(163) therefore has Christ ordained or instituted the Baptism or New Birth or Regeneration of the Holy Ghost, in the Water, because the Birth of the Light rises up in the sweet Water in the Heart. [†Printed Copy, Brain.]

(57) For this is the Water of Life, wherein the Love in God, as also in Angels and Men, generates itself: For it is all of one Sort of Power, Virtue, and Birth or Geniture. [Water of Life.]

(38) For that Water, at or in the Kindling of the Wrath, was not apprehended by Death, but subsists from Eternity to Eternity, and reaches to all the Ends and Parts of or in this World, and is the Water of Life, which breaks through Death, out of which the new Body of God in this World

(30) Behold the Water in the Deep above the Earth, which qualifies, mixes, or unites with the elementary Air and Fire, that is the Water of the astral Birth or Geniture, wherein stands the astral Life, and wherein especially the Holy-Ghost moves, and through which the third and innermost Birth does generate incomprehensibly, as to the Wrath of God therein: And that Water to our Eyes seems like the Air.

(7) so also the Water of Life was separated from the Water of Death, yet in that Manner as that they hang one to another in this Time of the World, as Body and Soul, and yet neither of them comprehend the other; but the Heaven which was made out of the Midst or Center of the Water, is the Clift between them, so that the comprehensible or palpable Water is a Death, and the incomprehensible or impalpable is the Life.

(64) And that new Body is the Water of Life, which is generated when the Light presses through the Wrath, and the Holy Ghost is the Former or Framer therein. But Heaven is the Partition between Love and Wrath, and is the Seat wherein the Wrath is transmuted or changed into Love.

(132) And this now is the Water of Life, which is generated in the Light of God out of the hard Death. And thus the Light of God in the sweet Water of Heaven broke through the astringent and hard dark Death; and thus the Heaven is made out of the Midst or Center of the Water.

(15) And consider attentively, I pray, with what appropriateness the holy symbols are presented. For since death is with us not an annihilation of being, as others surmise, but the separating of things united, leading to that which is invisible to us, the soul indeed becoming invisible through deprivation of the body, and the body, through being buried in earth in consequence of one of its bodily changes, becoming invisible to human ken, appropriately, the whole covering by water would be taken as an image of death, and the invisible tomb. The symbolical teaching, then, reveals in mystery that the man baptized according to religious rites, imitates, so far as Divine imitation is attainable to men, by the three immersions in the water, the supremely Divine death of the Life-giving Jesus, Who spent three days and three nights in the tomb, in Whom, according to the mystical and secret teaching of the sacred text, the Prince of the world found nothing.

(17) The Quality of Water is not of such a running and qualifying Condition or Manner in God, as it is in this World, but is a Spirit, very bright, clear, and thin, wherein the Holy Ghost riseth up, a mere Power.

(2) "Hearken moreover that I may tell you the word in truth, in what type the mystery of baptism forgiveth sins. Now, therefore, if the souls sin when they are still in the world, the retributive servitors indeed come and are witnesses of all the sins which the soul committeth, lest in sooth they should come forth out of the regions of the chaos, in order that they may convict them in the judgments which are outside the chaos. And the counterfeiting spirit becometh witness of all the sins which the soul shall commit, in order that it may convict it in the judgments which are outside the chaos, not only that it may bear witness of them, but--all the sins of the souls--it sealeth the sins and maketh them fast on to the soul, in order that all the rulers of the chastisements of the sinners may recognize it, that it is a sinning soul, and that they may know of the number of sins which it hath committed, by the seals which the counterfeiting spirit hath made fast on to it, so that it shall be chastized according to the number of sins which it hath committed. This do they with all sinning souls. "Now, therefore, he who shall receive the

(50) Now this Love and Wrath is indeed one Body, but the Water of Life is the Heaven of Partition between them, so that the Love does not receive or comprehend the Wrath, nor the Wrath the Love, but the Love rises up in the Water of Life, and receives into itself from the first and austere Birth the Power, which is in the Light, which is generated out of the Wrath; so that the new Body is born out of the old.