it gives the offender an exemption from undergoing the punishments awarded by the civil laws to public delinquency—that, for instance, it rescues from the hand of justice the man who is legally condemned to forfeit his life to the violated laws of his country. We cannot, however, too highly commend the religion and piety of those princes, who, on some occasions, remit the sentence of the law, that the glory of God may be the more strikingly displayed in his Sacraments. Baptism also remits all the punishment due to original sin in the next life, and this it does through the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ. By baptism, as we have already said, we die with Christ, "for if," says the Apostle, "we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection."[1]
These inconveniences of original sin, why not removed by baptism.Should it be asked why, after baptism, we are not exempt in this life from these inconveniences, which flow from original sin, and restored by the influence of this Sacrament to that state of perfection, in which Adam, the father of the human race, was placed before his fall; for this two principal reasons are assigned: the first, that we, who by baptism are united to, and become members of Christ's body, may not be more honoured than our head. As, therefore, Christ, our Lord, although clothed from his birth with the plenitude of grace and truth, was not divested of human infirmity, until, having suffered and died, he rose to the glory of immortality; it cannot appear extraordinary, if the faithful, even after they have received the grace of justification by baptism, are clothed with frail and perishable bodies; that after having undergone many labours for the sake of Christ, and having closed their earthly career, they may be recalled to life, and found worthy to enjoy with him an eternity of bliss.
IIThe second reason why corporal infirmity, disease, sense of pain, and motions of concupiscence, remain after baptism, is, that in them we may have the germs of virtue from which we shall hereafter receive a more abundant harvest of glory, and treasure up to ourselves more ample rewards. When, with patient resignation, we bear up against the trials of this life, and aided by the divine assistance, subject to the dominion of reason the rebellious desires of the heart, we may and ought to cherish an assured hope, that the time will come when, if with the Apostle we shall have "fought a good fight, finished the course, and kept the faith, the Lord, the just judge, will render to us, on that day, a crown of justice, which is laid up for us."[2] An illustration.Such seems to have been the divine economy with regard to the children of Israel: God delivered them from the bondage of Egypt, having drowned Pharaoh and his host in the sea;[3] yet he did not conduct them immediately into the happy land of promise. He first tried them by a variety and multiplicity of sufferings; and when he afterwards placed them in possession of the promised land, he expelled from their native terri-
