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Therefore He saved this people from the deluge; He has raised them up from Abraham, redeemed them from their enemies, and set them at rest.
The object of God was not to save them from the deluge, and raise up a whole people from Abraham, only in order to bring them into a rich land.
And even grace is only the type of glory, for it is not the ultimate end. It has been symbolised by the law, and itself symbolises [glory]. But it is the type of it, and the origin or cause.
The ordinary life of men is like that of the saints. They all seek their satisfaction, and differ only in the object in which they place it; they call those their enemies who hinder them, etc. God has then shown the power which He has of giving invisible blessings, by that which He has shown Himself to have over things visible.
Types.—God, wishing to form for Himself an holy people, whom He should separate from all other nations, whom He should deliver from their enemies, and should put into a place of rest, has promised to do so, and has foretold by His prophets the time and the manner of His coming. And yet, to confirm the hope of His elect, He has made them see in it an image through all time, without leaving them devoid of assurances of His power and of His will to save them. For, at the creation of man, Adam was the witness, and guardian of the promise of a Saviour, who should be born of woman, when men were still so near the creation that they could not have forgotten their creation and their fall. When those who had seen Adam were no longer in the world, God sent Noah whom He saved, and drowned the whole earth by a miracle which sufficiently indicated the power which He had to save the world, and the will which He had to do so, and to raise up from the seed of woman Him whom He had promised. This miracle was enough to confirm the hope of men.
The memory of the deluge being so fresh among men, while Noah was still alive, God made promises to Abraham, and, while Shem was still living, sent Moses, etc....[Pg 183]
Types.—God, willing to deprive His own of perishable blessings, created the Jewish people in order to show that this was not owing to lack of power.
The Synagogue did not perish, because it was a type. But because it was only a type, it fell into servitude. The type existed till the truth came, in order that the Church should be always visible, either in the sign which promised it, or in substance.
That the law was figurative.
Two errors: 1. To take everything literally. 2. To take everything spiritually.
To speak against too greatly figurative language.
There are some types clear and demonstrative, but others which seem somewhat far-fetched, and which convince only those who are already persuaded. These are like the Apocalyptics. But the difference is that they have none which are certain, so that nothing is so unjust as to claim that theirs are as well founded as some of ours; for they have none so demonstrative as some of ours. The comparison is unfair. We must not put on the same level, and confound things, because they seem to agree in one point, while they are so different in another. The clearness in divine things requires us to revere the obscurities in them.
[It is like men, who employ a certain obscure language among themselves. Those who should not understand it, would understand only a foolish meaning.]
Extravagances of the Apocalyptics, Preadamites, Millenarians, etc.—He who would base extravagant opinions on Scripture, will, for example, base them on this. It is said that "this generation[Pg 184] shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled."[236] Upon that I will say that after that generation will come another generation, and so on ever in succession.
Solomon and the King are spoken of in the second book of Chronicles, as if they were two different persons. I will say that they were two.
Particular Types.—A double law, double tables of the law, a double temple, a double captivity.
Types.—The prophets prophesied by symbols of a girdle, a beard and burnt hair, etc.
Difference between dinner and supper.[237]
In God the word does not differ from the intention, for He is true; nor the word from the effect, for He is powerful; nor the means from the effect, for He is wise. Bern., Ult. Sermo in Missam.
Augustine, De Civit. Dei, v, 10. This rule is general. God can do everything, except those things, which if He could do, He would not be almighty, as dying, being deceived, lying, etc.
Several Evangelists for the confirmation of the truth; their difference useful.
The Eucharist after the Lord's Supper. Truth after the type.
The ruin of Jerusalem, a type of the ruin of the world, forty years after the death of Jesus. "I know not," as a man, or as an ambassador (Mark xiii, 32). (Matthew xxiv, 36.)
Jesus condemned by the Jews and the Gentiles.
The Jews and the Gentiles typified by the two sons. Aug., De Civ., xx, 29.
The six ages, the six Fathers of the six ages, the six wonders at the beginning of the six ages, the six mornings at the beginning of the six ages.[238]
Adam forma futuri.[239] The six days to form the one, the six ages to form the other. The six days, which Moses represents[Pg 185] for the formation of Adam, are only the picture of the six ages to form Jesus Christ and the Church. If Adam had not sinned, and Jesus Christ had not come, there had been only one covenant, only one age of men, and the creation would have been represented as accomplished at one single time.
Types.—The Jewish and Egyptian peoples were plainly foretold by the two individuals whom Moses met; the Egyptian beating the Jew, Moses avenging him and killing the Egyptian, and the Jew being ungrateful.
The symbols of the Gospel for the state of the sick soul are sick bodies; but because one body cannot be sick enough to express it well, several have been needed. Thus there are the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the paralytic, the dead Lazarus, the possessed. All this crowd is in the sick soul.
Types.—To show that the Old Testament is only figurative, and that the prophets understood by temporal blessings other blessings, this is the proof:
First, that this would be unworthy of God.
Secondly, that their discourses express very clearly the promise of temporal blessings, and that they say nevertheless that their discourses are obscure, and that their meaning will not be understood. Whence it appears that this secret meaning was not that which they openly expressed, and that consequently they meant to speak of other sacrifices, of another deliverer, etc. They say that they will be understood only in the fullness of time (Jer. xxx, ult.).
