Augustine now recounts a near brush with death in his childhood. He became sick with terrible stomach pain almost to the point of death. He also recounts how his mother (a faithful Christian) was always in intense prayer for his salvation and that she almost had him baptized as he was close to death.
And here Augustine confesses something that seems a mystery to me. He was glad not to be baptized at that point because of the horrible sins he would commit later in life. He quotes a proverb of his time "leave him alone, let him do as he wants, for he is not yet baptized." Put another way he felt it was of good advantage that the "unformed clay" be subjected to his life of sin rather than the "clay formed in Christ's image." The idea here being that sins after baptism were more serious and spiritually disfiguring than sins committed before baptism.
I find this interesting. I mean, I think it's true that a life of sin after one has come to Christ is worse than a life of sin before one comes to Christ. Before one comes to Christ he is simply doing what is in his nature. After one comes to Christ and is reformed by the Holy Spirit then that same life of sin becomes a denial of Christ and a denial of one's own spiritual nature. In the first case the unreformed man can still come to Christ and be reformed for the first time. In the second case it will be more difficult to return as the reformation has already occurred and so it is not just sin but also treacherous sin in the face of grace... I think. I don't want to speak for Augustine whose context I do not understand and whose experience and insight far exceeds my own.
In any case it reminds me of Jesus' words in Matthew 12:43-45, how once an evil spirit has been exorcised it will eventually return and bring seven other demons worse than itself should it find the abode unguarded.
But here is the mystery. What does baptism have to do with it? If I remember enough from Church History and Patristic Fathers and Theology classes then I think Augustine believes that the reformation of one's soul, their coming to Christ, occurs at or even through baptism. Baptism as a sacrament, as a means of grace that is the means by which God extends his grace to us. The physical ceremony being the moment that grace is extended. The Protestants do not hold to this understanding of baptism though, we believe that baptism is a symbol or a sign, not a means of grace. So a person can be a Christian and experience the life changing soul shaping reformation of Christ before (and even without) having been baptized with water.
I'll keep an eye out for further hints on how Augustine understands baptism.
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