Scotus Academicus, Tomus octavus: De Divino Gratiae Beneficio, et initium De Virtutibus Theologicis

NOTE 1. In the resolution of the present Question there were three erroneous opinions: the first is attributed to the Master of the Sentences in book 1, distinction 17, throughout, but especially in the last chapter, where he seems to assert that charity (which below we shall prove to be really identical with sanctifying grace) is not a created habit, but the very person of the Holy Spirit communicated to us substantially, which without any medium of a created habit is the immediate principle of that love by which we love God and neighbor; and this on account of the excellence of charity, which is properly predicated of God, according to that text of 1 John 4: God is charity. For we do not read the same of the other virtues; indeed nowhere has Scripture said: God is faith, God is hope; wherefore although these virtues are habits implanted in us by God, distinct, and thus immediate principles of supernatural acts, nevertheless charity does not seem to be a distinct habit infused by God, but God Himself inhabiting the soul of the just, who through Himself immediately is the principle of the act of charity in us. The second error was that of Calvin in book 3 of the Institutes, chapter 11, where he denies all interior justice in man, and admits indeed that man may be called just, but only by the extrinsic imputation of the justice of Christ or of God. Which error he certainly supports from that saying of Paul, 2 Corinthians 5: Him who knew no sin, He made sin for us, that we might be made the justice of God in Him. You see, says Calvin, that our justice is not in us but in Christ, and belongs to us only by that right because we are partakers of Christ? Finally, the third erroneous opinion was that of Osiander in his Evangelical Harmony, where he asserts sanctifying grace to be rather a substance than a quality; because, he says, grace is nothing other than the justice and holiness of God Himself, constituting man just and holy; just as sunlight is nothing other than the presence of the Sun itself over the whole hemisphere. This threefold erroneous assertion we undertake to refute in the three following Conclusions.

NOTE 2. All Catholics agree that justified man possesses a twofold grace: one created, by which he is formally justified; another uncreated, by which he is efficiently made just; which truth St. Paul clearly expounded, Romans 5, saying: The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us. For by these words he signifies that there is granted to the just not only charity, which is indeed created, but also the Holy Spirit, who dwells in the just as in a sanctuary: for although the three persons of the adorable Trinity at once illuminate and consecrate the just by their divine presence, according to that saying of Christ the Lord, John 14: If anyone love me, we will come to him, and will make our abode with him; nevertheless, by a special reason the Holy Spirit is called grace: > because, as our Alexian Doctor says, qu. 61, m. 2, art. 2, it is called grace inasmuch as it is called gift, and gift inasmuch as it is called love; for the Holy Spirit Himself, according to His proper property, is love, and as love proceeds from the Father and the Son: and therefore because He is a gift, therefore He is love, because nothing is a gift except by reason of love; for if something be given out of fear, it is not properly a gift, but rather redemption; likewise if it be given out of covetousness, it is not a gift but gain: but a gift properly is from love and liberality, and without coercion: so that in every gift love is first given; and thus the Holy Spirit is called grace because a gift, and a gift because love. < From which it is evident that the Holy Spirit in a peculiar manner inhabits and consecrates the soul of the just. But the difficulty is whether He accomplishes this by His divine presence immediately, or indeed through the mediation of some created gift.

NOTE 3. From the same Alexian Doctor, same book, art. 3, grace can be compared to the soul in two ways: namely, either to its first natural being, or to its second and supernatural being. Considered in the former way, grace is without doubt an accident, since it comes to the soul after its being is in every way perfect and complete. But the difficulty is whether, considered in relation to the soul as subsisting in the supernatural order, it can be called some substantial mode, or rather a pure accident. Which difficulty will be resolved in the following Conclusion.

First Conclusion. — HABITUAL GRACE IS NOT THAT UNCREATED THING, BUT CREATED.

This is common among Catholics; and it is Proved first from Sacred Scripture, namely from all those passages which signify that we are formally justified by a gift granted to us by God. Thus St. Paul, Romans 5: The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us. These words St. Augustine weighs thus in the book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 32: > The charity of God is said to be poured forth in our hearts: not that by which He Himself loves us, but that by which He makes us His lovers: even as the justice of God, whereby by His gift we are made just. < To these accord those words of St. Peter, chapter 2 of his first Epistle: He has bestowed on us great and most precious promises, that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature. For by these the Prince of the Apostles declares that we put on the divine likeness, while through the greatest and most precious gifts of grace granted to us by God we become partakers of the divine nature; and thereupon he judges that we are justified by something distinct from God: for the gift is customarily distinguished from the giver; although we do not impugn that the divine Word, and the Holy Spirit, gave themselves, while the latter was given to us by the Father, and the former by the Father together with the Son. The same truth all the other sacred texts illustrate and confirm, by which below we shall urge that habitual graces perpetually remain in us.

The Doctor proves the Conclusion in book 1, distinction 17, question 8, with eight arguments, which I reduce all to three heads. The first argument is drawn from the justification of a sinner, who before penance is called unjust; but after penance is called just, from which the Doctor argues thus, n. 18: > Injustice, since it is formally a privation, cannot be taken away except by the opposite habit; because a privation is not removed except by the form, which the subject lacked through the privation: therefore he who was justified, being changed from unjust to just, necessarily had to receive a habit opposed to that privation signified by the name injustice. < Which argument indeed presses according to the ordinary law, for in virtue of extraordinary and absolute power injustice could be taken away by mere extrinsic condonation, and without any positive habit infused, as we shall teach below with the same Doctor. — It confirms n. 19.: > If there is nothing else in the soul after penance than before, it does not appear that man in any other manner is related to God as just, nor God to him, than when he was unjust, because no diversity seems to exist on the part of God if God changes nothing in him and produces nothing: but it is false that man as just is not otherwise related to God, nor God to him, than when he was a sinner; since God loves the just, and hates the sinner: therefore it is necessary that that diversity be sought from the side of sanctifying grace and charity produced in the justified man. <

It is proved secondly: God accepts the just man and ordains him to eternal life: but that acceptance is not a will to beatify him at that time; for if God had such a will, He would in fact raise the just man to eternal felicity: therefore that will is nothing other than a judgment, namely by which God judges the just man worthy of beatitude, of which he was unworthy while he was unjust; yet God cannot have such a will unless some change intervene, either on the part of God, or on the part of the sinner. Not indeed on the part of God, because His will is intrinsically immutable: therefore it is necessary that that change be sought from the side of the sinner, and consequently it behooves that justified man receive some form which he lacked while he was a sinner. — It confirms that argument: > because, it says, the divine volition, since it is entirely one act in itself, does not have the character of opposed acts, or of distinguished ones without any distinction of objects; for to will and not to will divinely do not occur except on account of the diversity of objects; otherwise contradictories would be true without any distinction causing that truth: therefore since God wills to ordain the just man to beatitude, to which He likewise does not ordain the sinner, it is necessary that this mutation of the divine volition presuppose some diversity in the object; otherwise God would be related in the same manner toward the sinner as toward the just. <

It is proved thirdly, from the nature of the meritorious act, for which inhering charity is necessarily required: because nothing acts formally by any action unless the principle of that action be formally in the agent: but the will acts by a meritorious act de condigno: therefore it has in itself the form whereby it is the principle of that action: yet that form is neither faith nor hope, because otherwise a sinner having faith and hope could merit de condigno, which is absurd; moreover no action is in the power of the agent unless the agent have the form according to which it can act: for if it acted through something merely extrinsically co-assisting to it, over which it had no power, such an action would not be within its power: but the meritorious act ought to be within the power of the one meriting, inasmuch as it must be voluntary: therefore it is necessary that the agent meritoriously have in itself the form and principle of the meritorious act, whereby it can freely exercise such an act; and consequently the principle of such a meritorious act cannot be the Holy Spirit Himself assisting and concurring particularly with the will in the meritorious act: since that divine Spirit would not be in the free disposition of the will. Finally, the Holy Spirit does not move the will specially to a meritorious act except by producing something in it: but what He would produce in it would be either that meritorious act itself, and thus the will would not concur in producing it, but only in receiving it passively; or something else distinct from the act, and accordingly it would be charity, or grace, for nothing else can be devised.

This truth likewise our Alexian Doctor proves by this argument: > sanctity and uncreated grace, which is God, makes us pleasing to God, either through itself, or through something distinct from itself. Not through itself, because it is in the sinner just as in the just, by essence, presence, and power: therefore it is necessary that it make the soul pleasing to God by a grace distinct from itself. Moreover, when we become pleasing to God, whereas on account of sin we were unpleasing, either we receive something new, or we do not. If not: then it is the same in us to be pleasing or unpleasing to God. If so: then in justification we must receive something created. <

Finally, God is related to the soul in justifying it, as the soul to the body in animating it; for God is the life of the soul, as the soul is the life of the body: but the soul does not vivify the body except by imparting life: for if the soul held life in itself in such wise that it did not infuse some disposition into the body, the body would never live: therefore, just as there is some disposition and principle of life in the living body, so likewise there must be some vital disposition implanted in the soul itself by God, in order that it may be said to live the spiritual life.

You will object 1. That text of 1 John, chapter 4: God is charity, and he who abides in charity abides in God, and God in him. Whence St. Augustine, On the Trinity, chapter 1, infers that he who loves his neighbor, it follows that he loves chiefly that very love itself, namely God, who is love and charity. — The Doctor answers n. 13.: that St. Augustine speaks of efficient, not formal, love, in such wise that God is indeed called love, insofar as He produces in us supernatural dilection and love: but not that He Himself is formally our love: and thus the argument of St. Augustine rightly runs, that he who loves his neighbor ought also to love God, who is the author of that love, because he who in due order loves the lesser gift ought more to love another greater good, especially when in the lesser there is no reason of lovableness except from the greater good.

You will object 2. No good (according to St. Augustine, lib. 15. De Trinitate, chapter 18) is more excellent than the gift of God (namely charity): but no gift of God is more excellent than the Holy Spirit: therefore the Holy Spirit is charity; and consequently the grace whereby we are sanctified. — The Doctor answers by denying the ultimate consequence: for the Holy Spirit can indeed be called charity, not only effectively, as God is called my hope, or my patience, because He effects patience and hope in me, which He has not formally in Himself; but He is also called charity formally; because since charity is a perfection simply simple, it belongs to Him formally. Yet it does not follow from this that He is formally the charity and grace whereby we are justified; just as He is not formally the life whereby we live, although from elsewhere He has life formally in Himself, and produces it in us.

You will object 3. Every creature can be understood not to be good: but charity cannot be understood not to be good: therefore it is not something created. — The Doctor denies the minor; for in the sense in which any creature whatsoever can be understood not to be good, namely insofar as it is defectible and corruptible, charity also can be said not to be good, seeing that it can be diminished, and by mortal sin extinguished altogether.

You will object 4. It belongs to a more perfect virtue to produce an effect without a medium than with a medium: but the divine sanctifying virtue is most perfect: therefore it effects sanctification without any medium. — I distinguish the major: that it belongs to a more perfect virtue on the part of the agent, I concede: on the part of the recipient, I deny. An agent is indeed considered nobler while it produces its effect by its own proper and sole virtue; but otherwise is it with a cooperator and one receiving the act, since it is nobler to cooperate in the production of an act than merely to receive it passively as produced by another.

Finally you will object: Everything that acts upon another is nobler than that upon which it acts; for the agent has a certain dominion over the patient, and subjects it to its own virtue and activity: therefore since grace acts upon the created spirit, it ought to be nobler than the created spirit: but nothing is nobler than the created spirit except the uncreated Spirit: therefore sanctifying grace is something uncreated. — Our Alexander of Hales answers, in the place praised above, that grace is nobler than the created spirit, not indeed simply, but in a certain respect: > For, he says, inasmuch as grace is compared to the soul as an agent acting upon it, it is nobler; but insofar as it is compared to the soul as a disposition of the soul itself, thus it is ignobler; and it has the character of the ignobler, because a disposition is not nobler than the substance which it disposes, since it redounds into that substance; but insofar as it is moving, it is nobler. An example appears clearly in light; insofar as that light is in the air from the Sun itself, that light is a disposition of the air: but ex hypothesi, if the air were to see the Sun, then that light would be compared to the air under the character of a mover, or of one altering, because light alters the sight: but that character of altering would not hold from the side of the air in which it would be, but from the side of the Sun from which it would come. <

You ask. Did the Master of the Sentences really teach that sanctifying grace is not something created? — The Doctor answers, n. 30.: that this was not his opinion, since in dist. 37. he plainly teaches charity to be something created, inasmuch as it is in a child, whom God inhabits, and who yet can have no elicited act concerning God. Likewise in Book 2, dist. 26. he admits grace created in the soul. Hence he seems to want nothing else in the place praised above than that charity is attributed to the Holy Spirit by a special reason; to whom the other infused habits are not attributed, because through the habit of charity the Holy Spirit inhabits the soul of the just man, and at the same time through it flows into the act of love; which indeed he does not perform through the other habits of faith and hope; since through that habit whereby he inhabits the soul of the just man he does not flow into the acts of faith and hope and of the remaining virtues, but through distinct habits mediating.

Conclusion second. — HABITUAL GRACE IS A SUPERNATURAL GIFT CONTINUALLY AND PERMANENTLY PERSEVERING IN MAN.

It is proved: first indeed from the Council of Vienne, the Clementine De summo Trinitate et fide Catholica, in these words: > Attentive to the universal efficacy of the death of Christ, which is applied equally through baptism to all the baptized, we have deemed, with the approval of the sacred Council, that the second opinion should be chosen as more probable, which says that in baptism informing grace and virtues are conferred upon little ones as well as adults, as more consonant and harmonious with the sayings of the Saints and of the modern Doctors of Theology. < Item from the Council of Trent, Session 6. chapter 7.: > Receiving true and Christian justice, they are bidden, immediately reborn, to preserve it, the first stole granted them through Christ Jesus in place of that which Adam lost by his disobedience for himself and for us, white and immaculate, that they may bear it before the tribunal of Jesus Christ our Lord, and have life eternal. < Whence I dispute thus: the grace which infants receive in baptism, and which they ought to preserve and bear before the tribunal of Christ that they may have life eternal, is intrinsic and permanent: therefore, etc.

It is proved secondly by the authority of the holy Fathers. First indeed of St. Dionysius, book De Ecclesiastica Hierarchia chapter 2., where he says that by divine generation a divine state is wrought in us: but a state is something persevering and subsistent. Of St. Irenaeus, book 5. Adversus haereses, chapter 6., where he says that those are perfect who have the persevering Spirit of God. Of St. Cyprian, Epistle 2. ad Donatum, where he calls the grace conferred in baptism a second soul infused into us from heaven. — To these concurs St. Basil, book De Spiritu Sancto, chapter 26., where he compares sanctifying grace to the power of seeing existing in the eye, and to the habitual art existing in the craftsman: > Just as, he says, the power of discerning is in a sound eye, in a purged soul, etc. and just as art is in him who has acquired it: so the grace of the Holy Spirit is in him who has received it: always indeed present, though not perpetually operating. < — To these subscribe all those holy Fathers who teach that by sanctifying grace the divine image and beauty is sketched and delineated in us. Thus St. Ambrose, book 6. Hexaemeron, c. 8., after having said that justification takes place not in the body, but in the soul, which bears the image of the sanctity of God, says: > You are painted, then, O man, and painted by the Lord your God: you have a good craftsman and painter; do not erase the good picture, for it is fair, shining with truth; expressed not in wax, but in grace. < To him agrees St. Augustine in many places, especially Epist. 105. ad Consentium, not far from the end, saying: > What else is justice when it is in us, or any virtue whatever by which one lives rightly and wisely, than the beauty of the interior man? But beauty is something permanent, and likewise grace. < — That same heavenly image and divine beauty marvellously delineated in us through sanctifying grace St. Chrysostom thus elegantly commends, Homil. 1. on the Epistle to the Ephesians, where expounding those words: He has graced us in his beloved Son, he says: > He has made us gracious, that is, he has not only freed us from sins, but makes us beloved and friends: for just as if someone were to light upon one scabrous with pestilence, disease, old age, childhood alike and famine, and restore him a youth exceedingly beautiful, surpassing in every youthful vigour, emitting vehement splendour from his cheeks, and dimming with his reflections even the flashings of his eyes; whom then he establishes in the very flower of age, and besides clothes and adorns with purple and every kind of ornament: not otherwise did God make our soul beautiful, and wrought, desirable, and delightful: the Angels desire to behold it, and God himself, according to that saying: The King hath desired thy beauty. < In which words he manifestly signifies that man is established just through intrinsic and permanent forms, by which he is renewed and adorned, and his soul is marvellously illumined, and made pleasing and lovable alike to God and to the Angels.

The Thomists are wont to prove this Conclusion with the Angelic Doctor by this twofold argument. First: it is not fitting that God provide less for those whom he ordains and directs to possess supernatural good, than for creatures which he loves and ordains to natural good: but for natural creatures he so provides that he not only moves them to natural acts, but even bestows upon them certain forms and virtues which are principles of acts, that through those forms they may be inclined to the production of such acts: therefore much more does he infuse into those whom he moves and ordains to attain eternal supernatural good certain supernatural forms or qualities, through which they may be moved by him sweetly and promptly to the attainment of eternal good. — Secondly: for man to be in the grace of God is for him to be loved by God, as even the heretics confess: but for man to be loved by God imports something intrinsic to him and permanent in him, by reason of which he becomes grateful and acceptable to God: therefore truly there must be admitted some gift permanently persevering in the just man, so long as he is just, through which he becomes grateful to God. The minor is proved; for since love is an affection by which one tends toward some object on account of its goodness, in this divine and human love agree, that each regards the goodness of the object; but they differ in this, that human love, since it is sterile and lowest, nor is effective but only affective, supposes in the object a goodness by which it is attracted and drawn; but the love of God, since it is most fruitful and most powerful, nor only affective but also effective, causes goodness in the object which it loves: therefore as God by loving creatures in the natural order bestows upon them natural perfections, whereby they are a congruous object of such love, so by loving an intellectual creature in order to the supernatural end, he confers upon it supernatural goodness and perfection, by reason of which he loves it: but that special goodness can emanate from nowhere else than from sanctifying grace: therefore since the just are loved by God with special love, there must necessarily be admitted in them some intrinsic gift, which may be the reason of that love.

Truly both these arguments seem weak: The first indeed, because God would sufficiently provide for just men in order to elicit supernatural acts by the actual help alone, which he would afford them on certain occasions. The second likewise fails: both because, as we shall say below, God can forgive sin, and constitute man friend out of enemy, without any conferring of an intrinsic gift; and hence to reconcile divine love to him it is not necessary that God confer anything intrinsic upon the creature itself: and because the hatred of God posits nothing in the man whom he hates, but suffices only unto this, that man have sin and live wickedly; and that God be so affected toward him as to will to punish him with eternal pain, nor is any intrinsic form required: therefore in order that God specially love the just man, nothing further is required than that man live well, and that God will to confer eternal life upon him: hence from the fact that God pursues the just man with special love it is not absolutely necessary that he confer upon him some intrinsic form and goodness.

Therefore it must be concluded with the Subtle Doctor in 1. dist. 17. question 3. number 21.: that by no argument can it be efficaciously proved that there is given in us a supernatural habit continually persevering: > For that, he says, cannot be gathered from the act which we experience, nor from the substance of the act, nor from the intensio ne of the act, nor from the delectation or facility in operating, nor from the moral goodness or rectitude of the act, can we conclude that such a supernatural habit inheres, because with any one of these given, someone possessing charity could know certitudinally that he is in charity: namely from this, that he would experience that act to inhere in himself, or that an act so intense inhered in him, or inhered so delectably or easily, or was consonant with right reason. — But the reason why such a habit cannot be concluded from the act, or from some condition of the act itself: is because either the act can have all the things premised from the sole potency, right reason concurring: or if some habit concurred on account of some condition of the premises, this could be some acquired habit; for acquired friendship could give such intension to the act, as a second cause together with the potency; it could also grant such facility and delectation; the habit could also be so consonant with right reason that the elicited act would have no evidently apparent condition, from which it would necessarily be concluded that it is elicited according to a supernatural habit. — But if you say: the will suddenly changes, so that it operates intensely and easily and delectably, and in this manner consonant with supernatural reason, that is, to the dictate of faith: and it cannot so suddenly acquire the habit of ordered friendship consonant with faith: therefore it has some non-acquired habit whereby it is inclined to act suddenly. I answer: The will can move quite suddenly as regards natural acts, which are wholly subject to its power, because as Augustine says, 1. Retractationum, cap. 22., Nothing is so in the power of the will as the will itself: therefore from such suddenness the opposite cannot be conceded. <

Thence the Doctor infers, that if some argument prove desired in us some supernatural habit whereby we are formally made just, it must be sought chiefly from this, that God accept some acts unto glory as merits condign of a reward: > For in this manner, he says, we believe our nature beatifiable to be habitually accepted as just, that is, when it is not actually operating: because the divine will ordains it to eternal life, as worthy of so great a good > according to the disposition which it has habitually in itself, on account of this

habitual acceptance of the beatifiable nature, even when it does not operate; and on account of the actual acceptance of the act elicited from such a nature, there must be posited one supernatural habit, whereby the possessor is formally accepted by God, and whereby the act elicited by him is accepted as meritorious. »

But if you ask: how does that habit dignify the nature, and likewise the acts elicited through the mediation of that act? — The Doctor answers n. 23. that it dignifies the nature, inasmuch as it is a certain perfect form rendering it pleasing to God.

« For the reason, he says, of accepting the nature seems to be like a certain comeliness of the nature pleasing to the divine will, so that whether that habit be active or not active, from this alone that it is such a form decorating and adorning the soul, it can be a reason of accepting the nature; but for the acceptance of acts more is required, than that the agent have this spiritual comeliness; otherwise one having such a habit could not have any indifferent act, nor sin venially, because neither of these removes the comeliness of the operator; and thus either would be accepted, if the act were accepted from the sole comeliness of the operator. Therefore it is necessary to say that this habit, besides being a spiritual comeliness, is also inclining to determinate acts, that is, it concurs in a special manner effectively, namely by eliciting those very acts physically together with the potency, and morally instilling into them its comeliness. »

Thus the Doctor; and since these things contain an excellent doctrine, and are in themselves clear, therefore it was permitted to transcribe them more fully.

You will say. 1.: Man can be justified without habitual grace, doubtless through actual supernatural love of God: therefore habitual grace is not required. —

I distinguish the consequent: that habitual grace is not required simply, and absolutely, for justification, I concede: in a certain respect, and unto a better state, I deny. For although someone can be justified by actual grace alone, nevertheless to actual grace there is added justifying habitual grace, not from absolute necessity, but for the greater adornment of the soul, and that he may exercise all works of justice more connaturally.

You ask. Whether it is of faith that that grace whereby we are justified is something habitual and permanent?

I answer, that although it would be most rash to deny that the grace whereby adults are justified is habitual and permanent; nevertheless it does not seem plainly to be of faith as determined by the Church; which indeed I demonstrate thus: if the definition of this truth had been made as of faith, it would be gathered, chiefly either from Innocent III., chapter Maiores De Baptismo; or from Clement V. in the Council of Vienne in the place cited above; or from the Council of Trent in the words also praised above: but from neither chapter can it be gathered. — Not indeed from Innocent III., for he says that question to be controverted among Theologians, for his are these words:

But that which the objectors adduce, that faith, or charity, or other virtues are not infused into little ones, as not consenting, is not granted absolutely by most, since on account of this a question is disputed among Doctors of Theology, some asserting that through the virtue of Baptism guilt indeed is remitted to little ones, but grace not conferred; some saying that sin is forgiven and virtues infused, they having > having them as regards habit, not as regards use, until they attain adult age.

From which words it is evident that the question proceeds only concerning children, but not concerning all men simply. Which is also evident from the very reason touched there: for some judged that habits are not infused into children in Baptism because they saw them wholly unfit for acts of virtue; which, besides others who have held this opinion, the Angelic Doctor notes, Book 3, question 69. article 6., which passage is cited in the margin of the chapter cited above, Maiores. But who does not see that this reason has no place in adults, since they are able to exercise acts of virtue? — Nor yet from Clement V., because there he only says that the opinion of those who say that in Baptism informing grace is conferred upon little ones as well as adults should be chosen as more probable as consonant with the sayings of the Saints and modern Doctors of Theology, but does not decide absolutely as of faith. Nor from the Council of Trent, because it indeed defines that charity is poured forth in the hearts of those who are justified and inheres in them: but whether it inheres after the manner of an act, or after the manner of a habit or permanent quality, it does not define.

You will say. 1: The Roman Catechism published at the command of St. Pius V., conformably to the doctrine of the Council of Trent, p. 2. c. 2. De Baptismo, n. 50., where the second effect of Baptism is treated, says thus: But grace, as the Tridentine Synodus ⟦taught?, laying down? that all must believe?, decrees? under pain of anathema?⟧, is not only that whereby remission of sins takes place, but a diverse quality inhering in the soul, like a certain splendour and light, which blots out all the stains of our souls, and renders those souls more beautiful and more splendid. And the Fathers of the Council conclude this plainly from the sacred Scriptures, when they say grace is poured forth, and are wont to call it that of the Holy Spirit: therefore it is of faith that sanctifying grace is a certain quality. —

I answer first, that the Council of Trent did not use the name of quality, although it expressed the thing somewhat. I answer secondly, even if the Council had used the name of quality, still some doubt ⟦would arise?⟧, whether quality ought to be taken strictly for a distinct predicament apart from the rest, or broadly for every accident which is predicated in the accidental category of quality.

You will say. 2: The Council of Trent distinguishes the grace of justification from the acts by which man is disposed to justification: for in Session 6. cap. 10. it says thus: This disposition justification itself follows: therefore sanctifying grace is something besides the acts, and on that account permanent. —

I deny the consequence; because those acts by which we are disposed to justification can be followed by another act more perfect whereby we are justified.