De natura et gratia libri III, cum Apologia contra Catharinum

That which belongs to our works through the grace of God is that through them we satisfy for sins. Not indeed for the fault, before they are remitted, but for the debts of punishment which, the fault being remitted, remain, as is had in the confession of the holy Synod of Trent, chapter 14.¹ But this disputation has two members. The first concerning that thing which it presupposes, and the other concerning that which it investigates. For we suppose that the whole punishment is not universally forgiven to everyone whose fault is forgiven: but we inquire whether a man can pay what remains of punishment in this age through good works.

We shall not have much discourse here concerning the first, since that pertains more particularly to the treatment of the sacraments. But yet we cannot fail to make some mention, not only for the explanation of the disputation, but also because the holy Synod has pronounced on this. The article² was the fifth of Luther's assertions, by which he rejected that solemn partition of penance into three parts. He adds however that he does not deny contrition and confession, but satisfaction. Hence, as I narrated in book 2, chapter 5, the Roman Church began to bark against [him], namely out of hatred of indulgences. But see how satisfaction is annexed to confession. At first they had only rejected satisfaction, but thence confession was easily stormed by them.³ For confession was instituted by God especially for this, that according to the measure of the offense the mode of stripes should be fixed by the judgment of priests, and so the sick man be cured with oil and wine. But once they swallowed this error, that all sins are most fully pardoned through faith as to fault and punishment, it was thence most consequent for them that the confession of individual sins is not necessary: but only in general to profess the faith. Whence it came about that it was mere ignorance of Luther, nay rather a most pernicious daring,⁴ to deny satisfaction for the reason that this word is not expressed in sacred Scripture. For he brings no argument except that we cannot show where the name 'satisfy' is in Scripture, or that for a mortal sin one ought to satisfy for seven years. For that [word], he says, Whatever you bind on⁵ earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatever you loose shall be loosed. And, Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven, and whose you shall retain, they are retained, pertains, he says, to the remission of fault, not to satisfaction. Otherwise he should have said, Whose satisfactions you shall forgive. But indeed, besides that the Church rightly receives many things from the monuments of the Fathers, the interpreters of sacred Scripture, although they are not formally in it, we nevertheless most evidently gather the reality of satisfaction, both from other places of sacred page, and most clearly from these just mentioned.⁶ For the remission and absolution of sins (which these men do not consider) is referred not only to fault, but also to punishment. For in both ways the sinner is bound: namely, that he is an enemy of God, and besides worthy of punishment. And therefore he is absolved from both through the grace of CHRIST. But because the mercy of God is never without justice, although on the cross he both merited and satisfied sufficiently for all the sins of the whole world, yet he did not wish to apply either the merit or the satisfaction efficaciously to individuals except insofar as each one freely assented and cooperated with his help. For this cause, as he does not receive all to the same degree of friendship when they are converted, so neither was it congruous to his justice that, the fault and eternal punishment being remitted, temporal punishment be remitted to everyone except according to the proportion of the effort by which each one converted himself. But concerning baptism, in which we are buried with CHRIST and reborn into a new life, the reason is different: as we shall explain a little later. And since neither is that act equal in all, nor are crimes equal, he most providentially committed this to the judgment of the Church and of her ministers. And this is the legitimate sense of those words: Whatever you shall bind, and whatever you shall loose. And, Whose sins you shall forgive and retain.⁷ Namely, I appoint you judges, by whose judgment, with the key not erring, I will stand: so that whatever, and in whatever way, you shall forgive or retain, is forgiven and retained. That is, what punishment you shall judge, with the key not erring, is either to be remitted or retained, or imposed on the penitent, will likewise be remitted and retained before my tribunal. From which one passage the Fathers therefore elicited both parts of penance: namely confession and satisfaction. For since the matter is plain in the Gospel, there is no injury if it is signified by a most congruous name. Nor is the name new, as Luther would have thought if he had examined antiquity. For Leo the First, to whom in the Council of Chalcedon by six hundred and thirty fathers, as Theodore of Forlì reports, 'thrice holy' was acclaimed, says: The Mediator of God and men, the man CHRIST JESUS, handed this power to the prelates of the Church, that they might give to those confessing the action of penance, and admit those purged by salutary satisfaction to the communion of the sacraments through the door of reconciliation. And below: Every Christian ought to have the judgment of his own conscience, lest he delay from day to day to be converted to the Lord, lest he appoint for himself a time of satisfaction at the end of his life. Nor did the naming of satisfaction escape the most ancient Tertullian, already then most received by the Church. For satisfaction, he says, is arranged by confession: by confession penance is born: by penance God is appeased. And below,⁸ after commemorating many works of satisfaction, he adds that they are necessary, so that penance itself, pronouncing against the sinner, may function for the indignation of God, and by temporal affliction may not I say frustrate but expunge eternal punishments. Thus he in the book On Penance. And Jerome,⁹ as is reported in On Penance, dist. 1, says: The canons therefore do not prescribe the measure of time in doing penance sufficiently openly for each crime, so as to say of individual [sins] how each one is to be corrected, but they rather decide that it is to be left to the judgment of the understanding priest: because with God the measure of time does not avail so much as that of sorrow: nor abstinence from foods so much as the mortification of vices. For which reason they command that the times of penance be shortened by the faith and conversation of the penitents, and think they should be prolonged by negligence. Hear, Luther, how according to Jerome and Leo, most ancient and most wise, and according to Tertullian, in these words, Whatever you shall bind, and whose sins you shall forgive, the judicial power was handed to the ministers of the Church for remitting and retaining satisfaction. Which Chrysostom¹⁰ treats still more copiously, both elsewhere most diffusely and frequently, and in book 3 On the Priesthood, chapter 5. To whom? We pass over the testimonies of the other Fathers, which are without number: because this is not the place to recite them. For it is a miracle, and an unbearable portent.¹¹ That on account of the sin of Adam, which we contract by another's will, they wish the concupiscence of the flesh to be so much sin in us that it can be compensated in this life by no satisfaction, not even of CHRIST himself, but always remains sin, against which we must fight with our own works, and yet for actual transgressions, crimes and wicked deeds, which we ourselves have committed by our own will, they contend that the satisfaction of CHRIST is so applied to us by one act of faith that no guilt of punishment remains, which we might pay by our own expiations with the help of God. Whereas it is written in Deuteronomy¹² that the mode of stripes shall be according to the measure of the offense. And in the Apocalypse:¹³ As much as she glorified herself and was in delights, so much give her torment and mourning. And Paul¹⁴ exhorts the Romans, already justified, that as they exhibited their members to serve uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity, so they should exhibit their members to serve justice unto sanctification. Explaining this most openly, that the angel of God John, sent before the face¹⁵ of CHRIST, preached in the desert, crying out that men should do not only penance, but fruits of penance. But let us hear the trick of Luther¹⁶ and his men, mocking this testimony. They say, as we were just saying, that John's admonition is that through the fruits of penance we should procure the lessening of the concupiscence of the flesh, which is original sin. But did John rebuke the brood of vipers with such great bitterness and harshness concerning original sin alone? Is it not shameless pertinacity to contradict all the Fathers who have written on this passage from the Church's beginnings? For thus Chrysostom's exposition there has it:¹⁷ Do, he says, fruits worthy of penance. But in what way shall we be able to bear fruit, unless we do things contrary to our sins? You have stolen another's goods, begin now to give your own: you have fornicated for a long time, now suspend even the lawful use of marriage. And so he proceeds, opposing to each actual sin its fruit of penance. Likewise Augustine there:¹⁸ There are, he says, worthy fruits of virtues, fruits which do not suffice for penance. For penance demands graver ones. And Homily 1 On Penance, unless these men were stone and lead, leaves no room for doubt. For he distinguishes three actions of penance: the first before baptism: the second for lighter sins, and the third which, he says, must be undergone for those sins which the Decalogue of the law contains: where he says that each one ought to exercise greater severity against himself, so that, judged by himself (as the Apostle says), he may not be judged by God. But what, I ask, is signified by the name of judgment, except satisfaction and recompense, by which we avenge our sins with just retaliation? Gregory, Cyprian and all teach the same. Nor is the reason by which the theologians elucidate this matter to be despised.¹⁹ Indeed, since in sin there is to be considered both the aversion from God and the conversion to the object of sin: the second corresponds to the punishment of sense: and by reason of the first that punishment is made eternal. And for that reason, the fault being remitted through conversion (according to that of the Psalm:²⁰ I said, I will confess, and you forgave), there remains temporal punishment, of which there is a testimony concerning David, who as soon as he said, I have sinned against the Lord, heard from Nathan: The Lord also has taken away your sin.²¹ Nevertheless the son who is born to you shall die. Therefore, the fault being remitted, some temporal punishment remains to be paid. But concerning this first point enough, so that we may give the reason for the confession of the holy Council of Trent, chapter 14,²² where it is held that not always the whole temporal punishment, as in baptism, is afterwards remitted to those who, ungrateful for baptismal grace, have grieved the Holy Spirit and have not feared to violate the temple of God. With this truth therefore established,²³ the question is whether in this life a man can satisfy God for those debts of punishment, both of mortal sins remitted and of venial sins. The affirmative answer is that about which the Church was never in doubt. But here first of all²⁴ a distinction must be made concerning satisfaction.²⁵ For one is perfect and the other imperfect. For since satisfaction designates an act of justice, in its own genus it is distinguished from grace, so that the more grace there is in the work, the less is the nature of satisfaction.²⁶ Wherefore perfect satisfaction is that whose value and price all emanate from the debtor, with no grace of the creditor either preceding or intervening. So that it is the payment of an equivalent, otherwise of an undue [debt] voluntarily. For he who is hanged for a crime rather suffers enough, as also he who is in purgatory. Whence it follows²⁷ that for sins committed against God CHRIST alone, because he was God, could perfectly satisfy; but no creature, except imperfectly, that is, with his grace presupposed. Of which there is a twofold cause: as St. Thomas is the author, 3rd part, q. 1. The first, because the whole of nature was infected with sin and hostile to God. The second, because sin, in that respect in which it is against God, has a certain infinity, which a creature, even if it were in mere nature, could by no means compensate and equal. The reasons are Anselm's²⁸ in books 1 and 2 of Why God Became Man: to which he adds a third, that a creature owes to God whatever it has. I know that Durandus,²⁹ 3 Sentences, d. 20, and in 4, d. 15, does not concede even to CHRIST himself that he could, as man, satisfy to the equality of justice, unless created grace were presupposed, by which according to his humanity he would also be pleasing. For, he says, CHRIST himself also had received from God whatever he had according to his humanity: and therefore he could offer or do nothing of himself for satisfaction which was not otherwise due. And besides, because that saying of Aristotle,³⁰ that we cannot render an equal to gods and parents, is also true in CHRIST himself as man. But arguments of this kind³¹ are those of a man not sufficiently weighing that actions are of supposits, not of natures. For however much CHRIST is considered as man, yet it was not human nature that operated in him, but the Son of God through it. But the Son of God was equal to the Father. For which reason, even if he had received no created grace in his humanity, by reason of the union that man was of himself infinitely pleasing and a friend of God, and whatever he did was of itself sufficient satisfaction to the equality of justice. Nay, whatever work of his was of infinite price before God. Wherefore the reason of Scotus in 4 Sentences, d. 15, q. 1,³² proves nothing by its arguments, that if sin had some infinity, it would follow that not even CHRIST could have satisfied abundantly through his passion: since that work, because it was a created thing, would not be infinite. The argument, I say, is not solid. For although that work was a created thing, nevertheless because it was the work of a divine supposit, it was infinitely pleasing to God, by a contrary reason to that by which sin is infinite. It is answered therefore to Durandus³³ that whatever the God-man CHRIST had received from God was owed to him by reason of the union, and the union itself was a work as much of the Son as of the Father. And for that reason, as if from his own, and (so to speak) otherwise undue, he could satisfy. For although among men a son could not render an equal to his father, the matter is otherwise with the Son of God, who because he is equal to the Father could restore to him as much honour, made obedient unto death of the cross, as Adam had taken away. By which reasoning Paul compares the obedience of CHRIST with the disobedience of Adam. But also against the second member of the distinction, Scotus urges arguments in the same place³⁴ by which he persuades that a pure creature can satisfy by the absolute power of God. For as Augustine is the author, 13 On the Trinity: There was indeed, he says, another mode of our redemption possible to God, namely through the incarnation. But the mode, he says, would have been if God through attrition and merit of congruity had conferred grace on men, so that each one might satisfy for himself. But nevertheless by ordained power it could not be except through CHRIST. But indeed, to speak with honour of a most grave doctor, whose opinion many follow in this part, I cannot but hear with an unjust mind that these men think unworthily of the advent of our Redeemer.³⁵ For they seem to think that that most high and inestimable mystery, that God became man, was bestowed on men as it were gratuitously and without cause, as altogether necessary. For they say that a man could have done as much through the grace of God, but that it was done only on account of the ordained law. I would reprove them thus, if it were permitted me. What was the cause that God ordained by that wonderful law to give his only-begotten to the world, if he could preserve justice by another way? It is not enough therefore to have recourse to the ordained law, unless we bring the reasons and advantages of that law, as Augustine does in the same place. I would dare to say (for I am certain it is evangelical truth) that it could not be done,³⁶ not even by the absolute power of God, that satisfaction should be perfect, unless that man who satisfied were God. For if God made a creature merely gratuitously friendly to himself, which could satisfy, then satisfaction would not be perfect, because it would presuppose grace, as if a debtor received from the creditor whereby he might pay him. This is clear from the very nature of satisfaction. Since therefore between a creature infinitely distant from God and God himself there is no nature of justice except with his gratuitous acceptance presupposed, no creature could perfectly satisfy. But the Son of God, equal to the Father, could do this perfectly of himself. And this is the immense and ineffable benefit³⁷ which we owe to him. Moreover, since the human race could not repay to God to the equality of justice what it owed, he himself, clothed in our nature, so satisfied that we, made his members, could offer his justice before God as if it were ours, according to those unequal degrees by which it is participated by each of us according to each one's assent and cooperation. Whence Augustine³⁸ is falsely cited as having asserted that redemption or perfect satisfaction could be made by another way, or that justice could be reformed in full: but he only affirms that God did not lack another mode by which he might free men from misery. For he could freely pardon sins without any satisfaction, because nothing was owed to anyone except to himself, against whom alone sin was committed, nor did CHRIST satisfy the devil, as some blaspheme, but the Father. And therefore if he himself had wished to forgive us altogether freely, we would be free. But in order that his mercy should detract nothing from his justice, he freely sent his Son, who should satisfy with the highest justice, so that those who were afterwards made his members gratuitously might participate in his own justice. And this, besides other advantages, was the most powerful cause of the divine incarnation.³⁹ Therefore for the explanation of the preceding conclusion, from which we have digressed for a little while, the second is adduced.⁴⁰ No one can satisfy for the punishment of sin before the fault is remitted; nay, more universally I would rightly say, no one who is in sin can satisfy before God for any punishment of sin, although remitted. The first member. There is the common consent⁴¹ of all the holy Fathers and theologians. Which we note only to wash away the calumny with which the Lutherans everywhere vex us: bringing this false charge against us, that we teach that by our works we satisfy God for our sins. For no one ever thought this concerning the natural works of a sinner. Nay, as we deny that works in any way preceding grace are merits of the same grace, so we openly deny that they are satisfactory for sin not yet remitted. Nor did Scotus himself, a supporter of the merit of congruity, attribute to it that it is satisfactory in this way. There is however a disagreement⁴² concerning sin remitted, whether a relapsed person, while acting in sin, can satisfy for the remaining punishment. Scotus⁴³ affirming, because the punishment is temporal, but St. Thomas denying, because between us and God there is no equality of justice except only from divine acceptance: but the sinner does no work worthy of divine acceptance. For the work most satisfactory of all in its own genus is almsdeed: according to the word of the Redeemer, Give alms:⁴⁴ and behold all things are clean to you, and then the maceration of the body: and yet Paul says: If I distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body so that I burn, but do not have charity, I am nothing:⁴⁵ namely, before God: therefore neither are such works satisfactory. Although a sinner could satisfy the precept of the priest enjoining penance. But there is no place for these things now. The third conclusion is⁴⁶ that a man existing in grace can satisfy by condignity for the temporal punishments which remain from sin remitted. By condignity, I say, not perfectly, as CHRIST. For two reasons. First, because our satisfaction presupposes the grace of CHRIST, to whose body we are gratuitously grafted. And besides because we do not render an equal as he does, but only according to the proportion which justice can be between us and God. Namely, because as what he bestows on us is related to his power and goodness, so also what we render is related to our possibility. Nevertheless, being now members, our satisfaction is condign, as the works of sons of God. To which that voice is consonant: Fruits worthy of penance. The first reason⁴⁷ immediately emerges from those things which have been explained above. For we reported three impediments why man could not satisfy God: namely, because he is his enemy: because sin has a certain infinity, and because whatever he has is otherwise owed to God: but men reborn in CHRIST through grace are named and are friends, nay even sons of God. And therefore by the same pact by which sin is infinite, we can also render infinite obedience to God. For sin is not otherwise infinite,⁴⁸ than that it is an aversion from the infinite good, by which reason that aversion takes on a certain image of infinite distance: therefore conversion also bears the same figure of infinity: and therefore a work proceeding from the grace of God can be a recompense for the injury whose fault has been freely pardoned. But although we have received from God all good things, nay ourselves, yet God (whose yoke is sweet and burden light)⁴⁹ has not obliged us to all that which we can do with all our strength, as we said in chapter 2: and therefore we can make many fruits worthy of penance, which were not necessary for the innocent, as all the interpreters of the divine [word] have acknowledged in that evangelical word. Nor does St. Thomas add only this reason,⁵⁰ but another in 4 Sentences, d. 15. Namely that even through those works which are otherwise due, I can satisfy, because by free will we are lords of our actions: for which reason God accepts our very obedience for satisfaction, as a work of justice. Nay, even in this way we satisfy not only for sin, but for our frailty, and for benefits received we render obedience to God, surely returning to him what we have received from his hand. The second reason⁵¹ is. Penance by its condition and nature has this, that it is a work through which, with God preceding, sins are remitted and altogether taken away, as to fault and punishment. For this is the legitimate signification of that voice of CHRIST, which was the theme of his preaching: Do penance, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. As if he said: by this the approach to the kingdom of heaven lies open. To which is similar: From the time of John the Baptist,⁵² the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. For it is a most beautiful periphrasis of penance. For since the sinner is an enemy of God, through it, his mind suddenly changed, he seems to storm the kingdom, which bears some likeness to those who by force are received within the walls: therefore he who has lawfully completed all the numbers of penance will be wholly free from the punishment of sin as from the fault. But this penance is made more swiftly or more slowly for the just man according to the measure of sorrow and mortification, as we reported a little before from Jerome. Therefore just as one could at the point of justification, with the mercy of God working, bring such a sense of sins and ardour of penance that every punishment would be entirely blotted out with the fault, as is believed of Magdalene, so what one has then done more sluggishly and remissly he can afterwards compensate by multiplied works of penance, and therefore satisfy for the punishment of sin remitted. The third reason finally is.⁵³ That if the punishments of which man is a debtor are paid in purgatory through satisfaction, much more equitably can they be paid here through free satisfaction, not only because liberty brings very much weight to works in the sight of God, but because the works here are done through the special help of his mercy, while in purgatory they are only inflicted by the rigour of justice. Nor do they freely offer and assume those punishments, but only patiently endure them. And to this point also extends the sense of Paul's admonition, that if we would judge ourselves,⁵⁴ we would certainly not be judged by God. Whence Chrysostom, Homily 41 On Penance: Blessed David, he says, exhibited penance, saying thus: I will wash my bed every night, and my tears shall water my couch.⁵⁵ And a sin committed long ago, after so many generations, he mourned as if it had recently happened. Thus Chrysostom. Nay, Magdalene⁵⁶ after the most full indulgence, as the model (as the Church sings of her) of penance, for thirty years did not cease to lament sins already remitted. And CHRIST would not have said, Give alms,⁵⁷ and behold all things are clean to you, if, the fault being remitted, the cleansing were complete. Whence Origen, Homily 8 on Leviticus,⁵⁸ in those washings of the old law and purifications repeated seven times, meditates on our expiations: which it is necessary for us to repeat, on account of the scar which remains from the wound. But the word of Daniel, Redeem your sins with alms,⁵⁹ what does it signify, if it does not signify satisfaction for sins? For what else is to redeem than satisfaction? Therefore it is not repugnant to what another prophet had said of CHRIST the Redeemer: You shall be redeemed without money:⁶⁰ that is, freely, since without our merits he both suffered for us and pardons us our faults. But because through his grace our subsequent works receive value, by which we can expiate the same sins, we are reckoned also to redeem them. Whence Ambrose in a certain Sunday sermon on Abraham, which is reported in On Penance, d. 1:⁶¹ We have, he says, many aids by which we redeem our sins. You were sold for your sins, redeem yourself by your works. Wherefore the Church most deservedly sings in Lent that the days of penance have come for us to redeem our sins and save souls. For if by the single act of faith the satisfaction of CHRIST were always efficaciously applied to us as to fault and every punishment, never would he have admonished us through Joel⁶² that we should be converted to him with our whole heart, in fasting and weeping and mourning, rending our hearts. Behold the reasons and commendations by which, relying on the confession of the holy Synod of Trent cited above, it holds satisfaction most holy through fastings, almsdeeds, prayers and other pious exercises of the spiritual life, not indeed for eternal punishment, which either by the sacrament or by the desire of the sacrament is remitted together with the fault, but for temporal punishment, which, as the sacred Scriptures teach, is not always entirely remitted as in baptism, to those who afterwards repent.⁶³ Concerning which penance it is written: Remember whence you have fallen, and do penance.⁶⁴ And again: The sorrow which is according to God works penance unto stable salvation.⁶⁵ And again: Make fruits worthy of penance.⁶⁶ But the punishments remaining after this age it explains in canon 30 are to be paid in the future age in purgatory. Which place of purgatory, those who have not believed in this age, we can make certain that they will not see it in the future: provided only that there is another place, namely that of the damned. Let the Lutherans therefore beware,⁶⁷ who deny that we satisfy for sins through the fruits of penance, lest they restrain the tears of the penitent, and extinguish the maceration and affliction of the flesh which was always most holy to the Fathers for this use. And therefore let them be counted in the number of those whom Cyprian in sermon 5 On the Lapsed marked with this censure.⁶⁸ Do penance full of a grieving and lamenting mind: prove your sorrow: nor let the imprudent error or vain stupor of certain ones move you, who when they are held in so great a crime are struck with blindness of mind, so that they neither understand their sins nor lament them. And below: With no one giving them peace of his own accord, they took it, seduced by a false promise, and joined to apostates and lost men, they took error for truth. The fourth reason finally is⁶⁹ by which we may explain the mind of the orthodox, lest the Lutherans defame us any longer as Pelagians. For they say, as we reported above in chapter 2, that we attribute to CHRIST only the merit of the first grace, but the rest after it we ascribe to our works, namely satisfaction for sins. Which is certainly a notorious calumny. For not only the first grace, but any increase of it relies on the merits of CHRIST, without which our works would be of no estimation. Wherefore we detract nothing from the glory of CHRIST, but rather glorify him who gives us to think, to will and to perfect. But we say only this, that the satisfaction of CHRIST, which by the testimony of John⁷⁰ was sufficient for the sins of the whole world, is applied to us through our works, we say nothing now of baptism. And that indeed by the best right, divine and natural, since we who have indulged ourselves more than is just, fulfilling our own will against the divine at the instigation of the devil, ourselves satisfy the divine justice through the grace of CHRIST. As⁷¹ his members and branches engrafted in the vine, whence power flows into our works. Wherefore our works also have this dignity, and in a certain way justice, beyond what they would have if they proceeded from a grace which had been conferred on us by God in another way, namely that through the merit of CHRIST, which is now communicated to us as his justice, we can bring it before the judgment of God as if it were ours. The fourth conclusion finally is made. Not only for one's own faults, but for those of others can one satisfy, provided only both are friends of God. Satisfy, I say, by condignity, although in this way no one except CHRIST can merit grace for another. The difference is that satisfaction only names payment: but the citizens of the heavenly kingdom can by these mutual offices also bear one another's burdens, so that one pays God what another owes, and much better than in a civil commonwealth, where in time of necessity all things ought to be common. Nor is there reason why God should not accept works which proceed from grace, if they are offered for a friend, as if he had offered them for himself. But outside charity no one is worthy that either his own works, or those which another offers for him, be acceptable to God. But to merit grace for another is not to pay, but to beg from God the good movement of the other, which does not fall under the merit of condignity, as we shall say in the next chapter. In this sense of satisfaction many of the Fathers expound that of Paul: I rejoice in my sufferings for you,⁷² and I fill up those things which are wanting of the sufferings of CHRIST in my flesh for his body, which is the Church. Not that anything was wanting in the passion of CHRIST in itself, which was furthermore most sufficient for the sins of the whole world, but because all labours and offices which the members of CHRIST do are reckoned to the head himself, and overflow to the good of the Church. Whence relaxations⁷³ and indulgences of sins, whose fault has been remitted, have flowed forth in the Church. But this is what these men here mockingly reproach us with: namely that we devise certain works of supererogation for satisfaction for another. As if all things, and much more than we can offer for our own crimes, were not necessary. But we answer. First, that since the punishment, the fault being remitted, is temporal, anyone can through the grace of CHRIST satisfy justly through the grace and help of CHRIST, especially men advanced in sanctity, so that they can also communicate their works with others. And besides, anyone can, even if he owes for himself, pay first the debt of a friend as if it were his own. But the disputation of these things requires another place less narrow. Surely they can construct no argument against [us]⁷⁴ which is not already dissolved. For a specimen of all is this. Paul attributes a far greater force and power to the grace of CHRIST for good than to the sin of Adam for evil. For, he says, not as the transgression, so also is the gift: for if by the transgression of one many died, much more the grace of God and the gift through the grace of one man JESUS CHRIST has abounded unto many.⁷⁵ And he adds: For judgment was from one unto condemnation: but grace from many transgressions unto justification. From this passage it is argued. From the one sin of Adam we all incur not only fault but punishments as great as the human race suffers: therefore whoever is freed from fault through the grace of CHRIST is also most fully freed from the debt of every punishment. Especially since, the cause being taken away, the effect is removed, and fault is the cause of punishment. But we concede to this argumentation only this, which we have often conceded: namely that the passion of CHRIST can universally remit all things: but it does not have that same most full effect, that all punishment be remitted together with the fault, except in two cases.⁷⁶ The first, when it works by itself, and not through the works of our free will. Which happens in baptism, where not even in adults is a disposition required except insofar as the obstacle is removed: that is, complacency in sin, in the manner explained in the previous book. Wherefore since justification is made through the instrument of the passion, there we wholly die to sin and are born into a new life. But in the sacrament and in the power of penance God so remits sin through his grace that he uses our works, and for that reason the remission of fault is attributed to grace operating: that is, changing our mind: but satisfaction to grace cooperating.⁷⁷ And therefore it is made according to the measure of his grace and of our cooperation. Wherefore the second case, that all punishment is forgiven together with the fault, is when we cooperate with the highest act of charity: as in martyrdom, or when by a special privilege God so moves someone, as Magdalene. Otherwise in wicked and lost men it would be reckoned a most ample privilege that there should be one interior act of penance so great that all sins would be expiated and blotted out at once, as to fault and punishment.