(37) Now says Reason, How is the Baptism then? I perceive nothing but Water, and Words. I answer; Hearken beloved Reason, thy 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 eternal Life, [coming] out of his 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.

(84) But now Baptism was not instituted in respect of the earthly corruptible [Man,] which belongs to the Earth, nor for the heavenly [Man's] Sake, which was pure and spotless without that, but for the poor Soul's Sake. Seeing the heavenly Man in Christ took our natural Soul (in the Body of the Virgin Mary) to his heavenly Man, and that also the earthly Man hung to the Soul, therefore the holy Trinity [by the Hand of Man] took the Water of the eternal Life in the pure Element, and dipt the Soul therein, as I may so speak.

(24) Understand it thus, that Water is the Water of the eternal Life in the mLimbus of God in the Holy Ternary; and that is the Water which baptizes the Soul, when we keep the Use of his As by an Example. Testament, for the Soul in his Covenant is dipped and washed in that Water, it is rightly the Bath [or Laver] of Regeneration, for by its dipping in the holy Water, it is received and quickened by the holy Water, and comes (in the Covenant of Christ) into the Soul of Christ; indeed not fully into his Soul, but into his Body, and becomes the Brother of the Soul of Christ; for Christ's Soul is a Creature, (as our Souls are,) and is in the Body of the Mercifulness in the Trinity, being surrounded therewith, and has the same in it for Food and Strength [or Refreshment.] So also our Souls in the Covenant, if they be faithful and continue in God, they are the Brethren of Christ's Soul.

(23) Therefore, my beloved Soul, be lively, and see what thy noble Bridegroom has left thee in his Testaments for a Legacy; as namely, in the Baptism, the Water of his Covenant, flowing from his holy original Body. Whereas we in this World, viz. in the external Birth of his Body, do acknowledge four Things, namely, Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, wherein our earthly Body consists; so likewise in the heavenly Body there are four such Things. The Fire is the Enkindling of the divine Desire. The Water is that which the Fire desires, whence it becomes meek, and a Light. The Air is the joyful Spirit which blows up the Fire, and makes in the Water the Motion. And the Earth is the true Essence which is born in the three Elements, and is rightly called Ternarius Sanctus [the Sacred Ternary,] in which the Tincture is brought forth in the Light of the Meekness; and therein also is born the holy Blood out of the Water, being an Oil of the Water, in which the Light shines, and the Spirit of Life consists.

(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

(29) And therefore he sent his Angel hither before him, that he should baptize with the Water of the eternal Life; for so can the eternal Body (into which the Soul must enter, and in its Tincture, in its Blood, be new-born again) be translated into the Body of Christ; to describe which, a great Deal of Room is requisite. But I will finish here briefly, and mention it more in another Book. And now we will handle the Matter of the Use [or Celebration,] for it is very hard to be apprehended by the Simple. And therefore we will deal with him after a childish Manner, to try whether he may come to see, and find the Pearl, for all shall not find what we in the Love of God have found; though indeed we could earnestly wish that all might have it, yet there is a great Matter between it; viz. the swelled puft-up Kingdom of this World and the Devil will set themselves against it, as raging Dogs, but the Smell of the Lily will make him faint; and so now we will speak as a Child.

(28) Christ begun the Use of the Baptism by John, who was his Fore-runner, and John was born into this World before Christ, which has its Signification, therefore open thy Eyes. As the Water is in the Originality, and a Cause and Beginning of the Life, and [then] in the Water (by the Tincture) the Sulphur is first generated, wherein the Life becomes stirring, and the a Tincture generates again the Sulphur and the Water, wherein afterwards the Blood in the Tincture comes to be; thus now, as the Beginning of the Life is, so must also the Order in the Regeneration be, that the poor Soul first receives the Water of eternal Life, and be baptized therein, and then God gives it the Grain of Mustard-Seed of the Pearl, that so, if it receive the same, it may become a new Fruit in God.

(9) To the Eleusinian philosophers, birch into the physical world was death in the fullest sense of the word, and the only true birth was that of the spiritual soul of man rising out of the womb of his own fleshly nature. "The soul is dead that slumbers," says Longfellow, and in this he strikes the keynote of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Just as Narcissus, gazing at himself in the water (the ancients used this mobile element to symbolize the transitory, illusionary, material universe) lost his life trying to embrace a reflection, so man, gazing into the mirror of Nature and accepting as his real self the senseless clay that he sees reflected, loses the opportunity afforded by physical life to unfold his immortal, invisible Self.

(39) At birth only a third part of the Divine Nature of man temporarily dissociates itself from its own immortality and takes upon itself the dream of physical birth and existence, animating with its own celestial enthusiasm a vehicle composed of material elements, part of and bound to the material sphere. At death this incarnated part awakens from the dream of physical existence and reunites itself once more with its eternal condition. This periodical descent of spirit into matter is termed the wheel of life and death, and the principles involved are treated at length by the philosophers under the subject of metempsychosis. By initiation into the Mysteries and a certain process known as operative theology, this law of birth and death is transcended, and during the course of physical existence that part of the spirit which is asleep in form is awakened without the intervention of death--the inevitable Initiator--and is consciously reunited with the Anthropos, or the overshadowing substance of itself. This is at once the primary purpose and the consummate achievement of the Mysteries: that man shall become aware of and consciously be reunited with the divine source of himself without tasting of physical dissolution.

(41) Then says Reason, I can see nothing but Bread and Wine, and Christ also gave his Disciples but Bread and Wine. I answer, As the Baptism outwardly is outward Water, and the inward is the Water of the eternal Life, and the Holy Trinity baptises, as may be seen in Jordan, that three Persons appeared; the Son of God, in the Water; the Father, in the Voice of the Words; and the Holy Ghost over the Water; moving upon the Head of Christ; and so all three Persons in the Deity baptised this Man Christ; thus it is also in the Supper.

(42) Therefore the Body of Christ is inferior to the Deity; and in these our human Essences he suffered Death, and his Deity of the holy Man in the pure Element entered together also into Death, and bereaved Death of its Power, and separated the natural Soul (which Christ commended to his Father, when he died on the Cross) from the Kingdom of this World, also from Death, from the Devil, and from Hell, in the strong divine Might [or Power,] and opened a Gate for us all, who come to him and Or by. incline ourselves (with Mind and Thoughts) to him; then the Father draws our Soul (which is in him) into the pure Love of Christ; where then it puts its Imagination again through Christ P forward into the holy Trinity, and is fed again from the Verbum Domini [the Word of the Lord,] where then it is an Angel again, quite separated from the Kingdom of the Devil, and of this World, in the Death of Christ.

(4) Jesus said unto them: "This is the manner and way and this is the mystery which ye are to perform for the men who have faith in you, in whom is no deceit and who hearken unto you in all good words. And their sins and their iniquities will be blotted out up to the day on which ye have performed for them this mystery. But hide this mystery and give it not unto all men, but unto him who shall do all the things which I have said unto you in my commandments. "This then is the mystery in truth of the baptism for those whose sins are forgiven and whose iniquities are blotted out. This is the baptism of the first offering which showeth the way to the region of Truth and to the region of the Light."

(3) And Mary answered and said: "My Lord, in what type then do the baptisms forgive sins? I heard thee say: 'The retributive servitors follow the soul, being witnesses to it for all the sins which it committeth, that they may convict it in the judgments.' Now, therefore, my Lord, do the mysteries of the baptisms wipe out the sins which are in the hands of the retributive servitors, so that they forget them? Now, therefore, my Lord, tell unto us the type, how they forgive sins; nay, we desire to know it with sureness." mysteries of the baptisms, then the mystery of them becometh a great, exceedingly violent, wise fire and it burneth up the sins and entereth into the soul secretly and consumeth all the sins which the counterfeiting spirit hath made fast on to it. And when it hath finished purifying all the sins The separation of the portions by the mystery of baptism. which the counterfeiting spirit hath made fast on to the soul, it entereth into the body secretly and pursueth all the pursuers secretly and separateth them off on the side of the portion of the body. For it pursueth the counterfeiting spirit and the destiny and separateth them off from the power and from the soul and putteth them on the side of the body, so that it separateth off the counterfeiting spirit and the destiny and the body into one portion; the soul and power on the other hand it separateth into another. The mystery of baptism on the contrary remaineth in the midst of the two, continually separating them from one another, so that it maketh them clean and purifieth them, in order that they may not be stained by matter. "Now, therefore, Mary, this is the way in which the mysteries of the baptisms forgive sins and all iniquities."

(6) But the variety of disposition arises from inordinate affection to material things. And for this reason, as they appear to me, to have called night Euphrone; since then the soul, released from the perceptions of sense, turns in on itself, and has a truer hold of intelligence (Fronhsis). Wherefore the mysteries are for the most part celebrated by night, indicating the withdrawal of the soul from the body, which takes place by night. "Let us not then sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep, sleep in the night; and they that are drunken, are drunken in the night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as an helmet the hope of salvation." And as to what, again, they say of sleep, the very same things are to be understood of death. For each exhibits the departure of the soul, the one more, the other less; as we may also get this in Heraclitus: "Man touches night in himself, when dead and his light quenched; and alive, when he sleeps he touches the dead; and awake, when he shuts his eyes, he touches the sleeper." "For blessed are those that have seen the Lord," according to the apostle; "for it is high time to awake out of sleep. For now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light." By day and light he designates figuratively the Son, and by the armour of light metaphorically the promises.

(14) But if any would attain Salvation, he must be born again, through the Water in the Center of the Birth of Life, which springs up in the Center of the Light of God; for which End God the Father has by his Son commanded Baptism, that so we might have a Law, and a remarkable Sign of Remembrance, signifying how a Child void of Understanding receives an outward Sign, and the inward Man the Power and the new Birth in the Center of the Birth of Life; and that there arises the Confirmation, which the Light of God brought into Adam, when the Light of God the Father, in the Center of the fifth Form of the Birth of the Life of Adam, broke forth or sprung up. Thus it is both in the Baptism of an Infant or Child, and also in the repenting Convert, that in Christ returns again to the Father.

(85) See, thou beloved Soul, thou wast gone out from God; but his Love caught hold of thee again, and P fastened thee (with the Promise) to his Thread; and then came the Fulfilling of the Promise, and put another new Body on to thee; but thou canst not have another Soul, for thy Soul was out of the Eternity. Therefore now as the Holy Ghost overshadowed and filled [or impregnated] Mary, so the Water out of the Heavenly Matrix (which has its Beginning out of the Trinity) in the Baptism of Christ (and in all baptized Christians) overshadowed and filled the Soul of Christ in the Baptism in Jordan, and also the Souls of all Christians, and so renewed the earthly Water (of the Out-Birth) in the Soul, and washed it clean, that it is rin itself a pure Angel, which of itself may eat of the heavenly Fruit; and that is the Cause of the Baptism. O Man consider thyself.

(7) So it is said that we ought to go washed to sacrifices and prayers, clean and bright; and that this external adornment and purification are practised for a sign. Now purity is to think holy thoughts. Further, there is the image of baptism, which also was handed down to the poets from Moses as follows: "And she having drawn water, and wearing on her body clean clothes."