"When a soul is turned out of its self-righteousness,
and begins to look abroad, and view the heaven and earth for a resting-place,
and perceives an ocean, a flood, an inundation of wrath, to cover all the
world, the wrath of God revealing itself from heaven against all ungodliness, so
that it can obtain no rest nor abiding, — heaven it cannot reach by its own
flight, and to hell it is unwilling to fall; — if now the Lord Jesus Christ do
not appear as an ark in the midst of the waters, upon whom the floods have
fallen, and yet has got above them all for a refuge, alas! what shall it do?
When the flood fell there were many mountains glorious in the eye, far higher
than the ark; but yet those mountains were all drowned, whilst the ark still
kept on the top of the waters. Many appearing hills and mountains of
self-righteousness and general mercy, at the first view, seem to the soul much
higher than Jesus Christ, but when the flood of wrath once comes and spreads
itself, all those mountains are quickly covered; only the ark, the Lord Jesus Christ
though the flood fall on him also, yet he gets above it quite, and gives safety
to them that rest upon him.
Let me now ask any of those poor souls who ever have been wandering and tossed with the fear of the wrath to come, whether ever they found a resting-place until they came to this:— God spared not his only Son, but gave him up to death for us all; that he made him to be sin for us; that he put all the sins of all the elect into that cup which he was to drink of; that the wrath and flood which they feared did fall upon Jesus Christ (though now, as the ark, he be above it, so that if they could get into him they should be safe). The storm hath been his, and the safety shall be theirs. As all the waters which would have fallen upon them that were in the ark fell upon the ark, they being dry and safe, so all the wrath that should have fallen upon them fell on Christ; which alone causeth their souls to dwell in safety? Hath not, I say, this been your bottom, your foundation, your resting-place? If not (for the substance of it), I fear you have but rotten bottoms."
—John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ
Let me now ask any of those poor souls who ever have been wandering and tossed with the fear of the wrath to come, whether ever they found a resting-place until they came to this:— God spared not his only Son, but gave him up to death for us all; that he made him to be sin for us; that he put all the sins of all the elect into that cup which he was to drink of; that the wrath and flood which they feared did fall upon Jesus Christ (though now, as the ark, he be above it, so that if they could get into him they should be safe). The storm hath been his, and the safety shall be theirs. As all the waters which would have fallen upon them that were in the ark fell upon the ark, they being dry and safe, so all the wrath that should have fallen upon them fell on Christ; which alone causeth their souls to dwell in safety? Hath not, I say, this been your bottom, your foundation, your resting-place? If not (for the substance of it), I fear you have but rotten bottoms."
—John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ
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