For was not the work of fashioning man himself also achieved with the aid of waters? Suitable material is found in the _earth_, yet not apt for the purpose unless it be moist and juicy; which [earth] ‘the waters’ separated the fourth day before into their own place, temper with their remaining moisture to a clayey consistency. If, from that time onward, I go forward in recounting universally, or at more length [than I have already done] the evidences of the ‘authority’ of this element which I can adduce to show how great is its power or its grace; how many ingenious devices, how many functions, how useful an instrumentality, it affords the world, I fear I may seem to have collected rather the praises of water than the reasons of baptism; although I should [thereby] teach all the more fully, that it is not to be doubted that God has made the material substance which he has disposed throughout all his products and works, obey him also in his own peculiar sacraments; that [the material substance] which governs terrestrial life acts as agent likewise in the celestial.” The title of chapter iv. is: “_The primeval hovering of the Spirit of God over the waters typical of baptism. The universal element of water thus made a channel of sanctification. Resemblance between the outward sign and the inward grace._” In this chapter Tertullian teaches that the divine power hovering over the water, in creation, made it “holy” as well as life-producing, and that these qualities continue to exist in all water. He says: “Thus the nature of the waters, sanctified by the Holy One, itself conceived withal the power of sanctifying. Let no one say, ‘Why, then, are we, pray, baptized with the very waters which then existed in the first beginning?’ Not with those very waters, of course, except in so far as the _genus_ indeed is one, but the _species_ very many. But what is an attribute to the _genus_ reappears likewise in the _species_. And accordingly it makes no difference whether a man be washed in a sea or a pool, a stream or a font, a lake or a trough; nor is there any distinction between those whom John baptized in the Jordan and those whom Peter baptized in the Tiber, unless withal [it be thought that] the eunuch whom Philip baptized in the midst of his journeys with chance water, derived [therefrom] more or less of salvation [than others]. All waters, therefore, in virtue of the pristine privilege of their origin, do, after invocation of God, attain the sacramental power of sanctification; for the Spirit immediately supervenes from the heavens, and rests over the waters, sanctifying them from himself; and being thus sanctified, they imbibe at the same time the power of sanctifying.”