[102a] That is; Many who have departed and joined the sects in sincerity and ignorance, may be attributing to human causes that re-invigoration of spiritual life, which is but the forgotten Baptismal grace of Christ, mercifully “in them, springing up to everlasting life.” (John iv. 14; John vii. 38, 39.) This may be also, one of God’s means of humbling and reforming His too careless Church.
[102b] John iii. 5.—The ordinary “entrance to the Kingdom.”
[103a] Matt. xx. 22.; and perhaps 1 Cor. xv. 29.
[103b] Rom. x. 10. (which conveys the principle); and Luke xxiii. 42.
[103c] Our own Church recognizes this doctrine; speaking in her Baptismal Office of the “great necessity of the Sacrament where it may be had;” and in the Catechism of its “general necessity.” Christ affirmed generally the necessity of being “born of water,” as the preliminary of “entrance to His kingdom,” yet He promised admission thereto to the dying thief, who confessed Him with a penitent heart.
[105a] Acts x. 35.
[105b] See, on this subject, and generally, on the danger of Schism, S. Jerome’s Ep. 69, &c. And concerning the peril of departing from the Bishops Catholic, see S. Ignatius ad Smyrn. ad Trall, et ad Phil.
[106] Ephesians iv. 8–12.
[107] 1 Cor. xi. 10.
[109] The Feast of St. Thomas.