that be finished which the lifting up out of baptism signifies.
Then shall we arise from death, from sins and from all evil, pure
in body and in soul, and then shall we live forever. Then shall
we be truly lifted up out of baptism and completely born, and we
shall put on the true baptismal garment of immortal life in
heaven. As though the sponsors when they lift the child up out of
baptism,[2] were to say, "Lo, now thy sins are drowned; we
receive thee in God's Name into an eternal life of innocence."
For so will the angels at the Last Day raise up all Christians,
all pious baptised men, and will there fulfil what baptism and
the sponsors signify; as Christ says in Matthew xxiv, "He shall
send forth His angels, and they shall gather unto Him His elect
from the four places of the winds, and from the rising to the
setting of the sun." [Matt 24:31]

VI. Baptism was presaged of old in Noah's flood, when the whole
world was drowned, save Noah with three sons and their wives,
eight souls, who were kept in the ark. That the people of the
world were drowned, signifies that in baptism sins are drowned;
but that the eight in the ark, with beasts of every sort, were
preserved, signifies that through baptism man is saved, as St.
Peter explains, [1 Pet. 3:20 f.] Now baptism is by far a greater
flood than was that of Noah. For that flood drowned men during no
more than one year, but baptism drowns all sorts of men
throughout the world, from the birth of Christ even till the Day
of Judgment. Moreover, it is a flood of grace, as that was a
flood of wrath, as is declared in Psalm xxviii, "God will make a
continual new flood." [3] [Ps. 29:10] For without doubt many more
people are baptised than were drowned in the flood.

[Sidenote: The Continuance of Sin]

VII. From this it follows that when a man comes forth out of
baptism, he is pure and without sin, wholly guiltless. But there
are many who do not rightly understand this, and think that sin
is no more present, and so they become slothful and negligent in
the killing of their sinful nature, even as some do when they
have gone to Confession. For this reason, as I said above,[4] it
should be rightly understood, and it should be known that our
flesh, so long as it lives here, is by nature wicked and sinful.
To correct this wickedness God has devised the plan of making it
altogether new, even as Jeremiah shows. The potter, when the pot
"was marred in his hand," thrust it again into t