The sense of this passage has been doubted but seems to be this: “The rite of confirmation, or the giving of the Holy Ghost, is of no avail unless baptism have first been conferred. For only by being born of each sacrament, scil. confirmation and baptism, can they be fully sanctified and be born again; since it is written, ‘Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit,’ etc.; which quotation is plainly meant to convey, that the birth of water is by baptism, that of the Spirit by confirmation.”