3. And to these things thou perchance, who art bringing in some novelty, mayest immediately and impatiently reply, as thou art wont, that the Lord said in the Gospel: “Except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.”13    John iii. 3, 5. Whence it manifestly appears that that baptism alone is profitable wherein also the Holy Spirit can dwell; for that upon the Lord Himself, when He was baptized, the Holy Spirit descended, and that His deed and word are quite in harmony, and that such a mystery can consist with no other principle. To which reply none of us is found either so senseless or so stubborn as to dare, contrary to right or contrary to truth, to object, for instance, so to the doing of things in their integrity, and by all means in the Church, and the observation of them according to the order of discipline perpetually by us. But if, in the same New Testament, those things which in that matter we come upon as associated, be sometimes found in some sort divided, and separated, and arranged, and ordered just as if they were by themselves; let us see whether these solitary instances by themselves may not sometimes be such as are not imperfect, but, as it were, entire and complete. For when by imposition of the bishop’s hands the Holy Spirit is given to every one that believes, as in the case of the Samaritans, after Philip’s baptism, the apostles did to them by laying on of hands; in this manner also they conferred on them the Holy Spirit. And that this might be the case, they themselves prayed for them, for as yet the Holy Spirit had not descended upon any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Moreover, our Lord after His resurrection, when He had breathed upon His apostles, and had said to them, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost,”14    John xx. 22. thus and thus only bestowed upon them the Spirit.

III. Ad quae forte tu, qui novum quid inducis, continuo impatienter respondeas, ut soles, dixisse in Evangelio Dominum: Nisi quis denuo natus fuerit ex aqua et Spiritu, non potest introire in regnum coelorum 1187B (Joan. III, 3, 5). Ex quo manifeste apparet, illi Baptisma solum prodesse, cui possit etiam Spiritus sanctus inesse: super ipsum enim Dominum, cum baptizaretur, Spiritum sanctum descendisse, factumque ejus atque dictum pariter congruere, nec alia ulla ratione mysterium istud posse consistere. Cui responso nemo nostrum adeo ita insanus reperitur aut contumax, ut audeat contra fas aut contra verum contradicere; scilicet rebus integris et omni modo ita in Ecclesia gerundis et secundum disciplinae ordinem perpetuo a nobis observandis. Sed si in eodem Novo Testamento haec quae in isto negotio deprehendimus adunata, nonnumquam reperiantur quodam modo divisa ac separata et proinde disposita atque si sint singula; videamus utrum possint esse aliquando etiam 1187C singulariter solitaria, quasi non sint mutila, sed tamquam integra atque perfecta. Nam cum per manus impositionem episcopi datur unicuique credenti Spiritus sanctus, sicut Apostoli circa Samaritanos post Philippi Baptisma manum eis imponendo fecerunt, et hac ratione Spiritum sanctum in eos contulerunt (quod ut fieri posset, ipsi pro eis oraverunt; nondum enim super quemquam eorum descenderat Spiritus, tantum autem baptizati erant in nomine Domini Jesu) Dominus quoque noster post resurrectionem, cum insufflasset et dixisset Apostolis suis: Accipite Spiritum sanctum (Joan. XX, 22), ita demum largitus eis Spiritum sanctum.