85. You say thus, The strange nations are not baptised into Christ, therefore they are not children to the grace of the Covenant. Answer. If circumcision were alone salvation, then were baptism so also, for the one is as the other, but God requires that a Jew should be circumcised inwardly in heart. Circumcision was but the type or image, showing how Christ would cut off sin, which type Christ has fulfilled. Thus also the spirit of Christ baptises with this Covenant in the Paradisical image, in the incorporated grace, and kindles an ember. 1
86. But it requires an ens of faith, which is capable of the baptism,2 which comes from the parents, and through the earnest prayer of those who are conversant about the work; else the Covenant is despised, and there is no circumcision of the heart and spirit. For the power and authority wherewith the Holy Ghost baptises consists not in man, but in God. Whosoever despises his Covenant, and manages it not with earnest and with circumcised hearts, those he baptises into his anger: as Saint Paul says concerning the Supper of Christ, that the wicked receive it to judgement.
87. A wicked priest has not power and authority to baptise with the Holy Ghost, he has only the water, and is himself incapable of the office; but the ens of the child, and the believing parents, and those who require and promote the work, their earnestness and prayer reach forth the Covenant with their faith's desire to the baptised infant.
1 Bathes, steeps or soaks into the grace, and quickens a sprout.
2 Or, steeping.
88. But the wicked priest is no more profitable in it than the fontstone that holds the water; thus he brings only the water and the ceremonies, which a Turk can do, without faith or believing.
89. But a stranger that has not the baptism, and knows nothing thereof becomes in his faith circumcised in heart, and the Holy Ghost soaks into his faith's desire, and baptises him unto the revelation of Jesus Christ, when his faith shall also put on the substantial Covenant in the grace.
90. O Babel, how blind are you! How have your clergy or men ordained and in orders set themselves in Christ's stead! But they all serve not Christ, but themselves to their fleshly honour. O Babel, convert, the door is open, else you will be spewed out. The time is born. Else you will be set before the light and proved, and then you wilt stand in shame before all people.
91. Further, the spirit of God has yet a powerful figure in this text, in that Joseph caused his brethren to be set before him according to the order of their birth, and caused his brother Benjamin to be served with five times more than the others. This prefigures to us, first, the difference in the kingdom of Christ, showing how they shall be unlike in the regeneration, as St. Paul says concerning it, They shall excel one another in glory, 1 as the sun, moon, and stars do (I Cor. xv.
41).
92. For there it will avail nothing to have been a king, prince, lord, noble or learned, but he that has had the greatest power and virtue in him, who shall have attained grace, in the name of Jesus, the most clearly in his wrestling of repentance, he will be greatest there. For these orders and degrees signify to us, that they will be unlike in the divine exaltation, viz. in the power and virtue, as the angels excel one another in power, virtue, beauty and brightness.
93. But that Benjamin had five times more food served to him, points in the figure at the inward man, for Benjamin stands in the figure thereof; seeing he is Joseph's brother; and Joseph here stands in the figure of Christ: therefore it belongs to the inward man to eat of his brother Christ's food from his five wounds. This is that which this precious figure signifies here, as may be seen.
1 Clarity.
85. You say thus, The strange nations are not baptised into Christ, therefore they are not children to the grace of the Covenant. Answer. If circumcision were alone salvation, then were baptism so also, for the one is as the other, but God requires that a Jew should be circumcised inwardly in heart. Circumcision was but the type or image, showing how Christ would cut off sin, which type Christ has fulfilled. Thus also the spirit of Christ baptises with this Covenant in the Paradisical image, in the incorporated grace, and kindles an ember. 1
86. But it requires an ens of faith, which is capable of the baptism,2 which comes from the parents, and through the earnest prayer of those who are conversant about the work; else the Covenant is despised, and there is no circumcision of the heart and spirit. For the power and authority wherewith the Holy Ghost baptises consists not in man, but in God. Whosoever despises his Covenant, and manages it not with earnest and with circumcised hearts, those he baptises into his anger: as Saint Paul says concerning the Supper of Christ, that the wicked receive it to judgement.
87. A wicked priest has not power and authority to baptise with the Holy Ghost, he has only the water, and is himself incapable of the office; but the ens of the child, and the believing parents, and those who require and promote the work, their earnestness and prayer reach forth the Covenant with their faith's desire to the baptised infant.
1 Bathes, steeps or soaks into the grace, and quickens a sprout.
2 Or, steeping.
88. But the wicked priest is no more profitable in it than the fontstone that holds the water; thus he brings only the water and the ceremonies, which a Turk can do, without faith or believing.
89. But a stranger that has not the baptism, and knows nothing thereof becomes in his faith circumcised in heart, and the Holy Ghost soaks into his faith's desire, and baptises him unto the revelation of Jesus Christ, when his faith shall also put on the substantial Covenant in the grace.
90. O Babel, how blind are you! How have your clergy or men ordained and in orders set themselves in Christ's stead! But they all serve not Christ, but themselves to their fleshly honour. O Babel, convert, the door is open, else you will be spewed out. The time is born. Else you will be set before the light and proved, and then you will stand in shame before all people.
91. Further, the spirit of God has yet a powerful figure in this text, in that Joseph caused his brethren to be set before him according to the order of their birth, and caused his brother Benjamin to be served with five times more than the others. This prefigures to us, first, the difference in the kingdom of Christ, showing how they shall be unlike in the regeneration, as St. Paul says concerning it, They shall excel one another in glory, 1 as the sun, moon, and stars do (I Cor. xv.
41).
92. For there it will avail nothing to have been a king, prince, lord, noble or learned, but he that has had the greatest power and virtue in him, who shall have attained grace, in the name of Jesus, the most clearly in his wrestling of repentance, he will be greatest there. For these orders and degrees signify to us, that they will be unlike in the divine exaltation, viz. in the power and virtue, as the angels excel one another in power, virtue, beauty and brightness.
93. But that Benjamin had five times more food served to him, points in the figure at the inward man, for Benjamin stands in the figure thereof; seeing he is Joseph's brother; and Joseph here stands in the figure of Christ: therefore it belongs to the inward man to eat of his brother Christ's food from his five wounds. This is that which this precious figure signifies here, as may be seen.
1 Clarity.
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