{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/003/0030742.htm","path":"chr/ecf/003/0030742.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/003/0030742.htm","text":"Chapter XX.\u2014Of Preparation For, and Conduct After, the Reception of Baptism.\nThey who are about to enter baptism ought to pray with repeated prayers, fasts, and bendings of the knee, and vigils all the night through, and with the confession of all by- p. 679 gone sins, that they may express the meaning even of the baptism of John: \u201cThey were baptized,\u201d saith (the Scripture), \u201cconfessing their own sins.\u201d 8744 To us it is matter for thankfulness if we do now publicly confess our iniquities or our turpitudes: 8745 for we do at the same time both make satisfaction 8746 for our former sins, by mortification of our flesh and spirit, and lay beforehand the foundation of defences against the temptations which will closely follow. \u201cWatch and pray,\u201d saith (the Lord), \u201clest ye fall into temptation.\u201d 8747 And the reason, I believe, why they were tempted was, that they fell asleep; so that they deserted the Lord when apprehended, and he who continued to stand by Him, and used the sword, even denied Him thrice: for withal the word had gone before, that \u201cno one untempted should attain the celestial kingdoms.\u201d 8748 The Lord Himself forthwith after baptism 8749 temptations surrounded, when in forty days He had kept fast. \u201cThen,\u201d some one will say, \u201cit becomes us, too, rather to fast after baptism.\u201d 8750 Well, and who forbids you, unless it be the necessity for joy, and the thanksgiving for salvation? But so far as I, with my poor powers, understand, the Lord figuratively retorted upon Israel the reproach they had cast on the Lord. 8751 For the people, after crossing the sea, and being carried about in the desert during forty years, although they were there nourished with divine supplies, nevertheless were more mindful of their belly and their gullet than of God. Thereupon the Lord, driven apart into desert places after baptism, 8752 showed, by maintaining a fast of forty days, that the man of God lives \u201cnot by bread alone,\u201d but \u201cby the word of God;\u201d 8753 and that temptations incident to fulness or immoderation of appetite are shattered by abstinence. Therefore, blessed ones, whom the grace of God awaits, when you ascend from that most sacred font 8754 of your new birth, and spread your hands 8755 for the first time in the house of your mother, 8756 together with your brethren, ask from the Father, ask from the Lord, that His own specialties of grace and distributions of gifts 8757 may be supplied you. \u201cAsk,\u201d saith He, \u201cand ye shall receive.\u201d 8758 Well, you have asked, and have received; you have knocked, and it has been opened to you. Only, I pray that, when you are asking, you be mindful likewise of Tertullian the sinner. 8759\nMatt. iii. 6. [See the collection of Dr. Bunsen for the whole primitive discipline to which Tertullian has reference, Hippol. Vol. III. pp. 5\u201323, and 29.]\n679:8745\nPerhaps Tertullian is referring to Prov. xxviii. 13. If we confess now, we shall be forgiven, and not put to shame at the judgment day.\n679:8746\nSee de Orat. c. xxiii. ad fin., and the note there.\n679:8747 679:8748\nWhat passage is referred to is doubtful. The editors point us to Luke 22:28, 29; but the reference is unsatisfactory.\n679:8749 679:8750\nLavacro. Compare the beginning of the chapter.\n679:8751\nViz. by their murmuring for bread (see Exod. 16:3, 7); and again\u2014nearly forty years after\u2014in another place. See Num. xxi. 5.\n679:8752\nAquam: just as St. Paul says the Israelites had been \u201cbaptized\u201d (or \u201cbaptized themselves\u201d) \u201cinto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.\u201d 1 Cor. x. 2.\n679:8753 679:8754 679:8755\nIn prayer: comp. de Orat. c. xiv.\n679:8756\ni.e. the Church: comp. de Orat. c. 2.\n679:8757 679:8758\nMatt. 7:7, Luke 11:9; \u03b1\u1f30\u03c4\u03b5\u1fd6\u03c4\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b4\u03bf\u03b8\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, \u1f51\u03bc\u1fd6\u03bd in both places.\n679:8759\n[The translator, though so learned and helpful, too often encumbers the text with superfluous interpolations. As many of these, while making the reading difficult, add nothing to the sense yet destroy the terse, crabbed force of the original, I have occasionally restored the spirit of a sentence, by removing them.]","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III: Tertullian: Part III: Of Pr...","type":"page"}