Note 8 — Chapter XIX · The Man of Sin.

These preachers are only stating with creditable candour the original significance of the sacraments and ceremonies which were the physiognomy of that theory of ‘a new creature.’ Following various ancient traditions, that life was produced out of water, that water escaped the primal curse on nature, that devils hate and fear it because of this and the saltness of so much of it, many religions have used water for purification and exorcism.8 Baptism is based on the notion that every child is offspring of the Devil, and possessed of his demon; the Fathers agreed that all unbaptized babes, even the still-born, are lost; and up to the year 1550 every infant was subjected at baptism to the exorcism, ‘I command thee, unclean spirit, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, that thou come out, and depart from, these infants whom our Lord Jesus Christ has vouchsafed to call to his holy baptism, to be made members of his body and of his holy congregation,’ &c.