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Objection 1: It seems that children do not receive grace and virtues
in Baptism. For grace and virtues are not possessed without faith and
charity. But faith, as Augustine says (Ep. xcviii), "depends
on the will of the believer": and in like manner charity depends on
the will of the lover. Now children have not the use of the will, and
consequently they have neither faith nor charity. Therefore children
do not receive grace and virtues in Baptism.
Objection 2: Further, on Jn. 14:12, "Greater than these
shall he do," Augustine says that in order for the ungodly to be made
righteous "Christ worketh in him, but not without him." But a
child, through not having the use of free-will, does not co-operate
with Christ unto its justification: indeed at times it does its best
to resist. Therefore it is not justified by grace and virtues.
Objection 3: Further, it is written (Rm. 4:5): "To him
that worketh not, yet believing in Him that justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is reputed to justice according to the purpose of the grace of
God." But a child believeth not "in Him that justifieth the
ungodly." Therefore a child receives neither sanctifying grace nor
virtues.
Objection 4: Further, what is done with a carnal intention does not
seem to have a spiritual effect. But sometimes children are taken to
Baptism with a carnal intention, to wit, that their bodies may be
healed. Therefore they do not receive the spiritual effect consisting
in grace and virtue.
On the contrary, Augustine says (Enchiridion lii): "When little
children are baptized, they die to that sin which they contracted in
birth: so that to them also may be applied the words: 'We are buried
together with Him by Baptism unto death'": (and he continues
thus) "'that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the
Father, so we also may walk in newness of life.'" Now newness of
life is through grace and virtues. Therefore children receive grace
and virtues in Baptism.
I answer that, Some of the early writers held that children do not
receive grace and virtues in Baptism, but that they receive the
imprint of the character of Christ, by the power of which they receive
grace and virtue when they arrive at the perfect age. But this is
evidently false, for two reasons. First, because children, like
adults, are made members of Christ in Baptism; hence they must, of
necessity, receive an influx of grace and virtues from the Head.
Secondly, because, if this were true, children that die after
Baptism, would not come to eternal life; since according to Rm.
6:23, "the grace of God is life everlasting." And consequently
Baptism would not have profited them unto salvation.
Now the source of their error was that they did not recognize the
distinction between habit and act. And so, seeing children to be
incapable of acts of virtue, they thought that they had no virtues at
all after Baptism. But this inability of children to act is not due
to the absence of habits, but to an impediment on the part of the
body: thus also when a man is asleep, though he may have the habits of
virtue, yet is he hindered from virtuous acts through being asleep.
Reply to Objection 1: Faith and charity depend on man's will, yet
so that the habits of these and other virtues require the power of the
will which is in children; whereas acts of virtue require an act of the
will, which is not in children. In this sense Augustine says in the
book on Infant Baptism (Ep. xcviii): "The little child is made
a believer, not as yet by that faith which depends on the will of the
believer, but by the sacrament of faith itself," which causes the
habit of faith.
Reply to Objection 2: As Augustine says in his book on Charity
(Ep. Joan. ad Parth. iii), "no man is born of water and the
Holy Ghost unwillingly which is to be understood not of little
children but of adults." In like manner we are to understand as
applying to adults, that man "without himself is not justified by
Christ." Moreover, if little children who are about to be baptized
resist as much as they can, "this is not imputed to them, since so
little do they know what they do, that they seem not to do it at
all": as Augustine says in a book on the Presence of God,
addressed to Dardanus (Ep. clxxxvii).
Reply to Objection 3: As Augustine says (Serm. clxxvi):
"Mother Church lends other feet to the little children that they may
come; another heart that they may believe; another tongue that they
may confess." So that children believe, not by their own act, but
by the faith of the Church, which is applied to them: by the power of
which faith, grace and virtues are bestowed on them.
Reply to Objection 4: The carnal intention of those who take
children to be baptized does not hurt the latter, as neither does
one's sin hurt another, unless he consent. Hence Augustine says in
his letter to Boniface (Ep. xcviii): "Be not disturbed because
some bring children to be baptized, not in the hope that they may be
born again to eternal life by the spiritual grace, but because they
think it to be a remedy whereby they may preserve or recover health.
For they are not deprived of regeneration, through not being brought
for this intention."
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