236 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



Greece;' neither could it well be confined to the philosophers 

 there, but must have been known by those to whom the apostle 

 wrote generally. If so, then not only was the sacred writer justified 

 in selecting it by way of illustration, but he had more reason than 

 modern inconsiderates have supposed for calling them 'fools' who 

 did not properly reflect on what was acknowledged and admitted 

 among themselves. 



There is a very sudden turn of metaphor used by the apostle 

 Paul, in Romans vi. 35; 'Know ye not that so many of us as 

 were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death ? 

 therefore v\e are buried with him by baptism into death that we 

 should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted to- 

 gether [with him] in the likeness of his death, we shall be also 

 planted in the likeness of his resurection.' But what has baptism 

 to do with planting? Wherein consists their similarity, so as to 

 justify the resemblance here implied ? In 1 Peter iii. 21, we find 

 the apostle speaking of baptism, figuratively, as 'saving us ;' and 

 alluding to Noah, who long lay buried in the Ark,, as corn long 

 lies buried in the earth. Now, as after having died to his former 

 course, of life, in being baptized, a convert was considered as rising 

 to a renewed life, so after having been separated from his former 

 connexions, his seed-bed as it were, after having died in being 

 planted, he was considered as rising to a renewed life, also. The 

 ideas therefore conveyed by the apostle in these verses are pre- 

 cisely the same ; though the metaphors are different. Moreover, 

 if it were anciently common to speak of a person, after baptism, 

 as rising to a renewed life, and to consider corn also as sprouting to 

 a renewed life, then we see how easily Hymeneus and Philetus (2 

 Tim. ii. 17, 18,) 'concerning the truth might err, saying, that the 

 resurrection was past already,' in baptism, [quasi in planting that 

 is, in being transferred to Christianity] in which error they did lit- 

 tle more than annex their old heathen'notions to the Christian insti- 

 tution. The transition was extremely easy ; but unless checked in 

 time, the error might have become very dangerous. 





