Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we?
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Cyprian of Carthage
AD 258
T in the warmth of their faith, and believing in the Lord with their whole heart; and when, filled with the Spirit, they blessed God in divers tongues, still none the less the blessed Apostle Peter, mindful of the divine precept and the Gospel, commanded that those same men should be baptized who had already been filled with the Holy Spirit, that nothing might seem to be neglected to the observance by the apostolic instruction in all things of the law of the divine precept and Gospel.
Can any man forbid water? Or doubt that these, on whom the Holy Spirit hath descended, may be made members of the Christian Church, by baptism, as Christ ordained? (Witham)
Such may be the grace of God occasionally towards men, and such their great charity and contrition, that they may have remission, justification, and sanctification, before the external sacraments of baptism, confirmation, and penance be received; as we see in this example: where, at Peter's preaching, they all received the Holy Spirit before any sacrament. But here we also learn one necessary lesson, that such, notwithstanding, must needs receive the sacraments appointed by Christ, which whosoever contemneth, can never be justified. (St. Augustine, sup. Levit. q. 84. T. 4.)
Mark the issue to which he brings it; how he has been travailing to bring this forth. So (entirely) was he of this mind! Can any one, he asks, forbid water? It is the language, we may almost say, of one triumphantly pressing his advantage (ἐ πεμβαίνοντος) against such as would forbid, such as should say that this ought not to be. The whole thing, he says, is complete, the most essential part of the business, the baptism with which we were baptized. And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
