More Early Church Quotes On Baptism

57. Keep, I pray You, this my pious faith undefiled, and even till my spirit departs, grant that this may be the utterance of my convictions: so that I may ever hold fast that which I professed in the creed of my regeneration, when I was baptized in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Let me, in short, adore You our Father, and Your Son together with You; let me win the favour of Your Holy Spirit, Who is from You, through Your Only-begotten. For I have a convincing Witness to my faith, Who says, Father, all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine John 17:10, even my Lord Jesus Christ, abiding in You, and from You, and with You, for ever God: Who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen. (On the Trinity, Book XII)

Behold Him, therefore, as a man, enduring with us the things that belong to man’s estate, and fulfilling all righteousness, for the plan of salvation’s sake. And this thou learnest from what the Evangelist says: “And it came to pass that when all the people were baptized, Jesus also was baptized, and prayed.” Was He too then in need of holy baptism? But what benefit could accrue to Him from it? The Only-begotten Word of God is Holy of the Holy: so the Seraphim name Him in their praises: so every where the law names Him: and the company of the holy prophets accords with the writings of Moses. What is it that we gain by holy baptism? Plainly the remission of our sins. But in Jesus there was nought of this; “for He did no sin: neither was guile found “in His mouth,” as the Scripture saith. “He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sins, and made higher than the heavens,” according to the words of the divine Paul. (Sermon 11: Luke 3:21-23.)

43. Throughout history, by the mysteries Christ has instituted through the faith of his Incarnation, they have arrived at that kingdom, those whom God has freely saved with no merits of good will or good works preceding. Just as from that time onward when our Savior said, “If anyone is not reborn from water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God”,⁵³ without the Sacrament of Baptism, apart from those who poured out their blood for Christ in the Catholic Church but without Baptism, no one can receive either the kingdom of heaven or eternal life. And so, anyone who receives the Sacrament of Holy Baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, whether in the Catholic Church or in any heresy or schism, receives the complete Sacrament; but he will not have salvation which is the effect of the Sacrament if he receives the Sacrament outside the Catholic Church. Therefore, that person must return to the Church, not to receive the Sacrament of Baptism again, which no one must repeat in the case of any person already baptized, but in order that he receive eternal life in the Catholic community. Anyone who has received the Sacrament of Baptism but remained away from the Catholic Church is never prepared to obtain eternal life. Such a person, even if he is very generous with almsgiving and even pours out his blood for the name of Christ, because of the fact that in this life he has not held tightly to the unity of the Catholic Church, he will not have eternal salvation. Wherever Baptism can be of use to anyone, it is there that almsgiving can be of avail. Baptism indeed can exist outside the Church, but it can be of no avail except within the Church. (Robert B. Eno, The Fathers of the Church: Fulgentius, Selected Works [The Catholic University of America Press, Washington, DC, 1997], Volume 95, pp. 87-88)

2. For he who is about to approach these holy and dread mysteries must be awake and alert, must be clean from all cares of this life, full of much self-restraint, much readiness; he must banish from his mind every thought foreign to the mysteries, and on all sides cleanse and prepare his home, as if about to receive the king himself. Such is the preparation of your mind: such are your thoughts; such the purpose of your soul. Await therefore a return worthy of this most excellent decision from God, who overpowers with His recompense those who show forth obedience to Him. But since it is necessary for his fellow servants to contribute of their own, then we will contribute of our own; yea rather not even are these things our own, but these too are our Master’s. For what have you, says He, that thou did not receive? But if you received it, why do you glory, as if you had not received it? 1 Corinthians 4:7 I wished to say this first of all, why in the world our fathers, passing by the whole year, settled that the children of the Church should be initiated at this season; and for what reason, after the instruction from us, removing your shoes and raiment, unclad and unshod, with but one garment on, they conduct you to hear the words of the exorcisers. For it is not thoughtlessly and rashly that they have planned this dress and this season for us. But both these things have a certain mystic and secret reason. And I wish to say this to you. But I see that our discourse now constrains us to something more necessary to say what baptism is, and for what reason it enters into our life, and what good things it conveys to us.

But, if you will, let us discourse about the name which this mystic cleansing bears: for its name is not one, but very many and various. For this purification is called the laver of regeneration. He saved us, he says, through the laver of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. Titus 3:5 It is called also illumination, and this St. Paul again has called it, For call to remembrance the former days in which after you were illuminated ye endured a great conflict of sufferings; Hebrews 10:32 and again, For it is impossible for those who were once illuminated, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and then fell away, to renew them again unto repentance. Hebrews 6:4-6 It is called also, baptism: For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ. Galatians 3:27 It is called also burial: For we were buried says he, with him, through baptism, into death. Romans 6:4 It is called circumcision: In whom you were also circumcised, with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh. Galatians 2:11 It is called a cross: Our old man was crucified with him that the body of sin might be done away. Romans 6:6 

It is also possible to speak of other names besides these, but in order that we should not spend our whole time over the names of this free gift, come, return to the first name, and let us finish our discourse by declaring its meaning; but in the meantime, let us extend our teaching a little further. There is that laver by means of the baths, common to all men, which is wont to wipe off bodily uncleanness; and there is the Jewish laver, more honorable than the other, but far inferior to that of grace; and it too wipes off bodily uncleanness but not simply uncleanness of body, since it even reaches to the weak conscience. For there are many matters, which by nature indeed are not unclean, but which become unclean from the weakness of the conscience. And as in the case of little children, masks, and other bugbears are not in themselves alarming, but seem to little children to be alarming, by reason of the weakness of their nature, so it is in the case of those things of which I was speaking; just as to touch dead bodies is not naturally unclean, but when this comes into contact with a weak conscience, it makes him who touches them unclean. For that the thing in question is not unclean naturally, Moses himself who ordained this law showed, when he bore off the entire corpse of Joseph, and yet remained clean. On this account Paul also, discoursing to us about this uncleanness which does not come naturally but by reason of the weakness of the conscience, speaks somewhat in this way, Nothing is common of itself save to him who accounts anything to be common. Romans 14:14 Do you not see that uncleanness does not arise from the nature of the thing, but from the weakness of the reasoning about it? And again: All things indeed are clean, howbeit it is evil to that man who eats with offense. Romans 14:20 Do you see that it is not to eat, but to eat with offense, that is the cause of uncleanness?…

3. In order, therefore, that we return not to our former vomit, let us henceforward discipline ourselves. For that we must repent beforehand, and desist from our former evil, and so come forward for grace, hear what John says, and what the leader of the apostles says to those who are about to be baptized. For the one says, Bring forth fruit worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our Father; Luke 3:8 and the other says again to those who question him, Repent ye and be baptized every one of you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Acts 2:38 Now he who repents, no longer touches the same matters of which he repented. On this account, also, we are bidden to say, I renounce you, Satan, in order that we may never more return to him… Consider that your soul is the portrait; before therefore the true coloring of the spirit comes, wipe out habits which have wrongly been implanted in you, whether swearing, or falsehood, or insolence, or base talking, or jesting, or whatever else you have a habit of doing of things unlawful. Away with the habit, in order that you may not return to it, after baptism. The laver causes the sins to disappear. Correct your habits, so that when the colors are applied, and the royal likeness is brought out, you may no more wipe them out in the future; and add damage and scars to the beauty which has been given you by God… (Instructions to Catechumens)

5.  Let us say again: Blessed be God, who alone does wonderful things,⁸ who does all things and transforms them. Before yesterday you were captives, but now you are free and citizens of the Church; lately you lived in the shame of your sins, but now you live in freedom and justice. You are not only free, but also holy; not only holy, but also just; not only just, but also sons; not only sons, but also heirs; not only heirs, but also brothers of Christ; not only brothers of Christ, but also joint heirs; not only joint heirs, but also members; not only members, but also the temple; not only the temple, but also instruments of the Spirit.⁹

6.  Blessed be God, who alone does wonderful things!¹⁰ You have seen how numerous are the gifts of baptism. Although many men think that the only gift it confers is the remission of sins, we have counted its honors to the number of ten.¹¹ It is on this account that we baptize even infants, although they are sinless,¹² that they may be given the further gifts of sanctification, justice, filial adoption, and inheritance, that they may be brothers and members of Christ, and become dwelling places for the Spirit…

1. How I have loved and longed for² the throng of my new³ brethren! For I call you brothers even now before the hour of your birth, and I rejoice in the kinship between us, even though you have not yet been born. Since I know and well understand to what a great honor and into what a great realm you will be introduced, I will do what people generally do when a man is going to acquire ruling power. Such a man is held in honor by all who have an eye to storing up future good will for themselves by paying court to him even before he actually succeeds to power. Let me do that now, for you will not be introduced into some poor dominion, but into the kingdom itself; not merely into any kingdom, but into the very kingdom of heaven. Therefore, I beg and entreat you to remember me when you come into that kingdom.⁴ (Baptismal instructions: John Chrysostom; Paul W. Harkins, Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation, edited by Johannes Quasten & Walter J. Burghardt, S.J. [Newman Press, New York, N.Y./ Ramsey, N.J. 1963], pp. 57, 131)

Chapter 10

Against those who say that it is not right to rank the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son.

24. But we must proceed to attack our opponents, in the endeavour to confute those oppositions advanced against us which are derived from knowledge falsely so-called.

It is not permissible, they assert, for the Holy Spirit to be ranked with the Father and Son, on account of the difference of His nature and the inferiority of His dignity. Against them it is right to reply in the words of the apostles, We ought to obey God rather than men. Acts 5:29

For if our Lord, when enjoining the baptism of salvation, charged His disciples to baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Matthew 28:19 not disdaining fellowship with Him, and these men allege that we must not rank Him with the Father and the Son, is it not clear that they openly withstand the commandment of God? If they deny that coordination of this kind is declaratory of any fellowship and conjunction, let them tell us why it behooves us to hold this opinion, and what more intimate mode of conjunction they have.

If the Lord did not indeed conjoin the Spirit with the Father and Himself in baptism, do not let them lay the blame of conjunction upon us, for we neither hold nor say anything different. If on the contrary the Spirit is there conjoined with the Father and the Son, and no one is so shameless as to say anything else, then let them not lay blame on us for following the words of Scripture.

25. But all the apparatus of war has been got ready against us; every intellectual missile is aimed at us; and now blasphemers‘ tongues shoot and hit and hit again, yet harder than Stephen of old was smitten by the killers of the Christ. And do not let them succeed in concealing the fact that, while an attack on us serves for a pretext for the war, the real aim of these proceedings is higher. It is against us, they say, that they are preparing their engines and their snares; against us that they are shouting to one another, according to each one’s strength or cunning, to come on. But the object of attack is faith. The one aim of the whole band of opponents and enemies of sound doctrine 1 Timothy 1:10 is to shake down the foundation of the faith of Christ by levelling apostolic tradition with the ground, and utterly destroying it. So like the debtors — of course bona fide debtors — they clamour for written proof, and reject as worthless the unwritten tradition of the Fathers. But we will not slacken in our defense of the truth. We will not cowardly abandon the cause. The Lord has delivered to us as a necessary and saving doctrine that the Holy Spirit is to be ranked with the Father. Our opponents think differently, and see fit to divide and rend asunder, and relegate Him to the nature of a ministering spirit. Is it not then indisputable that they make their own blasphemy more authoritative than the law prescribed by the Lord? Come, then, set aside mere contention. Let us consider the points before us, as follows:

26. Whence is it that we are Christians? Through our faith, would be the universal answer. And in what way are we saved? Plainly because we were regenerate through the grace given in our baptism. How else could we be? And after recognising that this salvation is established through the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, shall we fling away that form of doctrine Romans 6:17 which we received? Would it not rather be ground for great groaning if we are found now further off from our salvation than when we first believed, and deny now what we then received? Whether a man have departed this life without baptism, or have received a baptism lacking in some of the requirements of the tradition, his loss is equal. And whoever does not always and everywhere keep to and hold fast as a sure protection the confession which we recorded at our first admission, when, being delivered from the idols, we came to the living God, 1 Thessalonians 1:9 constitutes himself a stranger from the promises Ephesians 2:12 of God, fighting against his own handwriting, which he put on record when he professed the faith. For if to me my baptism was the beginning of life, and that day of regeneration the first of days, it is plain that the utterance uttered in the grace of adoption was the most honourable of all. Can I then, perverted by these men’s seductive words, abandon the tradition which guided me to the light, which bestowed on me the boon of the knowledge of God, whereby I, so long a foe by reason of sin, was made a child of God? But, for myself, I pray that with this confession I may depart hence to the Lord, and them I charge to preserve the faith secure until the day of Christ, and to keep the Spirit undivided from the Father and the Son, preserving, both in the confession of faith and in the doxology, the doctrine taught them at their baptism.

Chapter 11

That they who deny the Spirit are transgressors.

27. Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Proverbs 23:29 For whom is distress and darkness? For whom eternal doom? Is it not for the transgressors? For them that deny the faith? And what is the proof of their denial? Is it not that they have set at naught their own confessions? And when and what did they confess? Belief in the Father and in the Son and in the Holy Ghost, when they renounced the devil and his angels, and uttered those saving words. What fit title then for them has been discovered, for the children of light to use? Are they not addressed as transgressors, as having violated the covenant of their salvation? What am I to call the denial of God? What the denial of Christ? What but transgressions? And to him who denies the Spirit, what title do you wish me to apply? Must it not be the same, inasmuch as he has broken his covenant with God? And when the confession of faith in Him secures the blessing of true religion. and its denial subjects men to the doom of godlessness, is it not a fearful thing for them to set the confession at naught, not through fear of fire, or sword, or cross, or scourge, or wheel, or rack, but merely led astray by the sophistry and seductions of the pneumatomachi? I testify to every man who is confessing Christ and denying God, that Christ will profit him nothing; to every man that calls upon God but rejects the Son, that his faith is vain; to every man that sets aside the Spirit, that his faith in the Father and the Son will be useless, for he cannot even hold it without the presence of the Spirit. For he who does not believe the Spirit does not believe in the Son, and he who has not believed in the Son does not believe in the Father. For none can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost, 1 Corinthians 12:3 and No man has seen God at any time, but the only begotten God which is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him.

Such an one has neither part nor lot in the true worship; for it is impossible to worship the Son, save by the Holy Ghost; impossible to call upon the Father, save by the Spirit of adoption.

Chapter 12

Against those who assert that the baptism in the name of the Father alone is sufficient.

28. Let no one be misled by the fact of the apostle’s frequently omitting the name of the Father and of the Holy Spirit when making mention of baptism, or on this account imagine that the invocation of the names is not observed. As many of you, he says, as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ; and again, As many of you as were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death. For the naming of Christ is the confession of the whole, showing forth as it does the God who gave, the Son who received, and the Spirit who is, the unction. So we have learned from Peter, in the Acts, of Jesus of Nazareth whom God anointed with the Holy Ghost; Acts 10:38 and in Isaiah, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; Isaiah 60:1 and the Psalmist, Therefore God, even your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows. Scripture, however, in the case of baptism, sometimes plainly mentions the Spirit alone.

For into one Spirit, it says, we were all baptized in one body. And in harmony with this are the passages: You shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, Acts 1:5 and He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. Luke 3:16 But no one on this account would be justified in calling that baptism a perfect baptism wherein only the name of the Spirit was invoked. For the tradition that has been given us by the quickening grace must remain for ever inviolate. He who redeemed our life from destruction gave us power of renewal, whereof the cause is ineffable and hidden in mystery, but bringing great salvation to our souls, so that to add or to take away anything involves manifestly a falling away from the life everlasting. If then in baptism the separation of the Spirit from the Father and the Son is perilous to the baptizer, and of no advantage to the baptized, how can the rending asunder of the Spirit from Father and from Son be safe for us? Faith and baptism are two kindred and inseparable ways of salvation: faith is perfected through baptism, baptism is established through faith, and both are completed by the same names. For as we believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, so are we also baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; first comes the confession, introducing us to salvation, and baptism follows, setting the seal upon our assent. (De Spiritu Sancto)

2. To what does all this tend, you ask. I reply; you remember the question that you proposed. It was this. A Spanish bishop named Carterius, old in years and in the priesthood has married two wives, one before he was baptized, and, she having died, another since he has passed through the laver; and you are of opinion that he has violated the precept of the apostle, who in his list of episcopal qualifications commands that a bishop shall be the husband of one wife. 1 Timothy 3:2 I am surprised that you have pilloried an individual when the whole world is filled with persons ordained in similar circumstances; I do not mean presbyters or clergy of lower rank, but speak only of bishops of whom if I were to enumerate them all one by one I should gather a sufficient number to surpass the crowd which attended the synod of Ariminum. Still it does not become me to defend one by incriminating many; nor if reason condemns a sin, to make the number of those who commit it an excuse for it. At Rome an eloquent pleader caught me, as the phrase goes, between the horns of a dilemma: whichever way I turned I was held fast. Is it sinful, said he, to marry a wife, or is it not sinful? I in my simplicity, not being wary enough to avoid the snare laid for me, replied that it was not sinful. Then he propounded another question: Is it good deeds which are done away with in baptism or is it evil? Here again my simplicity induced me to say that it was sins which were forgiven. At this point, just as I began to fancy myself secure, the horns of the dilemma commenced to close in on me from this side and from that and their points hidden before began to show themselves. If, said he, to marry a wife is not sinful, and if baptism forgives sins, all that is not done away with is held over. On the instant a dark mist rose before my eyes as though I had been struck by a strong boxer. Yet recalling the sophism attributed to Chrysippus: Whether you lie or whether you speak the truth, in either case you lie, I came to myself again and turned upon my opponent with a dilemma of my own.

Pray tell me, I said, does baptism make a new man or does it not? He grudgingly admitted that it did. I pursued my advantage by saying, Does it make him wholly new or only partially so? He replied, Wholly. Then I asked, Is there nothing then of the old man held over in baptism? He assented. Hereupon I propounded the argument; If baptism makes a man new and creates a wholly new being, and if there is nothing of the old man held over in the new, that which once was in the old cannot be imputed to the new. At first my thorny friend held his tongue; afterwards however, making Piso’s mistake, though he had nothing to say he could not remain silent. Sweat stood upon his brow, his cheeks turned pale, his lips trembled, his tongue clove to his mouth, his throat became dry; and fear (not age) made him cower. At last he broke out in these words, Have you not read how the apostle permits none to be ordained priest save the husband of one wife, and that what he lays stress upon is the fact of the marriage and not the time at which it is contracted? Now as the fellow had challenged me with syllogisms, and as I saw that he was feeling his way towards some intricate and awkward questions, I proceeded to turn his own weapons against him. I said therefore, Whom did the apostle select for the episcopate, baptized persons or catechumens? He refused to reply. I however made a fresh onslaught repeating my question a second time and a third. You would have taken him for Niobe changed to stone by excessive weeping. I turned to the audience and said: It is all the same to me, good people, whether I bind my opponent awake or sleeping; but it is easier to fetter a man who offers no resistance. If those whom the apostle admits into the ranks of the clergy are not catechumens but the faithful, and if he who is ordained bishop is always one of the faithful, being one of the faithful he cannot have the faults of a catechumen imputed to him. Such were the darts I hurled at my paralysed opponent. Such the quivering spears I cast at him. At last his mouth opened and he vomited forth the contents of his mind. Certainly, he blurted out, that is the doctrine of the apostle Paul…

4. Let every man examine his own conscience and let him deplore the violence he has done to it at every period of his life; and then when he has brought himself to deliver a true judgment on his own former misdeeds, let him give ear to the chiding of Jesus: Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of your own eye; and then shall you see clearly to cast out the mote out of your brother’s eye. Matthew 7:5 Truly like the scribes and pharisees we strain out the gnat and swallow the camel, we pay tithe of mint and anise, and we omit the just judgment which God requires. What parallel can be drawn between a wife and a prostitute? Is it fair to make a marriage now dissolved by death a ground of accusation, while dissolute living wins for itself a garland of praise? He, had his former wife lived, would not have married another; but as for you, how can you defend the bestial unions you indiscriminately make? Perhaps indeed you will say that you feared to contract marriage lest by so doing you might disqualify yourself for ordination. He took a wife that he might have children by her; you by taking a harlot have lost the hope of children. He withdrew into the privacy of his own chamber when he sought to obey nature and to win God’s blessing: Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. Genesis 1:28 You on the contrary outraged public decency in the hot eagerness of your lust. He covered a lawful indulgence beneath a veil of modesty; you pursued an unlawful one shamelessly before the eyes of all. For him it is written Marriage is honourable and the bed undefiled, while to you the words are read, but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge, Hebrews 13:4 and if any man destroys the temple of God, him shall God destroy. All iniquities, we are told, are forgiven us at our baptism, and when once we have received God’s mercy we need not afterwards dread from Him the severity of a judge. The apostle says:— And such were some of you: but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Corinthians 6:11 All sins then are forgiven; it is an honest and faithful saying. But I ask you, how comes it that, while your uncleanness is washed away, my cleanness is made unclean? You reply, No, it is not made unclean, it remains just what it was. Had it been uncleanness, it would have been washed away like mine. I want to know what you mean by this shuffling. Your remarks seem to have no more point in them than the round end of a pestle. Is a thing sin because it is not sin? Or is a thing unclean because it is not unclean? The Lord, you say, has not forgiven because He had nothing to forgive; yet because He has not forgiven, that which has not been forgiven still remains…

6. Let me now fulfil the promise I made a little while ago and with all the skill of a rhetorician sing the praises of water and of baptism. In the beginning the earth was without form and void, there was no dazzling sun or pale moon, there were no glittering stars. There was nothing but matter inorganic and invisible, and even this was lost in abysmal depths and shrouded in a distorting gloom. The Spirit of God above moved, as a charioteer, over the face of the waters, Genesis 1:2 and produced from them the infant world, a type of the Christian child that is drawn from the laver of baptism. A firmament is constructed between heaven and earth, and to this is allotted the name heaven, — in the Hebrew Shamayim or ‘what comes out of the waters,’— and the waters which are above the heavens are parted from the others to the praise of God. Wherefore also in the vision of the prophet Ezekiel there is seen above the cherubim a crystal stretched forth, Ezekiel 1:22 that is, the compressed and denser waters. The first living beings come out of the waters; and believers soar out of the laver with wings to heaven. Man is formed out of clay Genesis 2:7 and God holds the mystic waters in the hollow of his hand. In Eden a garden is planted, and a fountain in the midst of it parts into four heads. Genesis 2:8, 10 This is the same fountain which Ezekiel later on describes as issuing out of the temple and flowing towards the rising of the sun, until it heals the bitter waters and quickens those that are dead. When the world falls into sin nothing but a flood of waters can cleanse it again. But as soon as the foul bird of wickedness is driven away, the dove of the Holy Spirit comes to Noah Genesis 8:8, 11 as it came afterwards to Christ in the Jordan, Matthew 3:16 and, carrying in its beak a branch betokening restoration and light, brings tidings of peace to the whole world. Pharaoh and his host, loth to allow God’s people to leave Egypt, are overwhelmed in the Red Sea figuring thereby our baptism. His destruction is thus described in the book of Psalms: You endowed the sea with virtue through your power: you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters: you broke the heads of leviathan in pieces. For this reason adders and scorpions haunt dry places Deuteronomy 8:15 and whenever they come near water behave as if rabid or insane. As wood sweetens Marah so that seventy palm-trees are watered by its streams, so the cross makes the waters of the law lifegiving to the seventy who are Christ’s apostles. It is Abraham and Isaac who dig wells, the Philistines who try to prevent them. Beersheba too, the city of the oath, Genesis 21:31 and [Gihon], the scene of Solomon’s coronation, derive their names from springs. It is beside a well that Eliezer finds Rebekah. Genesis 24:15-16 Rachel too is a drawer of water and wins a kiss thereby Genesis 29:10-11 from the supplanter Genesis 27:36 Jacob. When the daughters of the priests of Midian are in a strait to reach the well, Moses opens a way for them and delivers them from outrage. Exodus 2:16-17 

The Lord’s forerunner at Salem (a name which means peace or perfection) makes ready the people for Christ with spring-water. John 3:23 The Saviour Himself does not preach the kingdom of heaven until by His baptismal immersion He has cleansed the Jordan. Water is the matter of His first miracle and it is from a well that the Samaritan woman is told to quench her thirst. John 4:13-14 To Nicodemus He secretly says:— Unless a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. John 3:5 As His earthly course began with water, so it ended with it. His side is pierced by the spear, and blood and water flow forth, twin emblems of baptism and of martyrdom. After His resurrection also, when sending His apostles to the Gentiles, He commands them to baptize these in the mystery of the Trinity. Matthew 28:19 The Jewish people repenting of their misdoing are sent immediately by Peter to be baptized. Acts 2:38 Before Sion travails she brings forth children, and a nation is born at once. Isaiah 66:7-8 Paul the persecutor of the church, that ravening wolf out of Benjamin, Genesis 49:27 bows his head before Ananias one of Christ’s sheep, and only recovers his sight when he applies the remedy of baptism. By the reading of the prophet the eunuch of Candace the queen of Ethiopia is made ready for the baptism of Christ. Acts 8:27-38 Though it is against nature the Ethiopian does change his skin and the leopard his spots. Jeremiah 13:23 Those who have received only John’s baptism and have no knowledge of the Holy Spirit are baptized again, lest any should suppose that water unsanctified thereby could suffice for the salvation of either Jew or Gentile. Acts 19:1-7 The voice of the Lord is upon the waters…The Lord is upon many waters…the Lord makes the flood to inhabit it. His teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn which came up from the washing; whereof everyone bear twins, and none is barren among them. Song of Songs 4:2 If none is barren among them, all of them must have udders filled with milk and be able to say with the apostle: You are my little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you; Galatians 4:19 and I have fed you with milk and not with meat. 1 Corinthians 3:2 And it is to the grace of baptism that the prophecy of Micah refers: He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us: he will subdue our iniquities, and will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. Micah 7:19

7. How then can you say that all sins are drowned in the baptismal laver if a man’s wife is still to swim on the surface as evidence against him? The psalmist says:— Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputes not iniquity. It would seem that we must add something to this song and say Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes not a wife. Let us hear also the declaration which Ezekiel the so called son of man Ezekiel 2:1 makes concerning the virtue of him who is to be the true son of man, the Christian: I will take you, he says, from among the heathen…then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your filthiness…a new heart also will I give you and a new spirit. From all your filthiness he says, will I cleanse you. If all is taken away nothing can be left. If filthiness is cleansed, how much more is cleanness kept from defilement. A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit. Yes, for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything nor uncircumcision but a new nature. Wherefore the song also which we sing is a new song, Revelation 14:3 and putting off the old man Ephesians 4:22 we walk not in the oldness of the letter but in the newness of the spirit. Romans 7:6 This is the new stone wherein the new name is written, which no man knows saving he that receives it. Revelation 2:17 Do you not know, says the apostle, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized 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. Romans 6:3-4 Do we read so often of newness and of making new and yet can no renewing efface the stain which the word wife brings with it? We are buried with Christ by baptism and we have risen again by faith in the working of God who has called Him from the dead. And when we were dead in our sins and in the uncircumcision of our flesh, God has quickened us together with Him, having forgiven us all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way nailing it to His cross. Colossians 2:13-14 Can it be that when our whole being is dead with Christ and when all the sins noted down in the old handwriting are blotted out, the one word wife alone lives on? Time would fail me were I to try to lay before you in order all the passages in the Holy Scriptures which relate to the efficacy of baptism or to explain the mysterious doctrine of that second birth which though it is our second is yet our first in Christ…

9… I cannot sufficiently express my amazement at the great blindness which makes men discuss such questions as that of marriage before baptism and causes them to charge people with a transaction which is dead in baptism, nay even quickened into a new life with Christ, while no one regards a commandment so clear and unmistakable as this about bishops not being novices… (LETTER 69 — TO OCEANUS)