THE TYPE AND ANTITYPE OF SALVATION
B. F. Hall
The following discourse of Brother Hall came to hand after our 3d, No. was printed. Had we received it sooner our answer to the queries of “J. H.” of Indiana would have been omitted. This will account for our calling attention twice to the same subject.
Bro. Hall, has recently relinquished the practice of dentistry for the more useful employment of evangelist and editor.
ED.
1 Pet. iii. 18-21. For even Christ has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God; being put to death, indeed, in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit. By which he also made proclamation to the Spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when the patience of God once waited, in the days of Noah, while an ark was pre- paring, in which few, that is eight souls, were effectually saved through water:—the antitype, immersion, does also now save us, (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh; but the seeking of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
There is not a kingdom on earth but has been founded in hu- man lore, or some way built up on the ruins of some other that preceded it. The four great empires of the earth—the Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, the Grecian and the Roman—were established, each upon a preceding one. The empire of Satan too, was formed of angels who “kept not their first estate,” and for treason were cut off from the kingdom of God, and were hurled over the battlements of Heaven, down, down, down to the Abyss of irremediable woe.
After this revolt in Heaven, Satan envying the first pair of human kind the quiet and happiness they enjoyed in the bowers of Paradise, devised their ruin, and accomplished his revengeful purpose by holding out to the mother of us all the golden fruit covered with blush, beneath which lay concealed the venom of sin, which has been diffused through all her progeny.
The errand of Jesus Christ to our earth was for the purpose of extracting this poison, and reinstating the family of man; which could be accomplished only by rescuing them from the bondage and tyranny of Satan. To accomplish his purpose, Jesus met the “Prince of darkness” in his own dominion. He fought single- handed against the combined forces of Satan. He fell in the con- test: but his death was the demolition of Satan’s empire, and the foundation of his own. Other chieftains sacrifice the lives of their soldiers to their unhallowed ambition: the blood of myriads flows down like a river to preserve their own. They wade through human gore, and trample on the bodies of the slain in their reaches after power. But Messiah acted differently. He stepped forward to meet our foe. He uncovered his bosom to receive the weapon that was aimed at us. His blood sufficed. He, who was the only holy and just person that was ever on the earth, suffered for the unjust, and that too, for the purpose of bringing them to God.
“Being put to death in the flesh.” One reason why he assumed the fleshly nature of man, was, that he might die. So, an Apostle, “since, then, the children partook of flesh and blood, he also, in like manner, partook of these; that, through death, he might vanquish him, who had the power of death.” Had he not partaken of flesh and blood, he could not have shed his blood;
and “without the shedding of blood there is no remission:” and without remission mankind could not be brought back to God.
Though Christ yielded up his life and became obedient to death; he was not always to be confined to the tomb; for he Was “quickened”—“made alive by the spirit,” as the Apostle asserts in this place. Another Apostle informs us that God raised up our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead: and again he lets us know that this was effected by “his Spirit” God then raised up his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, by his Spirit.
V. 19. “By which he went and preached to the spirits in prison.” This expression of the Apostle has been the occasion of much disputation. It is thought by some to favor the notion of the descent of Christ’s spirit into hell, and his preaching to the spirits of the damned, during the period of his interment—while his body was confined to the tomb. This idea is thought to be corroborrated by Psalm 16: 10—which the Apostle Peter applies to Christ in Acts 2; 27. Personating the Messiah, the Psalmist says, “thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy one to see corruption.” The word translated hell in this place, is hades in the Greek; which does not mean the place of torment; nor is it ever used in that sense in the Scriptures. It means invisible, concealed, and is rendered unseen, in the New Version. It is the repository of the souls of the deceased, as the grave is of their bodies: and in this sense it is used here; and designates the residence of the souls of the departed, without conveying an idea of their situation with respect to happiness or misery.
It will be seen also on close inspection, that the passage in question is far from favoring the idea we are considering. It is that the phrase “he went and preached”—necessarily implies that he did it in person. But the same phrase is used where it cannot possibly be so understood. In Eph. 2; 17—the Apostle says, “He (Christ) came and preached to them that were afar off, and to them that were nigh,” i. e. Jews and Gentiles. This he is represented as doing after he rose from the dead.— But it is certain that Christ did not go to the Gentiles, nor even to the Jews, in per- son, after his resurrection, and preach to them. “He went and preached” is a pleonasm for, “he preached;” which he did by his Apostles. What the ambassadors of Jesus Christ did, was done by Jesus Christ himself. In this light, let us examine the place before us. To whom did Jesus Christ preach? The Apostle says —“To the spirits in prison”—those who are now in prison, shut up, like the angels of ‘which kept not their first estate under darkness, to the judgment of the great day.” There are many reserved in everlasting chains—to what class of them did Jesus Christ preach? The Apostle Peter answers—-those “who formerly were disobedient.” Then, commands were given to them. This was done by the preaching of Jesus Christ: which commands they disobeyed. If we could learn when they were disobedient, we could ascertain when Christ preached to them. Is there any clue we can get to this matter? The next member of the sentence explains the whole.
When the patience, or long suffering of God waited.” God has ever been long-suffering. He bears long with the follies of his creatures. He lengthens out the thread of their existence. He affords additional evidences of his goodness, and every day places them under additional obligations to serve him. His goodness invites us to reformation. But the patience and forbearance of God were never more remarkable than, in the days of Noah. The sins of the antediluvians were great. Injustice and fraud, rapine and violence, extended themselves over the face of the whole earth.
God bore long with the people addicted to these sins. He commanded them to reform, and gave them the opportunity of doing so—“while an ark was preparing.” It was during this period that Christ preached to the sinners of the old world.— But how did he preach? The Apostle replies—“by his spirit.” This is corroborated by Gen. 6:3. “my spirit,” says God, “shall not al- ways strive with man.” How long did Christ preach to them? how long did the spirit of God strive with them? Peter says Christ preached to the people “while the ark was preparing;” which, is seems, was a “hundred and twenty years.” This agrees with the statement in Gen. 6:3. “Yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.” This was the length of time that the long-suffering of God waited; and during this long period did Christ preach to them by his spirit The question arises. How was this done? It ap- pears evident that words were employed, and a human agent must have spoken them. Christ preached to the Jews and Gen- tiles, by his Spirit in his Apostles; and with equal propriety it may be said he preached to the Antediluvians by his Spirit in Noah: and this is most certainly the way he did preach to them. Noah was a “preacher of righteousness”—(2 Pet. 2:5.) and by his preaching the spirit of God strove with the people. He spoke as he was moved by the Holy Spirit, as did all the prophets; it was the Spirit of Christ which inspired them all— Pet i. 1, 2. What Noah did under the influence of the Spirit of Christ, Christ did by his ‘Spirit; and to refuse to do what a prophet, moved by the Spirit, commanded, was and is to resist the spirit Stephen accused his persecutors with resisting the Holy Spirit in the same way their fathers did—Acts 7:51,52. By consulting Nehemiah 9:30. we learn that God bore witness or testified against the people by his spirit in his prophets; and in refusing to obey the voice of the prophets, they disobeyed the Lord, or in other words, they resisted the spirit of God. In the same way do sinners now, like the unbelieving Jews, reject the counsel of God, by refusing to obey his word, which has been spoken by his Son.
Noah preached to his contemporaries during the long period of a hundred and twenty years, “while the ark was preparing, in which few, that is, eight souls were saved.”—Of the vast multitudes that inhabited the old world, only eight were saved! The rest were wholly corrupt;—such was their wickedness that it was im- possible for them to be reformed by the means that God ordinarily employs for that purpose. But God never left himself without a witness. There were a few, and but a few who acknowledged the authority of God, and delighted to do him reverence. There were not enough to exert a redeeming influence upon the great mass of depravity and sin; and for that reason God determined to destroy the world. The same was the case with Sodom. Had there been ten righteous men in the city, God would have spared it, because even that small number could have exerted a conservative, and in all probability, a redeeming influence on its wicked inhabitants.
God would not destroy the righteous with the wicked, therefore he preserved Lot when Sodom was destroyed, and in the ark, “eight souls were saved by water.” In ii. Pet. 2: 5, the apostle says; God saved Noah, the eighth person. In Heb. 11:7. another apostle says, “By faith Noah, when he received a revelation concerning things not yet seen, being seized with religious fear prepared an ark for the salvation of his family.” Here we are informed that Noah’s faith and the ark had something to do in his salvation; and in the place before us, the apostle Peter says the eight souls were saved by water! In the first it is said God saved them; in the second, that they were saved by faith and the ark; and in this, that they were saved by baptism.
How are we to understand this? Is there any contradiction in these statements? Not the slightest; nor is there any difficulty in understanding them if we will but remember one thing viz. that God always works by means. God saved Noah;—but how? By water, says the apostle; but not by water alone, there would have been no necessity for faith, and the ark; which are also spoken of as means by which he was saved. All will admit that God as truly saved Noah, although he did it by these means, as if he had done it altogether without them; and he is as much entitled to the hon- or and praise of the mighty deliverance which he wrought in his behalf by the simple means he employed, as though he had effected it wholly without them. He as really cured Naaman, al- though it was done by the means of the leper’s dipping himself in the waters of Jordan, as if it had been the effect of his fiat, by which he spoke the universe into being. God saved Noah, but not without the means of the Patri- arch’s faith, the ark, and water; not by the means of faith alone—
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nor the ark alone—nor water alone; but by them all taken together.
“The like figure—the antitype, baptism, immersion, does also now save us,—by the resurrection of Christ” “Because some re- markable persons and events,” says Dr. MacKnight, “recorded in Scripture, were so ordered by God as to be fit emblems or repre- sentations of future persons and events, they are called types, and the persons and things which they represented or prefigured are called antitypes. Thus, the water of baptism is here called the anti- type to the water of the deluge, because the deluge was a type or emblem of baptism.” We are saved by the water of baptism in the same way that Noah was saved, by the water of the deluge; and his salvation was typical of our salvation. Who saved Noah? Peter says it was God that saved him:—but how did he save him? By water, says the same apostle. But was it by water alone? If so, we are saved in the same way, and there is consistency in the practice of paidobaptists; but upon this principle there would be more consistency in their’ admitting adults to the ordinance without faith and repentance; and if we baptised unconscious babes and unbelieving impenitent adults, there would be some ground for the assertion of our opponents that we believe all that is necessary to salvation, is to be immersed. But we do not believe that any but a repentant believer is a proper subject of the ordinance; therefore the accusation is groundless. With what truth it may be said that paidobaptists have too much faith (shall I call it?) in water, I pre- tend not to say, but it does seem to me that they attach too much importance to it, when they agree that a drop is as good as an ocean, and that sprinkling is as good as immersion. Water was only one means of Noah’s salvation. Besides this, his faith and the ark were employed. As his salvation was a type of ours, let us inquire more particularly into the means by which it was effected.
Noah’s faith.—This was the first in the arrangement or order of the means. God communicated to Noah his intention of bringing a deluge upon the earth, and promised him salvation by means of an ark, which he told him to constitute. Noah believed what God said both concerning the deluge and ark—the threatening and promise, and this belief is called faith. It did not consist of a blind assent to the truth of what God said, nor did he listen with a cold indifference to the awful denunciation against the world, and the promise of safety to himself and family. He was aroused, as from a reverie—he awoke, as from a midnight slumber. He was “seized with religious fear,” and trembling. Nothing has more effect upon the heart of an individual than faith. Its effects are according to the object The relation of a tale of woe, calls up all the sympathetic feelings of the soul, and produces in the bosom that sensation called pity. And how could Noah look forward to the period when the long slumbering wrath of Heaven would burst over the heads of his unbelieving and impenitent acquaintances, without emotions of pity and regret at their stubbornness and incredulity? But when the scene was changed, another part of the canvass was presented to the eye of his faith, and he beheld the ark floating upon the bosom of an overwhelming deluge, and bearing him and his family to a new world; and already beheld the altar oil which he would sacrifice; and gazed with inexpressible satisfaction and delight upon the rich and beautiful meads, the gentle declivities and rugged mountains where he would pay to his Creator the devotions of his soul, fired with zeal, without being annoyed by the taunts of the ungodly, and without having his ear grated with their deep-toned execrations. These were the two scenes in the great drama in which he was to act a conspicuous part: at sight of which, he was “seized with religious fear.” His was an operative faith; it moved him with fear. It discovered to him the danger of his situation. He found himself standing on the margin of the old world, which the irrevocable decree of omnipotence had doomed to destruction, with but one alternative left, which was to gain the height of Mount Ararat in the new world: and how was this to be accomplished? A fathomless sea intervened, and its swelling surges and angry billows intimidated the most stout-hearted. But that sea can be navigated by a vessel, the model of which God handed down from heaven to Noah, with the command to build an ark for the salvation of his family. Noah did as he was commanded. His faith not only moved him with fear, but led to build an ark also “by which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.” It was not his faith, but his building the ark by which he condemned the world. By this act, he acknowledged the justness of the threatened punishment of sin, and expressed his unshaken confidence in the fulfilment of the awful denunciation, and his firm reliance on the veracity of Jehovah concerning his own preservation. An apostle says that Noah built the ark by faith, yet no one, I presume, will say he did it by faith alone; if he should, he would not be believed. A great deal of labor was necessary to build such a mighty fabric. Noah, it appears, labored himself, and he must have had a great number of hands employed to assist him; these he could not have obtained without money; for it is not to be sup- posed that they would assist him, for nothing. We cannot con- ceive of any motive they could have had to perform such labor gratis. It could not have been from a motive of friendship, of sympathy, of benevolence, of obligation, of gratitude, or of duty; for the character that is given of them in the scriptures will not justify such a conclusion. It was not faith in the denunciation, for they were obstinately incredulous to the threatened punishment to the very last. There was no motive then by which they were influenced but of present gain; and the circumstances justify the conclusion that a great deal of money was expended in the construction of the enormous vessel. By building the ark, Noah not only condemned the ungodly, but “became heir also of the righteousness which is by faith.” This inheritance he obtained not simply by believing what God said, but also by doing what he bade him. If we expect to obtain the promised blessings of heaven, we must obey the commands of God, as well as believe what he says. Faith without works, like the body without the spirit, is dead, being alone.
The dimensions of the ark were given to Noah in the model, with every thing relating to its construction. He made every thing according to the pattern, as Moses did the tabernacle; and had he omitted any one thing, even the very least pin that was necessary, doubtless the ark would not have answered the purpose for which it was intended; for God does nothing in vain, and he never commands any thing to be done that would be as well let alone.— The ark was at length completed, and Noah and his family entered into it amidst the insulting scoffs and derision of a hardened multitude. He has given the last exhortation, and wiped from his cheek the last tear of insulted tenderness.
Noah believed—his faith led him to build the ark for the salvation of himself and family; but the end is not yet accomplished—nor can it be without water. “God is not slack concerning his promise.” Deliverance will be wrought for the faithful. Al- ready the heavens are blackened with angry clouds; the tempest howls fearfully. “The skies pour an unabating torrent. A hollow groan is heard through universal nature; the earth is convulsed.
The sea assaults the shore, and triumphs over the plains, and gains upon the hills.” The ark floats, and in it the faithful few are transported upon the bosom of the waters from the old to the new world. The wicked perish, and the righteous are saved. “The antitype, immersion, does also now save us—by the resurrection of Jesus Christ” In the figure or type of our salvation, we found—1. Faith—2. The ark—3; The water of the deluge, as the means of the salvation of Noah and his family: and we must find the same, or rather something answering to them,—as their antitype in the system of our salvation, or it cannot be complete.
In the type we found faith—the ark —and water. Noah’s faith in the ark was the cause of his being saved during the prevalence of the water. In the antitype we have faith—the resurrection of Christ—and immersion.— Our faith answers to the faith of Noah: Christ stands in the same place to us that the ark did to him; and baptism occupies the place to us that the water of the deluge did to him. According to this view of the subject what be- came of the right of infants to baptism? But this in passing. Our faith like that of Noah, has two objects; one like his re- lates to the destruction of the world and the condition of the un- godly.—“He that believeth not? shall be damned.” The other respects the means of escape from sin and our exemption from the destruction that shall come upon the world. “If you will openly confess with your mouth, that Jesus is Lord, and believe with your heart, that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.” We are required to believe in the resurrection of Christ in order to our salvation, just as Noah believed in the ark. “The anti- type, immersion, does also now save us—by the resurrection of Jesus Christ” “He who shall believe (in Jesus Christ) and be immersed, shall be saved.” Faith in what God says concerning evil and the reward of iniquity—faith in his denunciations against sin, and his threatening transgressors with everlasting destruction, and banishment from his presence forever; faith in these things, alarms us, as the gathering of the black storm in the western horizon. The darker it grows, and the nearer it approaches, the greater are our fears, until a flash of vivid lightning, and a peal of loud thunder, make us roll round our affrighted eyes in hope to descry a place of safety whither we can flee until the storm passes over. The sinner alarmed for his situation looks about him with an anxious desire to find a place of security from the storm of wrath that is gathering and will burst upon the world. Already does the sentence of impartial justice against all trangression roll in thunder over your head. But look up, trembling spirit! The voice of Jesus can hush this tempest. The smiles of his face will disperse these threatening clouds. Tranquility shall break through them, and shine upon thy troubled heart His mercy speaks to you in accents soft as the breath of the morning. He says to you, “come to me, all you who toil and are burthened, and I will give you rest.” Yes, sinner, Je- sus, is the ark of safety; and if you are ever saved from your sins, and escape from the deluge of wrath that is to come upon the world, it will be in Christ. “There is no other name given under heaven among men by which you can be saved.” Do you ask me how you are to get into Christ? Paul answers—by baptism, if you are a believer, a penitent believer in him.
From what was Noah saved? From the old world in which he lived among the wicked, from the society and influences of the antediluvian sinners and from death—and the watery grave into which the wicked were plunged. He was by water, brought into a new world, a new state of things. We are saved from our past sins, their guilt and dominion, from the state of sin, and wicked influences. We are brought into a state of acceptance and citizen- ship in the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and put into a situation to escape from everlasting punishment and enjoy eternal life.
We will now notice the parenthetical part of this passage:— Baptism, says the apostle, is “not the putting away of the filth of the flesh.”
There is no difficulty in understanding the expression of Pe- ter. He was writing to Jews who were acquainted with his phrase- ology. They had often practised total washing for the purpose of removing legal uncleanness or defilement As the same action was performed in Christian immersion, without being better instruct- ed, they would naturally conclude it was for the same purpose.
The filth of the flesh was that defilement which a Jew contracted by touching a dead body, &.C., and before he could be clean and return to the congregation from which he was separated on ac- count of it, he had to have sprinkled upon him the water of separation, i. e. water with which were mingled the ashes of the red heifer, and then he was required to bathe himself in water in order to be clean. See Num. 19. Now the apostle says baptism is not for the purpose of removing this legal uncleanness;—but it is “the answer of a good conscience.” “I always believed,” says a paidorantist, “that baptism was nothing more than the answer of a good conscience—that it is intended only to silence the complaining of the conscience; and if the conscience is satisfied, it makes no difference what way the person is baptized, whether it be by sprinkling, pouring or immersion.”
Upon this acknowledgement, I will ask one question: If baptism have any reference to the conscience—if it be intended to silence the complaining, and answer the demands of conscience, why is it administer, to infants who have no conscience, either good or bad? Paul says there is but “one baptism;” and if that be suited to persons who have consciences; does it not appear that it never was intended for unconscious infants? But this en passant. What does the paidorantist mean by a good conscience?— Does he mean a clear approving conscience? If this be his meaning, I will admit that any application of water may answer the purpose. Nay more; a Quaker has just such a conscience without any water. Paul had a good conscience while hunting down the saints and dragging them to slaughter. With fiend-like satisfaction he could look upon his work of death while his hands were yet stained with the blood of innocence.—But this I hope is not the good conscience that is wanting. Peter does not mean a clear con- science, but a pure and undefiled, a sinless conscience; which can only be obtained by pardon: and the apostle says baptism answers this good conscience. “Yes,” exclaims a Baptist, “I have always believed that a man should have a good conscience first, and then submit to be baptized as the answer of his good conscience.” In this particular the experience of the baptists differs from their theory. Did you ever know one who when relating his experience to the church, was asked the question whether he wished to be baptized? but answered in the affirmative, assigning as a reason that he could not be satisfied, he could not have a good con- science until he was baptized? Why then was he baptised? The answer is, to obtain a good conscience.
We have said that Peter by a good conscience, means a guilt- less conscience, a conscience purified from the pollutions of sin.
Paul expresses the same idea in these words: “Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.” Again, he calls it the purging of the conscience. This can only be effected by the blood of Christ, the virtue of which is applied to the soul in his submitting to the institutions of Heaven.
Hence the Apostle says, baptism is the seeking of a good con- science. The word translated answer, in the king’s version, is by Greenfield, in his Polymicrian Greek Lexicon to the New Testament, rendered by the words “interrogation, question,” as its classical signification; but its New Testament use he thinks is—an- swer, promise, engagement; but it occurs only in the place before us, and such cannot be its signification here. Besides, the word eperotao, from which comes eperotema, means, according to the same Lexicographer, to interrogate, inquire, question, and he cites Mat 12: 10. and 17: 10, as examples. Schrevelius in his Greek and Latin Lexicon, renders the same word (eperotema) by the word “interrogation in Latin; which, Young, in his Latin-English Dictionary, translates, “a question, or demand, an interrogation.” Groves, in his Greek and English Dictionary, translates the same words—“question, inquire.”—We have been thus particular to put the word beyond dispute. Its meaning then, is, the asking or seeking of a good conscience. Such is the design of baptism. It is the institution in which a repentant sinner seeks a pure, guiltless conscience. In other worlds, he is baptized for the purpose of obtaining this pure conscience. How perfectly this expression of the apostle Peter agrees with what he told the three thousand Jews on the day of Pentecost, when they were pierced to the heart by the sword of the spirit, and their conscience, bleeding at every pore.
When they anxiously inquired, “what shall we do?” he replied—“Reform and be each of you immersed in the name of Jesus Christ, in order to the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”—Sinner, have you been smitten by the sword of truth? Do you carry the arrows of God rankling in your conscience? Do your spirits droop, a prey to tormenting reflections and to the scorpion stings of self-accusation? Do you believe in Jesus? Do you loathe sin? Do you detest it as your worst ene- my?—as the instrument of your torture? Do you avoid it as you would the most poisonous serpent? Do you want to get rid of its guilt and contaminating influences? In one word, do you want a pure, self-approving conscience? Then come to the water of baptism. The bath was instituted for such as you. Come to it believing the promise of Christ, and you shall have a pure, undefiled conscience “toward God.” God will approve the act, and the motive too. He will pardon you. The mountain of your iniquities which rose up to heaven, and separated between God and your soul, and is pressing you down to the lowest hell— this mountain shall be removed; God will show his smiling face; and you shall stand upright before him, and feel the cheering influences of his spirit.
We will conclude by making some observations on three baptisms.
1. The baptism or submersion of the world by the waters of the deluge. Sin was the cause of this dreadful catastrophe; and for the purpose of washing away the stains of guilt and violence from the earth, was the world visited with the calamity. Forty days and nights the heavens poured down rain. In the mean-time, the fountains of the great abyss were broken up. The ancient restriction by which the sea was confined within certain limits, was removed; the angry billows dashed against the shores, overran the valleys, and assaulted the hills. The people alarmed, flee to the highest mountains. The waves approach the summit To escape is impossible, either by descending or rising higher. The waters triumph: the wicked are carried off with the dashing waves, and perish beneath the Waters. The last shriek has been uttered; the last sinner has perished; the last tear has dropped from the weeping clouds; and the ark alone floats upon the bosom of the shoreless ocean. The very waters which drown the world and destroy the wicked, save Noah. And why this difference? Because the wicked had water alone, and Noah had faith, and the ark as well as water. If any should be trusting to their baptism for salvation without faith and obedience to Christ, remember the fate of the antediluvians. Water alone was the instrument of their destruction; but connected with faith and the ark, it was the instrument of Noah’s salvation.
2. The baptism of the Israelites in the cloud and in the sea.
The history of the Jews’ servitude in the land of Egypt is recollected. God determined to deliver them. He sent Moses to the court of Egypt to inform the king of his intention, and to get his concurrence. Pharoah refused peremptorily and treated the message with contempt. All nature became indignant at the conduct of this rebel, who dared lift his proud crest, and defy Jehovah to arms; and at the bidding of him, who controls the rolling of unnumbered worlds, was armed against him, “The water throughout Egypt was turned to blood; and when it recovered its natural color and qualities, it became prolific, and was the source of a new plague, in sending forth swarms of frogs. The very dust of the earth was animated, and was made an instrument of torture. The air was filled with insects. The cattle, and the inhabitants of the land, died, with diseases new and intolerable, The artillery of the skies opened upon this stubborn empire: God thundered in the heavens, and the fire ran along the ground. An east wind blew, and an army of locusts rode upon its rough pinion.” Pharoah relents for a time, but soon he becomes more obstinate. God is determined that his people shall be free, and to effect their liberty, the last blow was now to be struck.
“Night had assumed her sceptre—the pale stars Were in their silent watchtowers—and the moon Was gazing down in sadness through the veil Of cloudy darkness.” The people retired to rest as usual to prepare themselves by soft slumbers for the duties of the morrow. “Pharoah yields to a milder dominion, and a more gentle sceptre than his own; and hard by rested his eldest hope. All was silent “The iron tongue of midnight had told twelve.” “In an instant sleep was chased from every eye. A general groan reverberated from the palace to the prison.—“There was not a house in which there was not one dead!”
From this awful calamity the Israelites alone were exempt— The Egyptians were urgent with the people to depart, and Pharoah sent them forth in haste. When the harbinger of the morning arose to unlock the gates of light, and to announce the approach of the king of day, the people of Israel were in their march to the land of rest and freedom. For the first time for more than a hundred and twenty years, the smoke is not seen to arise from the hovel of the enslaved people, stretched along the plains of Goshen. Their inhabitants were camped on the shore of the Red Sea.—In the meantime Pharoah and all Egypt regretted the departure of Israel, and resolved to pursue, and bring them back to their former state of servitude. The Israelites heard the trampling of horses and the lumbering of the chariots of war.
They looked behind them, and they see the hosts of Pharoah pursuing them. They were unable to meet them in battle.
They looked around to discover, if possible, a way to escape; but they could find none. The summits of cloud-capped mountains on each side, were inaccessible.
They looked before, and a sight most terrible presented itself.- –It was the Red Sea, whose foaming billows would beat against the shore most violently. They, were almost ready to surrender. when behold,
“Upon a rock That overlook’d the Sea, with brow unblanched, And calm as summer twilight, Moses stood; And when the aspiration of his heart Mounted to heaven upon the wing of faith, He stretched his rod upon the heaving sea, And with the Eternal’s delegated power, Issued his mandate to th’ obedient waves.
Every eye, Was turned upon the ocean, when the deep Was cleft asunder to its rocky bed, And the vast waters curl’d on either side Back on themselves, like parchment rolls, and stand Immovable as adamantine walls.” The armies of Israel commenced their march. They walked through the Red Sea as on dry land. The water, stood in heaps on either side, and the cloud covered them. Then they “were immersed into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.—“Onward they moved—still onward in a line, long and continuous?” “Sweet singing Levites led the van, Loud instruments brought up the rear; Between each troop a virgin train, With harp and timbrel charm’d the air.” They reached the further shore. The Egyptians followed; and just as they were in the bed of the sea, Moses stretched his rod over it, and the waters returned to their place. Pharoah and his host were overwhelmed with the billows, and after contending for a time with the waves, and struggling for their life, until their strength was exhausted; despair flashed upon their soul, and with a scream that pierced the heavens, they ceased to strive and sunk to rise no more.
Here were two parties; one perished, and the other escaped from their pursuers. And why this difference in their fate?— The Hebrews were the people of God; they trusted in him for deliverance. Their faith in his promise led them into the Red Sea; and by faith they were immersed into Moses, in the cloud and in the sea. As they trusted in God, he delivered them. The Egyptians did not acknowledge the dominion of Jehovah: they defied Om- nipotence to arms, and were overthrown in their presumptuous attack. They were submerged, and perished. Water alone we see will not do. Faith must be in exercise— faith in the denunciations and promises of God—faith that leads its possessor to obey the mandates of the Most High.
Here, as in the case of the deluge, the instruments of the believer’s deliverance, proved the destruction of the unrelenting and disobedient.—“These things,”-says an apostle, “happened to them for ensamples to us, and they are written for our admonition.”
But I must hasten to the
3. Third Baptism-—the baptism of the world with fire saw the cloud of the deluge gather: we beheld it every moment become darker, wider, and more portentous, till the heavens were over- spread, and the tempest beat upon the world without pity in one ceaseless torrent We heard the shrieks of despair, and the groans of dying millions. We have seen Noah and his family borne up by the very waters that engulphed the wicked. We gazed upon the ark as it glided on through the trackless abyss, until we saw it rest upon the top of Mount Ararat. We saw the smoke arising from the altar when Noah sacrificed to this Creator after the waters had assuaged from the earth, and returned to their own habitation.
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We gazed with delight upon the rainbow, which extended its sub- lime arch across the face of heaven,—and heard the eternal ap- peal to it as the seal of his gracious promise that the earth should no more be deluged with water.—We have seen the Red Sea also swallow up the Egyptian hosts, and have heard the song of deliv- erance sung by Moses and his companions. But the scene we are now about to contemplate is one of matchless grandeur. It is the winding up of this state of things—the funeral of dame nature— the last tragic scene in the great drama of human conduct.
With respect to the certainty of that day, there can be no doubt. There is as much prospect of its near approach as there was of the deluge when Noah entered into the ark; or of the destruc- tion of Sodom and Gomorrah, on that fine clear morning in which Lot fled to the mountains. I grant there is no visible ap- pearance of this amazing period; and on this account, a great many infidel scoffers take occasion to taunt the people of God, and exultingly to inquire—“Where is the promise of his coming?” Still we are assured that this day will come—the day “in which the heavens shall pass away With a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth also, and the works therein shall be burned up.” By the heavens here, we are to understand the airy region,, the atmosphere; and by the earth, and the things therein, every thing belonging to it, as the seas, rocks, and such like.
Sceptics laugh at the idea of the dissolution of the world; “not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God;” “and not considering the principles and facts in the system of nature, which indicate the possibility of such an event—“The atmosphere or air we breathe, is now ascertained to be a compound of two substances, very different and opposite in their nature, viz. oxygen and nitrogen. The oxygen, which forms about one fifth part of the atmosphere, is the principle of flame: a lighted taper immersed in this gas, burns with ‘a brilliancy too great for the eye to bear; and even a rod of iron or steel is made to’ blaze under its energy.”
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Water is a compound of two inflammable substances; both of which, if separated, would blaze with a rapidity and intensity suf- ficient to destroy every thing under their influence. “Now suppose the Creator should issue forth his almighty fiat —“Let the nitrogen of the atmosphere be separated from the oxy- gen, and let the oxygen exert its native energies without control, wherever it extends; and let the oxygen and hydrogen of the water be separated;”—from what we know of their nature, we would be warranted to conclude, that instantly a universal conflagration would commence throughout all the kingdoms of nature:—not only wood, coals, sulphur, bitumen, and, other combustible sub- stances; but even the hardest rocks and stones, and all the metals, fossils, and minerals, and water itself, would blaze and burn with a rapidity which would carry destruction through the whole ex- panse of the terraqueous globe.” Connected with these— “See all the formidable sons of fire, Eruptions, earthquakes, comets, lightnings; play Their various engines; all at once dis- gorge Their blazing magazines: and take, by storm, This poor ter- restrial citadel of man.” Such is the fate to which our world is destined. How different will be conditions and pursuits of men when this period shall ar- rive—some erecting stately payees—some engaged in extensive traffic—some planning or executing schemes for riches or hon- or—some uttering deep-toned execrations which befit only the organs of the damned—some taking vengeance out of the hand of God, and recriminating the injuries they have received —some returning home with stolen plunder—some defrauding their neighbors, and the end of all things at hand: a few scattered over the earth holding converse with their God, and looking out for the coming of Jesus Christ. Such will hear the trump of God with rapture and lift up their heads with joy, assured that the day of their redemption is come. But the multitude will be inattentive to the things of eternity. “For as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man. They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and swept them all away.” With what reluctance will the misers let go the heaps of gold they have lost their souls to accumulate—How loath the rich will be to abandon the possessions which they prized more highly than an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled and unfading in heaven. How unwillingly will kings resign the sceptres of their burning empires which they prefer to a wreath of immortality! It will be a time of universal terror and alarm. “Man starting from his couch shall sleep no more!
Above, around, beneath, amazement all!
Our God in grandeur, and the world on fire!” Some for the first time bow the knee, and lift up their voice in prayer to God! Some to avoid his presence seek shelter amongst the melting rocks and in blazing cavern of the earth! But to es- cape the righteous retribution of Heaven, is impossible. For “The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, And all who it inherit, shall dissolve.” But the righteous shall remain unhurt amidst the general conflagration; they shall rise above the burning elements: and the fire which shall destroy the wicked from the earth, and which is a pre- lude to that lake of fire, the bare thought of which is enough to “turn the cheek of darkness pale;”—I say the same fire will consume the dross, and refine the earth, and prepare it for a dwelling- place of the righteous.
Sinner! the day of wrath has not yet come. There is still room in the ark of safety for you. And while the period is delayed— while the lightnings are confined and the tempest is locked up— you have the privilege of securing your passage to the haven of eternal rest This vessel alone can plow the fiery main, ride the waves, and bring the whole crew safely into port. As passengers in the same vessel, we most affectionately invite you to take the voyage with us. This world is doomed to destruction, and heaven is the only port that promises us safety.