that Holy Office whereto God had annexed the blessing), that the child obtained the benefits of Baptism; Christ had received all children brought unto Him; the promise was "to you and to your children;" (Acts ii. 39.) the command to Baptize unlimited: so the Christian Covenant belonged to all, born within the Christian Church, whatever the personal character of their immediate parents might be. As born of one included on God's part within the Covenant (whether he finally lose the benefits of that Covenant or no) the infant is a child of that Covenant, and entitled to its privileges. "Let not that disturb thee," (says St. Augustine to Bishop Boniface[1], in an extreme case) "that some bring their infants to Baptism, not with the belief that they should be regenerated by spiritual grace to life eternal, but because they think that by this remedy they may retain or recover the health of this life. For they are not on that account not regenerated, because they are not brought for that end by those persons. For the necessary offices are celebrated by their agency; and so are the words of the Sacraments, without which the little one cannot be consecrated. But that Holy Spirit, who dwells in the Saints, (out of whom that one dove, covered with silver, is molten together by the flame of charity) worketh what He doth work, even by the ministry of some who are not merely simply ignorant, but even damnably unworthy. For infants are offered to receive spiritual grace not so much by those in whose hands they are borne, (although by them also, if they also be good men and believers) as by the whole society of the saints and believers. For they are rightly understood to be offered by all, who are glad that they should be offered, or by whose holy and united charity they are helped forward to receive the communication of the Holy Spirit. The universal mother, then, the Church, which is of the Saints, doth this; for the whole Church beareth all, and beareth them severally."
"Let no one tell me," says St. Bernard[2] "that an infant has
