3.  This is in truth a serious matter, brethren, and you must approach it with good heed.  Each one of you is about to be presented to God before tens of thousands of the Angelic Hosts:  the Holy Ghost is about to seal See Index, “Seal.” your souls:  ye are to be enrolled in the army of the Great King.  Therefore make you ready, and equip yourselves, by putting on I mean, not bright apparel Index, “White.”, but piety of soul with a good conscience.  Regard not the Laver as simple water, but rather regard the spiritual grace that is given with the water.  For just as the offerings brought to the heathen altars βωμοῖς used of heathen altars only, in Septuagint and N.T., though simple in their nature, become defiled by the invocation of the idols Both here and in xix. 7, Cyril speaks of things offered to idols just as S. Paul in 1 Cor. x. 20.  The Benediction of the water of Baptism is found in the Apostolic Constitutions, vii. 43:  “Look down from heaven, and sanctify this water, and give it grace and power, that so he that is to be baptized according to the command of Thy Christ, may be crucified with Him, and may die with Him, and be buried with Him, and may rise with him to the adoption which is in him, that he may be dead to sin and live to righteousness.”, so contrariwise the simple water having received the invocation of the Holy Ghost, and of Christ, and of the Father, acquires a new power of holiness.