That there being a first and second draught of bitterness, that is, of punishments for men, one by way of chastisement or exercise, the other for utter excision; or, one in this world, the far lighter of the two, the latter to come in another world, much more formidable; and the former now sometimes befalling the dearest servants of Christ, this is the time or sea- Those men, I say, at that time, which living in all uncleanness, believed not the preaching of Noah, nor heeded his building the ark, (by which yet it was clear there should be a deluge, and very few escape or be saved in it,) when God gave them that fair and merciful warning and call to repentance. To all which we have now the direct parallel, as in the violence, such as Gen. vi. 11, (the wicked devouring and persecuting the righteous,) and in the Gnostic pollutions, answerable to the corrupting themselves before God, ver. 12, (an effect of what was done ver. 2,) so in God's warning and denouncing of judgments, and shewing a way to the righteous that stick close to him to escape, to wit, the renouncing of those heathen sins noted by baptism, that antitype to the ark in the water, keeping men safe from being drowned, (I mean not that outward part of baptism alone, which is but the cleansing of the body, but (that which is signified by it, as it is the sacrament of initiation) the seeking to God as to the oracle for the direction of the whole future life, (see note [f] Rom. x,) and the undertaking faithfully to perform those directions,) delivering first out of the deluge of sin, and then of destruction attending it; and this, I say, as an eminent effect of the resurrection of Christ, who rose on purpose to turn all that will be wrought on from their iniquities, Acts iii. 26, and so bring destruction and vengeance on all others: [h] The like figure] The king's MS. reads O καὶ ἀντίτυπον, &c. where O in capital letters (as that whole book is written) signifies oftentimes οὔ, as in an inscription of an ancient cup in Athenaeus, ΔΙΟΝΥΣΟ is written for Διονύσου. And so in an old copy in Magdalen college in Oxford, it is clearly οὗ ἀντίτυπον, the antitype of which. As for the word ἀντίτυπον, it may perhaps be here fit to note, that, as it is certainly best rendered antitype, to preserve the signification of the Greek, whatsoever shall here appear most fitly to belong to it, so the Greek is capable of very distant senses. For, first, it signifies (not a like, but) a contrary. So in Ἐ Xenophon, τὰ μὲν εἰς χόριτα διὰ τοῦ ἄρχοντος ἐγένετο, τὰ δὲ ἀντίτυπα δι' ἄλλων, "Matters of favour are done by the prince himself, but the contrary by other men." So saith Hesychius of it, Ἀντίτυπα: ἀντιτυπῆσαι, ἐναντιωθῆναι, ἀντειπεῖν, and Ἀντιτυπίαι: ἀντιλυγίαι, ἐναντιώσει. It signifies contrariety or contradiction; and so we know the preposition ἀντὶ most ordinarily imports. And this the place would not unfitly bear, that baptism is quite contrary to the ark of Noah, but yet saves as that saved. There the destruction was by water, and only they were saved which got into the ark; but here water is the means of saving from destruction, and they perish which have not this immersion or baptism here spoken of. Beside this, there is a second notation of this word, as ἀντὶ signifies pro as well as contra, and so it may here be fitly rendered. For when it is compounded in the notion of pro, it notes instead of another, as ἀνθύπαιος, proconsul, is he that supplies the consul's place, is in his stead. And so it may be here, οὗ ἀντίτυπον βάπτισμα, baptism instead, or supplying the office of the ark, saves us now. In this sense antitype is ordinarily taken among us for that which (is not itself a type or figure, but) supplies the place of some former type; so purity of the heart is the antitype of circumcision, that is, that which is now by Christ required instead of that ceremony among the Jews. But beside both these, there is a third notation of the word, for ἀντίγραφον, a copy, differing from τίπον, so as the impression in the wax differs from the engraving in the seal. So the old Glossary renders both those words, ἀντίγραφον and ἀντίτυπον, by exemplum and exemplar. And thus is the word used, Heb. ix. 24, and generally in the ecclesiastic writers, and is best expressed by parallel, or answerable, and may so here fitly be rendered parallel whereunto baptism—.