. . And if they are rightly said to believe,
because in a certain fashion they make profession of faith by the
words of their sponsors, why should they not also be said to repent,
since by the words of those same sponsors they evidence their
renunciation of the devil and this world?" For the same reason they
can be said to intend, not by their own act of intention, since at
times they struggle and cry; but by the act of those who bring them
to be baptized.

Reply Obj. 2: As Augustine says, writing to Boniface (Cont. duas Ep.
Pelag. i), "in the Church of our Saviour little children believe
through others, just as they contracted from others those sins which
are remitted in Baptism." Nor is it a hindrance to their salvation if
their parents be unbelievers, because, as Augustine says, writing to
the same Boniface (Ep. xcviii), "little children are offered that
they may receive grace in their souls, not so much from the hands of
those that carry them (yet from these too, if they be good and
faithful) as from the whole company of the saints and the faithful.
For they are rightly considered to be offered by those who are
pleased at their being offered, and by whose charity they are united
in communion with the Holy Ghost." And the unbelief of their own
parents, even if after Baptism these strive to infect them with the
worship of demons, hurts not the children. For as Augustine says
(Cont. duas Ep. Pelag. i) "when once the child has been begotten by
the will of others, he cannot subsequently be held by the bonds of
another's sin so long as he consent not with his will, according to"
Ezech. 18:4: "'As the soul of the Father, so also the soul of the son
is mine; the soul that sinneth, the same shall die.' Yet he
contracted from Adam that which was loosed by the grace of this
sacrament, because as yet he was not endowed with a separate
existence." But the faith of one, indeed of the whole Church, profits
the child through the operation of the Holy Ghost, Who unites the
Church together, and communicates the goods of one member to another.

Reply Obj. 3: Just as a child, when he is being baptized, believes
not by himself but by others, so is he examined not by himself but
through others, and these in answer confess the Church's faith in the
child's stead, who is aggregated to this faith by the sacrament of
faith. And the child acquires a good conscience in himself, not
indeed as to the act, but as to the habit, by sanctifying gr