XXVII.  Do not disdain to be baptized with a poor man, if you are rich; or if you are noble, with one who is lowborn; or if you are a master, with one who is up to the present time your slave.  Not even so will you be humbling yourself as Christ, unto Whom you are baptized today, Who for your sake took upon Himself even the form of a slave.  From the day of your new birth all the old marks were effaced, and Christ was put upon all in one form.  Do not disdain to confess your sins, knowing how John baptized, that by present shame you may escape from future shame (for this too is a part of the future punishment); and prove that you really hate sin by making a shew of it openly, and triumphing over it as worthy of contempt.  Do not reject the medicine of exorcism, nor refuse it because of its length.  This too is a touchstone of your right disposition for grace.  What labour have you to do compared with that of the Queen of Ethiopia, 1 Kings x. 1. who arose and came from the utmost part of the earth to see the wisdom of Solomon?  And behold a Greater than Solomon is here Matt. xii. 42. in the judgment of those who reason maturely.  Do not hesitate either at length of journey, or distance by sea; or fire, if this too lies before you; or of any other, small or great, of the hindrances that you may attain to the gift.  But if without any labour and trouble at all you may obtain that which you desire, what folly it is to put off the gift:  “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters,” Isa. lv. 1. Esaias invites you, “and he that hath no money, come buy wine and milk, without money and without price.”  O swiftness of His mercy:  O easiness of the Covenant:  This blessing may be bought by you merely for willing it; He accepts the very desire as a great price; He thirsts to be thirsted for; He gives to drink to all who desire to drink; He takes it as a kindness to be asked for the kindness; He is ready and liberal; He gives with more pleasure than others receive. Acts xx. 35.  Only let us not be condemned for frivolity by asking for little, and for what is unworthy of the Giver.  Blessed is he from whom Jesus asks drink, as He did from that Samaritan woman, and gives a well of water springing up unto eternal life. John iv. 7.  Blessed is he that soweth beside all waters, and upon every soul, tomorrow to be ploughed and watered, which today the ox and the ass tread, while it is dry and without water, Isa. xxxii. 20. and oppressed with unreason.  And blessed is he who, though he be a “valley of rushes,” Joel iii. 18; The Hebrew word rendered “rushes” by the LXX is in our Hebrew text Shittim—acacia trees. is watered out of the House of the Lord; for he is made fruitbearing instead of rushbearing, and produces that which is for the food of man, not that which is rough and unprofitable.  And for the sake of this we must be very careful not to miss the Grace.