You know then, Gentlemen, I said, that it is said of God in Isaiah with reference to Jerusalem, At the time of Noah’s Flood I saved thee. Now what God said was this, that the mystery of men being saved took place at the time of the Flood. For righteous Noah with the other human beings at the time of the Flood, namely his wife and his three children and his sons’ wives, these all being eight in number, were a symbol of the day that is indeed eighth in number, in which our Christ appeared as risen from the dead, but yet has ever been first in power.
For Christ, being the Firstborn of every creature, has also become again the head of another race, which was begotten anew of Him by water and faith and wood, which held the mystery of the cross, even as Noah also was saved in wood, when he was borne upon the waters with his family. When therefore the prophet says In the time of Noah I saved thee, as I said before, he is speaking to the people that was similarly faithful with God, and had these symbols. Moreover Moses having a rod in his hand led your people through the sea.
But you suppose that He spoke only to your nation, or your land. Yet in that the whole earth, as the Scripture says, was flooded, and the water was lifted up fifteen cubits above all mountains, it is clear that God did not say this to your land, but to the people that obey Him, for whom He also prepared beforehand a rest in Jerusalem, as has been proved aforetime by all the symbols at the time of the Flood. I say that by water and faith and wood they that prepare themselves beforehand and repent of their sins shall escape the judgment of God that is to come upon them.