grace in Baptism. Shall we then, having known this salvation, assured to us by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, abandon the form of doctrine which we have received? The loss is equal, to depart without receiving Baptism, or to receive it, omitting any part of that tradition. And he who keepeth not, throughout, that confession which we made when we, being rescued from idols, were first brought in to approach the living God, and holdeth it not through his whole life as a sure preservative, maketh himself an alien to the promises of God, and impugneth his own covenant, which he made at his confession of faith. For since Baptism is to me the beginning of life, and the first of days was that day of regeneration, it is manifest that those words uttered at the grace of adoption are of all the most exalted. Shall I then betray that tradition which brought me to the light,—which gave me the knowledge of God, whereby I, an enemy through sin, was made a child of God? Rather, do I pray for myself, that I may depart for the Lord with this confession; and I exhort them to keep the faith inviolate to the day of Christ; and to hold the Spirit undivided from the Father and the Son, preserving the doctrine of their Baptism in the confession of their faith, and in the fulfilment of glory." This is the language, not of a sermon, but of what would now be called controversial divinity; and such is the way in which the fathers, when speaking of the Ever-blessed Trinity, incorporated the memory of their Baptismal blessings with their warnings not to forsake the Catholic doctrine. In like manner says St. Cyril of Jerusalem[1], "Let no one separate the old Covenant from the new. Let no one say there was one Spirit there, another here; since he would offend against the Holy Spirit Himself, who is honoured with the Father and the Son, and who, at the time of the Holy Baptism, was comprehended with them in the Holy Trinity. For the only-begotten Son of God said clearly to the Apostles, 'Go—baptizing them in the name of,' &c. Our hope then "is in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit." And
- ↑ Cateches. 16 de Spiritu S. § 4. p. 244.
