pa £.16d Gannat Busams p.itt (as from Tsho'dad) Ps. 74. 15 p. am 26 MATTHEW IL 15 Spirit a jive, for twelve reasons, which we have told in another place, that is to say, in the beginning of the Acts about the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles in the upper room. For thus it becomes us to fulfil all righteousness. He calls spiritual Baptism al? righteousness, and [says] of the adoption of sons which He was about to give to all men, that. it is a type of the world to come. This, that He was first baptized to form a pattern to us, as He did also in all His acts. Again, He calls Baptism the end and fudfidment of all legal righteousness, which was completed by the mediation of servants; and by this He shewed humility, which is the foundation and door of all virtues, because I have fulfilled all the laws of Nature and of Scripture as no other man has; and one only excellency remained to Me, that I, who am Lord, should humble Myself, and be baptized of thee, who art My servant. This that is required of all believers that they receive baptism from the priests, was typified, for that I now fudfil this also. Again, as I have fudfilled everything old, and paid the debts of human nature, and destroyed and dissolved sin and Satan and death and punishment, it is also right that I give henceforth new things to men, Death first 1 will suffer for your sakes, for with it is joined the Resurrec- tion, but I typify Baptism as the type of Death and Resurrection; for to it I attach all spiritual and new things, and I make it the beginning of the Gospel. Suffer us then, O John, to fulfil the righteousness of the old Law, and then we will begin in the mercy of the Gospel. And one ought to know that by this baptism two baptisms were completed ; on the one hand that of the Jews and that of John were destroyed, on the other hand, this of the New Testament was begun; and just as in the Passover and at one table, our Lord performed two Passovers, giving completion to the one, and beginning to the other; thus also here in one river he puts an end to the baptism of the Law and of John, and opens the door to His baptism for His Church. But in the Jordan alone He was baptized and not in any other place, because its beginning is from the region of the Gentiles, but its course in the land of Israel; and it issues from two fountains, one of which is called I6r, and the other Danan, which David calls the rivers of Etham. Thou, he says, hast dried the rivers of Etham, which is, in Syriac, strong; and afterwards they are gathered into one river, that He might shew by these things, on the one hand, the intercourse of the nation with the Gentiles, which is for unity of adoption and of worship; by this, on the other hand, the equality in the giving of grace, which was shed out before