The Council does not mean to say that such is the precise course which every sinner must go through, or that each one of these acts is necessary. We may be sorry for sin from other supernatural motives than fear. We might rise at once to an act of love without going through the stage of hope; but it lays down this as a specimen of the kind of preparation necessary. The only dispositions absolutely necessary for justification are faith, without which it is impossible to please God,-and penitence, which, the Council of Trent says, always has been necessary in order to obtain grace and justice.

Justification,-the process in which we are endowed with sanctifying grace, in the words of the same Council, -"is the translation from that state in which a man is born a child of the first Adam, into a state of grace and of the adoption of sons of God through the second Adam, Jesus Christ our Saviour." It consists in our being made members of Christ. Christ and the faithful are thereby knit together into one body, He the head, and they the members. And in virtue of this union we receive forgiveness of sin and sanctification, together with all other graces which are stored up in Christ, to be communicated to us through His Spirit. Because He is the beloved, we are accepted in Him (Eph. i. 6). Because He is by nature a Son, we in Him are children by adoption; because He is the Heir, we also in Him have an inheritance in the heavens: "If children then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ" (Rom. viii. 17). And so Holy Scripture describes our justification as a putting on Christ (Rom. xiii. 14); as being baptised in Christ Jesus (vi. 3); as casting off the old man, and putting on the new man (Eph. iv. 22); as being in Christ (Rom. viii. 1); as Christ dwelling in us and we in Him through the Spirit: we know that we dwell in Him and He in us by the Spirit He hath given us" (1 John iii. 24); as Jesus Christ being in us (2 Cor. xiii. 5): "Know ye not that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates;" as our being the members of Christ (1 Cor. vi. 15, xii. 27); as being members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones (Eph. v. 30). It ascribes our spiritual life to our union with Christ:

"Now

"Our life is hid with Christ in God" (Col. iii. 3); "I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. ii. 20; John vi. 57, xiv. 19). The difference between the Catholic doctrine and the Protestant on the nature of justification lies precisely in this: that whereas the latter maintains that justification is simply the gift of pardon, without interior sanctification, the former declares that it is not merely the remission of sin, but also the sanctification and renewal of the inward man, through the voluntary reception of the grace and gift whereby man from unjust becomes just,from being an enemy a friend,—that so he may be an heir according to the hope of eternal life.*

CHAP. LXXXIX. On Merit.

MERIT is the proportion which may exist between'an action and its reward. When we do any act sufficiently good to be rewarded with any special thing, our act is said to be worth, or to merit that thing. Now one of the principal effects of sanctifying grace is, that it not only makes us holy, but enables us to perform actions sufficiently holy to deserve eternal life; and this by the appointment and promise of God. For God, having set heaven before us as a prize to be won (1 Cor. ix. 24; Phil. iii. 14), as a crown of justice to be striven for, thereby renders us capable of so running as to obtain, of so striving lawfully as to be crowned justly (2 Tim. ii. 5, iv. 8). The Apostle says, "God is not unjust that He should forget our work, and the love which we have shared in His name" (Heb. vi. 10). So that we have in some sense a title in justice to be rewarded for our good works. We must, however, remember that the merit of our actions is in itself a gift of God, who for the sole merits of His Son, and because of our union with Him, bestows on them a worth which they are very far from having in themselves. "Jesus Christ Himself," says the Council of Trent," as the head into the members, and the vine into the branches, continually

* Council of Trent, sess. vi. c. 7.

causes His virtue to flow into the just, which virtue always goes before, accompanies, and follows after, their good works, without which they could not be in any way pleasing and meritorious before God." So that the merit of an action is not our own, as though it came from us; it is infused into us from God; and yet it is our own, because God has really made it over to us. "His goodness towards men is so great, that He will have the things which are His own gifts to be their own merits," and in crowning our merits He crowns His own gifts. We see at once that there is nothing here derogatory to the merits of Christ, or favourable to human pride.

abide

In order to merit: 1, we must be in a state of grace; for it is, as we have said, grace which dignifies our actions. He who is not a living member of Christ cannot bring forth the fruits of justice. "Abide in Me, and I in you,' says our Lord; "as the branch cannot bear fruit except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye in Me." Before justification, then, we cannot, properly speaking, merit; nor can we merit the first grace of justification itself. But when we are justified we can merit an increase of that grace, and a corresponding grade of glory.

2. The act must be done freely, not on compulsion or of necessity, otherwise it will have no moral character at all.

3. It must be done for God, or it will not be supernatural; and there is no proportion between natural goodness and heaven. Some go so far as to say that those acts alone merit, which are done out of a motive of pure charity, or for the love of God; but this opinion is not so certain.

4. There must be a promise on the part of God, for we can have no claim on God except by His own free appoint

ment.

5. It is only during this present life that we can merit; for God has willed that after death our condition should be fixed. As the tree falls, so shall it lie; and of those who die in the Lord it is said that they cease from their labours, and their works do follow them; so that neither

the souls in Purgatory nor the blessed in heaven can merit. In the strictest sense of the word we can merit only for ourselves, the first value of the action being exhausted by the reward of heaven; but as we are certain that God will hear our prayers, not only on our own behalf, but also on behalf of others, so there are not wanting examples in Holy Scripture which convince us that out of His bounty He will accept in like manner the good deeds of the just, and visit with His grace those for whom they are offered. He would have pardoned Sodom and Gomorrah had there been ten just men therein. He rejected the three friends of Job in their own persons, but accepted the sacrifice of the holy man in their behalf. The Lord, it is said, accepted the face of Job, and was turned at his penance.

The principal means of grace are prayer and the Sacraments. The former have been already treated of; it re

mains to treat of the latter.

CHAP. XC. On the Sacraments.

I. BEFORE treating of the Sacraments in detail, it will be well for us to consider the general truths which are common to all the Sacraments. In the words of the Catechism, "A Sacrament is an outward sign of inward grace, ordained by Christ, by which grace is given to our souls." From this definition, it will be seen that three things are required to constitute a Sacrament.

1. The outward sign.

2. The institution of Christ.

3. The power of giving grace.

1. By an outward sign is meant something which we can perceive by one or other of our senses, and which makes known to us something else which we do not perceive. Thus, if we see footprints, we know some one has passed on the road; or, if we see smoke coming out of a chimney, we know that there is a fire inside the house. So, in like manner, the pouring of water, or outward washing in baptism, is a sign of the inward cleansing of the soul from original sin. A Sacrament, therefore, is called an outward

or sensible sign, because it consists of something which can be perceived by one or other of our senses, and which represents the invisible effect produced in the soul. The outward part of the Sacrament is usually divided into matter and form. The matter is the thing used, together with the application of it to the person who is to receive the Sacrament, and the form is the words accompanying the application of the matter. Thus, in baptism, the outward pouring of water on the head of the child constitutes the matter; and the words, "I baptise thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," the form of the Sacrament.

2. As the Sacraments are the channels of divine grace, and the means by which the merits of Christ are applied to the soul, our Lord alone has power to ordain Sacraments. For as there is no natural connection between the outward rite or ceremony which is performed and the invisible effect produced in the soul, the Sacraments derive all their virtue and efficacy from the free choice and appointment of Christ, who has ordained them as the means or instruments for applying His merits to our souls. He might, had He so chosen, have adopted other ways of bringing home to us the fruit of His Passion; but as, in point of fact, He has instituted the Sacraments for this purpose, it is our duty humbly and thankfully to adore the dispositions of His providence, and to make the best use in our power of the fountains of grace and salvation with which we are furnished.

3. The Sacraments are not empty signs, but they have the power of producing the effects which they signify. Thus in baptism the pouring of water accompanied by the words, "I baptise thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," not only denotes the cleansing of the soul, but really produces it. This effect is due to the Sacrament as the appointed channel for conveying to us the merits of Christ, and not to the dispositions of the recipient. These dispositions are required in order to remove obstacles to the reception of divine grace, and as conditions without which the Sacraments will not produce their effect, but they are not the