Gen. vii. 1. And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou, and all thy house, into the ark.
THE Church of God has frequently been at so low an ebb, that its existence cannot now be traced. There have been times, even since the promulgation of Christianity, when the righteous have been but few : they appear to us indeed much fewer than they really were: and, if we had authentic records re- specting them, as we have concerning the Jews, it is probable that we should find several thousand wor- shippers of Jehovah for one whose name has been transmitted to usa. But in the patriarchal ages we are
il 1 Kings xix. 14, 18.
certain that the knowledge of God was very limited ; yea, so universal was the degeneracy of man before the flood, that piety was confined to one single family : nor were all of them truly religious, though for their parents' sake they were all made partakers of the same deliverance. The history before us presents to our view a most distressing scene ; a world of sinners doomed to destruction ; and the only righteous family in the world selected out of them, to be monuments of God's sparing mercy. The account given of Noah in the text will lead us to shew,
I. The provision made for his security —
Righteousness is universally an object of God's re- gard : and though it is not meritorious in his sight so as to justify men before him, yet is it so pleasing and acceptable to him, that he will on account of it bestow many temporal blessings, and in the eternal world will confer a more exalted state of glory b. On account of his eminent piety, God distinguished Noahc, and instructed him to make an ark for the saving of himself and his household.
This ark was typical of the Church of Christ. St. Peter compares it with baptism, by which we are initiated into the Church ; and tells us, that as Noah was saved by his admission into the one, so are we by our introduction into the other d.
To mark the resemblance between the type and antitype, we may observe that the ark was,
1. Divinely appointed —
[As the Tabernacle in the time of Moses, so the Ark in Noah's time, was made according to a pattern devised by God himself.
Noah never could have thought of constructing such a vessel himself: the suggestion originated with God: the model for it was given by God : nor was even the smallest part of it left to be formed after man's device.
And who among the sons of men ever conceived the idea of saving man through the incarnation and death of God's only- begotten Son? Who could ever have imagined that Jehovah's
b Ezek. ix. 4. with 1 Tim. iv. 8.
c See the words following the text. ll 1 Pet. iii. 20, 21.