Tractatus de Gratia Divina Actuali

I. Assuredly, works of this kind are works of the Holy Spirit moving or even indwelling; they are supernatural works, placed in the same order as the other gifts of grace; from their higher principle, therefore, and from their intrinsic character they have a dignity by which they are equal to the other supernatural gifts for obtaining things unowed to nature. Nor does the gratuitousness of grace suffer any loss from this; for the gratuitousness of grace consists in this, that it be rendered to no merits or impetration of nature; for grace is gratuitous insofar as it is supernatural: but it is supernatural with respect to nature, not with respect to some grace. But if grace is rendered to merits acquired with the help of that same grace, the grace itself which is rendered is utterly gratuitous to nature; because the conferral of the first grace was gratuitous to nature, from which alone the merit of the subsequent graces arose.

II. This is the doctrine that the whole of Tradition attests. For the Scriptures claim for good works (which, as is evident from the same Scriptures, are done with the help of grace) the character both of impetration and of merit with respect to grace. Matth. VII, 7. Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. Paul gives the reason for this matter, ad Romanos VIII, 26: For the Spirit himself asks (i.e., makes us ask) for us with unutterable groanings. But what is to be asked, or what we can obtain by praying, is clear from the Lord's Prayer, by which we beg for salvation and the means of salvation. Daniel, IV, 24. Redeem your sins with alms and your iniquities with mercies to the poor: perhaps he will forgive your offenses. To be sure, as Christ says at Matth. V, 7: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Whence also Tobiae XII, 8: Prayer is good with fasting and almsgiving frees from death, and it is this that purges sins and makes one find mercy and eternal life. Likewise ad Hebraeos XIII, 16: Do not forget beneficence and communion, for by such sacrifices God is won over (χαρίζεται: he takes delight, is appeased). Then Matth. VII, 14: If you forgive men their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you your offenses. And Apocalyp. XXII, 11. 12: He who is just, let him be justified still, and he who is holy, let him be sanctified still; behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to render to each one according to his works. Moreover, in these testimonies there is exhibited a connection of good works with the further gifts of grace, a connection that is indeed causal, insofar as good works, by reason of some excellence that is in them, are the reason why grace is conferred; but this causal connection between good works and the further gifts is a moral connection, i.e., of a certain dignity, or rather it is a connection of merit: therefore. And it must be observed that grace is connected not only with the good works of the just but also with the works of sinners; whence some character of merit is claimed for all good works, although it is different in sinners than in the just: about which difference, however, there is no need to dispute at present.

III. That this is the doctrine of the Scriptures is clear from the Fathers. The Fathers of the Second Council of Orange, c. 8, teach that a reward is owed to good works, if they are done, but that grace, which is not owed, precedes so that they are done." Indeed, the gratuitousness of grace does not require that it be rendered to no merits of any order whatsoever, but demands only this, that the merits by which it is rendered not be from nature, but that they themselves also be from grace.

Augustine most excellently sets forth this economy of graces in epist. 194. ad Sixtum n. O.: «But neither is the remission of sins itself without some merit, if faith obtains it; for the merit of that faith is not nothing, by which faith that man said: God, be merciful to me, a sinner.» He also hands down the same thing at g. 68. inter LXXXIII n. 4: «Assuredly he has mercy on whom (God) wills, and he hardens whom he wills: but this will of God cannot be unjust. For it comes from the most hidden merits; because even the sinners themselves, although on account of the general sin they have made one mass, still there is no small diversity among them. Something, therefore, precedes in sinners, by which, although they are not yet justified, they are made worthy of justification; and the same precedes in other sinners, who are worthy of hardening.» And in the same epistle to Sixtus, speaking of eternal life, n. 19, he says that grace itself is so named for no other reason than because it is given freely, nor for this reason, that it is not given to merits, but because the merits themselves, to which it is given, were also given.» Therefore the gratuitousness of grace is most excellently reconciled with merits acquired with the help of grace.

IV. Hence the Council of Trent, Sess. VI, Can. 32, defined that the works of the justified man are so much the gifts of God that they are also the merits of the justified man himself, and that through them the just man merits the increase of grace, eternal life and, if he dies in grace, the attainment of eternal life itself, and also the increase of glory.» And at Sess. XIV, cap. 4, that contrition was at all times necessary for obtaining the pardon of sins and that it prepares the soul for the remission of sins, and that that imperfect contrition which is called attrition is a gift of God and an impulse of the Holy Spirit moving, by which the penitent, aided, already prepares justice for himself, by which he is disposed to obtain the grace of God in the Sacrament of Penance. And Sess. VI, having enumerated the acts elicited through grace which must precede the justification of the adult, says in cap. 7 that justification itself follows this disposition or preparation, and in cap. 8 teaches that faith is the beginning of human salvation, the foundation and root of all justification. Therefore good works done from grace have both the character of merit toward grace and glory, and they dispose and prepare man for justification and prepare the way to it, and the good act which is faith is the beginning of salvation, the foundation and root of justification, and through contrition the pardon of sins is obtained. Furthermore, the power of impetration, which is attributed not to simple prayer but to an honest act, cannot be separated and really distinct from a meritorious power at least of congruity: for it is the power of obtaining some reward on account of the dignity of the work, which is merit, and those dispositions which prepare the soul for justice are positive dispositions, which consist in moral acts and therefore have the character of congruous merit (Th. XXX), and that which is the beginning, foundation and root of justification is contained in the same order with it and has the character of a certain moral cause with respect to it, i.e., the character of some merit, as the Fathers argued against the Massilians, which is certainly congruous merit. Therefore, what the same Council established at Sess. VI, cap. 8 — that man is justified freely and that none of those things which precede justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace of justification itself — must be understood in such a way that 1) justification, taken together with the dispositions that precede it and the helps conferred on account of them, is entirely gratuitous; and 2) justification, taken separately from the preceding acts, for the infusion of sanctifying grace and the remission of sins, is conferred freely, because it is conferred apart from any merit of condignity and therefore is not given out of justice.