b. Triple Response to the Objection

113. Here it can, in one way, be said that he does not gain an advantage but rather a loss; because at the time of baptism, and in the subsequent time up to penitence, he is a son of Gehenna [Matthew 23.15], and also all his works are dead. But if he had not been feigning, he would then, and afterwards up to his fall, have been a son of the Kingdom, and his works would have been alive, whereby he would have merited increase of grace and glory.

114. It can in another way be said that if he had not been feigning and if, having lapsed later, he were truly to do penance, he would, in doing penance, receive as much grace as he does now when doing penance for his pretense, because by rising through penance from mortal sin he recovers all the grace from which he fell, and some grace through penance in addition, and this either in reality or in divine acceptation; but about this below in the matter on penance [Ord. IV d.14 q.4].

115. It can in a third way chiefly be said that he who does penance for his pretense alone receives grace by virtue of the penance, and does not in this way receive a greater grace than if he had not been feigning in baptism and if, falling after baptism, he were now to rise again through penance. For it is not likely that equal grace not be given to someone equally penitent and about an equal or lesser sin. But he who has lapsed after baptism, although he has in some respect sinned more gravely than he who feigned, yet he who feigned has sinned more gravely in some other respect, because he has done irreverence to the sacrament.

116. And then the words that are said about the effect of baptism (which effect he obtains who does penance for his pretense) are to be taken to mean, not that in that penance he receive some grace by virtue of baptism (because his receiving of baptism was dead, and the dead cannot revive), but because he is absolved from the precept about receiving baptism, because he has fulfilled that precept. But the fulfilling of it was of no value to him for salvation before the penance. He receives the grace of baptism, therefore, when he repents, because he is a son of the Kingdom; nor is he obligated to receive baptism for the purpose of being a son of the Kingdom, because he has fulfilled that precept. And here note that someone actually sinning mortally in some act can fulfill in that act an affirmative precept.