Christ. This purely gratuitous justification constitutes the inheritance of the Christian, and his right, as the adopted child of his Heavenly Father: (4) but where is the son who, if ungrateful and disobedient, cannot be disinherited? Justification is our right, but we may lose it by our own fault: eternal salvation is an achievement (un fait), and we are commanded to merit it.

See, then, why it is that in numberless passages of the Old and the New Testament, the eternal bliss of the elect is described, now under the name of an inheritance, and anon under the name of wages (salaire), in order that we might know that our justification is a free gift of grace, acquired by the merits of Jesus Christ; but that our salvation requires for its attainment the income [usure] of our works, and constitutes the superabundant wages granted by the Father of mercies to every worker who is obedient to the voice of his only and well-beloved Son, albeit he may have come in at the eleventh hour of the day.

To exalt the infinite mercy of God, at the expense of his justice, is not to give glory to Him. So our church, without descending to the subtleties of the modern school, has pronounced her final decision on this difficult subject, in the exposition of the articles of faith which we have named above. We cite the very words as they stand: "We believe that man is justified not only by faith, but by faith in so far as it works by love; or in other words, by faith and works. But that faith by itself, performing the office of a hand, takes hold on the righteousness which is in Christ, and applies it for our salvation, this we declare to be irreconcilable with true piety. We believe, on the contrary, that the faith which is in us justifies us before Christ by our works, and we regard the works not simply as evidences, but as real fruits, which vitalize faith, as meritorious in themselves, because of the divine promises which assure us that each one shall receive the reward (prix) of the deeds done in in the body, to wit, of the good or the evil which he has done." (Art. viii.)

Without doubt whoever dies suddenly, and immediately after having first exercised perfect faith, and received the gift of

divine grace, will be saved, without the concurrence of his good works. But does it follow from this, that those who live on after their conversion are freed from obligation to fulfil the commandments? Cornelius, the Centurion, was informed by an angel that his prayers and his alms were come up to God. Abraham, the father of the faithful, to whom faith, according to the word of God, was imputed for righteousness, was nevertheless proved by the command to offer up to God his only son: so inseparable is the work of sacrifice from the inward homage of faith. Accordingly Paul teaches us, that "with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."

The Reformed doctors, addressing upright and humble souls, take advantage of them, extolling the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, as alone efficacious in procuring our salvation. No one disputes that; but the divine commands, sealed by his blood and voluntary passion, are not less efficacious, nor less sacred. "Whoso keepeth my commandments, he it is that loveth me." To love Jesus Christ is to practise good works, and so to attest a living faith in Him; but to blacken and debase good works, as the sectaries do, under the pretext of our impurity, is to disparage the merits and the virtue of the Sacrifice of eternal propitiation. The grace acquired by the Redeemer is not a simple garment of righteousness designed to cover our iniquities before God; it is a cloak impregnated with a healing balsam, which covers, it is true, the ulcer of our sins, but cures while it covers.

To sum up and conclude all that has been said, far from allowing ourselves to be misled by the false semblance of superior piety, we ought to adhere closely to the doctrine of the necessity of true faith and of good works in order to the attainment of eternal salvation: the necessity of faith, because, according to the word of the Author of salvation, without Him we can do nothing; and because no flesh shall be justified before him by the works of the law; finally, because it is still Jesus Christ who works in us both to will and do, of his good pleasure: the necessity of works, because it is written that we have been called of God to good works; and

because we believe, according to his word, that the Lord will disown, in the day of judgment, even those who have had such faith as to work miracles, unless they have kept his commandments; for He it is who will render to every one according to his works.

II. Of the Eucharist.

When we reflect carefully on the teachings, so often repeated, by which our Redeemer inculcated on the unteachable Jews the mystery of the celestial aliment contained in his flesh and His blood, given for the salvation of the world, we cannot fail to perceive a presentiment of the spiritual contests which the doctrine of the Eucharist would occasion in after times. Berengar, Abelard, Zwingle, and Calvin, in marshalling the ranks of their captious subtleties on the Sacrament of the altar, do they not seem to be echoing that seditious clamor of the ancient Jews: "This is a hard saying, who can hear it?" In the mean time the first disciples of our Lord, faithful to his divine commands, and impressed with the truth of his word "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you"-hastened to institute the divine Liturgy, or bloodless sacrifice of the Mass, in order that the Supper of the Lord might continue and be perpetual upon earth, even till his last and glorious coming. Whether we consult the text of the three Liturgies of Basil, Chrysostom, and Gregory the Theologian, or study the works of the Fathers of the church, we find everywhere a firm and unanimous belief in the real presence of the body and blood of the Saviour in the Sacrament. In vain have some sectaries, Calvin among the rest, wished to reduce it to a simple rite of commemoration. "This is my body; this is my blood;"- these words rebuke and confound their want of faith, just as of old, in the Garden of Gethsemane, those two simple words, èɣá eiμ, “I am he,” prostrated at once the satellites of the synagogue, with their arms and lighted torches. Luther himself was never willing to yield, on this point, to the faithless importunity of his own disciples, Carlstadt and Bucer. "This is too clear, too precise," writes the Reformer. But exasperated as he was against the Masses of the West, and the way

in which they were sometimes abused, Luther, in order to smite the priest, smote the Sacrament. He preserved the doctrine of the real presence, making it to depend entirely on the faith of those who communicate, and without admitting the mysterious act of the transubstantiation of the consecrated elements, by virtue of the sacramental words, and of the invocation of the Holy Spirit. Now this theory is false and arbitrary. By an inseparable connection of errors, Luther destroyed at the same blow the Sacrament of Penitence, although in his catechism he still exhorts the faithful to confess occasionally. Vain attempt! No one regards his counsel! For he himself had instructed his disciples that individual faith takes the place of everything. It is this which causes the reality of the sacred mysteries; it is this still, according to his doctrine, which blots out our sins, without the concurrence of any priestly authority instituted by the Holy Spirit. III. The Doctrine of the Authority of the Church, and of the Sacred. Traditions.

Revealed religion is not merely a religious sentiment; neither is it a simple science of divine things. Religion is both these; but it is, moreover, a law, designed to regulate our thoughts and our actions. Hence the necessity of a church, or society of the faithful, obedient to the same precepts, guided by one legitimate authority, and entrusted with the deposit of faith, morals, and the sacred traditions, whether transmitted orally or in writing. In order to nourish in us the religious sentiment, it would have sufficed to propagate an opinion. In order to cultivate the science of divine things, it would only have been necessary to found a school. But in order to establish a supreme law for intelligent beings, there was need of a church; and accordingly Jesus Christ laid the foundations of a church on earth. The word church signifies, etymologically, an assembly called out. In fact every believer is called out from this world, in order to become a member of a kingdom which, though in this world, is not of this world. Jesus foretold to his disciples persecution and martyrdom. But at the same time he commanded them to obey the church ("he that despiseth you despiseth me "); and to have recourse to xxviii.-4.

it in their differences (Matt. xviii: 17). In his sacerdotal prayer, before his passion, he prayed for those who should believe on him, through the word of the apostles and others; he promised his divine presence in the midst of those who should meet together in his name. Paul defines the church in these words:" the pillar and ground of the truth."

Luther, Calvin, and their adherents, knew all this. But it was their interest to break the sceptre of the Papacy, even at the risk of trampling under foot the promises and the express precepts of the Lord. Accordingly they began, not by denying the authority of the church, but by assigning to that authority arbitrary limits of time. The symbolical books of the Reformation extolled this authority, as a rule of faith, from the time of the apostles down to the Fourth Ecumenical Council. Such was their religious eclecticism. Now eclecticism, in a matter of faith, is a synonym of heresy*.

The successors of Luther, following his example, but not imitating his moderation, appealed exclusively to the Bible from every decision of the universal church. And aware that the Bible requires to be interpreted and applied to the needs of man, the sectaries denied to the church this right of authorized interpretation in order to give it up to the individual judgment. From that moment the inundation of false doctrines broke through all barriers. In our days they have gone further; the most celebrated doctors of the Reformed church openly appeal from the Holy Bible to the tribunal of human reason. It is thus that the church, as a divine institution, has ceased to exist in the bosom of Protestantism. to exist there, notwithstanding some forms and semblances of life, because, (1) the right to interpret the Holy Scriptures and maintain pure doctrine is given up to individual judgment; (2) the right of binding and loosing sins is denied to it, and also that of consecrating the elements of bread and wine in the Eucharist; (3) the Episcopate and the priesthood, despoiled of all their prerogatives, have been reduced to a simple office of preaching; (4) the seven sacraments, appointed

* In Greek, aipéw and ikλéyw are synonymous.

It has ceased