Holy water

“ The sprinkling of “holy water” [487] over patients by pious Catholics is familiar to every physician. I have seen a few drops of water from Lourdes given by a priest to his mother, sinking from lung disease. A few weeks ago I saw a cup of water in which a little earth from Knock, in the south of Ireland, was mixed, given with great confidence in its power for good, in a case of difficult labor. In the “Zend Avesta” wonderful virtue is ascribed to gomez; [488] and the same thing is equally lauded in the sacred books of the Hindus. What strange beliefs mortals may have! ”

“ In the Sinai baptism, as at first administered to all Israel, and in all its subsequent forms, living or running water was an essential element. This everywhere, in the Scriptures of the Old Testament and of the New, is the symbol of the Holy Spirit, in his office as the agent by whom the virtue of Christ’s blood is conveyed to men, and spiritual life bestowed. In the figurative language of the Scriptures, the sea, or great body of salt or dead water, represents the dead mass of fallen and depraved humanity. ”

“ Again, the trine aspersion within and without with hyssop and holy water signifieth the threefold immersion in baptism. And it is done for three reasons. First, to drive away evil spirits. For holy water availeth from its own proper virtue to drive away demons. Whence in the Office for Exorcising the Water we say—'that this water may become exorcised in order to put to flight all the power of the enemy, and may avail to eradicate the enemy himself,' etc. Secondly, for the cleansing and expiation of the church itself. For all earthly things be corrupted and defiled by reason of sin. ”

“ III. The last point here is that Christ's gift is a fountain 'springing up into everlasting life.'
The water of a fountain rises by its own impulse, but howsoever its silver column may climb it always falls back into its marble basin. But this fountain rises higher, and at each successive jet higher, tending towards, and finally touching, its goal, which is at the same time its course. The water seeks its own level, and the fountain climbs until it reaches Him from whom it comes, and the eternal life in which He lives. ”

“ Protestants laugh at Catholics because of their belief in the efficacy of holy water, and yet they teach their children that a little holy water, in which had been thrown some dust from the floor of the sanctuary, would work a miracle in a woman's flesh. ”

“ Feet washing was administered by Christ [63] and impressively commended to his disciples but it is plainly not the one baptism of the gospel.
From time immemorial some Pagans all around the world baptized with water.
By the law given through Moses the Jews baptized with water. [64]
John the Baptist was sent to baptize Jews with water. [65] But no one was sent to Baptize us Gentiles with water. God sent his son to baptize us with the Holy Spirit. All flesh, Jews and Gentiles, are objects of this one baptism. ”

“ The Priests, in solemn religious ceremonies, aspersed the assistants with it; and the people kept and used it in their families. In the same manner, the Church of Rome believes that holy water has the virtue of purifying the soul, and of remitting the punishment of certain impurities and sins. The Roman Catholics use it publicly and privately. Every Sunday, before the celebration of the high mass, the priests asperse the people with holy water for the aforesaid end; and also pour it on the coffins of the dead at the funerals. The laymen keep and use it in their families for the same end. ”

“ So we may have a well in the courtyard, and may be able to bear in ourselves the fountain of water, and where the divine life of Christ by His Spirit has through faith been implanted within us, it will come out from us. There is a question for you Christian people—do any rivers of living water flow out of you? If they do not, it is to be doubted whether you have drunk of the fountain. There are many professing Christians who are like the foul little rivers that pass under the pavements in Manchester, all impure, and covered over so that nobody sees them. ”

“ Let no man judge you in meat or in drink, or in regard to an holy day, or the new moon, or the sabbath days which are shadows of things to come. [186]
Without claiming perfection for Paul, should we not all as believing Gentiles [Pg 48] accept his teaching about meat, eating, water, baptism, etc., that Christ did not send his apostles to baptize with water, but preach the Gospel, and that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe. [187]
After Pentecost, believers were baptized presumably with water. ”

“ In the Roman order of baptism the priest prays that “the font may receive the grace of the only begotten Son from the holy Spirit, and that the latter may impregnate with hidden admixture of His light this water prepared for the regeneration of mankind, to the end that man through a sanctification conceived from the immaculate womb of the divine font, may emerge a heavenly offspring reborn as a new creature.” The water is then exorcized and evil spirits warned off, and lastly blessed. During the prayer the priest twice signs the water with the cross, and once blows upon it. ”

“ The well-being of man is so dependent upon water that its use, both actual and emblematic, was apparently made in very early days an established part of all religious ceremonies. Perhaps nothing more amazed the Christian missionaries than to find the Indian, in order to free himself from sin and make himself fit to appeal to his gods, using the rite of sprinkling the face and head with medicine water, very closely akin to “holy baptism.” ”

“ A volume of water, therefore, swept over the earth, from the sky as well as from the innermost parts of the earth, until at last the whole earth was covered with water, and the fertile soil, or the entire face of the earth was destroyed by the briny flood. A like instance occurs nowhere in any book. The Holy Scriptures alone teach us that these things were visited upon the world sinning in imagined security, and that to this day the waters suspended in the clouds are restrained only by the kindness of God. ”

“ Water is not to be understood whenever baptism is named; neither is baptism to be understood whenever water is named. There are many baptisms without water mentioned in Scripture and elsewhere.
The four evangelists and Peter each define two different and distinct baptisms following closely after each other. First John's baptism of water, then Christ's baptism of the Holy Spirit. Our Saviour also testified to these two independent baptisms but to no other baptism as the result or successor of these two. He speaks of one as past and of the other as yet to come. ”

“ And our Lord Jesus Christ made this fountain of water to spring up when He was with His mother, the Virgin Mary, and it existeth to this day. And all men, of every country and of every race, come there, and they intercede with our Lady the holy Virgin Mary, the God- bearer, and they receive a blessing from her, and from the blessed fountain of water. Salutation to the consecration of the Church of Mary, which is built near the fountain made to spring up by thy Son. ”

“ Jesus, his disciples and the Judeans were all Jews and this was under the law before Christian baptism had superceded water baptism at Pentecost. Of course they baptized with water, circumcised the flesh and kept the law of Moses; but this is no precedent for us whether Jews or Gentiles in these gospel days; since the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all flesh in all the fulness we are able to bear. ”

“ Yet there are always many people in that water, for they say that it purifies them from their sins, because, as they allege, God washed himself in that place. They even gather up the sand or mud from the bottom, which they esteem holy. ”

“ If any one shall say, that true and natural water is not of necessity for baptism, and, on that account, wrests to some sort of metaphor those words of our Lord Jesus Christ; Except a man he horn again of water and the Holy Ghost ”

“ She did not meet the request of Jesus in an unfriendly way, and was quite ready to draw the water for Him, but she was astonished that He should ask it of her. As a reward for her kindliness Jesus entered into conversation with her, in order to draw her on little by little to a knowledge of the Messias. ↑ Living water. The ordinary meaning of living water is fresh or running water. But our Lord applied the expression to the life-giving grace which flows from Him upon those who believe in Him. ”

“ If the pipes are not looked to, they will be choked by masses of matted trifles, through which the 'rivers of living water,' which Christ took as a symbol of the Spirit's influences, cannot force a way. ”

“ The drop of water is of one nature with the boundless ocean that rolls shoreless beyond the horizon, and stretches plumbless into the abysses. The tiniest spark of flame is of the same nature as those leaping, hydrogen spears of illuminated gas that spring hundreds of thousands of miles high in a second or two in the great central sun. ”

“ The sign is known as a water sign, and the Piscean Age has been distinctly the age of the fish and its element, water.
In the establishment of their great institutions John the Harbinger and Jesus both introduced the rite of water baptism, which has been used in some form in all the so-called Christian Churches and cults, even to the present time. Water is the true symbol of purification. Jesus himself said to the Harbinger before he was baptised: "All men must be washed, symbolic of the cleansing of the soul." ”

“ We are the Spiritual, who have drawn our own portion out of the living water of the Euphrates that flows through the midst of Babylon; and who have entered in through the True Gate, the which is Jesus the Blessed. And we of all men are the only Christians in the Third Gate, celebrating the Mystery, being anointed with the ineffable ointment out of the horn, like David, not out of the earthen vessel, like Saul who conversed with the Evil Spirit of carnal concupiscence.’” [75]
The conception of water as a life-producing agent appears prominently in the religion of the Egyptians. ”

“ Does not all this throw some light on what our Lord meant in what he said to the woman, 'It shalt be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life;' and this: 'Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water?' There is nothing like a dead sea here. All, all is life from the Lord. But water is beautiful. Who does not admire a clear, flowing spring or river! In this respect water is an emblem of the Lord's Word. ”

“ Baptism should represent to us the wonderful but natural effect of water on man. Water has, in fact, not merely physical effects, but also, and as a result of these, moral and intellectual effects on man. Water not only cleanses man from bodily impurities, but in water the scales fall from his eyes: he sees, he thinks more clearly; he feels himself freer; water extinguishes the fire of appetite. How many saints have had recourse to the natural qualities of water in order to overcome the assaults of the devil! What was denied by Grace has been granted by Nature. ”

“ By his personal teaching he has formed the élite of the Catholic laity of Europe on the model of their glorious ancestors of the ages of faith, and not a few of our own countrymen have gone to drink the pure water of life at the same fountain-head. Imbibed at the fountain-head or at the rill, it is the only water that can give health to nations or individuals. ”

“ He shall not alone receive the streams from "the Fountain of living water," which is God Himself, but he shall in himself be a fountain of perennial water, from which streams shall flow, not only into his own inward being, but outwardly upon all around him—streams of light, of charity, of consolation, and of saving health ”

“ Jesus does not mean that there will never be any further inclination to drink the water of life, but he means that there will in that soul never be any more perishing, dying thirst, for the water of life will be like a spring in the heart that will flow on forever from the Lord. It will be the rock in the wilderness that supplied the camp of Israel with water, and that Rock is Christ. ”

“ A Watery World.—Moreover, in the symbolism of the Scriptures, this world is represented by water. [18] "All things are water," said the Greek Thales. At the very dawn of creation, Spirit and Water, the two elements used in baptism, were both present—the one creative, the other createable. [19] "Let the dry land appear!" The very words suggest baptism, birth, creation—the emergence of an infant planet from the womb of the waters. And when the Almighty was about to send the Flood, he said to Noah, concerning the wicked: "Behold, I will destroy them with the earth." ”

“ While we live in a country where there is always an abundant supply of water to satisfy the thirst of the body, yet spiritually, like these people at the Feast of Tabernacles we have the same spiritual needs that they had, and if you and I thirst for the water of life, if we desire everlasting salvation, if we thirst for the knowledge of sacred things and desire to do that which is right, Jesus invites you and me to come to Him, and says to us: "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." ”

“ Not one has ever failed in a single point to fulfill its mission. Are you thirsty? They never refuse to quench your thirst. Does your field need rain? They never refuse to wet the ground. Always ready, they cheerfully serve the behests of God and man.
The diversity of the applications and uses of water, the variety of its forms—its frozen state in that of ice, its fluid state in that of a liquid, its aëriform state in that of clouds and other modes of atmospheric suspension—all these, together with its transparency and cleansing power make it a most appropriate emblem of Divine Truth. ”