V. Moreover the apostle makes the Israelites equal to us, not only in the grace of the covenant, but also in the signification of the sacraments. For when he means to adduce examples of the punishments with which the Scripture states them to have been formerly chastised, in order to deter the Corinthians from running into similar crimes, he begins by premising, that we have no reason to arrogate any preëminence to ourselves, which can deliver us from the Divine vengeance inflicted on them; since the Lord not only favoured them with the same benefits, but illustrated his grace among them by the same symbols;[958] as though he had said, If ye confide in being beyond the reach of danger, because both baptism by which you have been sealed, and the supper which you daily receive, have excellent promises, while at the same time you despise the Divine goodness, and live licentious lives,—know ye, that the Jews also were not destitute of such symbols, though the Lord inflicted on them his severest judgments. They were baptized in their passage through the sea, and in the cloud by which they were protected from the fervour of the sun. Our opponents maintain that passage to have been a carnal baptism, [pg 389] corresponding in some degree to our spiritual one. But if that were admitted, the apostle's argument would not proceed; for his design here is to prevent Christians from supposing that they excel the Jews in the privilege of baptism. Nor is what immediately follows, that they “did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink,” which he interprets of Christ, liable to this cavil.
VI. To invalidate this declaration of Paul, they object the assertion of Christ, “Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. If any man eat of this bread, (that is, my flesh,) he shall live for ever.”[959] But the two passages are reconciled without any difficulty. The Lord, because he was addressing auditors who only sought to be satisfied with corporeal sustenance, but were unconcerned about food for the soul, accommodates his discourse in some measure to their capacity, and institutes a comparison between manna and his own body, particularly to strike their senses. They demand that in order to acquire authority to himself, he should prove his power by some miracle, such as Moses performed in the desert, when he obtained manna from heaven. In the manna, however, they had no idea of any thing but a remedy for corporeal hunger, with which the people were then afflicted. They did not penetrate to that sublimer mystery of which Paul treats. Christ, therefore, to demonstrate the superiority of the blessing they ought to expect from him, to that which they said their fathers had received from Moses, makes this comparison: If it be in your opinion a great and memorable miracle, that the Lord, to prevent his people from perishing in the wilderness, supplied them, by means of Moses, with heavenly food, which served them as a temporary sustenance,—hence conclude how much more excellent that food must be, which communicates immortality. We see, then, why the Lord omitted the principal thing designed by the manna, and only remarked the lowest advantage that resulted from it. It was because the Jews, as if with an intention of reproaching him, contrasted him with Moses, who had supplied the necessities of the people with manna. He replies, that he is the dispenser of a far superior favour, in comparison with which the corporeal sustenance of the people, the sole object of their great admiration, deserves to be considered as nothing. Knowing that the Lord, when he rained manna from heaven, not only poured it down for the support of their bodies, but likewise dispersed it as a spiritual mystery, to typify that spiritual vivification which is experienced in Christ, Paul does not neglect that view of the subject which is most deserving of consideration. Wherefore [pg 390] it is certainly and clearly proved, that the same promises of an eternal and heavenly life, with which the Lord now favours us, were not only communicated to the Jews, but even sealed and confirmed by sacraments truly spiritual. This subject is argued at length by Augustine against Faustus the Manichæan.
VII. But if the reader would prefer a recital of testimonies from the law and the prophets, to show him that the spiritual covenant was common also to the fathers, as we have heard from Christ and his apostles,—I will attend to this wish, and that with the greater readiness, because our adversaries will thereby be more decisively confuted, and will have no pretence for any future cavil. I will begin with that demonstration, which, though I know the Anabaptists will superciliously deem it futile and almost ridiculous, yet will have considerable weight with persons of docility and good understanding. And I take it for granted, that there is such a vital efficacy in the Divine word as to quicken the souls of all those whom God favours with a participation of it. For the assertion of Peter has ever been true, that it is “an incorruptible seed, which abideth for ever;”[960] as he also concludes from the words of Isaiah.[961] Now, when God anciently united the Jews with himself in this sacred bond, there is no doubt that he separated them to the hope of eternal life. For when I say, that they embraced the word which was to connect them more closely with God, I advert not to that general species of communication with him, which is diffused through heaven and earth, and all the creatures in the universe, which although it animates all things according to their respective natures, yet does not deliver from the necessity of corruption. I refer to that particular species of communication, by which the minds of the pious are enlightened into the knowledge of God, and in some measure united to him. Since Adam, Abel, Noah, Abraham, and the other patriarchs, were attached to God by such an illumination of his word, I maintain, there can be no doubt that they had an entrance into his immortal kingdom. For it was a real participation of God, which cannot be separated from the blessing of eternal life.
VIII. If the subject still appear involved in any obscurity, let us proceed to the very form of the covenant; which will not only satisfy sober minds, but will abundantly prove the ignorance of those who endeavour to oppose it. For the Lord has always made this covenant with his servants: “I will be your God, and ye shall be my people.”[962] These expressions, according to the common explanation of the prophets, comprehend life, and salvation, and consummate felicity. For it is not [pg 391] without reason that David frequently pronounces, how “blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance;”[963] and that not on account of any earthly felicity, but because he delivers from death, perpetually preserves, and attends with everlasting mercy, those whom he has taken for his people. As it is expressed in the other prophets, “Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die.”[964] “The Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King; he will save us.”[965] “Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord?”[966] But not to labour much on a point which does not require it, we are frequently reminded, in reading the prophets, that we shall have a plenitude of all blessings, and even a certainty of salvation, provided the Lord be our God. And that on good ground; for if his face, as soon as it has begun to shine, be a present pledge of salvation, will God manifest himself to any man without opening the treasures of salvation to him? For God is our God, on the express condition of his “walking in the midst of us,” as he declared by Moses.[967] But this presence of his cannot be obtained without the possession of life. And though nothing further had been expressed, they had a promise of spiritual life sufficiently clear in these words: “I am the Lord your God.”[968] For he announced that he would be a God, not only to their bodies, but chiefly to their souls; for the soul, unless united to God by righteousness, remains alienated from him at death. But let that union take place, and it will be attended with eternal salvation.
IX. Moreover, he not only declared himself to be their God, but promised to continue so for ever; in order that their hope, not contented with present blessings, might be extended to eternity. And that the use of the future tense conveyed this idea to them, appears from many expressions, where the faithful console themselves not only amidst present evils, but for futurity, that God will never desert them. But in regard to the second part of the promise, he still more plainly encouraged them concerning the extension of the Divine blessing to them beyond the limits of the present life: “I will be a God to thy seed after thee.”[969] For if he intended to declare his benevolence to them after they were dead, by blessing their posterity, much more would he not fail of manifesting his favour towards themselves. For God is not like men, who transfer their love to the children of their friends, because death takes away their opportunity of performing kind offices to those who were objects [pg 392] of their regard. But God, whose beneficence is not interrupted by death, deprives not the dead of the blessings of his mercy, which for their sakes he diffuses through a thousand generations. The design of the Lord, therefore, was to show them, by a clear proof, the magnitude and abundance of his goodness which they should experience after death, when he described its exuberance as reaching to all their posterity.[970] Now, the Lord sealed the truth, and, as it were, exhibited the completion of this promise, when he called himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, long after they were dead.[971] For what is implied in it? Would it not have been a ridiculous appellation, if they had perished? It would have been just as if he had said, I am the God of those who have no existence. Wherefore, the evangelists relate, that with this single argument the Sadducees were so embarrassed by Christ,[972] as to be unable to deny that Moses had given a testimony in favour of the resurrection of the dead; for they had learned from Moses himself, that “all his saints are in his hand.”[973] Whence it was easy to infer, that death had not annihilated those whom he, who is the arbiter of life and death, had received into his guardianship and protection.
X. Now, to come to the principal point on which this controversy turns, let us examine, whether the faithful themselves were not so instructed by the Lord, as to be sensible that they had a better life in another world, and to meditate on that to the neglect of the present. In the first place, the course of life which was divinely enjoined them was a perpetual exercise, by which they were reminded that they were the most miserable of all mankind, if they had no happiness but in the present life. Adam, rendered most unhappy by the mere remembrance of his lost felicity, finds great difficulty in supplying his wants by anxious toils.[974] Nor does the Divine malediction confine itself to his manual labours; he experiences the bitterest sorrow from that which was his only remaining consolation. Of his two sons, he is deprived of one by the parricidal hands of his brother; the survivor is deservedly the object of his detestation and abhorrence.[975] Abel, cruelly assassinated in the flower of his age, exhibits an example of human calamity. Noah, while the whole world securely abandons itself to sensual delights, consumes a valuable part of his life with excessive fatigue in building the ark.[976] His escape from death was attended with greater distress than if he had died a hundred times. For besides that the ark was, as it were, a sepulchre to him for ten months,[977] nothing could be [pg 393] more disagreeable than to be detained for so long a period almost immersed in the ordure of animals. After having escaped from such great difficulties, he meets with a fresh occasion of grief. He sees himself ridiculed by his own son, and is constrained to pronounce a curse with his own mouth upon him, whom by the great goodness of God he had received safe from the deluge.[978]
XI. Abraham is one who ought to be deemed equal to a host, if we consider his faith, which is proposed to us as the best standard of believing, so that we must be numbered in his family, in order to be the children of God. Now, what would be more absurd, than that Abraham should be the father of all the faithful, and not possess even the lowest place among them? But he cannot be excluded from the number, nor even from the most honourable station, without the destruction of the whole Church. Now, with respect to the circumstances of his life;—when he is first called, he is torn by the Divine command from his country, his parents, and his friends, the enjoyment of whom is supposed to give life its principal relish; as though God positively intended to deprive him of all the pleasures of life.[979] As soon as he has entered the land in which he is commanded to reside, he is driven from it by a famine. He removes, in search of relief, to a place where, for the preservation of his own safety, he finds it necessary to disown his wife, which would probably be more afflictive to him than many deaths.[980] After having returned to the country of his residence, he is again expelled from it by famine. What kind of felicity is it to dwell in such a country, where he must so frequently experience hunger, and even perish for want of sustenance, unless he leaves it? In the country of Abimelech, he is again driven to the same necessity of purchasing his own personal safety with the loss of his wife.[981] While he wanders hither and thither for many years in an unsettled state, he is compelled, by the continual quarrels of his servants, to send away his nephew, whom he regarded as a son.[982] There is no doubt that he bore this separation just as he would the amputation of one of his limbs. Soon after he is informed that enemies have carried him away captive.[983] Whithersoever he directs his course, he finds himself surrounded by savage barbarians, who will not even permit him to drink the water of wells which with immense labour he has himself digged. For he could not have bought the use of them from the king of Gerar, if it had not been previously prohibited.[984] When he arrives to old age, beyond the time of having children, he experiences [pg 394] the most disagreeable and painful circumstance with which that age is attended.[985] He sees himself destitute of posterity, till, beyond all expectation, he begets Ishmael; whose birth he purchases at a dear rate, while he is wearied with the reproaches of Sarah, just as if he encouraged the contumacy of his maid-servant, and so were himself the cause of the domestic disturbance.[986] At length Isaac is born; but his birth is attended with this condition, that Ishmael the first-born must be banished from the family, and abandoned like an enemy.[987] When Isaac is left alone to solace the good man in his declining years, he is soon after commanded to sacrifice him.[988] What can the human mind imagine more calamitous, than for a father to become the executioner of his own son? If he had been taken away by sickness, every one would have thought the aged parent unhappy in the extreme, as having had a son given him in mockery, at the loss of whom, his former grief on account of his being destitute of children would certainly be redoubled. If he had been massacred by some stranger, the calamity would have been greatly increased by the horrible nature of his end; but to be slain by his father's own hand exceeds all the other instances of distress. In short, through the whole course of his life, Abraham was so driven about and afflicted, that if any one wished to give an example of a life full of calamity, he could not find one more suitable. Nor let it be objected, that he was not entirely miserable, because he had at length a prosperous deliverance from such numerous and extreme dangers. For we cannot pronounce his to be a happy life, who for a long period struggles through an infinity of difficulties; but his, who is exempted from afflictions, and favoured with the peaceful enjoyment of present blessings.
XII. Isaac, though afflicted with fewer calamities, yet scarcely ever enjoys the smallest taste of pleasure. He also experiences those vexations which permit not a man to be happy in the world. Famine drives him from the land of Canaan; his wife is torn from his bosom; his neighbours frequently harass him, and take every method of distressing him, so that he also is constrained to contend with them about water.[989] In his own family he suffers much uneasiness from Esau's wives;[990] he is distressed by the discord of his sons, and unable to remedy that great evil, but by the exile of him to whom he had given the blessing.[991] With respect to Jacob, he is an eminent example of nothing but extreme infelicity. He passes his childhood at home, amidst the menaces and terrors of his elder brother, to which he is at length constrained [pg 395] to give way.[992] A fugitive from his parents and his native soil, in addition to the bitterness of exile, he is treated with unkindness by his uncle Laban. It is not sufficient for him to endure a most hard and severe servitude of seven years, but he is fraudulently deceived in a wife.[993] For the sake of another wife he must enter on a new servitude,[994] in which, as he himself complains, he is scorched all the day by the fervid rays of the sun, and through the wakeful night benumbed by the icy cold.[995] During twenty years, which he spends in such extreme hardships, he is daily afflicted with fresh injuries from his father-in-law. Nor does he enjoy tranquillity in his own family, which he sees distracted and almost torn asunder by the animosities, contentions, and rivalship of his wives.[996] When he is commanded to return to his own country, he is obliged to depart in a manner resembling an ignominious flight. Nor even then can he escape the iniquity of his father-in-law, but is harassed with his reproaches and insults in the midst of his journey.[997] Immediately after, he falls into a much greater difficulty. For as he advances towards his brother, he has death before his eyes in as many forms as a cruel and inveterate enemy can possibly contrive. He is exceedingly tormented and distracted with dreadful terrors, while he is expecting the approach of his brother; when he sees him, he falls at his feet like a person half dead, till he finds him more reconciled than he could have ventured to hope.[998] Moreover, on his first entrance into the land, he is deprived of Rachel, his dearly beloved wife.[999] Afterwards he hears that the son whom he had by her, and whom, therefore, he loved above the rest, is torn asunder by wild beasts. The severity of his grief on account of his death is expressed by himself, when, after many days of mourning, he obstinately refuses all consolation, saying, “I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning.”[1000] In the mean time, the rape and violation of his daughter, and the rashness of his sons in revenging it, which not only made him an object of abhorrence to all the inhabitants of the country, but put him in immediate danger of being massacred; what abundant sources were these of anxiety, grief, and vexation![1001] Then follows the horrible crime of Reuben, his first-born, than which no greater affliction could befall him. For if the pollution of a man's wife be numbered among the greatest miseries, what shall we say of it, when the crime is perpetrated by his own son?[1002] Not long after, his family is contaminated with incest;[1003] so that such a number of disgraceful [pg 396] occurrences may be expected to break a heart otherwise very firm and unbroken by calamities. Towards the end of life, when he is seeking sustenance for himself and family in a season of famine, his ears are wounded by the report of a new calamity, which informs him that one of his sons is detained in prison; and in order to recover him he is obliged to intrust his darling Benjamin to the care of the rest.[1004] Who can suppose that in such an accumulation of distresses he had a single moment of respite? He himself, who is best able to give a testimony respecting himself, declares to Pharaoh, that his days on the earth have been few and evil.[1005] By affirming that he has lived in continual miseries, he denies that he has enjoyed that prosperity which the Lord had promised him. Therefore either Jacob formed an improper and ungrateful estimate of the favour of God, or he spake the truth in asserting that he had been miserable on the earth. If his affirmation was true, it follows that his hope was not fixed on terrestrial things.
XIII. If these holy fathers expected, as undoubtedly they did expect, a life of happiness from the hand of God, they both knew and contemplated a different kind of blessedness from that of this terrestrial life. This the apostle very beautifully shows, when he says, “By faith Abraham sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city.”[1006] For they would have been stupid beyond all comparison, so steadily to follow promises, of which there appeared no hope on earth, unless they had expected the completion of them in another world. But the apostle, with great force, principally insists on this—that they called the present life a pilgrimage, as is also stated by Moses.[1007] For if they were strangers and sojourners in the land of Canaan, what became of the Divine promise, by which they had been appointed heirs of it? This manifestly implies, therefore, that the promise, which the Lord had given them concerning [pg 397] the possession of it, related to something more remote. Wherefore they never acquired a foot of land in Canaan, except for a sepulchre; by which they testified that they had no hope of enjoying the benefit of the promise till after death. And this is the reason why Jacob thought it so exceedingly desirable to be buried there, that he made his son Joseph promise it to him by oath;[1008] and why Joseph commanded that his bones should be removed thither, even several ages after his death, when they would have been long reduced to ashes.[1009]
XIV. In short, it evidently appears, that in all the pursuits of life they kept in view the blessedness of the future state. For why should Jacob have so eagerly desired, and exposed himself to such danger in endeavouring to obtain, the primogeniture, which would occasion his exile, and almost his rejection from his family, but from which he could derive no possible benefit, unless he had his views fixed on a nobler blessing? And that such was his view he declared in these words, which he uttered with his expiring breath: “I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.”[1010] What salvation could he expect, when he felt himself about to expire, unless he had seen in death the commencement of a new life? But why do we argue concerning the saints and children of God, when even one, who in other respects endeavoured to oppose the truth, was not entirely destitute of such a knowledge? For what was the meaning of Balaam, when he said, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his,”[1011] but the same which David afterwards expressed in the following words? “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”[1012] “Evil shall slay the wicked.”[1013] If death were the ultimate bound of human existence, no difference could be observed in it between the righteous and the impious; the distinction between them consists in the different destinies which await them after death.