Tertullian, On Baptism 3

Mindful of that pronouncement as if it were a binding rule, we nevertheless address how foolish and impossible it is for water to be reformed. What, after all, has this substance done to merit so great an office of dignity? In my view, we must demand the credentials of the liquid element—and they are abundant, stretching back to the very beginning. One of them is this: before the world was even sketched out, while it still lay unpolished, water was already at rest with God. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the deep, and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters (Genesis 1:1-2). So take note, human being: first, venerate the antiquity of water, because it is an ancient substance; second, venerate its dignity, because it served as the seat of the divine Spirit—more pleasing to Him than any other element at that time. After all, the darkness was still starless and shapeless, the abyss was gloomy, the earth unready, the heavens crude. Water alone, always a perfect material—joyful, simple, pure in itself—offered itself as a worthy vehicle for God.

And from that point on, the whole ordering of the world was established by God, so to speak, through the moderating agency of water. To suspend the heavenly firmament, He separated the waters in the middle; to make the dry land appear, He gathered the waters apart. Once the world was ordered through the elements and inhabitants were assigned, the first waters received the command to bring forth living souls. Since the first liquid produced life, it is no wonder that in Baptism waters know how to animate. Even the fashioning of man was completed with water's assistance. The material came from earth, yet it was not workable unless moist and supple—clay that the separated waters, before the fourth day, had tempered with surviving moisture. If I were to go on listing all or most of the things that attest this element's authority—how great its power and grace, how many its talents and offices, how vast its service to the world—I fear I would seem to be compiling praises of water rather than reasons for Baptism. Yet I could teach more fully that there is no room for doubt: if God has arranged this material in all His works and operations, He has also made it serve in His own sacraments—since what governs earthly life also procures heavenly life.