This message should have been untiringly impressed upon the people and this promise dinned without ceasing in their ears; their baptism should have been called again and again to their mind, and faith constantly awakened and nourished. For, just as the truth of this divine promise, once pronounced over us, continues unto death, so our faith in the same ought never to cease, but to be nourished and strengthened until death, by the continual remembrance of this promise made to us in baptism. Therefore, when we rise from sins, or repent, we do but return to the power and the faith of baptism from whence we fell, and find our way back to the promise then made to us, from which we departed when we sinned. For the truth of the promise once made remains steadfast, ever ready to receive us back with open arms when we return. This, if I mistake not, is the real meaning of the obscure saying, that baptism is the beginning and foundation of all the sacraments, without which none of the others may be received. It will, therefore, be no small gain or a penitent to lay hold before all else on the memory of his baptism, confidently to call to mind the promise of God, which he has forsaken, and to plead it with His Lord, rejoicing that he is baptised and therefore is yet within the fortress of salvation, and abhorring his wicked ingratitude in falling away from its faith and truth. His soul will find wondrous comfort, and will be encouraged to hope or mercy, when he considers that the divine promise which God made to him and which cannot possibly lie, still stands unbroken and unchanged, yea, unchangeable by any sins; as Paul says in 1I Timothy ii, "If we believe not. He continueth faithful, He cannot deny Himself." [2 Tim. 2:13] Ay, this truth of God will sustain him, so that if all else should sink in ruins, this truth, if he believe it, will not ail him. For in it he has a shield against all assaults of the enemy, an answer to the sins that disturb his conscience, an antidote for the dread of death and judgment, and a comfort in every temptation,--namely, this one truth,--and he can say, "God is faithful that promised [Heb. 10:23], Whose sign I have received in my baptism. If God be for me, who is against me?" [Rom. 8:31]