428 ANN AXS OF EOGEE BE HOVEDEN. A..O. 1170. children, with reference to wickedness and guile, and simple like them, in such manner as He himself says : ' Unless ye become as this little child ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.'20 He also says so, in order that the Apostles and their followers may never be in doubt as to the baptism of little children, for baptism succeeded in the place of circumcision, which had been enjoined both for those grown up and for infants. Baptism too is a more general and extensive ordinance, inasmuch as both males and females are baptized, and grace is thereby secured. But, if through faith children are saved, as they themselves cannot have faith, without Vhich it is impossible to please God, we say that it is through the faith of the Church, or through the faith of the sponsors, just as the man sick of the palsy was cured through the faith of those who carried him and let him down through the tiles. The son also of the nobleman, and the daughter of the woman of Canaan, were healed at that same hour at which the nobleman and the woman of Canaan believed. We do also say, that baptism ought to be celebrated in the Church, and by the ministers of the Church, unless necessity compels otherwise. "Wherefore Saint Paul uses these words, ' "Who hath made us able ministers of the New Testament.121 " On the fourth head, we do convict and adjudge them to be heretics, upon the authority of the New Testament. For the body of our Lord is consecrated by the priest only, whether he is good or whether bad. For by the holy words, which the Saviour pronounced at the supper, namely, ' This is my body, and this is my blood,' the body of our Lord is consecrated and made. For just as the messenger of the emperor, or of the king of France, or of any other powerful person, does not by his low estate or ragged condition, corrupt or render vile the words of his master, so in like manner, the words of our Lord are neither changed nor blemished. And, just as a ray of the sun, when it passes through the common sewer, contracts neither stain nor fetid smell, or as water passes clear and transparent into the cisterns through pipes that are dirty, foul, or muddy, so are the words of the Lord not polluted, nor are they uttered, with better or more pure effect by a good man than by a bad one, ' For with God there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.'22 But, that the body of the Lord ought to be con 2 0 The sense of this passage is found in St. Mark x. 15, and St. Luke xviii. 17. 2 1 2 Cor. iii- ti. 2 2 James i. 17