Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence

34. There are three Witnesses to this covenant, the one is called God the Father, the other God the Son, and the third is God the Holy Ghost;

650 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 23 these are the workmasters who do the office, they baptize [or administer baptism]. But if you filthy trimmed whore now comest thus stately, and bring the poor soul to the covenant of Christ, and does but stand there in pomp and bravery, and understandest very nothing of the Baptism, and do not put up the least prayer to God, what think you ? How do you stand in this covenant before the Holy Trinity? Even like a swine before a looking-glass.

35. Or shall I be silent ? I must speak, for I see it ; do what you will, this is the truth ; you carriest a new-washed soul from the Baptism, but you are a filthy swine, even in the kingdom of all

1 Or bath. the devils. But the * laver of regeneration (if you art a beast, and far from the kingdom of God) lies not in you, but it lies in the covenant of Christ.

36. But this I say, according to my knowledge, (and not out of any command), that if the parents be wicked, and indeed in the kingdom of the devil, and that they have thus begotten their fruit out of their false [or evil] essences (in which [parents] there is no faith, but only a false hypocrisy,

2 mock Christ, and yet will 2in an apish mockery be counted and yet be accounted Christians ; and as the devil oftentimes changes

Christians. t • i*. 11 M

nimselr into the likeness oi an angel, so they also send their children with the like trimmed false angels before the covenant of Christ) ; such doing is very dangerous, which also instantly shows itself in the growing of the tree ; indeed the coveCh. 23] THE PRECIOUS TESTAMENTS OF CHRIST 651 nant continues still, but there must be earnestness in avoiding of the devil. It may be, that very many ape baptized in the anger of God, because they do but contemn the covenant; and many times wicked drunken priests use it, who even stick in hell-fire over head and ears ; and therefore the covenant of grace stands as a testimony against the l congregations of the l the heap or wicked. And that which they see and know (and do not perform it with earnest sincerity) that shall judge and condemn them.

37. Now says reason, How is the Baptism then ? I perceive nothing but water, and words. I answer ; Hearken, beloved reason, your outward body is in this world only, and therefore outward water is requisite. But as the hidden man Christ, with his pure element, holds the out-birth of this world (viz. the four elements, wherein our body consists) and as all is his, so he holds also the outward water, and baptizes with the inward water of his element, with the water of the eternal life, [coming] out of his holy body. For the Holy Ghost in the covenant baptizes with the inward water, and the minister baptizes with the outward ; the outward [man] receives the earthly elementary water, and the soul [receives] the water of the washing in the regeneration.

38. The soul is washed in the holy water, and the Word is presented to it, and the soul stands in the covenant. And now it may reach after the

652 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 23

Pearl ; although the soul be tied backward in the kingdom of this world, yet it stands in the covenant for all that. And if, in the unfeigned faith of the parents, of the priest, and of the standers by, it be thus washed in the laver of regeneration, and so pass into the covenant, then the devil may not touch it, till [the time] that it

1 Or per- l understands what evil and good are, and enters ceivs, or . ,. , . f .,, disc«nies. into one of them in a iree will.