XV. 19. sight. "From the heart come evil cogitations, murders, adul- 66 viii. Repent this thy wickedness (saith Peter unto Simon Ma- Acts gus), beseech God, that if it be possible the thought of thine heart may be pardoned; for I see thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity." In like manner Solomon: "The wicked shall be held fast in the cords of his Prov. own sin." Nor doth God only bind sinners hand and foot by the dreadful determination of his own unsearchable judgment against them; but sometimes also the church bindeth by the censures of her discipline. So that when offenders upon their repentance are by the same discipline absolved, the church looseth but her own bonds, the chains wherein she had tied them before. v. 22. Acts vii. 60. Mic. vii. 19. 1 Cor. vi. 11. Tit. iii. The act of sin God alone remitteth, in that his purpose is never to call it to account, or to lay it unto men's charge; the stain he washeth out by the sanctifying grace of his Spirit; and concerning the punishment of sin, as none else hath power 5. to cast body and soul into hell fire, so none have power to deliver either besides him. 5. Luke xii. 28. Matt. x. xi. 1. As for the ministerial sentence of private absolution, it can be no more than a declaration what God hath done; it hath but the force of the prophet Nathan's absolution, "God hath 2 Sam taken away thy sin :" than which construction, especially of words judicial, there is not any thing more vulgar. For example, the publicans are said in the gospel to have justified Luke vii. God; the Jews in Malachi to have blessed proud men, which sin and prosper; not that the one did make God righteous, a Sacerdotes opus justitiæ exercent in peccatores, cum eos justa pœna ligant; opus misericordiæ, cum de ea aliquod relaxant, vel sacramentorum communioni conciliant; alia opera in peccatores exercere nequeunt. Sent. l. iv. dis. 18. 17. Mal. iii. 15. dis. 18. or the other the wicked happy: but to bless, to justify, and to absolve, are as commonly used for words of judgment, or declaration, as of true and real efficacy; yea, even by the Sent. 1. iv. opinion of the Master of Sentences. It may be soundly affirmed and thought that God alone doth remit and retain sins, although he have given power to the church to do both; but he one way, and the church another. He only by himself forgiveth sin, who cleanseth the soul from inward blemish, and looseth the debt of eternal death. So great a privilege he hath not given unto his priests, who notwithstanding are authorized to loose and bind, that is to say, declare who are bound, and who are loosed. For albeit a man be already cleared before God, yet he is not in the church of God so taken, but by the virtue of the priest's sentence; who likewise may be said to bind by imposing satisfaction, and to loose by admitting to the holy communion. Hier. tom. vi. Com ment. in 16. Matt. Saint Jerome also, whom the Master of the Sentences alleged for more countenance of his own opinion, doth no less plainly and directly affirm; "That as the priests of the law could only discern, and neither cause nor remove leprosies; so the ministers of the gospel, when they retain or remit sin, do but in the one judge how long we continue guilty, and in the other declare when we are clear or free." For there is nothing more apparent, than that the discipline of repentance, both public and private, was ordained as an outward means to bring men to the virtue of inward conversion; so that when this by manifest tokens did seem effected, absolution ensuing (which could not make) served only to declare men innocent. But the cause wherefore they are so stiff, and have forsaken their own master in this point is, for that they hold the private discipline of penitency to a sacrament; absolution an external sign in this sacrament; the signs external of all sacraments in the New Testament, to be both causes of that which they signify, and signs of that which they truly cause. To this opinion concerning sacraments, they are now tied by expounding a canon in the Florentine council according to the former ecclesiastical invention received from Thomas. For his deceit it was, that the mercy of God, which useth sacraments as instruments whereby to work, endueth them at the time of their administration with supernatural force and ability to induce grace into the souls of men; even as the 1. iv. Solut. Occam. in axe and saw do seem to bring timber into that fashion which the mind of the artificer intendeth. His conceit, Scotus, Occam, Petrus Alliacensis, with sundry others, do most Scot. Sent. earnestly and strongly impugn, shewing very good reason ad 4.Quæst. wherefore no sacrament of the new law can either by virtue et quintam. which itself hath, or by force supernatural given it, be pro- 1. qu. quant. perly a cause to work grace; but sacraments are therefore Alliac. said to work or confer grace, because the will of Almighty in 4. sent. God is, although not to give them such efficacy, yet himself to be present in the ministry of the working that effect, which proceedeth wholly from him, without any real operation of theirs, such as can enter into men's souls, In which construction, seeing that our books and writings have made it known to the world how we join with them, it seemeth very hard and injurious dealing, that Bellarmine throughout the whole course of his second book De Sacramentis in Genere, should so boldly face down his adversaries, as if their opinion were, that sacraments are naked, empty, and ineffectual signs; wherein there is no other force than only such, as in pictures to stir up the mind, that so by theory and speculation of things represented, faith may grow. Finally, that all the operations which sacraments have, is a sensible and Divine instruction. But had it pleased him not to hoodwink his own knowledge, I nothing doubt but he fully saw how to answer himself; it being a matter very strange and incredible, that one which with so great diligence hath winnowed his adversaries' writings, should be ignorant of their minds. For, even as in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, both God and man, when his human nature is by itself considered, we may not attribute that unto him, which we do and must ascribe as oft as respect is had unto both natures combined; so because in sacraments there are two a Lutherani de hac re interdum ita scribunt, ut videantur a catholicis non dissentire; interdum autem apertissime scribunt contraria: at semper in eadem sententia manent, sacramenta non habere immediate illam efficientiam respectu gratiæ, sed esse nuda signa, tamen mediate aliquid efficere quotenus excitant et alunt fidem, quod ipsum non faciunt nisi repræsentando, ut sacramenta per visum excitent fidem, quemadmodum prædicatio verbi per auditum. Bellarm. de Sacr. in Genere, l. ii. c. 2. Quædam signa sunt theorica, non ad alium finem instituta, quam ad significandum; alia ad significandum et efficiendum, quæ ob id practica dici possunt. Controversia est inter nos et hæreticos, quod illi faciunt sacramenta signa prioris generis. Quare si ostendere poterimus esse signa posterioris generis, obtinuimus causam. cap. 8. Semper memoria repetendum est sacramenta nihil aliud quam instrumentales esse conferendæ nobis gratiæ causas. Calv. in Ant. con. Frid. sec. 7. c. 5. Si qui sint qui negent sacramentis contineri gratiam quam figurant, illos improbamus. Ibid. . can. 6. Quæst. 1. things distinctly to be considered, the outward sign, and the secret concurrence of God's most blessed Spirit, in which respect our Saviour hath taught that water and the Holy Ghost are combined to work the mystery of new birth; sacraments therefore, as signs, have only those effects beforementioned; but of sacraments, in that by God's own will and ordinance they are signs assisted always with the power of the Holy Ghost, we acknowledge whatsoever either the places of the Scripture, or the authority of councils and fathers, or the proofs and arguments of reason which he allegeth, can shew to be wrought by them. The elements and words have power of infallible significations, for which they are called seals of God's truth; the Spirit affixed unto those elements and words, power of operation within the soul, most admirable, Divine, and impossible to be expressed. For so God hath instituted and ordained, that, together with due administration and receipt of sacramental signs, there shall proceed from himself grace effectual to sanctify, to cure, to comfort, and whatsoever else is for the good of the souls of men. Howbeit this opinion Thomas rejecteth, under pretence that it maketh sacramental words and elements to be in themselves no more than signs, whereas they ought to be held as causes of that they signify. He therefore reformeth it with this addition, that the very sensible parts of the sacraments do instrumentally effect and produce, not grace (for the schoolmen both of these times, and long after did, for the most part, maintain it untrue, and some of them impossible, that sanctifying grace should efficiently proceed but from God alone, and that by immediate creation, as the substance of the soul doth), but the phantasy which Thomas had was, that sensible things, through Christ's and the priest's benediction, receive a certain supernatural transitory force, which leaveth behind it a kind of preparative quality or beauty within the a a Iste modius non transcendit rationem signi, cum sacramentum novæ legis non solum significent, sed causent gratiam. part. 3. q. 62. Act. 1. Alexand. part. 4. q. 8. memb. 3. act. 5. sec. 1. et 2. Th. de verit. q. 27. act. 3. Alliac. in quart. sent. 9. 1. Capr. in 4. d. 1. q. 1. Palud. Tom. Ferrar. lib. iv. cont. Gent. c. 57. Necesse est powere aliquam virtutem supernaturalem in sacramentis. Sent. 4. d. 1. q. 1. act. 4. Sacramentum consequitur spiritualem virtutem cum benedictione Christi, et applicatione ministri ad usum sacramenti. part. 3. q. 62. art. 4. Concil. Victus sacramentalis habet esse transiens ex uno in aliud et incompletum. Ibidem. Ex sacramentis duo 'consequuntur in anima, unum est character, sive aliquis ornatus; aliud, est gratia. Respectu primo, sacramenta sunt causæ aliquo modo efficientes; respectu secundo, sunt disponentes. Sacramenta causant dispositionem ad formam ultimam, sed ultimam perfectionem non inducunt. Sent. 4. d. 1. q. 1. art. 4. soul, whereupon immediately from God doth ensue the grace that justifieth. Now they which pretend to follow Thomas, differ from him in two points. For first, they make grace an immediate effect of the outward sign, which he for the dignity and excellency thereof was afraid to do. Secondly, whereas he, to produce but a preparative quality in the soul, did imagine God to create in the instrument a supernatural gift or ability; they confess, that nothing is created, infused, or any way inherent, either in the word or in the elements; nothing that giveth them instrumental efficacy, but God's mere motion or application. Are they able to explain unto us, or themselves to conceive, what they mean when they thus speak? For example, let them teach us, in the sacrament of baptism, what it is for water to be moved till it bring forth grace. The application thereof by the minister is plain to sense; the force which it hath in the mind, as a moral instrument of information, or instruction, we know by reason; and by faith, we understand how God doth assist it with his Spirit: whereupon ensueth the grace which Saint Cyprian did in himself. observe, saying, "After the bath of regeneration having scowered out the stained foulness of former life, supernatural light had entrance into the breast which was purified and cleansed for it: after that a second nativity had made another man, by inward receipt of the Spirit from heaven; things doubtful began in marvellous manner to appear certain, that to be open which lay hid, darkness to shine like a clear light, former hardness to be made facility, impossibility easiness : insomuch as it might be discerned how that was earthly, which before had been carnally bred and lived, given over unto sins; that now God's own which the Holy Ghost did quicken." Our opinion is therefore plain unto every man's understanding. We take it for a very good speech which Bonaventure hath uttered in saying, b" Heed must be taken that while we assign too much to the bodily signs, in way of their commendation, we withdraw not the honour which is due to the cause which worketh in them, and the soul which receiveth them. Whereunto we conformably teach, that the outward sign applied, hath of itself no natural efficacy towards grace a Solus Deus efficit gratiam adeo quod nec angelis, qui sunt nobiliores sensibilibus creaturis, hoc communicetur. Sent. 4. d. 1. q. 1. art. 4. b Cavendum enim ne dum nimis damus corporalibus signis ad laudem, subtrahamus honorem causæ curanti et animæ suscipienti. Eph. ii. |