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But such is God's mercy towards the vessels of mercy which He has
prepared for glory, that even the first age of man, that is,
infancy, which submits without any resistance to the flesh, and the
second age, which is called boyhood, and which has not yet
understanding enough to undertake this warfare, and therefore yields to
almost every vicious pleasure (because though this age has the power of
speech, and may therefore seem to have passed infancy, the mind is
still too weak to comprehend the commandment), yet if either of these
ages has received the sacraments of the Mediator, then, although the
present life be immediately brought to an end, the child, having been
translated from the power of darkness to the kingdom of Christ, shall
not only be saved from eternal punishments, but shall not even suffer
purgatorial torments after death. For spritual regeneration of itself
suffices to prevent any evil consequences resulting after death from the
connection with death which carnal generation forms. But when we reach
that age which can now comprehend the commandment, and submit to the
dominion of law, we must declare war upon vices, and wage this war
keenly, lest we be landed in damnable sins. And if vices have not
gathered strength, by habitual victory they are more easily overcome
and subdued; but if they have been used to conquer and rule, it is
only with difficulty and labor they are mastered. And indeed this
victory cannot be sincerely and truly gained but by delighting in true
righteousness, and it is faith in Christ that gives this. For if the
law be present with its command, and the Spirit be absent with His
help, the presence of the prohibition serves only to increase the
desire to sin, and adds the guilt of transgression. Sometimes,
indeed, patent vices are overcome by other and hidden vices, which are
reckoned virtues, though pride and a kind of ruinous self-sufficiency
are their informing principles. Accordingly vices are then only to be
considered overcome when they are conquered by the love of God, which
God Himself alone gives, and which He gives only through the
Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who became a
partaker of our mortality that He might make us partakers of His
divinity. But few indeed are they who are so happy as to have passed
their youth without committing any damnable sins, either by dissolute
or violent conduct, or by following some godless and unlawful
opinions, but have subdued by their greatness of soul everything in
them which could make them the slaves of carnal pleasures. The greater
number having first become transgressors of the law that they have
received, and having allowed vice to have the ascendency in them, then
flee to grace for help, and so, by a penitence more bitter, and a
struggle more violent than it would otherwise have been, they subdue
the soul to God, and thus give it its lawful authority over the
flesh, and become victors. Whoever, therefore, desires to escape
eternal punishment, let him not only be baptized, but also justified
in Christ, and so let him in truth pass from the devil to Christ.
And let him not fancy that there are any purgatorial pains except
before that final and dreadful judgment. We must not, however deny
that even the eternal fire will be proportioned to the deserts of the
wicked, so that to some it will be more, and to others less painful,
whether this result be accomplished by a variation in the temperature of
the fire itself, graduated according to every one's merit, or whether
it be that the heat remains the same, but that all do not feel it with
equal intensity of torment.
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