Introduction

1. a. Man must merit for himself eternal life, to which he has been destined by the supreme goodness of God, by works worthy of so great an end. The sacraments are so many means and helps divinely instituted for attaining this end. Moreover, sacraments are means and helps of eternal life in two ways: both because they infuse sanctifying grace, and because they confer actual graces, by which we can observe the precepts of God and of the Church as is required for the supernatural end: for through the sacraments all true justice either begins, or, once begun, is increased, or, once lost, is repaired.¹ In moral theology the sacraments are to be considered as means and helps of eternal life granted to us by God.

b. From the institution of the sacraments a new order of precepts arises, of which some pertain to ministers, while others pertain to those who are about to receive the sacraments. Now it belongs to moral and pastoral theology to explain the precepts which are referred to the sacraments being rightly administered and received. Therefore, after the treatment of the sacraments in general has been premised, the individual sacraments must be treated in particular in such a way that the precepts are proposed which, from their institution, are enjoined upon the faithful and upon the ministers of the sacraments.

c. All the sacraments are aptly divided into two genera: for some are referred to the utility of the community, order and matrimony; others regard the utility of individual men, baptism, confirmation, the eucharist, penance, and extreme unction. The former indeed produce their effect also in the individual persons receiving them, but that effect is not so much necessary to the receiver himself as to the community, that is, to the Church and to civil society.

The sacraments of the latter genus are again divided into two classes: for some, abstraction being made from one's own sins, were instituted for generating, preserving, or increasing supernatural life, baptism, confirmation, the eucharist; others were instituted for destroying one's own sins, penance and extreme unction. Therefore the treatment of the sacraments in particular can be divided into three parts, of which the first treats the sacraments which confer or increase supernatural life, baptism, confirmation, the eucharist; the second treats the sacraments which destroy one's own sins, penance, extreme unction; finally the third treats the sacraments which are referred not to individuals, but to the community, order and matrimony.

¹ Council of Trent, sess. 7, De sacramentis, Proemium.