But the Greek Christians, whatever their defects, were nearer right than St. Augustine; and the Catholic St. Augustine was nearer right than the Protestant theologians who followed him. Baptism, as taught in the New Testament, is not the mere "outward sign of an inward grace." The action of the water and the action of the Spirit are not to be separated in any analysis of the nature and effects of baptism. Both are essential in the soul-cleansing, soul-enlightening, process, modern critics to the contrary notwithstanding. CHAPTER VII. Mode and Meaning of Baptism. Use of the Figurative.--When Jesus told Nicodemus that a man must be born again--born of water and of the Spirit--he virtually declared the meaning of the ordinance and prescribed the mode of its administration. Our Savior was not a mere rhetorician, ornamenting his speech for the mere sake of ornament. A true son of the Orient, naturally given to the use of figurative language, he was not a flourisher of phrases, a flaunter of vain show. His parables are poems, but they teach the truth in plainness to the wise; and because he recognized, as all great teachers do, the power of poetic symbolism to illustrate and impress the truth, he used it as a medium of instruction. But symbols are not arbitrarily invented by those who use them. They are already in existence, awaiting recognition. Poetic genius recognizes and applies them--that is all. God has built his universe upon symbols. In every department of creation the lesser symbolizes the greater and leads up to its comprehension. Like Suggests Like.--What said the Lord to Moses? "All things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me" (Moses 6:63). Man is a symbol of God, and is destined to become God; Earth is typical of heaven, and will yet be converted into a heaven. "If two things exist, and there be one above the other, there shall be greater things above them" (Abraham 3:16). Plato grasped the idea: "All things are in a scale, and begin where we will, ascend and ascend, and what we call results are beginnings."