conscience,—the true baptism foreshadowed by the “type baptism” of the Old Testament. Thus, Didymus Alexandrinus, having quoted Ezek. xxxvi, 22,—“I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean from all your sins;” and Psa. li, 7,—“Sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow;” says,—“For the sprinkling with hyssop was Judaic purification; which is continued by them to the present time; but ‘whiter than snow,’ denotes Christian illumination, which is baptism. And Peter, that he may show in his first epistle, that if baptism, which was formerly, _in shadow_ (_en skia_) saved, much more that which was _in reality_ (_en alētheia_) immortalizes and deifies us, wrote thus;—‘Antitype baptism now saves us.’”[108] So Ambrose, as already quoted, says of the Psalmist,—“He asks to be cleansed by hyssop, according to the law. He desires to be washed, according to the gospel. He who would be cleansed by typical baptism was sprinkled with the blood of a lamb, by means of a bunch of hyssop.” Of the doctrine of baptism, as thus conceived, Tertullian says,—“All waters in virtue of the pristine privilege of their origin,[109] do, after invocation of God accomplish sanctification; for the Spirit immediately comes from heaven and rests upon the waters, sanctifying them by his own power; and they being thus sanctified, therewith acquire the power of sanctifying.”[110] Derived from this is the modern doctrine of baptismal regeneration, according to which, it is only in and through the baptism of water that the renewing grace of the Spirit is imparted to men. Footnote 108: Did. Alex. xxxix, 716. In Dale’s Christ. Bapt. p. 342. Footnote 109: He alludes to a relation to the Spirit, supposed to be indicated in Gen. i, 2. Footnote 110: Tertullianus, De Bapt., ch. iv. It is manifest that if this doctrine be true, baptism is the “one thing needful;” and the church of Rome, and ritualists everywhere are right in the unanimity with which they reduce the preaching of the word to a secondary place, and count the progress of the gospel by the numbers who have been subjected to the life-giving rite. If it be true, then water baptism should be the theme of the New Testament; and the apostles and Christian ministry must have been commissioned and sent forth, _not_ to preach the gospel; but _to baptize_. What says the Word of God on these points?