1. A Person so Feigning does not in Baptism Receive Grace but through Penance

96. And about someone thus feigning [n.95] I say that since God does not justify someone who is unwilling (according to Augustine’s “He who created you without you will not justify you without you” [ Sermo 149 ch. 11 n.13]), this person - who has in actuality a bar against grace (namely infidelity or some sin that he is now committing by act of will, or that he committed before), and is no way displeased with himself - in no way receives grace, according to Augustine’s remark above [n.90] “anyone who is established as arbiter of his own will     etc .” And of this man is understood the verse from Wisdom 1.5, “The Holy Spirit flees from him who feigns discipline.”

97. And if the objection is made that therefore      this man seems to be in perplexity, because the way of salvation is not open to him, since he cannot be baptized again (because he has been baptized), and without baptismal grace he cannot be saved - I reply: he cannot be baptized because God instituted baptism to be unrepeatable lest, because of the full remission of guilt and punishment that takes place in it, occasion be given for more often doing wrong were baptism able to be more often repeated.a

a.a [Interpolated text] Now the fact that in baptism there is remission of all sin is stated by Ambrose [rather Ambrosiaster On the Epistle to the Romans 11.29] in Gratian Decretum p.3, ‘On Consecration’ d.4 ch.99 (and it is taken from the gloss on the words “the gifts of God are without repentance,” Romans 11.29): “The grace of God in baptism,” he says, “does not require sighing or weeping or any work, but it bestows everything gratuitously.” The Master also in Sent. IV d.4 ch.6 n.1.

98. But from no one, however often he falls, has God closed off in this life the path of salvation; for he did not wish to bind any of us to a greater mercy toward our neighbor than he wished to have himself toward his subject; and when Peter asks, Matthew 18.21-22, how often he should forgive his brother who sins against him, whether up to “seven times,” he replies to him, “up to seventy times seven.” Indeed, according to Augustine in his homily on that place [Sermon 83 on Matthew 18], “thousands of thousands of times;” and universally, as often as a man has sinned and acknowledged it, so often should he be forgiven. Therefore, did God thus institute some other remedy, namely the sacrament of penance, as many times as someone will have sinned as wayfarer.

99. And then I say the way of salvation for this person [nn.95-96] is open through true penance for the pretense, according to the authority adduced from Augustine [n.91].

100. And if the objection is made, “how will he get the grace of baptism or its effect?”

In one way it can be said that the pretense is only dismissed through true penance; but once it has been dismissed, baptism has its effect as regard all the sins preceding baptism that, however, were not the cause of the pretense in baptism. For example, someone has committed seven mortal sins before baptism, and on coming to baptism he has attrition about six and the seventh actually pleases him, or about it he in no way has attrition now. That seventh is alone the cause of his pretense in baptism; he must then be truly penitent about this seventh sin, both in itself and insofar as it was the cause of his pretense in baptism.

101. Which I say to this extent, that perhaps he has sinned with a new mortal sin, doing irreverence to the sacrament of baptism by receiving it with such pretense. But after the departure of the pretense, which was the impediment to the effect of baptism, God confers the grace of baptism as remedy against the other sins that would have been deleted in baptism if the pretense had not occurred.

102. And therefore it is not necessary for such a feigner to have true penance for the other sins, nor perhaps a new attrition for them (besides the one that was had before baptism); but once the only impediment has been removed, then just as God would have stood by his sign before [sc. the sign of baptism] to cause the effect of it, or to give it when baptism was received, had there not been an impediment in the receiver, so is he always ready, after reception of the sign, to stand by him who received it, so as to cause the effect of it when the impediment ceases.

103. Nor is it necessary to say that the character in the one feigning does anything, but only that God from the same pact [sc. the pact to give grace through the sacramental signs: d.1 nn.315, 322, d.14 q.4 nn.7-8] also stands afterwards by him who was the recipient, as soon as the obstacle is taken away.