9. (ii) In a second sense water is the people or mankind, because many waters are many peoples; wine is the Deity; salt, the teaching of the divine law which is the salt of the covenant; ashes, that which preserveth the remembrance of the Lord's Passion. Wine mixed with water, is Christ, God and Man. For by means of faith in the Lord's Passion (ashes), which is had through the teaching of the Divine Law (salt), the people, denoted by the water, is joined through the union of faith, to its Head, God and Man.
10. (iii) In a third method we may say also that this consecrated water signifieth the Holy Spirit, without Whose influence nothing ever is sanctified, and without Whose grace there is no remission of sins. That the Holy Spirit is called water, truth itself showeth when He saith, 'Whosoever believeth in Me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water': [Footnote 423] which the Evangelist explaining saith, 'This He spake of the Holy Ghost which they should receive who believed upon Him.'
[Footnote 423: S. John vii, 38, 39.]
11. And note the order of the sacrament; the church is consecrated outwardly by water, inwardly by the Spirit. For this is what the Lord saith, 'Unless a man shall be born again of water and of the Holy Ghost,' etc. [Footnote 424] Here is the water: here the Holy Spirit. For in the sacrament of baptism, neither is the water without the Spirit, nor the Spirit without the water: which element indeed the Spirit Himself did sanctify, when in the first creation of the world 'He moved upon the face [{117}] of the waters.' [Footnote 425] With this water therefore, both the altar itself and the whole interior of the church is sprinkled, when both it and the altar are dedicated on the same occasion.
[Footnote 424: S. John iii, 5.]
[Footnote 425: Genesis i, 2.]
12. Although therefore the Spirit and water would suffice for the perfect operation of baptism and the consecration of a church, yet the holy fathers who have made this constitution, wished to satisfy us not only in those particulars which pertain to the efficacy of the sacraments, but in those also which relate to its greater sanctification: and on this account they have added salt, wine, oil, ashes, and chrism. (For Philip, when he baptised the eunuch, had neither oil nor chrism.) Therefore not one of these ingredients ought to be wanting; and they ought all to be mixed together, because the people of God, which is the Church, is neither sanctified nor released from sins without the union of these qualities. On this I shall treat also in the chapter upon consecrations. With respect to water indeed the case is evident, because 'unless a man be born again,' etc.
13. With respect to the salt also; because without the seasoning of faith, which is typified by the salt, no one shall ever be saved, albeit he be sprinkled by the water of baptism. Also with respect to wine, by means of which the spiritual intelligence of the divine law is denoted. Whence the Lord at the marriage in Cana turned the water into wine. But if anyone shall not have been sprinkled with this, that is, shall not have drunk of this or have believed those who offered it to him to drink, he shall not attain to the blessedness of eternal life. The aspersion of ashes also, by which the humility of penitence is understood, is so necessary, that without it there is no remission of sins in adults; for through it they come to baptism, and it is the sole refuge for such as have sinned [{118}] after baptism. Whence not without reason is baptism called from it: the Lord speaking in the gospel concerning John Baptist 'that he came into the whole region of Galilee, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.' [Footnote 426] Note also that there be four kinds of consecrated water, of which we shall speak in the fourth book, and at the head of 'The aspersion of holy water.' [Footnote 427]
[Footnote 426: S. Mark i, 4.]
[Footnote 427: There be four kinds of holy water, one, by the which is made the judgment of expurgation, which is no longer used; a second, which doth sanctify in the consecration of a church or an altar; a third, with which aspersions be made in the church; and a fourth, the water of baptism.'—Durandus, Lib. IV, iv, 10.]
14. When all these ingredients have been mixed, the bishop maketh four crosses with this water at the four horns of the altar, and one in the middle; [Footnote 428] the four crosses represent the fourfold charity which they ought to have who approach the altar, viz., love for God, themselves, their friends, and their enemies. Of which four corners of charity it is said in Genesis, 'Thou shalt spread into the east, and the west, and the north, and the south': and for this reason be the four crosses made at the four corners to show that Christ, by His Cross, hath saved the four quarters of the world. Secondly, they be made to point out that we ought to bear the cross of the Lord in four ways; namely, in our heart by meditation, in our mouth by confession, in our body by mortification of the flesh, in our face by constant impression. The cross in the middle of the altar signifieth the Passion which Christ underwent in the middle of the earth, by which He worked out salvation in the middle of the earth; that is, in Jerusalem.
[Footnote 428: The tables, or upper slabs of the altar, were inscribed with five crosses, one at each corner and one in the middle: as are also the altar stones which are found in the middle of the frightful wooden altars abroad at this day. See an interesting list of altar slabs in the 'Few Hints' of the Cambridge Camden Society.]