of Christ; the ark-the faith that is in Jesus; the water-the water of baptism; the lustration once performed, he believes that he is admitted into the community of Christ, and that he will be saved, if he be not neglectful of himself, from those appalling floods man's imagination fails to paint, which will inevitably overwhelm the obstinately hardened and impenitent: in this sense, (connecting the latter part of the twentieth with the twenty-first verse) "the ark" which was a preparing in the days of Noah, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water," was "the like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us"-" by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." The resurrection of our Lord from the dead is the foundation stone on which the whole edifice of Christianity is built up; and, happily for us, to quiet all our apprehensions and remove all our doubts, there is not a single fact 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 |