The water which they used was called the "WATER OF REGENERATION."[323:2]
The Rev. Father Acosta alludes to this baptism by saying:
"The Indians had an infinite number of other ceremonies and customs which resembled to the ancient law of Moses, and some to those which the Moores use, and some approaching near to the Law of the Gospel, as the baths or Opacuna, as they called them; they did wash themselves in water to cleanse themselves from sin."[323:3]
After speaking of "confession which the Indians used," he says:
"When the Inca had been confessed, he made a certain bath to cleanse himself, in a running river, saying these words: 'I have told my sins to the Sun (his god); receive them, O thou River, and carry them to the Sea, where they may never appear more.'"[323:4]
He tells us that the Mexicans also had a baptism for infants, which they performed with great ceremony.[323:5]
Baptism was also practiced in Yucatan. They administered it to children three years old; and called it REGENERATION.[323:6]
The ancient Peruvians also baptized their children.[323:7]
History, then, records the fact that all the principal nations of antiquity administered the rite of baptism to their children, and to adults who were initiated into the sacred mysteries. The words "regenerationem et impunitatem perjuriorum suorum"—used by the heathen in this ceremony—prove that the doctrines as well as the outward forms were the same. The giving of a name to the child, the marking of him with the cross as a sign of his being a soldier of Christ, followed at fifteen years of age by his admission into the mysteries of the ceremony of confirmation, also prove that the two institutions are identical. But the most striking feature of all is the regeneration—and consequent forgiveness of sins—the being "born again." This shows that the Christian baptism in doctrine as well as in outward ceremony, was precisely that of the heathen. We have seen that it was supposed to destroy all the evil in him, and all things that might injure him were requested to depart from him. So likewise among the Christians; the priest, looking upon the child, and baptizing him, was formerly accustomed to say: