3. About the Effect of Baptism Flowing Forth from the Receivers

155. About the third [n.146] I say that the baptized are children or adults.

156. Comparing child with child, since they have no motion proper, they therefore also on their own part have no inequality as to receiving grace.

157. However there can be in the parents of one child a greater motion than in the parents of another for their little one, or in some other things ministering to or assisting the baptism - and because of the merits of these parents God can confer on one of the little ones a greater grace than on the other, but this not by virtue of baptism but by virtue of merit. And in this way perhaps the parents of Blessed Nicholas merited for him by their prayers a greater grace, which was in him, even as a child, a principle of so marvelous an effect that in two days in one week he rested content with only a single breast feeding.Jacob de Voragine, Golden Legends, ‘On Saint Nicholas’ [ed. Maggioni, Florence, 1998, 38] “In addition, on the fourth and sixth weekday he sucked at the breast only once.” ²⁵ And in this regard it is more to be desired that a boy is baptized by a good priest than a bad one, because the prayers of a good priest (of which prayers he makes many before and after baptism) are heard more and avail more for him for whom they are made than do the prayers of a bad priest.

158. But if the baptized be adults, since they could by their own motion be unequally disposed, and since in the sacrament grace is conferred according to the proportion of the disposition in the receiver, there follows an unequal effect.

159. But if you compare a child with an adult, a child as a rule has no merit; an adult, however slight a will he may have, provided however he consent to receive the sacrament and does not put an obstacle in the way, seems to have some proper merit, and to this extent he is more disposed than a child is; therefore etc.

160. But let it be that an adult, for the whole time of his baptism, is sinning venially, it seems that he is indisposed in some way; but a child has no indisposition; therefore in that case the child will receive a greater grace.

161. I reply: venial sin does not prevent grace being infused, nor even prevent possessing a meritorious act at the same time; yet because the soul cannot be equally perfectly intent at the same time on several acts, the good act, with which the venial sin is concurrent, is less intense, and therefore less meritorious than it would be if it were without that venial sin. As to the matter at hand, the consequence is that if an adult does not put the obstacle of mortal sin in the way and is consenting to the reception of baptism, he has a motion (which a child lacks) somehow disposing him, notwithstanding that he has a venial sin at the same time.