When we pray to God with entire assurance, it is Himself who has given us the spirit of prayer.

Before all things, the Teacher of Peace and the Master of Unity would not have prayer made singly and individually, as for one who prays only for himself. For we do not say, "My Father, who art in heaven"... Our prayer is public and common; and when we pray, we pray not for one, but for the whole people, because we the whole people are one.

Custom is often only the antiquity of error.

In proportion to the size of the vessel of faith, brought by us to the Lord, is the measure we draw out of His overflowing grace.

Peter, in showing that the Church is one and that only those who are in the Church can be saved, said: "In the Ark of Noah certain persons, numbering only eight, were saved by water, which Baptism effects in like manner for you" (1 Peter 3:20). He proves and demonstrates that the solitary Ark of Noah was the figure of the One Church. If, at the time of this Baptism of the world anyone could have been saved without having been in the Ark of Noah, then he who is outside the Church could now be brought to life by Baptism.

Our prayers and fastings are of less avail, unless they are aided by almsgiving.

If, in the case of the worst sinners and those who formerly sinned much against God, when afterwards they believe, the remission of their sins is granted and no one is held back from baptism and grace, how much more, then, should an infant not be held back, who, having but recently been born, has done no sin, except that, born of the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of that old death from his first being born. For this very reason does he [an infant] approach more easily to receive the remission of sins: because the sins forgiven him are not his own but those of another