chapter of Isaiah concerns, and an old one which it is severed from.

And it will not be a block in the way of the application of this scripture, which I shall drive at (which is, that the new church out of the Gentiles is principally aimed at), whether the Christians of the Jewish nation, and the churches at Jerusalem and Judea be understood, and taken in to have made up, during those gospel times, part of this new church. Although there is this against that in that very chapter, that the church he now foretells he would anew assume, the wife he had cast off, [he] would cast off no more after he had received her, whereas he hath cast off the Jewish nation from having children by her, or out of her, for these fourteen hundred years. She was in a manner cut off in Paul's time, whereas out of the Gentiles he hath continued a numerous church to this day. It matters not, I say; for the children out of the Jewish nation then (though the first gospel fruits), were but a few in comparison to those the Gentiles have brought forth to God, and soon became barren again.

And yet it will not be enough for the full completing my drift, that this new wife, the church under the new, is that which is prophesied of here by Isaiah, unless in the next place I also shew that this was either typified or prophesied of Noah's story, that we may say of it,

'This is the waters of Noah,' &c.

[1.] In the general, the allusion from thence will hold, that Noah and his sons were ordained by God to be the founders and beginners of a new world; as we use to say, they began the world anew. Thus in the letter they were, which Peter's phrase insinuates, whilst he calls that afore Noah's times 'the world that then was.' And answerably thereunto, the times of Christ and his apostles are styled, in the

current language of the New Testament, stilo novo‚ to have begun a new world. Thus Christ speaks, 'the kingdom of heaven is at hand; and as a new æra or account, the gospel times are called 'the last days;' so the apostles; and 'the world to come,' saith Paul, Heb. 2, which did then begin; for it is set in opposition to the time of the law given by the angels, ver. 2; and so of the Jewish state. The analogy holds thus between them, that look as when in the old world, 'all flesh had corrupted their way,' as Gen. 6:11, 12, and among the Jews, religion being afore so corrupted, and among the Gentiles, 'God having suffered in times past all nations to walk in their own ways,'

Acts 17:16, 'After dumb idols as they were led,' 1 Cor. 12:1, that then God raised up this new gospel church as a new world (the time of which is called 'the time of the reformation,' or change of the old,

Heb. 9),—the saints and churches you read of in the epistles superscribed unto them, to the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians,

Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and the Hebrews. Thus in general for the type, but, [2.] Furthermore, when Noah came forth of the ark to begin this new world, he falls a-prophesying, and prophesies after that second covenant made with him of this same new church: Gen. Gen. 9:27,

'God shall enlarge Japhet to dwell in the tents of Shem,' which was when the Gentiles were converted. And now let us return again to Isaiah, and see whether he doth now also prophesy in a language conform to this of Noah's, as if he had renewed but Noah's old prophecy, as intended of this new church. Read on the next two verses of that chapter: 'Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, strengthen thy stakes, for thou shalt break forth on the right hand, and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles‚ and make the desolate cities to be inhabited;' which repeats but the punctual fulfilling of that prophecy of Noah in Japhet's seed, under the same language of enlarging Japhet there, and enlarge thy tents here, and of dwelling in the tents of Shem there, through the efficacious persuasion of the word that went out of Sion and from Jerusalem in the apostles' ministry. For after this Moses, the relator

of these things, setting down who were the sons of Japhet in chapter 10 verses 2–4, in the 5th verse he shews what parts of the world their allotment was: 'By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands, every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.

Now, we may know that those isles of the Gentiles are those of Europe, the Grecians, Germans, Britains, &c.; and so called by a special denomination, Europe abounding with islands more than

Asia or Africa by far. And we find among the heathen records that they styled themselves Japeti genus‚ the seed of Japhet. You, brethren, even you, are a portion of that seed, Japetians all; and whose forefathers have been persuaded to dwell in the tents of Shem, and the gospel is amongst you to this day; you are, with other nations, the church in all these prophecies pointed at, and children of this covenant, which hath taken hold of many of you. And we have heard with our ears, and our eyes have seen it, the fulfilling of that which follows in that 13th verse of this chapter: 'Your seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.'

This as to the persons, or what generation of men, simply considered.

(2.) For the condition of the persons this new church was to consist of, it had a representation made for it to prefigure that, namely, they should be sinners of all sorts that the worst of nations in the world brought forth, according to the several kinds of their degeneratings and profaneness. I must now again retrieve that objection which I before have made, namely, that there were all sorts of beasts, and fowls, and creeping things in the ark, which were saved from the waters, in a corporeal salvation, as well as Noah and his sons; yea, and with whom, after Noah and they came forth of the ark, that second covenant was made. And the objection is, that therefore this covenant cannot be drawn into a figure of the gospel covenant with the church, his elect.

Besides those answers then given, I then made a reservation of one for this place, and I have now on purpose proposed the objection

anew, to usher in this new parallel that is now to follow, from what the very beasts prefigured. We read, Acts 10:11, 12, how in the first beginning of the gospel‚ or of this new Christian church (as Peter speaks of it, Acts 15), there was a vessel let down from heaven in a vision to Peter, wherein were 'all manner of four-footed beasts in the earth: wild beasts, and creeping things‚ and fowls of the air.' And the interpretation of this to Peter was, that the catholic church under the new testament should consist as of men from out of all nations of Noah's seed, whether clean or unclean, Jew or Gentile, who should now be converted to the faith of Christ; and that this was signified unto Peter by all these sorts of creatures. Now, bring this to Noah's ark and covenant, Genesis 7th and 9th chapters, the ancients (as Austin*) readily understood the coming in of all nations under the gospel into the church to have been prefigured thereby. And how usual it is Scripture to set out the several sorts of wicked men under the similitude of beasts—as Herod by a fox, Nero by a lion, the circumcision by dogs—needs not be enlarged upon. I may therefore apply what God doth in Ezekiel touching his people, whom he had represented under the figure of sheep throughout chapter 34. He in the last verse, by way of exposition of that parable, 'The flock of my pasture are men,' says he; so, on the contrary, I may say, these beasts are men, the wickedest of men, and all kind of sinners of them. And truly when I consider how much that one alone in the Acts answers to the other in Genesis, and find in comparing both places the very same enumeration as to the kinds of these in both places, to be these generals, 'fowls of the air, beasts, and creeping things,' and how

'some of every sort' of these, are in both places pointed at, I could not reject this as a mere phantasm of man's imagination, it having so far the name of a scripture for its warrant, as by this comparing these scriptures together doth appear.

Obj. And whereas it may again be objected, that the covenant, Gen.

9, is made with Noah and his sons and their seed distinctly, and apart from that of the beasts and all living things; and so the figure of these beasts cannot be brought into this account.

Ans. The answer is, that what some part of a type doth not serve to reach, that another shall; types are but imperfect shadows, and therefore are so formed as one to represent one piece of the substance to be shadowed out under one resemblance, and another piece, or limb under another, whereof multitudes of instances might be given. So, then, although the church of his elect, whom God made his covenant with, and for, were to be men, as for their persons, of Noah's seed and posterity, and in that respect the covenant is by name made with them; yet their condition, as sinners, was in the several variety of their bestialities as sinners, set forth under the figure of those several sorts of living things, to the taking in of the most venomous of sinners, serpents, and creeping things. And so by both the representations the figure is made the more complete, which under one alone would have been too imperfect. It is then but putting this double consideration respectively upon either, and the objection is solved, and the full mind of the figure appears to the life.

6. Lastly, that very rainbow, which is said to have been and then served to be but an outward providential remembrance to God, no more to drown the earth by waters, hath yet in the new testament another rainbow, whereof that in Genesis was but the τὸ φαινόμενον.

You may behold its appearance when you will, twice in the Revelation. The first time, set and constant; the second, occasionally; and both set up for the comfort of this new Christian church (which we have shewn was the subject of the covenant), as that in Genesis had been for the confirmation and establishment of Noah's world.

The first appearance of this rainbow you may behold Rev. 4:3, where it is placed for a constancy, to endure and continue unto the end of the transactions of that book, at which chapter beginneth the general prophecy of the fates of this universal Christian church, gathered (as was observed) 'out of all nations, tongues, and kindreds,' as where you also read, chap. 5:9. And in that 4th chapter, at the first entrance to the prophecy, and by way of prologue to the whole, is God presented as sitting on his throne, ordering and governing all occurrences that should befall this church, having a representative of

that whole church in all ages, even as a parliamentary assembly before their prince and king, standing afore him and his throne. And there appears a rainbow round about that throne of God, ver. 3, which is in a perfect allusion to this of Noah; for the fate of the church of the new testament was all along throughout all ages more afflicted, tossed with tempests, than ever the Jewish church had been; for, ver. 5, 'Out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings' (which always accompany tempests), of the breaking forth of which you may frequently read in that book. Now for their support, and constant comfort, against those dreadful dispensations of God's, doth this rainbow appear.

To signify to us that memorial which God himself hath of his everlasting kindness to his church in the midst of all thundering dispensations whatever, as a sign and symbol unto his church of the light of his countenance shining on them in their thickest and darkest clouds; for a rainbow only appears where and when the sun also shineth.

And this new testament rainbow excels (as the substance always doth the figure) that other, take it but as it was in the figure.

(1.) In that it is constant and fixed for all times, whereas that of Noah's covenant appears but occasionally.

(2.) The old was but as a half-moon rainbow, a semi-circle, whereas this is round about the throne, and encompasseth it; it is a whole circle. And his church are encamped likewise in a round, and he in the midst of them. So let God turn himself in various dispensations, and look which way he pleaseth, yet still he doth, and must necessarily, view his church through his rainbow, putting him in mind of mercy. Yea, and all those lightnings and thunderings, though never so fiery, he shoots, must pass through his rainbow, and so proceed out of mercy, and pass through loving-kindness unto them, shewing withal that in the midst of his fiercest anger he still remembers mercy, and that 'all his ways are mercy and truth unto

them;' ever fulfilling that in Psalm 3, 'The Lord is gracious and merciful, and will ever be mindful of his covenant.' To shew both that all his ways are mercy and truth, for even all those thunderbolts and lightnings do come through that rainbow, which doth blunt the force and draw out the venomous vapour that is in them, as they come forth and are directed to his people; as also that himself is ever mindful of his covenant, Ps. 3.

The second appearance of this rainbow is occasional, and for a special purpose. There is, upon many forbodes, and seeming more than probabilities, out of the Revelation, one great fate to come upon the churches of Christ, the last killing of 'the witnesses,' that hath been so long forewarned of by many witnesses. How long first, or how soon, none but God knows; it may perhaps lie at the door, which, when it comes, will prove the most violent of all the foregone; even as that of Dioclesian (the last of the ten persecutions upon the primitive saints) was the greatest of all forewent it. And so, this being to he the last, from antichrist and his followers, may likewise prove to be of all persecutions the sorest, and in which shall be accomplished, and so ended, the scattering of the power of the holy people, Dan. 12. And indeed, so great is it like to be, as it occasioned

Christ himself (the same angel that appeared in the 12th of Daniel) to come down from heaven on purpose, in an extraordinary appearance, to support the saints in a special manner against that trial. And this angel is no other than Christ himself, as appears by one speech of his in the 11th chapter, ver. 3; for the narrative in the forepart of that chapter is uttered by the same angel, 'I will give power to my two witnesses,' saith he. And to call them his witnesses, none but Christ must be allowed to speak, no mere created angel might do it.

Now, see what an appearance he comes down withal, when he cometh with this sad message, which we find in chap. 11. His appearance in chap. 10:1, is, that 'his body was clothed with a cloud, his face shining as the sun, and a rainbow upon his head,' and all of these significant unto the purpose specified.

(1.) There being so violent and huge a storm a-coming immediately upon his church, and that should come upon his whole church, that is, his body; his body is therefore said to be clothed with a cloud all over, for his head and feet are otherwise there particularly described, and therefore it is intended it was his body was that of him which the cloud environed. Other slaughters of his members have been at various times particular, upon several parts of his body apart; but this last is to be universal, to the whole that remain in the streets or jurisdiction of the great city. Even as the waters of Noah, was the only universal flood, though particular floods have been before and since.

(2.) Yet, secondly, his face shone as the sun, to shew that his everlasting grace and kindness was not only inwardly within himself, and in reality in this sad hour still the same that ever it had been to his people in their utmost prosperous times; and that his heart had nothing but graciousness of intents, thoughts of peace towards them; but that outwardly his face (which is the index of his heart) should shine upon their souls, in lifting up the light of his countenance thereon, whilst their outward man was under those sore persecutions.

(3.) And the sunshine of his face and favour, causeth a rainbow to shine on the cloud about his head, for a memorial and assurance to his church, that this flood shall not destroy them. Though it may afflict and toss them sore, even as in Gen. 9:14 (in the figure), it is said, 'it shall come to pass, that when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will remember my covenant.'

And truly I conclude, let Christ come with what clouds he pleaseth, and cover us his body all over with them, so as his face shine as the sun, and he lift up the light of his countenance upon us; and set up his rainbow, the symbol of his everlasting kindness and mercy, and we shall have sufficient to support us.

SECTION V

How the story of Noah was a type of the Mediator of the covenant of grace, Christ which was the ark.

By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a-preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards

God), by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.—1 PET. 3:19–21.

That which Peter holds forth concerning this our salvation, is reducible to two heads, which, drawn forth and set out, will give us a full exposition of the apostle's scope therein.

I. Noah was then a preacher of the gospel, and of salvation by Christ, even as we the apostles now; that is Peter's scope.

1. We read in the second epistle of our Peter 2:5, that this Noah was then 'a preacher of righteousness.' What righteousness? That of the law. That is, of the righteousness of a rigid repentance only? No; it is said, Heb. 11:7, 'By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of righteousness which is by faith.' Noah himself was taught of God from that figure, being saved by the ark (which Peter here applies to the salvation of the soul by Christ); he being thus instructed by God to have his recourse unto the righteousness of the Messiah by faith, he became, says the text, Heb. 11:7, 'the heir of the righteousness of faith;' that is, of the same righteousness that we Christians do now believe in. There was a new and clearer illustration then, and thereby added and revealed to Noah's faith, besides that had been afore through the promise of that seed to Adam. And Noah's faith being thus more fully and explicitly enlightened in that point, than any or all before him, it is said, he thereupon 'became the heir of the righteousness of faith' anew; and because he was with a fresh light

and clearer discovery brought to embrace that righteousness of the Messiah, which had been but darkly and obscurely, in comparison, before revealed, thereupon out of his own personal faith and experience, he became a preacher of the same righteousness unto the world, for their eternal salvation also; for as he believed, so he spake.

And further, he is declared to be a free-grace man in his faith as to God's acceptation of him, he wholly relying on the sole favour of God for salvation; wherefore God says, Gen. 6:8, 'But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord,' and not upon the account of works. And so in like manner for the Messiah, he understood that his ark, he was forewarned to prepare, was the figure of him; even as of Abraham it is said, in the same Heb. 11 ver. 19, that he understood and received his son Isaac, in a figure of the resurrection, namely, of Christ, and so of us, himself and all in Christ unto eternal life; and still, I say, as he believed, so he preached this gospel, the same with ours, that is for the substance of it.

2. The gospel being thus preached by Noah, it is further said by Peter, that Christ in his divine nature was he that preached in Noah's ministry, as really as now he doth in the apostles' (when gone to heaven), he is said to do: Eph. 2, 'He came and preached peace to you which were afar off,' &c. Thus afore flesh assumed, as well as now since, for it was he who being ὅ λόγος, the word, that still spake in all those dispensations to the fathers; and so Peter here, 'In which Spirit he went and preached,' &c.

3. Only there was but one Noah, that is in that latter part or age of that world, who (some way or other) preached to the whole world to condemn it, as Heb. 11:17, thereby making way for their destruction and damnation that followed thereupon, as upon disobedience to the gospel it now also doth; but now under the gospel, 'great is' (and was in Peter's days) 'the company of preachers,' as the psalmist speaks.

4. Peter, to admonish the present world of that great sin of neglecting the great salvation, tells them,

(1.) That as then, so now, few are saved by this gospel preached.

'Few, that is, eight persons' then; and now, take times and means, 'the whole world lies in wickedness,' comparatively to these, few are saved.

(2.) That look, as then the event was, that the souls of them that disobeyed went to hell; he preached to the souls in prison, says Peter, and by prison, hell is there meant (as Christ's speech imports); 'he shall be cast into prison, and pay the utmost farthing;' so it will fall out inevitably now, and with a greater damnation, as the means are greater.

(3.) Their sin was cleaving to their lusts, and pleasures in wives, and eating and drinking, that they would not be persuaded to embrace

Christ; which is here termed 'disobedience;' so now.

And that we may further clear this to have been Peter's scope to institute this parallel, those correspondent allusions which Peter useth (speaking here of those of the old world), unto what in the very story we find in Genesis recorded of them, doth evidence this, and are very remarkable in three particulars. Whereas,

(1.) Peter says that Christ in his Spirit went and preached to them; answerably in Gen. 6:3, Christ thus speaks, 'My Spirit shall not always strive,' that is, in the ministry of my servants, as hitherto it hath done of Enoch's, and others, and particularly in that of my servant Noah.

(2.) Whereas Peter says that the long-suffering of God waited for their repentance upon Noah's preaching, in like manner Christ there in Genesis in the same verso says, 'Yet man's days shall be a hundred and twenty years,' as a space to repent in, after and upon Noah's preaching and warning so long before.

(3.) That clause inserted by Peter, that they were the spirits of those men that were now in prison, that is, in hell, who were then preached to by Noah, holds an affinity unto that known tradition and language

among the Jews, that of all mankind afore or after, those men Noah preached unto, of all others, had been notified and famed to have gone to hell; insomuch that hell itself (this prison) had its name from their company and inhabitation there. They were made a proverb of all in the Old Testament all along; to go down to 'the company of giants,' was all one to go to hell; thus in the Proverbs* again and again, as Mr Mede hath observed. Those giants were the ringleaders of the ungodly, as Peter speaks of the whole of that world who perished, and generally went to hell, and so being the firstborn of hell, as it were the first inhabitants of that place, hence hell had that denomination, as on the contrary of saints to Abraham's bosom. As if we should say to malefactors, you shall go amongst your companions of thieves and cut-purses, to Newgate, so designing forth that prison from the company there.

II. That our being saved by Christ now, was signified by Noah's being saved then in the ark, through or in the midst of the waters.

For whereas he says, 'baptism now saves us,' the meaning is, Christ now signified in baptism saves us, who was prefigured then by the ark in the waters, for it is Christ that is signified and sealed up in this ordinance of baptism. And as it is said, 'That rock was Christ,' 1 Cor.

10:4, so this baptism is Christ, and signifies him, and his saving of us.

And look as Noah preached this salvation by Christ to the old world verbally and in sermons, so that very action of his, in building and entering into the ark, and God's transaction with him, and his preservation therein, was the figure of Christ's saving us, signified to us in our baptism.

And though the ordinance of baptism itself, as now instituted, was not understood by Noah then as prefigured, yet Christ and the salvation itself signified thereby was.

I was long kept from the right understanding of this place, by my ordinary and cursory reading of it, by our translation; and so perhaps

many others. They translate it, 'saved by waters,' so ascribing their salvation to the waters, as the means of Noah and their salvation; and so I still understood the allusion here had been, that the outward element of our baptism being water, and that Noah having been saved upon the waters, that therefore the parallel had been that they were saved by water, as the instrument, and as signifying and typifying forth the blood of Christ washing us, and saving us, as those waters had done them.

But when I came upon this occasion narrowly to examine this matter, 1. I considered that the salvation by waters in the flood held not at all a correspondency with our salvation, through our being washed in Christ's blood, as in baptism is signified; whereas here the apostle affirms, that there is a like figure answering each other, which, to be sure, holds not in this. For the persons of those in the ark were not washed by the water of the flood at all, as we are washed in baptism by Christ's blood; but it was the ark only which was washed with those waters.

2. I found that the salvation of Noah is said to have been in and by the ark. So expressly in the text, 'wherein' (speaking of the ark) 'eight persons were saved' as the means of their salvation; and as for the waters saving them, that was but an accidental effect, for otherwise the waters overflowing tended to destroy them.

3. I found that διὰ ὕδατος, translated here 'by the water,' is more properly, both to the sense and phrase, rendered 'through the water,' and so the sense is; in the ark they were saved from the flood, being carried in it through all its waves, and still kept safe from all danger from them; as in the Acts, chap. 4:22, it is through many tribulations we enter into glory (it is the same particle). So these were saved through these waters, which otherwise of themselves, directly and indeed, did threaten and hazard their salvation.

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