Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 2.djvu/250

40 with what, if men examined it, they would find to be the very spirit of unbelief.

Of such instances, is St. Paul's comparison of the relation of the married state to that of and his Church (Eph. v. 22. sqq.) A portion of "the world" has already begun to shrink from this; and no wonder: for with what different feelings ought marriage to be thought of, encompassed, realized, lived in, if it is in any way to furnish a type of the relation of  to His Church! It is not, however, so much to our purpose to dwell on this, as to look on the converse; what different feelings, namely, the Apostle must have had, with regard to the Church as the whole, and to Holy Baptism;—in that he not only speaks of the Church prominently, and then but subordinately of the individual members; but that he in this place speaks in two words only, of precious blood-shedding, or rather of His whole life and death for the Church, and then dwells on the value of the gift of Baptism, and of the sanctification of the Church thereby intended. "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify it, having cleansed it (ἁγιάσῃ, καθαρίσας) with the washing of water by the word, (i.e. as the Ancients explained it, 'water rendered powerful and efficacious by the Divine word of consecration,') that he might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish." And this is the more remarkable, inasmuch as the Apostle draws no inference whatever from this description which he gives of the purity of the Church, but simply concludes as he began, "so ought men to love their wives as their own bodies,—even as the Lord the Church." The only point of comparison which he insists on, is the fostering love of, which the husband was, in his relation, to imitate: and therefore, since St. Paul thus singled out and dwelt upon the gift of Baptism, he must have had most exalted notions of that Sacrament, as a proof of