Grace

The moral order originally established by God was, as we have seen, disturbed by the sin of our first parents and restored by Jesus Christ. The principle of its restoration in general, and of the moral regeneration of each human individual in particular, is supernatural grace.¹ i. We can acquire no supernatural merits without grace. a) Reason enables man to perceive the truths of the natural order. For the knowledge of the supernatural truths, however, he needs a stronger light.² "The human intellect," says St. Thomas, "has a form, namely, intelligent light, which of itself is sufficient for knowing certain intelligible things, namely, those we can come to know through the senses. Higher intelligible things the human intellect cannot know unless it be perfected by a stronger light, viz.: that of faith or prophecy, which is called the light of grace, inasmuch as it is added to nature." ³ Nor is it the intellect alone that depends on God for its operation; but the will also. No man can will or perform a supernaturally good act except by the aid of a higher power; ⁴ nor can any man, without this power (which we call divine grace), love God above all things ⁵ or keep the commandments perfectly,⁶ or attain eternal salvation. ⁷ b) God is the immediate principle of all supernatural operation, including that by which man prepares himself for the reception of grace. Hence divine grace is indispensably necessary for this preparation.⁸ This is all the more evident when it is considered that God alone had it in His power to redeem mankind after the fall, to restore the moral order, and to forgive the eternal punishment incurred by sin.⁹ Even if put in the state of grace man cannot remain therein without continuous help from his Maker. Hence it is quite true to say that man can do nothing towards securing his salvation except by the grace of God.¹⁰ In this sense it has been truly said that the only thing man can do is to sin.¹¹

¹ Cfr. John I, 17; Rom. V, 20 sq.; 2 Cor. V, 19-21; Eph. II, 8-10. Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, Grace, 2nd ed., St. Louis 1917.

² 1 Cor. XIII, 3; 2 Cor. III, 5.

³ Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 109, art. 1: "The human intellect has a certain form, namely the intelligible light itself, which of itself is sufficient for knowing certain intelligible things, namely those to the knowledge of which we can come through sensible things. But the human intellect cannot know higher intelligible things unless it is perfected by a stronger light, such as the light of faith or prophecy, which is called the light of grace insofar as it is added to nature. Thus it must be said that for the knowledge of any truth man needs divine aid, so that the intellect may be moved by God to its act."

⁴ Cfr. Rom. IX, 16; Phil. I, 13. —St. Augustine, De Corrept. et Grat., c. 2, n. 3: "The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord must be understood, by which alone men are freed from evil and without which they do absolutely no good, whether by thinking, willing and loving, or acting—not only so that by its showing they may know what is to be done, but also so that by its assistance they may do with love what they know." (Migne, P. L., XLIV, 917).—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 109, art. 2: "In each state, that of integral nature and of corrupted nature, man needs divine aid so that he may be moved by Him to act well." —Cfr. Prop. Baii Damnat., prop. 37: "He agrees with Pelagius who acknowledges any natural good, that is, any good which takes its origin from the powers of nature alone." —Prop. 65: "No good, or even non-evil, use of free choice can be admitted except by the Pelagian error; and he who thinks and teaches thus does injury to the grace of Christ." (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 917, 945). —Cfr. J. Ernst, Die Werke und Tugenden der Ungläubigen nach St. Augustin, Freiburg 1871, pp. 19 sqq.

⁵ Cfr. Rom. V, 5. —St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 109, art. 2, n. 3: "In the state of integral nature man did not need a gift of grace added to his natural goods in order to love God naturally above all things, although he needed the help of God moving him to this; but in the state of corrupt nature man needs for this also the help of grace healing nature."

⁶ Cfr. John XV, 4 sq.—St. Augustine, De Haeres., 88: "The Pelagians are enemies of God’s grace to such a degree that they believe man can fulfill all the divine commandments without it." (Migne, P. L., XLII, 47).—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 109, art. 4: "The commandments of the law can be fulfilled in two ways. In one way, as regards the substance of the works, insofar as a man performs just and courageous deeds and other works of virtue; in this way man in the state of integral nature could fulfill all the commandments of the law, otherwise man in that state could not have avoided sin, since to sin is nothing other than to transgress the divine commandments. But in the state of corrupt nature man cannot fulfill all the divine commandments without healing grace. In another way, the commandments of the law can be fulfilled not only as regards the substance of the work, but also as regards the manner of acting, namely, that they be done from charity; and thus neither in the state of integral nature nor in the state of corrupt nature can man fulfill the commandments of the law without grace. In both states he needs, in addition, the help of God moving him to fulfill the commandments."

⁷ Cfr. Rom. VI, 23: "The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." —St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 109, art. 5: “Eternal life is an end exceeding the proportion of human nature; and therefore man through his natural powers cannot produce meritorious works proportionate to eternal life, but for this a higher power is required, which is the power of grace. Therefore without grace man cannot merit eternal life.” —IDEM, Summa contra Gentiles, III, c. 148, n. 2, 3: "A thing of lower nature cannot be brought to that which is proper to a higher nature except by the power of that higher nature; thus the moon, which does not shine of itself, is made luminous by the power and action of the sun, and water, which of itself is not hot, is made hot by the power and action of fire. [And dogs and horses, parrots and monkeys, learn tricks by contact with man, which they never would have learnt in their wild state. And savages are civilized by coming in contact with a culture higher than their own, but for which contact with a higher race they would have remained perennial savages. As man humanizes the brute, and civilizes his savage brother, so does God divinize man. —Jos. Rickaby, S.J., Of God and His Creatures, London 1905, p. 319]. But to see the First Truth itself in itself [in which precisely eternal beatitude consists] so transcends the faculty of human nature that it is proper to God alone. Therefore man needs divine assistance in order to attain that end [i. e., beatitude]. Every thing attains its ultimate end through its operation. But an operation receives its efficacy from the operating principle; hence through the action of seed something is generated in a determinate species, the power of which preexists in the seed. Therefore man cannot through his own operation arrive at his ultimate end, which transcends the faculty of his natural powers, unless his operation receives from divine power efficacy for the aforesaid end."

⁸ John VI, 44; XV, 5.—Cfr. Conc. Trident., Sess. VI, can. 3: "If anyone says that without the prevenient inspiration of the Holy Spirit and His help man can believe, hope, love, or repent as he ought, so that the grace of justification may be conferred upon him, let him be anathema." —St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 109, art. 6: "To prepare oneself for grace is, as it were, to turn toward God, just as one whose eye is turned away from the light of the sun prepares himself to receive the sunlight by turning his eyes toward the sun. Hence it is evident that man cannot prepare himself to receive the light of grace except through the gratuitous aid of God moving him inwardly."

⁹ Gal. II, 21. —Cfr. Conc. Arausic. II., can. 14: "No wretched man is freed from any misery unless he is first anticipated by the mercy of God." — Can. 19: "Since human nature cannot preserve without God’s grace the salvation it has received, how will it be able without God’s grace to restore what it has lost?" (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 187, 192). —St. Augustine, Enarr. in Ps., 95, n. 5: "Men were able to sell themselves, but they were unable to redeem themselves." (Migne, P. L., XXXVII, 1231).—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 109, art. 7: "Man can in no way rise from sin by himself without the help of grace. For since sin, though passing away in act, remains in guilt, rising from sin is not the same as ceasing from the act of sin; rather, to rise from sin is for man to be restored to those things which he lost by sinning. Therefore the help of grace is required for man to rise from sin, both as to the habitual gift and as to the inward motion of God." —Cfr. Seneca, Epist., 52, 2: "Nemo per se satis valet, ut

¹⁰ Phil. II, 13.—Conc. Arausic. II., can. 9: "It is a divine gift when we both think rightly and restrain our feet from falsehood and injustice; for whenever we do good things, God works in us and with us so that we may work. God’s help must always be implored even by the reborn and holy, so that they may arrive at a good end or be able to persevere in a good work." (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 182, 183). Cfr. Conc. Trident., Sess. VI, can. 22 (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 832).—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 109, art. 8-10.

¹¹ St. Augustine, Contra Duos Epist. Pelagian., III, c. 8, n. 24: "Captive free choice has power only for sin, but it has no power for justice unless divinely liberated and aided." (Migne, P. L., XLIV, 607).—IDEM, De Corrept. et Grat., c. 11, n. 31: "Free choice suffices for evil, but for good it is of little avail unless aided by the omnipotent Good." (P. L., XLIV, 935).—Cfr. St. Thomas, Comment, in Sent., II, dist. 28, qu. i, ad 4: "According to the Catholic faith one must walk in the middle between contrary heresies, so that we say that man can do both good and evil through free choice, yet cannot proceed to a meritorious act without the habit of grace."

2. The process of justification, by which a sinner is restored to the friendship of God, cannot take place without grace. It was in man's power to offend God, but it is not in his power to redeem himself.¹² The omnipotent Creator alone can revive a dead soul.¹³ Reconciled to the human race by the atonement, in which His only Son gave up His life for the love of men,¹⁴ God justifies the individual sinner by infusing sanctifying grace into his soul and forgiving him his sins.¹⁵

¹² St. Augustine, Enarr. in Ps., 95, n. 5: "Men were able to sell themselves, but they were not able to redeem themselves. The Redeemer came and gave the price, poured out His blood, and purchased the world." (Migne, P. L., XXXVII, 1231). —Cfr. the same author's Sermones, 20, n. i (P. L., XXXVIII, 137).

¹³ St. Augustine, Epist., 155 (al. 52), c. 1, n. 2: "Nor does anyone make man blessed except He who made man." (Migne, P. L., XXXIII, 667). —IDEM, Contra lulian., I, c. 105: "From all sins, whether original or moral, whether they exist or are to be prevented, nothing frees except the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, in whom we have been regenerated and from whom we learned to say in prayer not only, Forgive us our debts, that is, because we have sinned, but also, Lead us not into temptation, that is, lest we sin." (P. L., XLV, 1119). —IDEM, Enchirid., c. 48, n. 14: "That one original sin is not loosed and washed away except through the one mediator of God and men, Christ Jesus, who alone could be born in such a way that He had no need to be reborn." (P. L., XL, 255). —Conc. Trident., Sess. VI, can. 1.

¹⁴ Cfr. Matth. XX, 28; XXVI, 28; Mark X, 45; XIV, 24; Luke XXII, 19; Rom. V, 10; 2 Cor. V, 18 sq.; E ph. II, 16; Col. I, 20; 1 Tim. II, 6; Tit. II, 14; 1 Pet. I, 18 sq.; II, 24.

¹⁵ Cfr. 1 Cor. VI, 11; Tit. III, 5-7. —Conc. Trident., Sess. VI, c. 7: "Justification is not merely the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man." —Can. 11: "If anyone says that men are justified either by the imputation of Christ’s justice alone or by the remission of sins alone, to the exclusion of grace and charity, which is poured forth in their hearts through the Holy Spirit and inheres in them, let him be anathema." (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 799, 821).

The first requisite of justification, therefore, is divine grace, and the moral regeneration of the sinner is God's work, —a work more wonderful than the creation of heaven and earth, because grace implies a participation of the creature in the divine nature and consequently transcends all natural agencies.¹⁶

¹⁶ Cfr. Ps. CXLIV, 9-—St. Augustine, Tract, in loa., 72, n. 3: "I would certainly say that this work is greater than heaven and earth and whatever is seen in heaven and on earth. For heaven and earth will pass away, but the salvation and justification of the predestined, that is, of those whom He foreknew, will remain. In the former are only the works of God, but in the latter there is also the image of God." (Migne, P. L., XXXV, 1823).—The Roman Missal contains this oration for the tenth Sunday after Pentecost: "O God, who manifest Your omnipotence chiefly by sparing and showing mercy, multiply Your mercy upon us," etc.

READINGS.—St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, 1a 2ae, qu. 110- 114. —Pohle-Preuss, Grace, Actual and Habitual, 2nd ed., St. Louis 1917, pp. 272 sqq. —A. Rietter, Die Moral des hi Thomas von Aquin, Munich 1858, pp. 275 sqq.—J. H. Newman, Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification, 8th impression, London 1900. —J. M. Capello, S.J., Tract. Canonic o-Moralis de Sacramentis, Vol. I, Turin 1921.

Though "the justification of the sinner is brought about by God moving man to justice," ¹ moral regeneration in the case of adults is not a compulsory, much less a magical process, but one that takes place in a manner corresponding to human nature, i. e., by the free cooperation of the will with grace.²

¹ Conc. Trident., Sess. VI, can. 1-3. —Cfr. Saint Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 113, art. 3: "The justification of the sinner is brought about by God moving man to justice. For He it is who justifies the ungodly (Rom. III, 24)."

² St. Augustine, Serm., 169 (al. 152 4 ) 15 de Verbis Apost.), c. 11, n. 13: "The justice of God can exist without your will, but it cannot exist in you apart from your will. He who made you without you does not justify you without you. Therefore He made you without your knowing; He justifies you willing." (Migne, P. L., XXXVIII, 923).—The Angelic Doctor continues as follows in the passage quoted above (Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 113, art. 3): “God moves all things according to the mode of each, just as in natural things we see that heavy and light things are moved by Him differently because of the diverse nature of each. Hence He also moves man toward justice according to the condition of human nature. Now man according to his proper nature possesses free choice. Therefore in one who has the use of free choice, movement by God toward justice does not take place without a movement of free choice; rather, He so infuses the gift of justifying grace that at the same time He also moves free choice to accept the gift of grace in those capable of this movement.” — Contra Gent., 1. 3, c. 148, n. 2: "Divine assistance is understood to be applied to man for acting well in such a way that it works our works in us, as the first cause works the operations of secondary causes and the principal agent works the action of an instrument (Is. XXVI, 12). But the first cause causes the operation of a secondary cause according to the latter’s own mode. Therefore God also causes our works in us according to our mode, which is that we act voluntarily and not by compulsion. Consequently no one is compelled by divine assistance to act rightly."

Justification, therefore, presupposes a rational creature endowed with free-will and voluntarily subjecting itself to God.³ This movement of the will towards God takes place by faith,⁴ which turns the soul away from sin and directs it towards God.⁵

³ Conc. Trident., Sess. VI, can. 4: "If anyone says that man’s free choice, moved and aroused by God, cooperates in no way by assenting to God who arouses and calls, whereby it disposes and prepares itself to obtain the grace of justification, and that it cannot dissent if it wills, but like something inanimate does absolutely nothing and bears itself merely passively, let him be anathema," (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 814).

⁴ St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 113, art. 4: “A movement of free choice is required for the justification of the ungodly insofar as man’s mind is moved by God. God moves man’s soul by turning it toward Himself. Therefore for the justification of the ungodly a movement of the mind is required by which it is turned toward God. The first turning toward God takes place through faith. Therefore a movement of faith is required for the justification of the ungodly.”

⁵ St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 113, art. 5: “The justification of the ungodly is a certain movement by which the human mind is moved by God from the state of sin to the state of justice. Therefore the human mind must relate to both extremes according to a movement of free choice, just as a body moved locally by a mover relates to the two termini of movement. It is manifest in the local movement of bodies that the moved body withdraws from the terminus from which it begins and approaches the terminus to which it moves. Hence the human mind, while it is justified, must through a movement of free choice withdraw from sin and approach justice. Withdrawal and approach in a movement of free choice are understood according to detestation and desire. Therefore in the justification of the ungodly there must be a twofold movement of free choice: one by which through desire it tends toward God’s justice, and another by which it detests sin.” —Ibid., art. 6: "Four things are enumerated which are required for the justification of the ungodly: the infusion of grace, the movement of free choice toward God through faith, the movement of free choice against sin, and the remission of guilt." —Ibid., art. 7: "The whole justification of the ungodly consists originally in the infusion of grace. For through it free choice is moved and guilt is forgiven." —Conc. Trid., Sess. VI, cap. 6: "Sinners begin to love that God as the source of all justice, and therefore they are moved against sins through a certain hatred and detestation." — Cap. 7: "Justification itself follows this disposition or preparation; it is not merely remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man through the voluntary reception of grace and gifts, whereby man becomes just from being unjust, and a friend from being an enemy, so that he may be an heir according to the hope of eternal life." (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 798, 799).

Because concupiscence remains in the soul even after this moral regeneration,⁶ man must fight all his life against the enemies of his eternal salvation and endeavor to secure it by obedience to the commandments, by prayer and abstinence, by works of faith, hope, and charity, —in a word, he must strive unremittingly to grow "in the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ." ⁷ Though the struggle may at times seem well nigh hopeless, God's grace makes victory still possible. "In all these things we overcome, because of Him that hath loved us," say the Tridentine Fathers,⁸ and add: "God forsakes not those who have been once justified by His grace, unless He be first forsaken by them." ⁹ The necessity of cooperating with grace is illustrated in the parable of the man who failed to watch for the thief,¹⁰ that of the faithful servant,¹¹ that of the wise and the foolish virgins,¹² that of the talents which the master gave to his servants, and others.¹³

⁶ Rom. VII, 23; Gal. V, 17; Jas. I, 14; cfr. Conc. Trident., Sess. V, can. 5.

⁷ Eph. IV, 13, 15; cfr. Matth. X, 34 sqq.; XVI, 24; XIX, 17; XXVI, 41; Rom. V, 1 sqq.; VII, 18 sqq.; 2 Pet. I, 10. —Conc. Trident., Sess. VI, cap. 10: "Thus, therefore, having been justified and made friends and members of God’s household, going from virtue to virtue, they are renewed, as the Apostle says, from day to day; that is, by mortifying the members of their flesh and presenting them as weapons of justice unto sanctification. Through observance of the commandments of God and the Church, in the justice received by the grace of Christ, with faith cooperating in good works, they grow and are justified still more." (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 803).

⁸ Rom. VIII, 37; cfr. Matth. XI, 30; 1 John V, 3.—St. Augustine says in his treatise De Natura et Gratia, c. 43, n. 50: "For God does not command impossible things, but by commanding admonishes you both to do what you can and to ask for what you cannot do." (Migne, P. L., XLIV, 271).—The Council of Trent (Sess. VI, c. 11) quotes these words, and adds: "and He helps you so that you may be able." (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 804).

⁹ "For God does not abandon those once justified by His grace unless He is first abandoned by them." (Ibid.)

¹⁰ Matth. XXIV, 43 sqq.

¹¹ Matth. XXV, 1 sqq.

¹² Matth. XXIV, 45 sqq.

¹³ Matth. XXV, 14 sqq.

Sanctifying grace is ordinarily attached to certain visible signs, called Sacraments, —"through which," in the words of the Tridentine Fathers, " all true justice either begins, or being begun is increased, or being lost is re ¹⁴ paired."

¹⁴ Conc. Trident., Sess. VI, can. 20; Sess. VII, Prooem.

These means of grace man is in duty bound to use, —which is but another way of saying that he must submit himself to the Church established by Jesus Christ.¹⁵

¹⁵ Conc. Trident., Sess. VII, De Sacr., can. 4; De Bapt., can. 8 (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 847, 864).

READINGS. —St. Thomas, Summa Theologlca, 1a 2ae, qu. 113. —Pohle-Preuss, Grace, Actual and Habitual, 2nd ed., St. Louis, 97> pp. 274 sqq. —Codex Juris Canonici, can. 731-1144. (In this work we have duly noted the changes made necessary by the new Code. A succinct statement of them will be found in A. Viladevall, Mutationes in Theologiam Moralem a Novo Codice Juris Canonici Inductae, Buenos Aires 1917, and in Alb. Schmitt, S.J., Supplementum to Noldin's Summa Theol. Mor., ed. 2a, New York, 1918).

Usefulness. Having considered and deplored the vices of our infirmity and malice, it will greatly help, before we enter the parts of special theology, to place before the eyes, in a very brief survey, the aids, both interior and exterior, by which our infirmity is strengthened, so that we may be able to reach the most sublime goal without such great difficulty.

— I. Aids in general. In the order of elevated and repaired nature, divine munificence infuses into us:

1. Sanctifying grace, as a new nature, which formally makes us just, sons of God, and now brothers of Christ; and it is in us the condition and principle of meriting the kingdom of heaven de condigno;

2. Actual grace. Actual grace of God precedes and accompanies the good acts themselves, so that they may be meritorious; and it aids us in overcoming evil temptations and in declining from evil. Therefore the same grace is both elevating and medicinal for us;

3. So that supernaturally good acts may be done connaturally by us, from divine liberality we receive supernatural virtues.

— II. Concerning virtues in particular. 1. Natural and supernatural virtues. Wherefore, in the present economy natural and supernatural virtues must be distinguished.

Supernatural virtues are infused into us; they immediately effect this: that we can do supernatural acts, each of its own kind, connaturally. They do not themselves bestow facility of acting.

On the other hand, natural virtues, which are acquired by the very acts, consist in that facility, in the inclination toward certain acts. Yet in the present order of elevated nature, the good toward which they incline no longer suffices for us. It is natural, or proportioned to nature, while we exist for a good or end which exceeds our nature. Wherefore, in the present order, the same are not virtues except in a diminished way; and they should rather be praised as accidental but most useful complements of the virtues properly so called, which are the infused virtues. The very acts of the infused virtues, as such, insofar as they remove contrary dispositions, contribute indirectly to facility of exercise. But inclination toward supernatural things is had from the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

— 2. Theological virtues. Among infused virtues, those may most of all be called supernatural which are so proper to the present order that nothing would correspond to them in the natural order ¹. These are the theological virtues; while moral virtues would have existed in every order, although otherwise in the natural order and otherwise in the present order.

Wherefore the theological virtues ought not simply to be counted together with the moral virtues, but must be ascribed altogether to a higher order. Through them we participate in the divine life and begin to act it, while infused moral virtues perfect and ennoble our human life. Man elevated is scarcely conceived without the infusion of the theological virtues, since through their acts alone he immediately reaches God; while even elevated man could have lacked infused moral virtues. The theological virtues are expressly named in Sacred Scripture (e.g., 1 Cor. 13); concerning supernatural moral virtues it is not established that discourse is mixed in the sacred letters. Wherefore it is theologically certain and to be held next to faith that there are three theological virtues, while, in affirming other infused virtues, we rely only on the common opinion of theologians.

Cf. Mazzella, De virtutibus infusis, n. 30-32, from Suarez, De gratia, who, l. 6, c. 8, n. 14, appeals to Trid., s. VI, c. 7, etc.; Billot, De virtutibus infusis.

¹ For in the natural order the object is lacking at which acts would terminate analogically: in that order God would neither reveal Himself, nor promise Himself as to be possessed, nor give Himself as to be loved by a love founded on the communication of His own beatitude. Indeed, there are not lacking those who think it repugnant to the natural order that in it God should reveal anything.

— 3. Moral virtues perfect the principles of our human actions: we call human actions free acts, interior or exterior, which would also have existed in the merely natural order, although otherwise than now. (For this reason they are distinguished from the theological virtues, which give a beginning to actions that are, as it were, divine.) Wherefore their formal object is moral honesty in some created order. The principles which are perfected are powers which are so constituted under the power of the will that they nevertheless have spontaneous acts: over these the will is said to preside politically. But the virtues are perfective insofar as, if they are supernatural or infused, they bestow the capacity of connaturally eliciting acts proportioned to the supernatural end; or insofar as, if they are acquired (virtues today imperfect), they incline toward honest acts.

More strictly those virtues are called moral which reside in the appetite, and in this way they are distinguished from intellectual virtues, whose seat is the intellect. Such is prudence.

What cardinal virtues are. Already from remote antiquity, four moral virtues were distinguished as first or cardinal. They are named in Sacred Scripture ¹, they occur in Plato (2), and among the Stoics they are the first virtues: prudence, temperance, courage, justice. By these names there are signified either certain general notes by which every virtue is marked, or four principal virtues to which the others can be referred.

1. For in every virtue there is found discretion of reason, or the note of prudence; an inclination toward doing what ought to be done, which is the note of justice; observance of the middle mode between excess and defect, which pertains to temperance; finally, firmness in pursuing the good: this belongs to fortitude.

Moreover, since a good moral operation has its principle in the right ordering of the practical intellect, is derived from a free determination of the will, and can be impeded by passions, whether concupiscible or irascible, there is no virtue unless it either perfects the intellect for directing well, or the will for acting as it ought, or places order in the passions by repressing their impulses, or confirms the soul against their resistance.

2. And the virtues in which the several aspects among these stand forth are, as it were, heads to which the others are recalled. Now, direction chiefly belongs to command or precept; a perfect debt, to be rendered according to equality, is found in operations which are toward another as such, for no one strictly owes to himself; the appetites of the greatest pleasures, namely touch and taste, must chiefly be repressed; and the fears of the greatest dangers must be overcome. Therefore prudence, which is a preceptive virtue; justice, which renders right, or what is owed to another on account of his own proper personality; temperance, which moderates the pleasures of taste and touch; and fortitude, which sustains or attacks dangers of death, are cardinal virtues.

¹ Wis. 8, 7. - (2) Rep. IV, 441.

— Parts of virtues. Of virtue there are distinguished subjective parts, quasi-potential parts, and quasi-integral parts.

Subjective parts are the species into which virtue, as a kind of genus, is divided. The species ought univocally to participate in the generic notion of virtue, and to differ from one another by a specific difference.

Potential parts are virtues in which the proper notion of some virtue is in some way present, but defectively.

Quasi-integral parts are those things which must be had together in order that the perfect act of a virtue may be constituted. By these that act is composed almost as a body is composed of matter and form. Thus the integral parts of justice are said by St. Thomas (2, 2, q. 79, art. 1) to be to do good and to decline from evil, because justice follows upon a twofold good: not to take away what belongs to another, and positively to render what is due. And it is already an act of justice not to take away what belongs to another.

But take care lest you make less of virtues which, as potential parts, are referred to another. This division is merely logical; and, for example, the nobler virtue of religion is a potential part of justice.

— III. Gifts of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, who through sanctifying grace dwells in us, brings His gifts to us, as a divine dowry. These are habitual qualities of our soul, by which we are disposed to act according to the motions, both ordinary and extraordinary, of the Holy Spirit.

They are in us, as it were, demonstrative signs of the Holy Spirit; as they are communicated to us after Christ, they are a participation in the fullness of Christ; as habitual qualities of our soul, they are its most precious ornaments; as operative qualities, they are complements of the supernatural virtues, through which we are inclined toward the supernatural end.

Seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are numbered from the Vulgate, Isa. 11, 2. 3: "And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and of piety, and the spirit of the fear of the Lord shall fill him."

When we act according to the motions of the Holy Spirit, we gather the fruits of the Holy Spirit, which under another respect are called beatitudes. These fruits, by an exemplary enumeration, not an exhaustive one, are numbered as twelve by the Apostle to the Galatians, 5, 22. 23: charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, meekness, faith, modesty, continence, chastity.

— Besides interior aids, divine Providence supplies to us innumerable exterior helps of examples, counsels, circumstances, and events. Among all these, the first place must be assigned to the examples and doctrine of Christ. But among the words of Christ there stand forth the counsels and promises made, for example, to those who leave all things for Him, and to those who exercise works of mercy. And not without merit ought we to extol the often repeated promise of happiness even in this life; of happiness in the very tribulation and persecution. If, deceived by the appearance of false happiness, we do evil things or less good things, nothing is more usefully inculcated to men than the persuasion of the inseparable union and concord between the appetite of the honest good and the appetite of one's own beatitude ¹.

"If you know these things, you shall be blessed if you do them" (St. John 13, 17).

¹ The truth of this concord has very recently been shown by Fr. Victor Hostachy, in the lives of the saints: Joie et saintete. Essai d'etudes d'ames. Tournai, 1922.

— I. For attaining the supernatural end, these interior aids are conferred upon us:

1. Sanctifying grace as a new nature, which formally constitutes us just, sons of God, and brothers of Christ.

2. Actual grace of God, which at the same time elevates our actions, and is medicine for healing the wounds of nature.

3. So that acts may be done connaturally, infused supernatural virtues, which are for us as if supernatural powers. Hence they do not give facility of acting.

Some are theological, to which nothing would have corresponded in the natural order; through them we begin to act a truly divine life: Faith, Hope, Charity. Others are moral, which would have existed in every order, though otherwise than now.

By the very exercise of the virtues, even infused ones, we acquire for ourselves a certain facility of acting well. This habit of operating well is an acquired virtue; nevertheless, in the present order, it falls short of the notion of virtue, because it does not incline toward the supernatural end.

Among the moral virtues, from remote antiquity four are distinguished as cardinal: Prudence, Justice, Temperance, Fortitude. Their notes are apprehended in every virtue; at the same time they are special virtues which possess one of those notes peculiarly, to which therefore, in a logical distribution, other virtues can be referred as parts, whether subjective, if they univocally verify the generic note of the cardinal virtue, or potential, if that note is present in them defectively. Yet a virtue which is a potential part can be nobler than the cardinal virtue. Quasi-integral parts of a virtue are those things which must be had together in order that the perfect act of the virtue may be constituted. Thus justice requires that we not violate another's rights and that we positively furnish what is due.

4. The virtues are completed by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are infused habitual qualities by which we are prompt to obey the motions, both ordinary and extraordinary, of the Holy Spirit, and therefore we are inclined toward the supernatural end. Seven are numbered: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.

When we act through those gifts we gather the fruits of the Holy Spirit, which under another respect are also beatitudes.

II. Divine Providence moreover prepares for us exterior aids of examples, counsels, circumstances, but above all the examples and doctrine of Christ. In this doctrine the counsels and promises must especially be attended to by us; above all, however, the often repeated promise of beatitude, already here on earth mysteriously but truly joined with virtue.

— While, after weighing our moral miseries, and the image of God in the sinful man disfigured by iniquity, we meditate on the aids supplied to our liberty, we begin to understand how with the same mouth the Apostle could call himself an unhappy man and grieve ¹, report the groaning of the whole creation (2), and again stir us to continual and perpetual joy (3). That in this life we may bear an affection mingled with pious fear and cheerful hope, the considerations brought together persuade us of our own proper neediness, and of the riches which we have in Christ. We grasp more distinctly also in what way the whole evangelical discipline is of humility (4) and magnanimity: of humility, by which we recognize that there is nothing in us; of magnanimity, by which we dare to expect divine things from God. Indeed, "He who was God was made man, about to make gods of those who were men" (5). This the disciple whom Jesus loved was already handing down to us in inspired words: "But as many as received him, he gave them power to be made the sons of God" (6). But if God has given all things to us with the Son (7), justice itself demands that the Son reign in us through those gifts of His.

The multitude of gifts and virtues may be likened with Augustine to an army; but, as the holy Doctor, addressing a Christian, admonished: there is "an army of the emperor who sits within in your mind. For as the emperor through his army does what pleases him; so the Lord Jesus Christ, beginning to dwell in our interior man, that is, in the mind through faith, uses these virtues as His ministers... Through these invisible virtues, the visible members are moved: the feet for walking; but whither? Whither the good will, which serves as a soldier for the good emperor, has moved. The hands for working; but what? What charity has commanded, which has been inspired within by the Holy Spirit ¹."

¹ Rom. 7, 24. - (2) Rom. 8, 22. - (3) Phil. 4, 4. - (4) "Humility, which is almost the one Christian discipline" (St. Augustine, Sermo 351, 4 (P. L. 39, 1538)). - (5) St. Augustine, Sermo 192 (P. L. 38, 1012). - (6) Gospel of St. John, 1, 12. - (7) Rom. 8, 32.

¹ In epist. Ioannis, Tr. 8, 1 (P. L. 35, 2030).

[Editorial note: Supplementary Notes 1 and 2 have also been attached at their referenced places in the body text, after n. 395 and n. 428 respectively.]

1. To n. 395, concerning material sin. There we described the material sin which he commits who acts freely but ignorantly. But another reason of material sin is had when an evil act is done by him who, on account of madness, sleep, or drunkenness, is not master of himself.

2. To n. 428, concerning the moral specification of sins. Nevertheless, it must not be passed over that complete acts and incomplete acts pertain to one perfect species of sin; but incomplete acts, as such, differ specifically from complete acts. Cf. S. Th. 1, 2, q. 72, art. 7, c. and ad 3.

3. The bibliography is deferred to the last volume.

St. Thomas III, q. 62, a. 1; on IV Sentences, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4; Disputed Question On Truth 27, a. 4.

30. Notions. - Opus operatum¹ is the work which is effected, and it is opposed to the opus operantis: this is the very subjective operation of man according as it is imputable to him and has dignity, value, merit from him; the former is not the meritorious operation itself but the objective work itself produced, abstracting from the personal value and merit of the one operating.

¹ This formula seems first to have been used by Peter of Poitiers (d. 1205), in Book of Sentences V, c. 6; it was employed by Innocent III, On the Mystery of the Holy Altar, book III, c. 5; by William of Auxerre, Summa aurea, on IV, d. 1, a. 2 and 3; by St. Albert the Great, on IV Sentences, d. 1, a. 5; it is also reported by St. Thomas, on IV Sentences, d. 1, q. 1, a. 5, qc. 1, and by St. Bonaventure, on IV, d. 1, a. 1, q. 5.

In the sacraments the opus operatum is the sensible sign itself; this external work objectively considered:

1. positively: according to the Council of Trent, confers grace;

2. negatively: that sign does not have power from the subjective disposition or merit, whether of the minister operating the placing of the sacrament, or of the man operating the reception, but from God;

3. whence the subjective operation, whether of the minister or of the recipient, by its own power is in no way the cause of that grace which is conferred through the objective external sign;

4. nevertheless it is its condition sine qua non; for without the work of the one ministering there would not be the external work worked, and without the disposition which is the work of the recipient, in him there would be an obstacle, on account of which the opus operatum could not confer grace.²

² "Baptism is established not by the merits of those by whom it is administered, nor of those to whom it is administered, but by its own sanctity and truth, on account of Him by whom it was instituted, to the destruction of those using it badly, to the salvation of those using it well," Augustine, Against Cresconius IV, 19.

31. Thesis. The sacraments of the New Law cause grace ex opere operato. - This is of faith from the definition of the Council of Trent, sess. 7, can. 6-8, against the Protestants.

The thesis is opposed:

1. to the Protestants, who teach that the sacraments are symbols ordained to exciting faith, and signs of divine promises, not conferring sanctification except through the faith of the recipient, as they generally say with Luther (cf. can. 5 and 8); or also that the Holy Spirit, on the occasion of the sacrament, excites faith in the predestined, not in others, as the Augsburg Confession has it (cf. can. 7); or that they are external signs of justice accepted through faith, or mere signs of Christian profession by which the faithful are distinguished from infidels, as is more pleasing to Zwingli, the Socinians, Unitarians, and Rationalists (cf. can. 6);

2. to the Modernists, whose following proposition was condemned (41): "The sacraments look only to this, that they recall into the mind of man the always beneficent presence of the Creator";

3. also to the Donatists, Waldenses, and Wycliffe, who contended that the sacraments do not operate ex opere operato but dependently on the virtue of the minister, and therefore that sacraments conferred by a depraved minister are invalid (cf. can. 8 and 12).

It is proved: 1. From the Scriptures, which teach:

a) that the effect of the sacraments is not so much faith as grace which sanctifies (Eph. V, 26; I Cor. VI, 11), spiritually cleanses (Eph. V, 26), washes away or remits sins (Acts II, 38; XXII, 16; I Cor. VI, 11; John XX, 22, 23; Jas. V, 14, 15), by which we are reborn and renewed spiritually (John III, 5; Tit. III, 5), which consists in the conferral of the Spirit of Christ and of salvation (Acts II, 38; VIII, 17; XIX, 6; Mk. XVI, 16; Gal. III, 27; I Pet. III, 21; Heb. X, 22); moreover all these things indicate habitual grace making one pleasing;

b) they teach that this effect is obtained by the power of the sensible sign itself, as through a cause: for when the sign has been placed, the effect is immediately had (Mk. XVI, 16; Acts VIII, 17; Gal. III, 27); it is obtained through an external sign: through the laver (Tit. III, 5); by the laver of water in the word of life (Eph. V, 26); by the imposition of hands (II Tim. I, 6); by eating the flesh of Christ (John VI, 55); the laver itself regenerates and renews (Tit. III, 5); indeed causality is attributed to water just as to the Holy Spirit Himself (John III, 5). Therefore the sensible sign itself is a true cause of grace.

2. From Tradition: according to the Fathers a) the Holy Spirit and the power or divine omnipotence flows into the elements, and thus a supernatural power is present in the symbols for sanctifying men;³ - b) they compare the sacraments to natural causes, and especially the water of Baptism regenerating with the maternal womb from which we are generated;⁴ - c) they explicitly state that the end and effect of the external sign is grace to be produced in the soul;⁵ and therefore they extol and wonder at the power of the symbol.⁶ Whence Symbols and Councils confess one Baptism unto the remission of sins (Council of Milevis, can. 2; Constantinople I; Orange II, can. 25; Florence, decree for the Armenians).

³ Tertullian, On Baptism 4; Cyril of Jerusalem, mystagogical catechesis 3, n. 3; Cyril of Alexandria, on John III, 5; Ephraem, Against Scrutators, sermon 40.

⁴ Cyprian, ep. to Donatus n. 4; Cyril of Jerusalem, mystagogical catechesis 2, n. 4; Chrysostom, on John, hom. 26, n. 1; Gregory of Nyssa, oration on the Baptism of Christ; Ephraem, Hymn on Virginity XXXVIII, 3; Leo, sermon 5 on the Nativity of the Lord, 5.

⁵ Epistle of Barnabas 11-12; Hermas, similitude IX, 36; Origen, on John VI, 17; Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh 8; On Baptism 5 and 7; Optatus of Milevis, On the Schism V, 1; Augustine, on John tr. 3, n. 5; on Psalm 83, 2.

⁶ Augustine, on John tr. 80, n. 3, and several alleged under a and b.

3. From the practice of the Church, which administers sacraments to children, to the insane, to those destitute of senses; uses in the sacraments the Latin, Greek, etc., tongue; commands the reception of the sacraments to all. But if the sacraments did not confer grace ex opere operato, but only excited faith, it would follow a) that Baptism conferred on infants would be of no efficacy; b) that sacraments conferred on him who did not understand the language would effect nothing; c) that the sacraments would confer grace as much on bystanders as on recipients, which nevertheless even the Protestants themselves deny. Therefore the practice of the Church is against the Protestants.

32. Corollary. - From what has been said it is easily understood that the words of the sacraments are not merely sermonic and promissory, as the Protestants say, but consecratory: for although, which we do not deny, 1) they can instruct the bystanders and excite them to faith, because they are real preachings of the divine word; likewise 2) they themselves contain divine promises or recall promises already made; nevertheless 3) and principally, they are immediately ordained to the blessing, consecration, or sanctification of the thing or person, and only secondarily and dependently on this principal end are they also sermonic and promissory (Council of Trent, sess. 7, can. 5 and 6). - Moreover they are consecratory in a threefold way: a) as to the matter, which they determine to sacramental signification (n. 12); b) as to the recipient, insofar as they are part of the sign sanctifying and consecrating him; c) as to their origin: for they were instituted by Christ and thus consecrated to producing supernatural effects.

Whence Hugh of St. Victor, On the Sacraments l. n. et scr. (P.L. CLXXVI, 35): "The sacraments of grace, through the invocation of the Trinity, receive sanctification in themselves and then confer sanctification, so that from sanctification they may be sanctifying."

33. Observation. - The Protestants object with texts of Scripture: a) affirming that we are justified through faith; and b) excluding the value of works distinct from faith.

Reply to the first: through faith we are justified, because faith is one, indeed the first, of the dispositions required for justification, since it is the root of all the others; whence we are justified through faith in an affirmative sense, not exclusively: for the Scriptures also indicate or require other dispositions (I John III, 3; Rom. VIII, 24; Lk. VII, 47; I John III, 14; Lk. XIII, 3; Acts II, 38; III, 19), indeed they affirm that faith itself does not suffice (I Cor. XIII, 2; Jas. II, 24-26; Gal. V, 6).

To the second: hence those works are excluded which do not rest on faith, such as works of the Mosaic law, or merely natural works, but not works which arise from faith itself, since these also are necessary (Jas. II, 24-26; Mt. VII, 21; Rom. II, 6-13).

These things are customarily explained more broadly in the treatise on Grace.

41. Notions. - A cause is a principle influencing the being of another. An extrinsic cause is twofold: for either it influences by acting or operating, and then it is efficient; or it influences by way of object, insofar as it is known, and then it is a good moving an agent that for its sake he do something, and this is final.

An efficient cause is divided:

a) on the part of the power by which it acts, into principal, which by its own proper and complete power operates an effect similar or proportioned to itself; and instrumental, which, by exercising its proper action and producing an effect proportioned to itself, is at the same time moved by a principal agent, and thus cooperates toward its effect: the operation of an axe is to cut, but insofar as it is moved by the craftsman, it cuts artfully;

b) on the part of the mode by which it attains the effect, into perfecting, which effects the ultimate perfection of the thing, as an animal generates an animal; and disposing, which effects some disposition requiring from another the introduction of the ultimate perfection: thus the action and seed of the father do not effect the human soul, but a disposition in the matter which requires the infusion of the soul.

A moral or occasional cause is that which, by bringing forward a motive, for example by its dignity, excites, attracts, and thus moves an intelligent cause to produce an effect; it is called moral because, according to the common estimation, the effect of the intelligent cause is rightly imputed to it. By some it is called an efficient cause, because it moves the person to effecting; but it can be called efficient only metaphorically and improperly, for the motive moves, not indeed by producing something, but by way of object, insofar as it is known and someone acts for its sake; and therefore it is reduced rather to the causality of end than to the causality of efficiency.

Now it is asked whether the sacraments are merely occasional or also moral causes, or rather truly efficient instrumental causes, or even physical causes, and how their causality can be understood. In this question it will be difficult to arrive at true certitude; wherefore it is permitted to us in this matter to speak by reporting or opining, rather than by disputing or deciding.

St. Thomas III, q. 62, a. 1 and 3; on IV Sentences, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4; Disputed Question On Truth 27, a. 4.

42. State of the question. - A. Some have said that the sacraments are not efficient causes of grace per se, because they operate something, but causes per accidens, because God, once the sacraments have been placed, operates the effect.

Thus many of the older authors at the time of St. Thomas, then Scotus, Henry of Ghent, Durandus, Gabriel Biel, the Nominalists, and others; St. Bonaventure also favors it, although he speaks hesitantly. St. Thomas attacked this opinion, because the sacraments would not be true and properly so-called causes, but only signs and conditions without which grace would not be produced; which seems repugnant to the sayings of Sacred Scripture and especially of the Holy Fathers:

"Some say that they are not a cause of grace by operating something, but because God, the sacraments having been employed, operates grace in the soul; and they set down the example of one who, bringing a leaden denarius, receives a hundred pounds from the ordinance of the king: not that that denarius operates anything toward having the aforesaid quantity of money, but the will of the king alone operates this... But if someone considers rightly, this mode does not transcend the ratio of sign; for the leaden denarius is nothing except a certain sign of the royal ordinance concerning this, that money be received by this man... According to this, therefore, the sacraments of the New Law would be nothing more than signs of grace; whereas nevertheless from many authorities of the Saints it is held that the sacraments of the New Law not only signify, but cause grace" (q. 62, a. 1).

Although this opinion was not expressly proscribed by the Councils of Florence and Trent, nevertheless it cannot admit in the proper sense their doctrine, which is nothing other than the voice of tradition: namely, "that the sacraments of the New Law differ from the ancient ones in that they contain and confer grace, while the sacraments of the Old Law did not cause it." Whence from this time it was abandoned by theologians.

B. More recent authors have changed that opinion somewhat: the sacraments are administered in the name of Christ, and consequently are morally actions of Christ, just as the actions of an ambassador are judged rather actions of the king than of himself. But the actions of Christ have merit, an objective infinite dignity. Therefore the sacraments participate in this dignity, insofar as Christ derives merits into them and presents them to God for obtaining and demanding our sanctification. Now the merits of Christ by their dignity have the power of moving God to bestowing grace. Therefore the sacraments are moral causes of grace as truly as the merits of Christ themselves: this is the only difference, that the merits have their own proper dignity, while the sacraments have dignity derived from them; whence the sacraments are moral causes, not principal but instrumental.

Melchior Cano, Molina, Becanus, Vasquez, and many others of the Society of Jesus attribute moral causality to the sacraments; especially Lugo, Franzelin, and Pesch, who proposed it better.

43. Are the sacraments to be called moral causes? - This manner of speaking is less approved, for various reasons:

1. If the sacraments were only moral causes, they would not be properly so-called efficient and instrumental causes, and therefore what the Holy Fathers and Councils assert of them would not be verified in the proper sense.

2. Granted that they were instruments of Christ as man, nevertheless they would not be instruments of God, whom they move and by whom they are not moved for obtaining grace, for otherwise God would pray to Himself.

3. They would be impetratory causes. But impetration is a causality proper to sacrifice, which is the sign of internal prayer; but the ratio of sacrifice differs essentially from the ratio of sacrament. Therefore the impetrative causality of sacrifice is not to be attributed to the sacraments.

St. Thomas, I^a II^ae, from q. 109 to q. 114.

[Concerning grace there have come forth errors extremely opposed. Some denied grace, lest they injure liberty. Others rejected free will, that they might establish grace.

Pelagius, a Briton by nation, whether Englishman, or Scotsman, or Irishman, about the year 405 began to spread his errors, of which he had the more celebrated patrons and assertors Coelestius, whose fatherland is unknown, and Julian, by fatherland and episcopate an Eclanensian.

The Pelagians said at first that man has from God only possibility or faculty of good, but from himself alone the use or will and action of this possibility. Nevertheless, pressed by the arguments of Catholics, beyond free will, external law and doctrine, they seem afterwards to have admitted something of interior grace, not only illuminating the intellect, but also adding firmness to the will: and this help they affirmed to be not absolutely necessary, but useful only for operating good, nor gratuitously conferred, but owed to the merits of nature. But upon three principal errors the Pelagians pertinaciously adhered. The first is, that no sin was handed down from Adam unto posterity, but that the first parent harmed us only by his own example, and therefore our nature was nowise vitiated, nor consequently is grace necessary, but it is conferred upon those living well only that they may worship God more easily and more perfectly; yet baptism is profitably conferred on infants, not that they be cleansed from sin, but that the grace bestowed thereon make them heirs of the heavenly kingdom. The second error, flowing thence, is that grace is given us according to our merits. The third is, that men, using well their free will, arrive at such perfection as to be able to avoid every sin, even original, without grace. Unto these errors are reduced others, namely: concupiscence is not evil, because it is a property of nature; the miseries of this life are not penalties of original sin; Adam, even if he had not sinned, would have died just the same; little ones dying without baptism enjoy a certain beatitude, not however that which is proper to the heavenly kingdom, and the same must be said of adult infidels who observed the natural law. All know that concerning actual grace of good will and action necessary for each act of piety, gratuitously conferred and not from the merits of nature, there was a long and bitter contest between Augustine and the Pelagians.

The Socinians, under Faustus Socinus the Sienese leader, born in the year 1539, agree entirely with the Pelagians; following whose footsteps the rationalists have fallen into the same errors. In the system of these men, the man of paradise was nothing but a primitive type of ideal perfection, unto which the posterity of him are summoned to refer themselves, to which is added another type far more excellent in Christ Jesus. For man, by a natural principle of perfectibility, can always proceed further in attaining perfection, so that he can not only refer himself to the type, but even surpass it. The same profess that there is given no supernatural state from which man has fallen, or unto which he ought be recalled: whence man needs no grace, either to avoid evil, or to pursue good.

The Semi-Pelagians, among whom the most celebrated was Joannes Cassianus, were thus called because, departing from Pelagius in some things, in others they adhered to him. They admitted original sin and the necessity of grace for working eternal salvation.

They denied however that predestination, whether to grace or to glory, is gratuitous, but taught that God predestined from eternity unto grace those whom he foresaw would consent to him and use it well, and unto glory those whom he foreknew would persevere in grace of themselves. Hence they denied the necessity of grace, both unto the beginning of salvation, which they placed in the affection of credulity [belief], in petition or desire of salvation, or even in the very consent bestowed to grace offered; both unto perseverance, unto which they asserted grace not required, because it lies in our power. For the beginning of salvation and perseverance, in their sentiment, coincide in this, that when we first begin to consent to God, it is the beginning of salvation, while truly remaining in the consent bestowed even unto the end, it is perseverance. And although they often contradicted themselves, and at one time spoke as Catholics, at another as Pelagians, yet this seems to have been the final station of this heresy, namely that to consent to grace or dissent is so ours that in those who consent the consent is not from the grace of God, but from themselves; and thus they withdrew from grace the beginning of salvation and perseverance and ascribed them to free will.

On the contrary indeed the innovators of the sixteenth century, Luther especially and Calvin, saying that the integrity and supernatural state of the first parent was an essential part of human nature, taught the following: 1° By original sin human nature was so vitiated in its essential part that it retained nothing sound and integral. 2° Man lost free will, so that he was destitute of every act and power, whether in intellect or in will, not only for pious motions, but for eliciting works morally honest themselves. 3° These works done without grace are so many vices and sins. 4° Grace compels man to act, so that it infers upon the human will an ineluctable necessity. Whence, according to that doctrine, man holds himself passively under grace, and does nothing toward assenting to or cooperating with that same grace. With all these things Calvin prepared for himself the way unto his chief dogma, namely that God predestined and reprobated men independently of their foreseen merits and demerits, both in execution and in intention. Predes-

I. There are two heresies concerning justification. The Calvinists blurt out that it is unlosable. The Novatians denied pardon to the lapsed, and asserted that some crimes were irremissible. Both heresies the Church condemned.

I. Christian penitents who validly receive the sacrament of Penance are adorned with the gift of justification, and their soul becomes a temple of the Holy Ghost indwelling, and of the whole Trinity. Of old, Jews and pagans, the servitude of the devil and the idolatry of false deities being cast off, the faith of Christ being received, forthwith descended into the arena for Christ, and undaunted despised tigers, lions, and fiercer beasts, and by no means dreaded to become their banquet; they burned with a mighty desire of the rack, of stripes, and of the Cross of Christ; they feared not fires, not burning gridirons, not furnaces, not wounds; but with a strong and unconquered soul they underwent the most atrocious torments and infinite storms. We Christians, suffused with the same faith as they, imbued with the same disciplines, nourished with the same divine food, given to drink of the same most precious Blood, are sanctified by the same justification. Justification betrays itself by its effects, when we conform our whole life to the will of God and to the exemplar of Jesus Christ, on the Apostle's testimony: I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me; and again: Whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son.

II. This new covenant between Christ and penitents rightly confessed is by its own nature firm, stable, and perpetual. Hence John 14, Christ says: If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make our ABODE with him. Christ does not say, if any man dread, and if any man is terrified, but if any man love, and after the manner of sons, not of servants, also fear — he will keep the words and laws of Christ. And Christ, with the whole Trinity, will establish an abode in his soul.

III. But let us hear Paul the Apostle, who describes the firmness and stability of penance, 2 Corinthians 7, in these words: For the sorrow that is according to God worketh penance, STEADFAST unto salvation. That penance, I say, which is according to God — that is, formed according to the rules which God prescribed — works a stable sanctity, as St. Paul subjoins there, chapter 15: Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye STEADFAST and unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. Hence he inculcates upon the Colossians, chapter 1, the very firmness, stability, and constancy of the reconciliation entered upon through the death of the Son of God: And you, whereas you were sometime alienated and enemies in mind in evil works, yet now he hath reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unspotted and blameless before him: if so ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and immoveable from the hope of the gospel which you have heard.

IV. Everywhere the Apostle thunders, and more deeply commends and urges this stability and perseverance in the divine covenant entered upon, that we may attain the crown. But the effects and triumphs of this firm and stable justification he sets forth, addressing the Romans, chapter 8, with this grave and vehement discourse: Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? or distress? or famine? or nakedness? or danger? or persecution? or the sword? (As it is written: For thy sake we are put to death all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.) But in all these things we overcome, because of him that hath loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

V. The prerogatives of Christian justification being set before our eyes, St. Paul manifests the most sad ruin which threatens those who violate and break this most sacred covenant. He himself, bound here at Rome with chains, received tidings that the Church of Jerusalem, made up of Jews alone, was languishing, was shaken by persecutions, and was subject to the grave danger of losing the justification received. Fifty years had already elapsed from the death of Christ, and the Hebrews of Jerusalem converted to Christ saw no event of the prediction made by Christ. The Temple, the Sanctuary, the Altar, the Candlestick, the multitude of priests, the high priesthood, the sacred rites celebrated with great pomp, the solemnity of the Mosaic rites, so great a symphony, and the remaining mysteries and ceremonies of the ancient Religion, which with milk they had drunk in, glittered on every side. But the Jewish Christians themselves, forming a little handful, having for a temple a small chamber, for an altar a table, for a candlestick a lamp, for golden and silver vessels a wooden cup, harassed on this side by the perfidious Jews who dominated, on that by the gentiles, straitened and oppressed, could scarcely celebrate the divine praises in private. Amid so many tempests and storms they in a certain manner wavered. What should we do, pressed by such straits, though strengthened by so immense a multitude of miracles? St. Paul in the epistle inscribed to the Hebrews brings a safeguard to the brethren. He describes with incredible eloquence the excellence and pre-eminence of the New Testament above the Old. Come, brethren, he says, what do you dread? The temple of Christ is not material, as the Mosaic, but living, adorned with every precious stone, which you are. But Christ as the Son in his own house: which house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and glory of hope unto the end, FIRM. Chapter 3.

VI. After he has raised up his brethren and animated them to place their trust in Christ Jesus, he passes to manifesting the wretched and mournful unhappiness of those who fall back from the lofty state of justice into sin, and the extreme difficulty of rising again, in these words, chapter 6: For it is impossible for those who were once illuminated (through the Baptism of faith), have tasted also the heavenly gift (namely the most sacred body of Christ), and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost (through the sacrament of Confirmation), have moreover tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, and are fallen away, to be renewed again to penance, crucifying again to themselves the Son of God, and making him a mockery. Which truth, that he may accommodate it to their grasp and imprint it more deeply in their hearts, he offers them a likeness fetched from the very nature of things: For the earth that drinketh in the rain which cometh often upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is tilled, receiveth blessing from God. But that which bringeth forth thorns and briers is reprobate, and very near unto a curse, whose end is to be burnt. But, my dearly beloved, we trust better things of you, and nearer to salvation; though we speak thus.

VII. The exposition of the Fathers upon this word impossible is twofold. Some interpret it difficult and most difficult. Others take this word in its obvious and literal sense, saying that it is impossible that those who have fallen after Baptism should be renewed again to that pristine innocence which they once received infused in the sacred laver. For although through penance sin is blotted out, yet there commonly remain traces of scars and wounds, and malignant remnants; there remain the fattened and thickened impressions and roots of desires and lusts, which weaken the strength and open a broader way to relapse.

VIII. But let us hear Paul again pursuing his discourse, chapter 10, and in this fashion more deeply enlarging upon the same truth: Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. … For if we sin wilfully after having the knowledge of the truth, there is now left no sacrifice for sins, but a certain dreadful expectation of judgment, and the rage of a fire which shall consume the adversaries. A man making void the law of Moses dieth without any mercy under two or three witnesses: how much more, do you think, he deserveth worse punishments, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath esteemed the blood of the testament unclean, by which he was sanctified, and hath offered an affront to the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said: Vengeance belongeth to me, and I will repay. And again: The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But call to mind the former days, wherein, being illuminated, you endured a great fight of afflictions. And on the one hand indeed, by reproaches and tribulations, were made a gazingstock; and on the other, became companions of them that were used in such sort. For you both had compassion on them that were in bands, and took with joy the being stripped of your own goods, knowing that you have a better and a lasting substance. Do not therefore lose your confidence, which hath a great reward. For patience is necessary for you, that, doing the will of God, you may receive the promise. For yet a little and a very little while, and he that is to come will come, and will not delay. By these last words the Apostle foretells the imminent destruction, desolation, and most mournful overthrow of the city of Jerusalem, of the temple, and of the altar, which befell about five years after this epistle was written. By which horrible catastrophe the predictions made by Christ were more deeply imprinted upon their minds, and confirmed that Church gathered from the first-fruits of the elect people.

I. This Christian justification, which draws the strength of its firmness from the passion of Christ, makes the evangelical yoke — which is hard from hard — sweet in itself, and renders men just, holy, happy, quiet, and constant in the observation of God's commandments.

II. Let us consult the common sense and practice of Christians. You see a man outwardly bearing the appearance of virtue and piety. You see him at the same time fallen into manifest crimes, and, no vehement occasion urging, rolling again in the mire of lust. Do you not straightway disapprove him as a hypocrite, a crafty and cunning man, a whited sepulchre? Whence this? From nothing but the inmost sense of the stability and firmness of Christian justification. You have a friend whose most chaste morals, uprightness, sincerity, equity, and justice you have certainly known over an interval of several years. He sets out to a distance. After some years an occasion offers itself of hearing something about your friend. You ask how he is, what is his manner of living. You hear that the man has become crafty, lustful, fraudulent. You refuse to believe. You accuse the reporter of calumny. He replies that the matter certainly stands so. What then? Alas, you exclaim, alas how tremendous, how fearful are the judgments of God! Truly God is terrible in his counsels over the sons of men. Whence, I pray, so great an astonishment and so great a repugnance to believing a change in a just man? Assuredly from nowhere else than from that inmost instinct and more deeply imprinted persuasion by which you judge Christian justification, infused through the Holy Ghost, sealed with the blood of Christ, and nourished by the food of his most sacred body, to be stable and difficult to move. For those things which are from God are firm and stable.

III. I confess that occasions can occur, and such calamities of the times and persecutions, in which the very firmer columns tremble. Justification is by its own nature stable; but the weakness of human nature is great: therefore it can be lost. But the gifts which accompany this justification restore human strength, cure infirmity, and pour fortitude into souls. Let the manner of living of Christians and Religious themselves be consulted. Those who are truly converted and just rarely fall, flee the occasions of sinning, detest the prestiges of the world, and by prayers and fasts implore divine grace. If by some sudden chance of an urgent occasion they fall, forthwith they rise again, and busy themselves to wash away the stain with most bitter tears. Just as a true and sincere friendship, which is rare among men, is frequently not violated, so a sincere friendship entered upon between God and men through sacramental justification, while it is true, is not so easily broken.

I. The characters of Christian justification, as we have seen, constitute a man just, a son of God, holy, liberal, chaste, sincere, tolerant of injuries, praying for his persecutors, meek, humble, merciful, a father of the poor, and adorned with the remaining Christian virtues. This is the image of Christian justification which the holy Scriptures depict for us, as has been shown above.

II. Utterly diverse is the image which is seen in the morals of very many Christians. We see in our age the avaricious, usurers, the lustful, prodigals, little lovers and mistresses, mimes, mime-women, dancing-women, singing-women, gamesters, perjurers, the fraudulent, the effeminate, adulterers, frequenting the sacraments of Penance and of the Eucharist twice or four times a year. What amendment of morals? None. Apostolic ministers run through the provinces, exercising what are called sacred missions. Great crowds of every state run together in multitudes: struck with fear of the hellish furnace, they lay down the bundle of their outrages, they confess, they are absolved, they communicate. The missionaries have set out on their way, and they resume the course of their past life, and heap up crimes anew for the coming year. The same habits, lusts, usuries, frauds, lies, adulteries, perjuries, injustices. And this circle of confessions and relapses comprehends almost the whole of life. Out of so great a multitude of penitents scarcely five in a thousand give signs of true Christian justification and bring forth its fruits. This is visible and known to all.

III. But whence, you say, comes it that spectres of feigned justifications of this kind bring in no terror? Whence, that confessors administer the sacraments to those feigned Christians? Whence, that the Christians themselves, conscious of their own affairs, do not recognize their confessions to be sacrilegious? Do they not themselves hold it well understood that covenants of friendship sincerely and constantly entered upon are not easily violated? Whence therefore so horrid a hallucination? Whence so monstrous a deception?

IV. From that torrent of human custom, replies St. Augustine; from that universal prevailing habit which carries away with it sometimes even the wise, unless they diligently watch and strenuously fight. From that, finally, MIDDLE WAY which has been brought in for the forming of morals, as also for the loving of the divine decrees, says the most learned Bishop of Palmi. Two ways only did Christ lay open: one narrow and strait, the other broad and spacious. Of the former way the walkers are few, on Christ's own testimony; of the latter, many. A new middle way, devised by men and assuredly not by God, comprehends an immense multitude of Christians. The Christians of this way nourish the body sumptuously, soothe the senses, indulge in pleasure and enticements, dances, theatres, comedies, and the delights of the world: they wish to have their own little matrons and their honourable-seeming mistresses, with whom they may converse, feast, and jest. Fasts, disciplines, and hair-shirts they shudder at. They utterly refuse to restrain the impulses of concupiscence, of ambition, and of pride, and to press down the goads of the flesh. Yet, that they may distinguish themselves from wicked, dishonest, and obstinate sinners, who with loosened reins and mask laid aside run through the broad and spacious way, they recite their little prayers, read pious books, frequent the churches, and approach the sacraments on the more solemn feasts of Christ and of the Blessed Virgin. This middle way encloses in our age a greater multitude of sinners than of old the broad and spacious way described by the Gospel. Since this broad way leads to perdition. But the new middle way joins in one pagan morals and the reward of the eternal kingdom; the sacraments of Christ and the pleasures of the world; mire and darkness; good and evil. But this middle way is more seductive than the broad way. Those who tread the latter know that they are sinners, and do not approach the sacraments unless they first forsake it. But in very truth the walkers of the middle way reckon themselves happy, and think that by this way lovers, mistresses, mimes, mime-women, dancing-women and harp-players, and all the rest who frequent the sacraments, can arrive at the eternal kingdom.

V. The most learned John Morinus, Book 9, chapter 34, declares that these three ways obtained among the Jews also, in these words: “It is a celebrated saying of the Jews, more recent and ancient, that there are three kinds of men: the perfectly just, the perfectly wicked, and the intermediate; that God has three books: in the first the perfectly just are described; in the second the perfectly wicked; in the last the intermediate. That God at the beginning of the year examines the actions of all men in a solemn judgment; that the perfectly just are then at once inscribed in the first book, the evil in the second, but that the judgment of the intermediate is suspended to the tenth day of the month: if they shall have performed a perfect penance, they are to be numbered with the just; if not, with the wicked.”

VI. Moreover, as their way is a middle one, so their justification is a middle one. The middle way is new, therefore not evangelical but worldly. Similarly their justification is a middle one, is new, is not infused by Christ Jesus, not by God, but feigned by men. To the fashioning of a fictitious justification the malice of men has compelled. Certain ministers of the sacraments, burning with zeal for the salvation of men, with a pious and holy intention, as it becomes us to think, since they could not bring men to an exact observance of the Gospel and to the reforming of morals according to the norm of the baptismal profession, busied themselves to lighten the yoke of Christ, to soften the rigour of the law, and to accommodate the evangelical norm to human appetitions, says St. Augustine on Psalm 98. For this is in men a great and most usual perversity: that whereas they themselves ought to live according to the will of God, they will that God should live according to their own will. And whereas they will not that they themselves be corrected, they will that he be depraved; reckoning right not what he wills, but what they themselves will.

VII. Behold the cause unlocked and laid open why today men do not marvel when they see Christians in this week approaching the tribunal of penance and the eucharistic table, and in the next — if not in the same — approaching also the gaming table with their little mistresses and little matrons, and dances, theatres, and comedies, and even fornicating and committing adultery, either by ear, or by eye, or by touch, and frequenting all the prestiges of the world; and again the tribunals of penance; and again the company of lovers and mistresses, where they woo and are wooed, love and are loved, touch and are touched, look and are looked upon, gape and are gaped at, sigh and are sighed for. Are these the fruits of divine justification? Are these the sons of God? Do these conform their life and morals to the exemplar of Christ? Christians are not moved by this spectre of justification, by this covenant of sacraments and sacrileges. Why? Because from infancy they have been accustomed to see this perpetual circle of sacraments and relapses: because they reckon it enough to confess their sins with the least penances, although no amendment follow, although they perpetually roll and roll again in the mire of lust, like swine. They are confirmed in this persuasion by the authority of not a few casuists and confessors. These cry out with voice and writings that in our age the golden centuries flourish again. When, they say, was there so great a frequenting of the sacraments, so great a concourse to the temples, so splendid a worship, so magnificent an apparatus, so great a multitude of Sacrifices, so great a variety of song, of melody, of devotions?

VIII. But if it be replied: When were morals more dissolute? When so many profanations of temples? When were the patrimonies of the poor and of Christ more prodigally squandered upon dogs, upon horses, upon pomps and luxury? When at last have impiety and incredulity more boldly assailed Religion? — if this be cried out, straightway they retort: so croak the Rigorists, cruel, savage, unmerciful, gloomy, always murmuring against the most flourishing discipline of our age.

IX. Behold one of the causes why Christians are not moved by the unstable and fluid justification of the morals of very many Christians of our age. Very many moral doctors inveigh against theologians who inculcate upon penitents that they should chiefly grieve for that sin to which they are greatly addicted, and that they should conceive a firm and constant purpose of not sinning thereafter, as we shall presently see more clearly. And that I may reduce you to a standstill, reader, turn over very many books of the casuists which are chiefly worn by all men's hands: search severely where the true image of Christian justification is depicted according to the exemplar which the holy Scriptures propose. Inquire where its lofty effects, its characters, its most splendid prerogatives are described. In the books of which casuists will you find these things? In Gobat, in Tamburini, in Diana, in Viva, in La Croix, in Caramuel, in Leander, in Sporer, in Burgaber, in Bonacina? You will find on the contrary innumerable little distinctions, sophisms, and disagreements by which the true image of Christian justification is obscured. So it seems to my weakness. Whether I myself am deceived and deluded, let the wise be judges. For I do not set myself up as a censor, but what seem true to my littleness I submit to the judgment of the wise.

X. What wonder therefore if Christians, and still less if confessors themselves, brought up in these prejudices, should reckon that divine justification, by its own nature stable and firm, is set in this perpetual circle of confessions and relapses, in this succession of dinners and of sacraments? They see from their very cradles not a few ministers of God admitting to the sacraments Christians who, though they confess several times a year, nevertheless, as if they did not confess, indulge in luxury, immodest pomps, games, usury, ambition, and the pleasures of a raving world. They cry out besides: What? Shall the ministers of God deceive us? Is this discipline of confederating a frequenting of the sacraments with the recounted solaces and enticements of the world, propped by the authority of so many pious, grave, and upright men, to be reputed vicious and corrupt? Great, cries St. Augustine, will be the temptation. By this very temptation the Christians of the Church of Jerusalem were harassed and wavered; but St. Paul confirmed and strengthened them. St. Augustine testifies that he suffered most grave persecutions, that he might snatch the Christians of his time from error, because our adversaries, opining otherwise, kept them firm and constant in a sweet and kindly habit of living. Nor on that account did the most holy Doctor cease to cry out: On account of the morals of men who by their crooked seductions and depraved customs cease not to bring troublesome care upon us for you, we cannot keep silence. Sermon 157. Even from that time the possession of one's own liberty was opposed to the controverted mandates of the divine law, although not curled with the paint of Probabilism. There are some, says St. Augustine, or the author of sermon 4 to the Brethren in the Wilderness, who will to live by the spirit of liberty; and if they be reproved by anyone, they bark like dogs, they bite like serpents, they grieve like women in travail, calling evil good and good evil, false true and true false.

XI. Paul, I ask and beseech you, Paul the trumpet of the Holy Ghost hear; Paul read; the Gospel of Christ seriously meditate, if you love your inward salvation. Prick up your ears, that the doctrine of Paul concerning justification may cleave engraven in your hearts. The justification which Paul teaches is constant, firm, and stable. But to new Doctors, if dissenting from Paul they glory in the frequenting of the sacraments and in a painted splendour of devotion, answer with St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 5: Your glorying is not good. Know you not that a little leaven corrupteth the whole lump? Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new paste, as you are unleavened. … Therefore let us feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. … But now I have written to you not to keep company, if any man that is named a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or a server of idols, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner: with such an one not so much as to eat. Will certain new casuists perchance say: The common opinion of the Doctors teaches the opposite? This discipline has grown obsolete, and other things of that kind?

POOR human nature is in a permanent state of moral bankruptcy. It is incapable of meeting its obligations. It sees the good but it cannot perform it, it constantly does what its conscience condemns. Experience and revelation alike compel us to acknowledge this. But while the Catholic humbly acknowledges his own weakness and sinfulness, yet he knows that through the grace of Christ he can overcome sin. Luther, on the contrary, not only glories in his infirmity, like St. Paul, but boasts of his sinfulness.¹ He holds that human nature is so thoroughly corrupted by the Fall that it is incapable of doing anything good. Sin

¹ J. Verres, "Luther: An Historical Portrait," p. 128.

has become part of its very essence. This natural corruption remains even in the just; it is only by faith that they lay hold of the merits of Christ, and thereby the justice of Christ covers all their sinfulness as with a cloak. Because of their faith, God imputes to them the merits of Christ and turns His eyes away from the innate sinfulness of their hearts. The just accept the freely offered love of God in Christ Jesus, and this is what is called His grace. Luther rejected the Catholic doctrine about grace, and taught that it was nothing more than the freely offered favor of God. Non-Catholics have commonly followed this teaching. The Council of Trent solemnly anathematized it.

"If any one shall say that men are justified either by the mere imputation of the righteousness of Christ, or by the mere forgiveness of sins to the exclusion of grace and charity, which is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, and inheres in them; or even that grace by which we are justified is only the favor of God; let him be anathema."¹ Christ He has restored human nature to more than its pristine glory. Let us in merest outline and in non-technical language try to summarize the Catholic doctrine on grace.

The Catechism of the Council of Trent explains this canon in the following terms:

"But grace, as the Council of Trent has decreed, is not only that whereby sins are forgiven, but is also a divine quality inherent in the soul, and, as it were, a certain splendor and light that effaces all the stains of our souls and renders the souls themselves brighter and more beautiful. This is clearly inferred from the sacred Scriptures."²

The Catholic Church is quite conscious of the frailty of poor human nature. She knows that if left to itself it cannot hope to escape moral ruin, but she teaches that God never intended to leave human nature to itself. In its first creation He remedied its natural weakness by the gift of His grace, and after the Fall through the grace of

¹ Sess. vi. c. 11.

² Loc. cit. pt. ii. c. 2, n. 49.

While instructing the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob, Our Lord gives her the first notions about the doctrine of grace.

"If thou didst know the gift of God," He said, "and who He is that saith to thee: Give Me to drink: thou perhaps wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water.... He that shall drink of the water that I will give him shall not thirst forever. But the water that I will give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into life everlasting."¹

Grace, then, is preeminently the gift of God, freely bestowed upon us with a view to our sanctification and the obtaining of life everlasting. This gift of God is no other

¹ John iv. 10 ff.

than the gift of Himself appropriated to the Holy Spirit inasmuch as it pertains to the work of our sanctification, and by appropriation the Holy Ghost is the sanctifier. We are taught this by numerous passages in Holy Scripture. "The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us," says St. Paul.¹ The Holy Spirit is so given to us that He dwells within us as in His temple. "Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?"² "Or know you not that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?"³ "What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God; as God saith: I will dwell in them and walk among them. And I will be their God, and they shall be

¹ Rom. v. 5.

² 1 Cor. iii. 16.

³ 1 Cor. vi. 19.

my people."¹ God thus dwelling within us, vivifies us, helps us to subdue our fleshly appetites, testifies to us that we are the sons of God, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.²

God is everywhere, and as He creates all things, so He sustains all things and physically concurs with the natural activity of all things. "In Him we live, move, and have our being." By grace in Him we begin to live a new and higher life, we begin to move and have our being in a higher and supernatural order.

So, then, while God dwells within the human soul He is by no means inactive there. He always respects the liberty of His creature, but nevertheless He is always striving to draw the soul into ever closer union with Himself in preparation for that final union which Holy Scripture calls life everlasting. That eternal life consists in

¹ 2 Cor. vi. 16.

² Rom. viii. 11 ff.

the knowledge and love of God.¹ We can know God in this life by the natural light of reason, we can know Him still better in this life by the light of His grace, but in life everlasting we shall know Him in a far more perfect way by the light of glory. "We see now through a glass in a dark manner, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know even as I am known."² "We are now the sons of God, and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like to Him, because we shall see Him as He is."³

That final destiny of the human soul is something far above its natural desires, capacities or needs. It is a supernatural destiny, a living on familiar, intimate, and the closest possible terms of a loving son with a most affectionate Father. It has pleased

¹ John xvii. 3.

² 1 Cor. xiii. 12.

³ 1 John iii. 2.

God to raise man to that lofty estate, to place man by His side in the divine order of being, permanently raising him above the merely created order. Man must be gradually educated so that when the time comes he may take his place becomingly in the great family of God.

While dwelling in the human soul, God Himself undertakes the education of His child. He does this in the first place by what theologians call actual graces. Those actual graces consist especially of illuminations of the mind and movements of the will. The mind has to be enlightened by God so that it may see and understand and realize divine truths, appreciate their beauty, and realize their desirableness. The will has to be moved by God so that it may actually desire them. Herein man can do nothing of himself; helped by divine grace all that he can do is to give his consent and cooperate with the action of God. "Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God."¹ "For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to accomplish according to His good will."² be just unless the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ are communicated to him, that, however, is done in this justification of the wicked, while by the merit of the same most holy Passion, through the Holy Ghost, the charity of God is poured forth in the hearts of those who are justified, and inheres in them, so that in justification, together with the forgiveness of sins, a man at the same time receives all these infused virtues, faith, hope, and charity, through Jesus Christ in whom he is engrafted."¹ All these Scriptural expressions indicate that grace is something more than the mere extrinsic favor of God. In adopting man for His child by grace and assuring him of a father's love, God works wonderful changes in the human soul. What was before stained by sin becomes clean and pure, what was before darkness becomes light. What was by nature a little less than the angels, is raised by grace in some sort to the level of the deity, it becomes "a partaker of the divine nature," says St. Peter.¹ washes the soul from the stains of sin, it does not merely cover sin, it destroys all traces of it. Of its nature too it does not merely adorn the soul with a heavenly beauty, it makes it fruitful in good works. "Whosoever is born of God committeth not sin; for His seed abideth in him."¹

By such illuminations of the mind and strength-giving movements of the will God enables the loving soul to do what otherwise it could not do, to keep God's commandments and to avoid grievous sin.

Besides these actual graces the Catholic Church teaches that God gives sanctifying or habitual grace to men.

"Justification," says the Council of Trent, "is not merely the forgiveness of sins, but the sanctification and renovation of the inner man, by the voluntary acceptance of grace and gifts; by which a man instead of being unjust becomes just, and instead of being an enemy becomes a friend, so that he may be an heir according to hope of life everlasting.... For although no one can

¹ 2 Cor. iii. 5.

² Phil. ii. 13.

In the same chapter the Council teaches that baptism is the instrumental cause used by God in the justification of the wicked.

By sanctifying grace infused into the soul by baptism we are "born again"; "born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." We become a "new creature in Christ Jesus." By this new birth we are made "partakers of the divine nature."²

¹ Sess. vi. c. 7.

This is the beginning of that spiritual life which one day is to leap forth into life everlasting. Not alone by actual graces does God preserve the soul of His child from sin and gradually educate it for heaven. There is a radical opposition between sanctifying grace and sin, as radical as that between light and darkness. Mortal sin drives sanctifying grace from the soul, it is the death of the spiritual life. The infusion of grace

¹ 2 Peter i. 4.

¹ 1 John iii. 9.