We may deplore the loss of this or that Ceremony, but a National Church exercises her undoubted right in saying at any particular period of her history how the Sacrament is to be administered, provided the essentials of the Sacrament are left untouched. The Church Universal decides, once for all, what is essential: {70} the National Church decides how best to secure and safeguard these essentials for her own _Use_. (II) WHAT IT DOES. According to the Scriptures, "_Baptism doth now save us_".[11] As God did "save Noah and his family in the Ark from perishing by water," so does God save the human family from perishing by sin. As Noah and his family could, by an act of free will, have opened a window in the Ark, and have leapt into the waters, and frustrated God's purpose after they had been saved, so can any member of the human family, after it has been taken into the "Ark of Christ's Church," frustrate God's "good will towards" it, and wilfully leap out of its saving shelter. Baptism is "a beginning," not an end.[12] It puts us into a state of Salvation. It starts us in the way of Salvation. St. Cyprian says that in Baptism "we start crowned," and St. John says: "Hold fast that which thou hast that no man take thy crown".[13] Baptism is the Sacrament of initiation, not of finality. Directly the child is baptized, we pray that he "may lead the rest of his life according {71} to _this beginning_," and we heartily thank God for having, in Baptism, called us into a state of Salvation. In this sense, "Baptism doth save us". But what does it save us from? Sin. In the Nicene Creed we say: "I believe in one Baptism for the remission of _sins_". Baptism saves us from our sins. In the case of infants, Baptism saves from original, or inherited, sin--the sin whose origin can be traced to the Fall. In the case of adults, Baptism saves from both original and actual sin, both birth sin and life sin. The Prayer Book is as explicit as the Bible on this point. In the case of infants, we pray: "We call upon Thee for this infant, that he, _coming to Thy Holy Baptism_, may receive remission of his sins"--before, i.e., the child has, by free will choice, committed actual sin. In the case of adults, we read: "Well-beloved, who are come hither desiring _to receive Holy Baptism_, ye have heard how the congregation hath prayed, that our Lord Jesus Christ would vouchsafe to ... _release you of your sins_". And, again, dealing with infants, the Rubric at the end of the "Public Baptism of Infants" declares that "It is certain, by God's Word, that children _who are {72} baptized_, dying before they commit _actual sin_, are undoubtedly saved".