Vol. 2

CHAPTER XVII. 619" 25. But first must he suffer many things, andbe rejected of this generation."Suffering and the cross of Christ are the onlymeans chosen by God to form liis church, and to fitand prepare her to appear with Christ at the greatday. None of his members are excused from walkingin this way : they must suffer, and be hated ofthe world, before they can partake of his glory.And a man may justly be said to be hated and rejectedof the world, when he follows those maximswhich it hates and rejects, and exposes himself topersecution on that account." 26. And as it was in the days of Noe, so shallit be also in the days of the Son of man."The hour of death and that of judgment are uncertain.That which happened in former ages, is afigure of what will happen in the last times. Theuse which a Christian ought to make of the Scripturesof the Old Testament,according to the institutionof God and the advice of Christ, is thereinto study his own duties, and to contemplate Christand his church. The old world, surprised by thedeluge,after a course of preaching and impenitencyfor a hundred years together, is an emblem of thatwhich happens to the generality of men at the timeof death, and of that which will happen at the lastday to the whole world." 27. They did eat, they drank, they marriedwives, they were given in marriage, until the daythat Noe entered into the ark; and the flood came,and destroyed them all."The life of men in the days of Noah representsto us, in a lively manner, the sottishness and strange