Three conditions required in adults, faith, compunction, and a firm purpose of avoiding sin.Besides a wish to be baptized, in order to obtain the grace of the Sacrament, faith, for the same reason, is also necessary: our Lord has said: "he that believes and is baptized shall be saved."[1] Another necessary condition is compunction for past sins, and a fixed determination to refrain from their future commission: should any one dare to approach the baptismal font, a slave to vicious habits, he should be instantly repelled, for what so obstructive to the grace and virtue of baptism, as the obdurate impenitence of those who are resolved to persevere in the indulgence of their unhallowed passions? Baptism should be sought with a view to put on Christ and to be united to him; and it is, therefore, manifest that he who purposes to persevere in sin, should be repelled from the sacred font, particularly if we recollect that none of those things which belong to Christ and his Church, are to be received in vain, and that, as far as regards sanctifying and saving grace, baptism is received in vain by him who purposes to live according to the flesh, and not according to the spirit.[2] As far, however, as regards the validity of the Sacrament, if, when about to be baptized, the adult intends to receive what the Church administers, he no doubt, validly receives the Sacrament. Hence, to the vast multitude, who, as the Scripture says, "being compunct in heart," asked him and the other Apostles what they should do, Peter answered: "Do penance and be baptized, every one of you;"[3] and in another place: "Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out."[4] Writing to the Romans, St. Paul also clearly shows, that he who is baptized should entirely die to sin; and he therefore admonishes us, "not to yield our members as instruments of iniquity unto sin; but present ourselves to God, as those that are alive from the dead."[5]
ReflectionsFrequent reflection upon these truths cannot fail, I.in the first place, to fill the minds of the faithful with admiration of the infinite goodness of God, who, uninfluenced by any other consideration than that of his own tender mercy, gratuitously bestowed upon us, undeserving as we are, a blessing such as baptism—a blessing so extraordinary, so divine!II.If, in the next place, they consider how spotless should be the lives of those, who have been made the objects of such singular munificence, they cannot fail to be convinced of the imperative obligation imposed upon them, to spend each day of their lives in such sanctity and religious fervour, as if it were that on which they had received the sacrament and were ennobled by the grace of baptism. To inflame their minds, however, with a zeal for true piety, the pastor will find no means more efficacious than an accurate exposition of the effects of baptism.
Effects of Baptism.As, then, these effects are to afford matter of frequent instruction, that the faithful may be rendered more sensible of the high dignity to which they are raised by baptism, and may never suffer themselves to be degraded from its elevation by the
