406 A TREATISE ON RE-BAPTISM.
3.And tothesethingsthou perchance,who artbringingin
some novelty,mayest immediatelyand impatientlyreply,is
thou artwont, that the Lord said in the Gospel : " Except
a man be born again of water and of the Spirit,he cannot
enterintothe kingdom of heaven."1 Whence itmanifestly
appears that that baptism alone is profitablewhereinalso
the Holy Spiritcan dwell; for that upon the Lord Him
self,when He was baptized,the Holy Spiritdescended,and
that His deed and word are quitein harmony, and thatsuch
a mystery can consistwith no other principle.To which
replynone of us is found eitherso senselessor so stubborn
as to dare,contraryto right or contraryto truth,toobject,
for instance,so to the doing of things in theirintegrity,
and by all means in the church, and the observationof
them accordingto the orderof disciplineperpetuallybyus.
But if,in the same New Testament,those things whichin
thatmatter we come upon as associated,be sometimes found
in some sort divided,and separated,and arranged,and
ordered just as if they were by themselves; let us see
whether these solitaryinstancesby themselves may not
sometimes be such as are not imperfect,but, as it were,
entireand complete. For when by impositionof the bishop's
hands the Holy Spiritis given to every one that believes,
as in the caseof the Samaritans,afterPhilip'sbaptism,the
apostlesdid to them by layingon of hands ; in thismanner
alsothey conferredon them the Holy Spirit. And thatthis
might be the case,they themselvesprayed for them, foras
yet the Holy Spirithad not descended upon any of them,
but they had only been baptizedin the name of the Lord
Jesus. Moreover, our Lord afterHis resurrection,when He
had breathed upon His apostles,and had said to them,
" Keceive ye the Holy Ghost,"2 thusand thusonly bestowed
upon them the Spirit.
4. And thisbeing found to be so,what thinkestthou,my
brother? If a man be not baptizedby a bishop,so aseven
at once to have the impositionof hands,and should yetdie
before having receivedthe Holy Spirit,should you judge
1Johniii.3,5. 2Johnxx.22.