2. The phenomenon has actually no existence unless there is an eye to see it. Not that the eye in any sense designed or can create it, for there must be the raindrops and the sun, things altogether outside of, and separate from, the beholder, before it can come within the sphere of possible existence ; but when it has come into that sphere, then it must, if we may say so, remain absolutely non-existent until it is brought into contact by those wonderful processes, which it needs a scientific pen to describe, with the organs which convey the perception to the brain. Now, this is a very close and a very complete type of what we may understand to have taken place immediately after the deluge in the case of the same phenomenon. It may be said to have then come into existence for the first time ; but how ? In its
* Joseph Parker, GEN.-NUM. — 12
178 THE RAINBOW
higher character of a token, of a covenant between God and man. It was then made, and it then became capable of being seen in that view by the eye of faith, and it would need the eye of faith 80 to see it — that is, in the same sense ; it would need the eye of faith to bring it into being as the token of a covenant between God and man. The eye of faith had not to create it in that character. To suppose that would be to confound between faith and imagination. Its creation was altogether God's, entirely outside of, and separate from, any action, faculties, or powers that man could bring to bear upon it. Neither the rain nor the sun- shine, nor the background of cloud whereon to paint the image, was in any way directly or indirectly produced by hand of man or controllable by the will of man ; but still, until man looked upon it, not only with a seeing eye but also with a believing spirit, its existence as the token of the covenant was no more capable of proof than is the presence of Christ in any church at any moment.
^ It is a quaint idea of the Rabbins that in an age conspicuous for righteousness the rainbow is not visible ; the virtuous, they say, are a sufficient sign that God remembers His covenant. And truly it is man's mercy to man that is the most eloquent witness of the Divine love. Every pang assuaged by human agency, every soothing, encouraging word that is spoken to still the complaining, to strengthen the despairing, spirit, every deed of true charity, every grasp of a friend's hand, every ray of light that falls upon our life from the soul of our beloved, is a manifestation of God's mercy. Those virtues of men and women, by the exercise of which they bless one another, are as truly God's angels as are the tranquillity and the strength that will sometimes mysteriously find their way into our disquieted hearts, coming we know not whence.^
3. What God did for Noah and his sons was just to take the old familiar rainbow, which was and is merely one of the occasional efifects of the unchanging laws of nature — and to make it His bow: to make it a visible symbol, a painted sacrament, of His personal faithfulness and love. That is the great law which rims through all sacraments. No sacramental thing is ever new as far as its outward form and material are concerned. Our Saviour made His own two great sacraments of grace out of the very
' Morris Joseph.
GENESIS IX. 13 179
simplest and commonest and most familiar of all actions — the pouring of clean water over the body ; the partaking together of bread and wine, themselves the most ordinary and universal articles of diet in His country. And He made them effectual signs and symbols of a grace which is stronger than sin, of a love which is stronger than death. Or look again at marriage, which is a sacrament of nature common to the whole human race, coming down to us from the Garden of Eden. On its natural side, its historical side, it is nothing but that instinct of " pairing " which human animals share with all other animals. On its supernatural side, God has chosen it from the first to be a " great mystery." It is a sacrament of love and grace, so e£fectual that out of it all the progress of mankind in refinement and in civilization has sprung; so profound, that in it has been fore- shadowed and represented all along that mystical union between Christ and His Church, by which we also live.
4. For what purpose then was the bow set in the cloud ? The great purpose was to be a witness to God's Faithfulness. The God which the Book of Genesis goes on revealing and unveiling to us more and more is a God in whom men may trtist. The heathen could not trust their gods. The Bible tells men of a G^d whom they can trust. That is just the difFerence between the Bible and all other books in the world. But what a difference ! Difference enough to make us say, " Sooner that every other book in the world were lost, and the Bible preserved, than that we should lose the Bible, and with the Bible lose faith in God."