LIX. They which deny that any such case of necessity can fall, in regard whereof the Church should tolerate baptism, without the decent rites and solemnities thereunto belonging, pretend that such tolerations have risen from a false interpretation which “certain men” have made of the Scripture, grounding a necessity of external baptism upon the words of our Saviour Christ: “Unless a man be born again of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven1.” For by “water and the Spirit,” we are in that place to understand (as they imagine) no more than if the Spirit alone had been mentioned and water not spoken of. Which they think is plain, because elsewhere it is not improbable that “the Holy Ghost and fire” do but signify the Holy Ghost in operation resembling fire. Whereupon they conclude, that seeing fire in one place may be, therefore water in another place is but a metaphor, Spirit the interpretation thereof, and so the words do only mean, “That unless a man be born again of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
I hold it for a most infallible rule in expositions of sacred Scripture, that where a literal construction will stand, the farthest from the letter is commonly the worst. There is nothing more dangerous than this licentious and deluding art, which changeth the meaning of words, as alchymy doth or would do the substance of metals, maketh of any thing what it listeth, and bringeth in the end all truth to nothing. Or howsoever such voluntary exercise of wit might be borne with otherwise, yet in places which usually serve, as this doth concerning regeneration by water and the Holy Ghost, to be alleged for grounds and principles, less is permitted.
To hide the general consent of antiquity agreeing in the literal interpretation, they cunningly affirm that “certain” have taken those words as meant of material water, when they know that of all the ancient there is not one to be named that ever did otherwise either expound or allege the place than as implying external baptism. Shall that which hath always2 received this and no other construction be now disguised with the toy of novelty? Must we needs at the only shew of a critical conceit without any more deliberation, utterly condemn them of error, which will not admit that fire in the words of John is quenched with the name of the Holy Ghost, or with the name of the Spirit, water dried up in the words of Christ?
When the letter of the law hath two things plainly and expressly specified, Water, and the Spirit; Water as a duty required on our parts, the Spirit as a gift which God bestoweth; there is danger in presuming so to interpret it, as if the clause which concerneth ourselves were more than needeth. We may by such rare expositions attain perhaps in the end to be thought witty, but with ill advice.
Finally if at 3the time when that Baptism which was meant by John came to be really and truly performed by Christ himself, we find the Apostles that had been, as we are, before baptized, new baptized with the Holy Ghost, and in this their later baptism as well a visible descent of fire4, as a secret miraculous infusion of the Spirit; if on us he accomplish likewise the heavenly work of our new birth not with the Spirit alone but with water thereunto adjoined, sith the faithfullest expounders of his words are his own deeds, let that which his hand hath manifestly wrought declare what his speech did doubtfully utter.
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Footnotes
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“Private baptism first rose upon a false interpretation of the place of S. John, 3. 5. “Unless a man be born again of water and of the Spirit:’ and where certain do interpret the word water, for the material and elemental water, when as our Saviour Christ taketh water there by a borrowed speech for the Spirit of God, the effect whereof it shadoweth out. For even as in another place, Matt. 3. 11, by ‘fire and the Spirit,’ he meaneth nothing but the Spirit of God, which purgeth and purifieth as the fire doth: so in this place by water and the Spirit, he meaneth nothing else but the Spirit of God, which cleanseth the filth of sin, and cooleth the broiling heat of an unquiet conscience, as water washeth the thing which is foul, and quencheth the heat of the fire.” T. C. lib. i. p. 143. [113. See also, Eccl. Disc. fol. 19.] ↩
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“Minime sunt mutanda quæ interpretationem certam semper habuerunt.” D. lib. i. tit. 3. lib. (= §) xxiii. [p. 78.] ↩
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“John baptized with water, but you shall within few days be baptized with the Holy Ghost.” Acts i. 5. ↩
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Acts ii. 3. ↩