"Qui crediderit et baptizatus fuerit salvus erit," says Alvarez. "You say right, answers the king, as to baptism; these are the words of our Saviour; but this present ceremony was lately invented by a grandfather of mine, in favour of such as have turned Moors, and are desirous again of becoming Christians."
I should think, in the first place, this answer of the king, should have let Alvarez see no baptism was intended there; or, if it was a re-baptism, it only took place in favour of those who had turned Moors, and must therefore have been but partial. If this was really the case, what had the king, queen, and Abuna to do in it? Sure they had neither apostatized nor was the company of apostates a very creditable society for them.
Alvarez, to persuade us this is real baptism, says that oil was thrown into the pond before he came. He will not charge himself with having seen this, and it is probably a falsehood. But he knew it was an essential in baptism in all the churches in the east; so indeed is salt, which he should have said was here used likewise: then he would have had all the materials of Greek baptism, and this salt might have contributed to cooling the water, that had frozen under the rays of a burning sun.
Alvarez must have seen, that not only men and women go to be washed in the pool, but horses, cows, mules, and a prodigious number of asses. Are these baptised? I would wish to know the formula the reverend baptist-general used on their occasion.
There
