Fides Catholica, or, The doctrine of the Catholick Church in eighteen grand ordinances referring to the Word, sacraments and prayer, in purity, number and nature, catholically maintained, and publickly taught against hereticks of all sorts : with the solutions of many proper and profitable questions sutable to to [sic] the nature of each ordinance treated of / by Wil. Annand ...

SECT. II.

THe Element or visible sign with which this Sacrament is to be Administred according to the institution, is water, signifying the blood of Christ washing or sprinkling the soul: for it is the blood of sprinkling, 1 Pet. 1, 2. and this spiritually poured forth upon the off-spring of the faithful, Isa. 44.3. and promised to the seed of the true believer.

Now between the sign and the thing signified, is a sweet and holy harmony in these following circumstances.

• 1. Water is a necessary Element to preserve the life of man; next unto aire, water must be accounted of absolute necessity, ye•• unto all creatures; is not the New birth, the spiritual washing of the soul, the blood of Christ applied, necessary for such as would enter the Kingdom of God? Iohn 3.5.
• 2. Water is a cheap Element: in most places water is almost free as the air: and if it be bought, the carriage is rather paid for then the water. It is self generally easie to come by, Christs Blood, Kingdom, Merits, Glory, is had for asking, Is. 55.1.
• 3. Water is a comfortable Element; it refreshes and cherishes the spirits of every living thing. It makes the birds to sing, the fields to laugh, revives the heart of the strongest, Iudges 15.18. Nothing makes the soul look more lovely or beautiful then to be reconciled unto, and adopted by God, thro••gh the application of the blood of the Covenant unto it by the spirit of God, Tit. 3.5.6.
• 4. Water is a cleansing Ilement: things that are soul, water makes them clean. Among other miseries that that New born in∣fant (typically the natural or unregenerate man) Eze. 16.4. groan∣ed under, this was one, that it was not washed, yet God washed it with water, vers. 9. and made it clean, the blood of Christ applied to the most polluted soul, makes it become white like snow, Psal. 51.7.
• 5. Water is a Copious Element: the Ocean is an inexhaustible Fountain, there is enough in that to furnish all the world with wa∣ter;

• of water there is great plenty; so Christ blood is an inexhau∣stible Fountain; the Saints since the beginning of the world have been drinking of it, yet it is not diminished, they have been bathing in it, yet not straitened, Zacha. 13.1.
• 6. It is a Common Element; the Sea, the Rivers, are as Com∣mon to the poor as to the rich, and as sweetly glide by the fields of the whistling plowman, as by the furrows of the great Prince, and being drunk refresh the one as well as the other. So is Christ and his merits, he is free to all, and tyed to none. be that comes weary with the burthen of his sins, shall finde ease and rest with as much haste as he that shall come groaning under the same, with a present of gold in his hand, Matth. 11.28.