in the entire range of history that is supported on authority better, or even near so good. This is not speaking intemperately; we may challenge any man, let him take all records, ancient and modern, he will not find one that can compare with it; in truth, the greater part of the events of ancient times depend confessedly on a single authority; and as for those of modern, they appear to have a greater body of evidence in their favour, but if we come to look a little closer, we shall generally find a solitary document, from which succeeding annalists have copied one after the other. To authenticate the resurrection of our Lord, we have four distinct writers, all agreeing, where it is natural they should agree, in the main story, and all disagreeing in those minute particulars where, if they did not occasionally disagree, the suspicion of collusion might very plausibly be urged

against them. This fact, then, is incontestably true; therefore Christianity itself is true. Curious inquiry, indeed, prompted, as I am convinced, by no other than conscientious motives, has often subjected this most interesting relation to a severe and rigorous examination; and as often as it has been subjected to such an examination, so often has it succeeded in convincing of its fidelity the most unbelieving and sceptical. Researches of this kind, when conducted with the candour and disinterestedness which become those who are conversant with the investigation of truth, are of the most beneficial service to Christianity, as they rarely fail in eliciting beauties which the less attentive observer would have passed by unnoticed.

But as the mind of every actual believer must be deeply impressed with the personal interest he himself has in this wonderful event, so must it be more

forcibly insisted on to every one who comes, of his own accord, to put on the

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easy yoke," and place upon his shoulders "the light burden" of the Saviour of the world. St. Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, is very full upon this head, thus, (vi. 3,)" Know ye not," writes he, addressing himself to those who had recently received the gospel; "know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were bap tized into his death? therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the father, even so we also should walk in newness of life for if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection." The intent and purpose of this is, to point out the inducements to a virtuous life, which was imperatively incumbent on those who had been ad

mitted to a participation in the privileges of the gospel. Again, Again, (Colossians ii. 11, 12,) speaking of our Saviour, " in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ; buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him, through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead." Wherever baptism is alluded to, the resurrection of our Lord from the dead will always be found in connexion with it.

But after all, though, probably those whom St. Peter was addressing had been well instructed in the nature and importance of the rite, he takes care to tell them that the baptism by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, of which the saving of the family of Noah in the ark was a type, that this baptism did not consist in "the putting away of the

filth of the flesh"-an expression of which we cannot so well perceive the force, as none among ourselves practice the numerous lustrations which were so general among the Jews at that time. He tells them, that baptism did not consist in the mere immersion taken singly, which we suppose was the usual mode of performing the rite, but in “the answer of a good conscience toward God." In the very earliest times,—I say the very earliest,-every person who offered himself for baptism was, without hesitation, baptized; because it was not imagined that any, with the prospect of calamities that awaited him, who acknowledged himself to be a Christian, would voluntarily throw himself in the way of those dangers, except he really were sincere in his purpose. But a little later, about the time we may suppose this epistle to have been written, when the Christians in different places had