(7) We believe that at the age of
perfection baptism effects either the purgation of the original fault or the
abolition of actual sin. For children, however, the effect of baptism is that
they are washed only from the original sin that they contracted from Adam
through their first birth. If they should have died before they are
regenerated, without doubt they are separated from the kingdom of Christ, our
savior testifying: “no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of
water and Spirit” [John 3:5]. Accordingly, children are baptized with
another person professing, because as yet they do not know how to speak or
believe. This is also the case with the sick, the speechless, and the deaf, on
whose behalf another professes so as to respond on their behalf while they are
being baptized. (8) However, although original sin passes away through the
regeneration, nevertheless the punishment of the mandated death, which entered
through the transgression, remains even in those whom the baptism of the savior
cleanses from the fault of the origin. This is the case accordingly so that one
will know that the hope of future happiness follows through regeneration, not
so that he can be absolved from the punishment of temporal death. (Isidore of Seville,
De Ecclesiasticis Officiis [trans. Thomas L. Knoebel; Ancient Christian
Writers 61; New York: The Newman Press, 2008], 110, emphasis in bold added)
