Of Eleflion. ~:-f."' l• Thatclau.fe inf~ned by 'l' et!r, .that they were the Spirits of thofe men ~ that were now tn Pnfon, that, 1s, tn Hell, \Vho were then Preached to b Noah; holds an affinuy ~nto that l<nowa Tradmon, and Language among ttfe Jtws 1 thatof.al!Mankmdafore or after, thofemenNouhPreached umoof all oihers, had. bee~ notified, and famed to have. gone to Hell; infomuch that Helltt felf( this Pnfon) had ItS name from their Company, and Inhabitaiiou there. They were made a Proverb of all in the Old Teflameot, all along. to go down to thuompany ofGy ants; was all one to go to Hell, thus in the Pro– verbs again, and again, as Mr. Medt bath obferved. Thofe G_yants were the Ring-leaders of the Ungodly, os Ptter fpeaks of the whole ofthar World whoptrtjbed, and generally went to Hell, and fo being the Firfl-born ofHell · as it were the firft Inhabitants ofthat place; hence Hell had that dcnominati~ an, as on the contrary of Saints, to .J6rahams 6ofom; As ifwe lhould fay to MalefaCtors, you !hall go amongft your Companions of Thieves, and Cut– purfes to Newgate, fo dcfigning fonh that Prifon from the company there' Second Head; · That our being faved by Chrift now, was fignified by Noah's being f~ved thenintlleArk, throughorinthemJdft ofthewaltrs. For whereas he fays, Baptifm now Javes us; the meanning is, Chrift now fignified in Baptifm, favcs us who was prefigured then ; by the Ark in the W~ten; for it is Chrift that is fignified, and Sealed up in this Ordi– nance of Baptifm. And as it is faid, That Rock W41 Chrifl, Gorinthians z, t o. ''' So this . Baptifrn is Chrift , and fignities him, and his faving ofus. And look as Noah Preacht ,this Salvation by Chrift to the Old World, verbally anci in Sermons : So t h·at very aCtion of his, in Building and entrillg into the Ark, and bods Tral'lfaetion with him, and his prefer– vatioil therein, was the figure of Chrifts faving us, fignified to us in our :Baptilm. And though the Ordinance ofBaptifm it felf as now Infiituted, was not underftood by Noah, then as prefigured, yet Chrift and the Salvation it felf fignified thereby was. I was long · kept from the right underftanding of this place, by my ordi~ nary and curfory reading of it, by our Tranllation , ·(and fo perhaps many others) they Tranllate it, favrd by w aters, lo aferibing their Salvation to the w aters, as the means of Noah , and their Salvation, and fo r frill underftood the allufion here had been , that the outward Element of our Baptifm being Water, and that Noah having been faved upon the Waters , that theretore the Parallel had bee~ ~hat they we~e _fa• ved by Water ; as the Infirument , and as figmfymg and ryp1fy,ng forth the Blood of Chrift walhing us, and faving us, as thofe Waters had done them. But when I came upon thi's oceafion, narrowly to examine this mat• ter. . , , I confidered that the Salvation by Waters in the Flood, held not at all a correfpondency with our Salvation , through our being walhed in Chri!ls Blood, as in Baptifm is fignified ; whereas here the Apofile affirms, t.hat there is a like figure anfwering each other, which to be fure holds not in this. For the Perfons of thofe in the Ark, were not walhed by the Water ofthef'loodatall, as we arewalhcdinBaptifm byChriftsBlood, but it was the Ark only, which was walhed with thofe waters_. 2.. I found that the Salvation ofNoah, is faid to have been in and by the Ark. So expreily in the Text, whtrtin ( fpeaking ofthe Ark) tightperjOns w trefwed 114 the mea11s of their Salvation; and_ as for the Waters fav~ng them, that was but an accidental effeCt, for othcrw1fe the WaterfovertlowJOg tended to deftroy them,
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