The True Cross (St. Helena)

THE TRUE CROSS

[From Brownson's Quarterly Review for January, 1860.]

A VERY good friend has sent us this Calvinistic tract, with an urgent request that we should review it, and point out its errors and fallacies.  It is hardly necessary to do that, for there is no error or fallacy of Calvinism that may not be found refuted over and over again in our controversial literature; nevertheless, it may not be wholly useless for us to make the tract the subject of a few comments.  The tract is ably and skilfully written, and is not ill-calculated to mislead the simple and uninstructed.  Its apparent object is to exalt the glory of the cross, and to show that we Catholics, though we make an idol of the cross, look for salvation through some other name than that of Jesus Christ.  It is written mainly in the form of a conversation between a traveller and an old man, and, contrary to good taste and Scripture counsel, the old man is represented as the learner, and the traveller, a spruce young Presbyterian parson, remarkable for his self-conceit, is the teacher.  We give entire the opening chapter:

"On one of the most beautiful peaks of the Jura, not far from St. Laurent, and near a wood of beeches and firs, stands an old cross, at the foot of which several paths meet.

"This perishable monument of a love which never will end, should recall to him who contemplates it, the eternal sacrifice of the Son of God, and draw his thoughts towards the inheritance the Saviour bequeathed his church at this great price.

"But how few hearts understand the language spoken by the cross that sign of the Redemption!  How few Christians, beholding it, turn their affections towards the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world!  How many rather revile, and wag their heads, and confirm their unbelief in the great Sacrifice of the church, when they look upon this suffering-place of the Holy and Just One!

"But how many souls there are also who call upon the name of the Son of God, and who, deceived by prejudice or ignorance, seek in the useless and dead wood of a material cross, that which is alone found in this all-powerful Saviour, who died, it is true, on the accursed tree but who is now with his Father in glory.

"When the children of Israel were destroyed in the desert by the fiery serpents, Moses, by God's command, raised before them a brazen serpent, and whoever looked upon this symbol, was immediately healed.  It was God himself the faith of the Israelite beheld, when he turned his eyes towards the serpent raised on high.  This work of man's hand was far from being, for a believer, what superstition afterwords made it.  In the desert, and in the midst of the afflicted camp, the brazen serpent proclaimed the promise and the mercy of the Lord, but, seven centuries afterwards, it had become an idol.  Israel offered sacrifices to it, and even those who turned from their Maker adored this useless metal, this dead sign of a benefit they had forgotten.  As the deluded Israelites looked upon the brazen serpent, so do an ignorant or unbelieving people look this day upon the cross.  Jesus was sacrificed there, and the promise is made also, that every soul that beholds this victim in faith shall be saved from the death his sins deserve.  The believer looks to Jesus and lays hold upon the promise, but the idolater offers incense to the Cross, and while he bends his knee before this symbol, forgets and repulses the benefactor this monument recalls.

"Such were my thoughts while I rested my weary limbs on the thick turf at the foot of the cross.  I had just ascended the mountain, and before returning to my distant home, I paused to take breath, while my heart dwelt upon this great God and Saviour that the Christian finds every where, on the mountains, among the plains, and in solitude, as in an assembly of his true worshippers.

"'Holy Spirit,' said I in my soul.  'O!  raise my heart towards my Father!  Jesus, my Shepherd, look upon one of thy flock who calls thee, and may thy voice speak to me sweet words of peace and of hope!'  At this moment two countrymen passed, followed by an old man, whose exterior betokened that he belonged to the higher class of society.  The countrymen took off their hats, made the sign of the cross, and passed on.  The old man stopped, kneeled, and bent his head reverently, while his white hair was stirred by the breeze.

"'O Lord!' cried I in my heart, 'take pity on this soul, and if thy true cross is still unknown to him, show him, I beseech thee, thy salvation!'" ——pp. 5-8.

The old man's ignorance of the significance of the cross is concluded or suspected from his stopping, kneeling, and saying a prayer before it.  One would think the fact a very good proof that the old man did understand the significance of the cross, and that because he regarded it as the symbol of man's redemption he knelt and prayed before it.  But these Calvinistic travelling parsons have a way of reasoning of their own.  "But how many souls there are who call upon the name of the Son of God, and who, deceived by prejudice or ignorance, seek, in the useless and dead wood of a material cross, that which is alone found in this all-powerful Saviour, who died, it is true, on the accursed tree, but is now with his Father in glory."  Indeed! and how many are they?  and who are they?  The intention of the Rev. C. Malan is undoubtedly to represent that Catholics confound the material cross with him who suffered on it, and expect salvation from the wood, not from him who was nailed to it.  But even the author of this tract is himself able to distinguish between the wood of the cross and him who was crucified, and we doubt if there is in the whole Calvinistic world a single individual come to the age of reason that could not do the same were the question fairly presented.  How, then, pretend that Catholics cannot or do not?  We are, it is to he presumed, as intelligent and as capable of making the distinction as they are, and their quiet assumption of being able to make distinctions which we cannot, only indicates on their part a very great ignorance, both of themselves and of us.  Why, even the heathen never fell into the gross absurdity of mistaking the material image their own hands had carved, or moulded, for the god it was intended to represent.  They worshipped the image only because they supposed it inhabited by the numen they adored.  How long will men give currency to such absurdities, and how long will Protestants remain unthinking and unreasoning enough to be imposed on by them?  We reverence the cross as the symbol of man's redemption, but we are not such fools as to confound the material cross with him who expiated on it our transgression, and made satisfaction to divine justice for our sins.  The simplest Catholic that ever made the sign of the cross knows that it is not the wood that avails, that it is only the God-man, who died on the cross, that saves.  We reverence the cross from its relation to him, and from its relation to our salvation.  The death of our Lord on the cross has made the cross for ever honorable, and that in which every true Christian does and must glory.  It recalls the passion and death of our Lord; it reminds us of what he suffered for us; at what price we were purchased, and it brings our Saviour fresh before us, pierced in his hands, his feet, his side, for our iniquities; brings to our hearts his deep humility, his obedience, his sacrifice, his great mercy, and his infinite charity,——things which we, who are redeemed by his blood, are none too prompt to remember with all the aids to our recollection we can obtain.

But let us hear our traveller a little further:

"The old man having finished his prayer, raised his venerable head, and leaning his hands on his staff, turned cordially to me, and asked if I was a traveller, and if I came from a distance.

"'I am only taking a ramble among the mountains,' replied I.  'But I am no less a traveller, for we are all journeying towards eternity, and every day brings us nearer our journey's end.'

"The old man looked at me silently, as if to satisfy himself as to what manner of man it was who made this serious answer; then sitting down on the grass by my side, he said with a little reserve: 'Am I wrong to ask you what religion you profess?'

"'The religion of Heaven, 'I answered quietly; 'that which the only Son of God himself brought us, and which he confirmed forever, when he shed his precious blood on a cross like this.'

"The interest of the old man seemed still more excited by this new answer.  I perceived plainly that he was reflecting on what he should say to me, and that many thoughts were passing through his mind.

"'Allow me to ask you, 'said he at last, with some quickness, 'if you are Roman Catholic or—Protestant.'

"'I only know,' I answered respectfully, 'one name under heaven, which has been given men wheroby they can be saved.  This beautiful, great name is that of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and it is by his name alone that I call myself.  I am a Christian.'

"These words embarrassed my questioner a little, and smiling as one who was afraid of acknowledging a mistake, he said: 'I also bear this name, because I also believe that the Lord Jesus Christ has saved me, by dying for me on this cross.  At least,' he added humbly, 'I hope so.'

"'A hope is very little,' I answered gravely, 'when the question is one of life or death.  Uncertainty, and even a doubt in this respect, is a very serious evil; for we know not from one moment to another, whether we have time left to seek or to wait for assurance of it.  And what a terrible answer is that the Bridegroom himself makes to the foolish virgins who have no oil in their lamps, when he says, 'The door is closed, depart from me, for I never knew you!'" ——pp. 8-10.

The old man gives the true answer: "I also bear this name, because I also believe that the Lord Jesus Christ has saved me by dying for me on this cross."  Only he really said has redeemed, instead of has saved me, for redemption is already effected; but salvation is in the world to come, as we may infer from the fact, that only they who persevere unto the end are saved.  "At least," he added, "I hope so."  The writer makes the old man talk nonsense.  "I believe the Lord Jesus Christ has saved me, at least I hope so."  The old man never said that, for we do not hope for that which is already effected, but for that which, with regard to us, is still future.  The old man might have said, and said very truly, "I believe the Lord Jesus Christ has redeemed me, and I hope for salvation through him."  "A hope," adds the traveller, "is very little, when the question is one of life or death.  Uncertainty, and even a doubt in this respect is a very serious evil."  There is no doubt of the fact that Christ has redeemed me, none that he has given me all the means of salvation, if I properly use them, by concurring with the grace given to me and to all men; but that I shall properly use them and finally be saved, is to me only a matter of hope, and can be only hope in this life, since the fruition is not here, and hence the apostle tells us, now in this life "abideth faith, hope, charity." Faith excludes doubt, and a well-grounded hope, though not certainty, excludes anxiety and perturbation.  But what is the mighty evil in our remaining uncertain whether we shall be finally saved or not?  The uncertainty implies no doubt of the truth of Christianity, the mercy of God, or the sufficiency of divine grace; but simply a doubt of ourselves, whether we shall or shall not persevere to the end, and comply with all the requirements of the Gospel.  Self-distrust is more consonant to the Gospel than self-conceit, and the publican who smote upon his breast, saying,  "God be merciful to me a sinner," went down justified rather than the self-complacent Pharisee, who thanked God that he was not as other men, and made a boast of his virtues.  It is an evil and a sin to despair of God's mercy, but it is no less an evil, and no less a sin, to presume on his mercy.  And the answer of the bridegroom will be, perhaps, even more terrible to him who has never allowed himself to doubt his final acceptance, and been all along flattering himself that he was perfectly safe,——"The door is closed; depart from me, for I never knew you."  We are admonished to make our calling and election sure, to work out our salvation with fear and trembling; and St. Paul, though he had been carried in his ecstasy to the third heaven, plainly intimates that it was still possible for him to become a castaway.  It is at least as possible that, as well satisfied as our Calvinistic friends are with themselves, and as magisterial as is the wave of their hand, or the tone with which they say to the humble Catholic, "Stand by, for I am holier than thou," they may find in the end that their confidence of safety is only a sinful self-assurance, only an unpardonable arrogance, or a miserable self-delusion.  After all, tender consciences among Calvinists are very far from being at ease, and though Calvinists may hold, that once in grace always in grace, and that the elect are sure to be saved, it is sometimes more than they can do to persuade themselves that they are of the number of the elect, or that they really have once been in grace; and the number of timid souls, we would say, modest souls, who  among  Calvinists are driven to despair, and even to insanity by the fearful doubt of their acceptance is by no means small, and what is more deplorable still, these are decidedly among the most exemplary and least un-Christlike in the Calvinistic ranks, and those who have far less reason for despair than those who are never troubled, and take it for certain that they belong to the elect.  But let us read on.

"So it was this interesting man made me see how ignorant he still was of the grace of God, and that the gift of the Father in Jesus Christ had not been revealed to him.  He had truly pronounced the beautiful word salvation, but he had never yet understood the meaning of it, since he spoke of meriting it, as if his safety had been a benefit it was necessary to gain by works and efforts.

"I wished to be sure that such was his opinion, and for that reason I asked him if he hoped he was approaching the desired end, or if he feared he was still distant from it.

"'It is not fitting that any sinner should glorify himself,' he replied humbly, 'and to me less than any one.  But notwithstanding my great weakness, may I not hope that the good God who says of himself that he is love, will have pity on me, on my ignorance, alas! on my misery; and—shall I say it? that he will accept what I have been able to do, or at least desired to do, to gain his favor?'

"These words left me no longer in doubt as to the spiritual state of the old man.  His confession of faith was unequivocal.  He had just declared that he expected pardon for his sins, and an inheritance in Heaven, as a recompense for his works: a glorious recompense it is true, but merited, at least in part, by a succession of works or of sacrifices. 'Well!' perhaps you say, reader, 'was he not right?  Does it not become the sinner to seek the pardon of God? and will he not have deserved it, when, after having turned from evil, he shall by his good conduct repair his former errors, and go forward in the path of uprightness? Would God be more inflexible in his justice than men in theirs?  And among men does not he who ceases to do evil, and learns to do well, obtain grace?'

"Not grace, for a grace is not deserved.  If, then, you speak of grace, do not even pronounce the word merit, at least not to say that you mean by that a salary, or a reward; and if that is the meaning you give it, do not even name grace, for then it no longer exists.

"A gift is no longer a gift when it is purchased, and a benefit disappears when it becomes a salary." ——pp. 13-15.

Perhaps the traveller was still more ignorant of the grace of God, than his imaginary old man.  If, as we must suppose, the author intends to represent in the old man, one instructed in the Catholic faith, and looking for salvation through faith and obedience to Jesus Christ, as set forth by the church, he falls into a few rather important mistakes.  No Catholic ever speaks, unless loosely, of meriting grace, for gratia est omnino gratis, is always gratuitous, unmerited, a free gift; neither does any one speak of meriting salvation by his own works and efforts, meaning thereby, works and efforts in the natural order, by our natural light and strength.  But we touch here one of the fundamental differences between Catholics and Protestants, and the reason why we have always been so careful to draw the line between the natural and the supernatural, and to insist on the fact that the supernatural in the Christian sense is not simply a power or influence above nature, but an order of life and immortality, which, though in some respects, running parallel with nature, yet lies in a plane above nature, and to which nature, by her own powers, can never rise.  The Protestant does not, as far as we have been able to discover, really recognize the supernatural order of life and immortality, and consequently, whatever he may say, does not recognize any such thing as regeneration, or the new birth, ——the birth by the Holy Ghost in Christ.  In order to understand what Protestantism really is, we must take the reverse of what Protestants most loudly profess.  Protestantism from first to last is a delusion, a self-deception, which, like iniquity, always lies unto itself.

If there is any one thing Protestants profess to hold, it is the reality of the new birth, and if there is any thing of which they profess to be well assured, it is that they themselves have been born again, or, as they sometimes express it, "experienced a change of heart;" but what they call the new birth is really no new birth, nay, no birth at all, for it is no introduction into a new order of life, or into any order of life above that of our natural life. All Protestantism that speaks of regeneration, teaches that the regenerate are justified forensically only, or at least, they are not justified because intrinsically just.  Both Luther and Calvin teach that the regenerate sin, every breath they draw, and therefore, that, intrinsically, they do not in any respect differ from the unregenerate.  In regard to the law they remain in themselves the same as before experiencing the so-called change of heart.  They are in themselves sinners as before, and are only putatively just.  In their case God does not impute sin, does not count their sin to be sin; covers it with the robe of Christ's righteousness, and conceals it from his sight.  He justifies them for Christ's sake, that is, he counts or reputes the righteousness of Christ their righteousness, and, well pleased with that, he pardons and justifies them, without its being really theirs.  The justification is simply forensic, and their justice as theirs is putative,-—in plain terms, a legal fiction.  It is evident, then, that the so-called regenerate are not regenerated, are not born again, are not created anew in Christ Jesus, and translated into a new order of life, or the kingdom of God's dear Son.  Hence, as the natural cannot merit or do any thing towards meriting the supernatural, the Calvinist is perfectly consistent with himself in denying all merit.

The Calvinist is obliged also to deny all merit, and all idea of recompense or reward, because he holds that man's nature is totally depraved, instead of retaining the Catholic doctrine——that man by the fall did not lose any of his natural faculties, or undergo any positive interior corruption of his nature, but simply lost the grace through which he was constituted or established in a state of justice, or what is technically called original justice, and certain gifts annexed thereto, which, though not raising man above the order of nature, yet are not his due as pure nature, such as exemption from pain, sickness, and death, the subjection of the body to the soul, the appetites and passions to reason, &c., he maintains that man lost his natural spiritual faculties, and became corrupt in his whole nature, alienated from all good, incapable of thinking a good thought or of performing a good act, and bent on evil, only evil, and that continually.  He does not mean that by original sin man fell back into a state of pure nature, attenuated by being despoiled of original justice, and therefore incapable of thinking a single thought, or performing a single act which is good in relation to the supernatural order, or our supernatural destiny; but that he became incapable of thinking a good thought or of performing a good act in relation even to the natural order.  Hence he maintains, and is forced to maintain, that all the acts of unbelievers, or the unregenerate, are sins, and as the regeneration he asserts is forensic, not intrinsic, he can, of course, recognize only sin in every proper human act, and must necessarily deny all idea of merit, and therefore of reward.

But the Calvinist forgets that where there can be no merit, there can be no demerit, and where there is no reward there can be no punishment.  Hence his doctrine, however he may attempt to explain it, takes man entirely out of the category of moral beings, and denies the retributions of eternity, or of the life after death.  If the Calvinist were to hold to the strict logical consequences of his doctrines, he would be excluded from testifying in our courts of law on the same principle that atheists are excluded, and sometimes Universalists, that is, of believing in no future retribution.  If the Protestant believed in the supernatural order of life and immortality brought to light through the Gospel, and in the reality of the new birth or regeneration, he would find no difficulty with the Catholic doctrine of merit, or with the Scriptural doctrine of rewards and punishments, which he now glories in denying.  Certainly, St. Paul always represents the Christian as running for a prize, as fighting or struggling for a reward, and he tells us expressly, as the Protestant version has it, "He that cometh to God, must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him." ——Heb. xi. 6, 7.  He says of himself, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course; I have kept the faith; and there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord the just judge will render unto me at that day; and not to me only, but to those also, who love his coming." ——2 Tim. iv. 7, 8.  What means the future judgment, if there be no rewards to be distributed?  What means our Lord, when he says, "Whosoever shall give to drink to one of these little ones, a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, verily, I say unto you he shall not lose his reward." ——Matt. x. 42.  Or when, in bidding us, when suffering persecution for his sake: "Be glad and rejoice, for great is your reward in heaven?" ——Luke vi. 23.  God will reward every man according to his works, whether they be good or whether they be evil, and reward implies merit, desert.  Nothing is more certain than that our Lord promises to reward his followers; he promises to reward them with eternal life, with a crown of glory, that fadeth not away, eternal in the heavens.  Nothing, then, is more certain than that the Christian can perform works that through the grace of God merit eternal life.

The Calvinist falls into his error by not understanding the Christian economy of salvation.  We suppose him moved with the strong desire not to rob Christ of his glory, or to detract from the merits of the cross.  He supposes, or affects to suppose, that the merit, we, as Catholics, attach to good works, does tend to rob Christ of his glory, and really implies, that the way of the cross is not the only way of salvation.  Making no distinction between the two orders, he understands by good works only works done in the natural order, from natural motives, and for natural ends.  Now to pretend that works of this sort, even though not sinful, or even good in relation to natural beatitude, merit de condigno or even de congruo, any thing in relation to eternal  salvation, is to set aside the cross, and to rob Christ of his glory.  But when we Catholics speak of merit, we have no reference to works of this sort, but sole reference to works done in Christ, from the infused habit of grace, that is, from a supernatural principle, for a supernatural end.  These are not works done out of Christ, but in Christ,——not from nature alone, but from grace which flows to us through the Holy Ghost from the Word-made-flesh, or the God-man, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, enabling us to perform acts of a supernatural value.  Their merit flows from the grace freely bestowed on us, not from us regarded as standing in the natural order, so that grace is their principle, and God, in crowning us with eternal life, does, as St. Augustine teaches, but crown his own gifts.

The difficulty of the Protestant grows out of his not understanding that God, in making himself man, not only expiates man's sin in his cross and passion, and makes full satisfaction to divine justice, but founds a new and supernatural order of life——a divine-human life, and into which we must be born, or created anew, and thus live the life he lives.  "As the Father hath life in himself, so he hath given to the Son also to have life in himself."  Therefore our Lord says to his disciples: "Because I live, ye shall live also."  The Christian life is the life that flows from the Word-made-flesh, and is hid in Christ. By living it we become united to him as our head, by unity of life members of his body, and through him members of one another, and, as his members, suffer with him, and joy with him, expiate in him our sins, and share in the merits of his life, his obedience, his cross, and passion, as we hope to share with him in the glory of his kingdom.  The foundation or source of the Christian life is the Incarnation, and we live it only in Christ our head, or in being united to him as living members of his body.  It is on the principle that the life of the head is the life of the members, and that what is done or suffered by the head is done or suffered by the members, that Christ redeems and saves us.  But when united to him as living members, he living in us, and we living in him, making up what St. Augustine calls the complete Christ,——totus Christus, we live in his life, love in his love, and merit in his merit.  In this way, and in this way only, can we be truly said to be saved by his merits, and to be made just in his justice, sanctified in his sanctity.

Now, as prior to regeneration, we are only natural men, we cannot live the divine-human life, we have, and can have no communion with it, and therefore have practically no part or lot in his merits, until we are regenerated or born again.  Living only a natural life we can merit only a natural reward.  We can merit nothing in relation to eternal life, because we merit in that relation only in the merits of Christ, and to merit in his merits, we must be in him.  This coming into union with him, so that we can live his life, and merit in his merits, is regeneration or the new birth.  It is a spiritual birth by which we are born into the supernatural order, or the life of Christ, as by our natural birth we were born into the natural order, or made a living member of natural humanity.  Regenerated, or born into the Christian order, as we are in the sacrament of baptism, we are made members of Christ's body, come into living union with our head, and live his life, the life begotten in us by the Holy Ghost.  Living his life, we are one with him, and therefore, as long as we are one with him, merit in his merit.  As the whole begins and ends with the Word-made-flesh, as we can neither create ourselves anew in Christ, nor merit any thing of ourselves in the supernatural order, or at all, save in him, we do not see how we do or can rob Christ of his glory, or depart from the way of the cross.  All the glory is in asserting the merit of good works done in him, and for him.  All the merit is his, for it is only in his merit we merit, as it is only in his life we live.

The Protestant thinks he honors God by denying all merit to man, but he so thinks only because not recognizing the human-divine life of our Lord, he cannot see how we can merit, without detracting from the merit of Jesus Christ himself.  He does not see that it is Christ, who, by elevating us to his own life by his own merit, enables us to merit, and therefore, that our merit is only an application and continuation of his.  "Without me ye can do nothing," he says; but, adds St. Paul, "I can do all things through Christ strengthening me."  As God enhanced his own glory by creating man a free agent, and therefore able to acquire merit in virtue or obedience, so Christ enhances his own glory by preserving us free agents in the order of grace, and thus rendering us capable of meriting through him an eternal reward.  On the Protestant scheme there are and can be no supernatural virtues.  There is, according to him, in the supernatural order, no human activity; grace operates irresistibly, and man, instead of concurring with it, co-operating with his Saviour, is a mere passive recipient of salvation.  If this were so, we might say, man undergoes grace, but not that he lives it.  There can, then, be no life of grace, and it matters not what a man does.  Let him do his best as a natural man, it can avail him nothing: his best acts are sins, and sufficient to damn him to all the pains of hell for ever: let the man, once justified, do the worst he can, it harms him not, for once in grace always in grace, and to the justified God does not impute sin, however grievously they may transgress.  And this doctrine which denies all human virtue, natural or supernatural, which sends men to hell or admits them into heaven without any moral merit or desert on their part, is put forth as that which especially honors God and augments the glory of his Son, our Saviour.

We can rob the Son of his glory only by asserting the merit, in regard to eternal life, of the natural virtues, and open heaven to all well-behaved heathens who have never been regenerated, or born into the kingdom of God's dear Son, or in whom the new life has never been begotten.  But that no Catholic, who knows his faith, ever does or can do.  We must be begotten anew in Christ Jesus, and made one with him in the unity of his human-divine life, or we can have no hope in the life and immortality revealed in the Gospel.  But once so united, all our works, proceeding from his meritorious life as their principle, and done for him as their end, partake of his merit, and, through his infinite love, are meritorious of the reward of heaven.  We can then render all the natural virtues supernatural and meritorious.  A cup of cold water, given to a child from motives of supernatural charity, ensures a supernatural reward.  Patriotism, which, in the natural order, is only a natural virtue, the Christian, who loves and serves his country in Christ, and for Christ's sake, raises to the rank of a supernatural virtue, meriting a supernatural reward.  So of all the natural virtues, performed from Christ, in him, and for him, they are all elevated to the rank of the supernatural order.

The Calvinist fails to recognize the Christian order of life, by failing to recognize sacramental grace as a divinely infused principle of action.  Regarding the grace of regeneration as operating forensically, and denying it to be an infused virtue elevating man to the supernatural order, and regarding man, in all the operations of grace, as purely passive, as acted upon, and not as acting, he can recognize in man no principle of merit, because he can recognize in him no virtue, no human activity.  The principle of merit in man is not nature; it is not something born with us in natural generation, but it is grace infused into our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which supernaturalizes our nature, making it, what theologians call, natura elevata.  This grace is not merited by our works, but has been purchased for us, and is freely given us by our Lord.  He has merited it, not we, and he gives it to us, not as a reward of merit, but as the principle of merit.  We have not merited it, but by it we are enabled to perform acts meritorious of eternal life.  All our merit flows from grace, and therefore has its first cause and principle in the merits of Christ.  Hence, he says, without me ye can do nothing——and it is true.  We can do nothing without grace,——prayers, alms-deeds, spiritual and corporal works of mercy are meritorious by virtue of this new principle of life; but as this principle is grace which flows from the God-man through the cross, it is plain, that, in asserting their merit, we no more make void the merits of Christ, or reject the cross, than we deny the creative power of God by saying he has created us active beings.  We assert no merit out of the merits of Jesus Christ, and it is false to allege that we put good works in the place of grace, when it is only by virtue of grace we can perform good works.  According to the Catholic, the grace of regeneration is not a mere external and transitory act of the Holy Ghost, but the infusion of an interior, habitual, and permanent principle of a new and higher life, and therefore, a man may always act from grace as the principle of supernatural life, as he acts from natural reason and affection, as the principle of his natural life, and the merit of his acts done from grace is his merit, because, though done from grace and for grace, they are done from a principle made his by the infused gift of God, and also by the assent of his understanding and the co-operation of his will, through grace assisting.  If the Calvinist understood the sacramental grace he denies, and that, flowing from the cross and infused into us, it is in us the principle of the new and higher life, he would see that we defend, to say the least, as much as he professes to do, the merits of Christ, and that all his charges against us are false and absurd.  In simple truth, it is he who rejects the Christian economy of salvation, not the Catholic.

We can do nothing towards our salvation till we are regenerated, for we must be born into the Christian life before we can live it.  But how can we be born into this life?  The Calvinist is here wholly at fault,——has no fixed and regular order by which one can be regenerated or enter into this life.  Confounding regeneration with conversion or change of disposition and affection, he recognizes no human activity in the fact of turning to God; he compels the sinner to await the moving of the Spirit, and to depend entirely on the irresistible grace of God.  Suppose the man, in the order of nature alone, to be fully convinced of the reality of the Christian order of life, and of the fact that he can secure heaven only by living it; how is he to be born into it?  He can do nothing, he can make no step in advance, but must wait till God chooses to work a miracle in his behalf.  Then, again, all life needs sustentation, and how is your Calvinist to sustain his Christian life, supposing that by a miracle he is born into it?  He has no answer to either question.  God is wise, and works by rule and measure; all his works are perfect.  He leaves nothing unprovided for.  He sends his grace to excite, move, and aid the will to approach the sacrament of baptism, in which, by the grace, always attached to the sacrament, one is cleansed from his sins, and introduced into the Christian order of life, and united by the living bond of charity to Christ the head.  Here is the door through which whoever will may enter into the new order of life, and become a member of Christ.  By the sacrament of the holy Eucharist, he who will may find the sustentation his life needs, the very flesh and blood, soul, and divinity of our Lord himself, and in that of penance, the means of recovering the life lost, of being reconciled and united to God anew in the bonds of charity.  For all the wants of this supernatural life, from its inception here to its expansion into the beatific life of heaven, God provides by these and the other sacraments, which are not, any of them, mere rites or ceremonies, but real channels or mediums of grace.  All is preserved, provided for, and the means of being born again, of entering into life, and securing heaven, are placed within the reach of every man; and while all flows from God and honors his grace, the freedom of man and the merit of good works are preserved in the order of grace as they are in the order of nature.  In other words, though Jesus Christ is the first cause, he creates man a second cause in the order of grace, as he originally created him a second cause in the order of nature.  Hence, a man is saved by grace, yet not without good works; for grace leaves a man his free will, at the same time that it becomes in him the principle of merit.

The Rev. C. Malan understands nothing of all this, and in his blindness rejects it.  But let us read on:——

"The old man had not yet understood me; he did not see his error; for at my question, if he thought the pardon of sins and life eternal was a free gift of the goodness of God, he answered me without hesitation:

"'I have no other persuasion, and that is my faith.  Certainly salvation is a gift of God; and I do not think any man can be saved otherwise than by Him who died upon the Cross.'  I should have been surprised to find this inconsistency in a man whose language and manners showed a mind of much intelligence and cultivation, if I had not perceived in what he said, the same reasoning I had used myself, and which is so often used by Christians in our day.

"In truth, if we ask the greater part of those who profess to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, what is their hope of eternal safety, they will answer almost, without exception, that they expect the mercy and grace of God in Jesus Christ, and that it is in order to acquire it, and to make themselves worthy of it, at least as much as that is permitted to men, that they frequent churches, that they fulfil the duties of religion, that they dispense their alms, and that they abstain from all wrong conduct.

"That is to say——on one hand they use the words Saviour, mercy, free pardon, the gift of heaven, but on the other they study to merit and to gain by themselves this forgiveness of sins and this unspeakable happiness.  They thus imitate the folly of the released debtor, who gloried that his king, in person, had freed him from all debt, but who, notwithstanding, hoarded even his bread and water, lest, said he, he should be imprisoned, if he did not pay all himself.

"Such was the error of the old man.  I wished to show it to him; but I thought if he could first declare it more plainly, the truth would afterwards strike him with greater force,——a necessary precaution in a case of this kind; for if one shows the pupil, in drawing, the beauty of a model, and assists him in copying it, before he has well understood the faults and deformities of his own design, it is to be feared he may afterwards feel some regret at having destroyed what he at first drew with so much satisfaction, and which in his eyes compared favorably with the work of his master." ——pp. 15-17.

We see no error on the side of the old man in this.  Salvation implies pardon of sin, but the simple pardon of sin is not all that is meant by salvation, because the end contemplated by the Incarnation is not simply pardon of sin, or the reparation of the damage done by sin, but in pardoning sin, if you will, the elevation of man to a new and higher order of life than that in which he was created.  The error is on the part of the Calvinist, who denies this order of life, and fails to understand the Catholic doctrine.  The Catholic does not understand how a man, come to the use of reason, can be saved, can enter into the kingdom prepared for the blessed, even though he has been born into the new life, unless he lives that life, and elicits the acts of faith, hope, and charity.  A man may have been born again, may be a Christian, and yet, unless he lives the Christian life, keeps the commandments, and does whatever the Gospel requires of him, not be permitted to enter into the joys of heaven, or be finally saved.  A man by natural generation is ushered into natural life, but he is not entitled to natural beatitude, unless he keeps the law of that life.  So in the supernatural order.  We do not by our works attempt to do what Christ has done, or to pay the debt he has paid or forgiven us, but we attempt to secure to ourseves the benefits of what he has done, so that in our case it shall not turn out that he has died in vain.  Throughout the whole ract we find this same fundamental error of Calvinism, that man is not and cannot be, in the order of grace, an active creature or second cause; and this comes from the fact that Calvinism denies him to be a second cause or a free activity even in the natural order.  Calvinism, under one aspect, is a revival of Manicheanism or oriental dualism, and, under another, simple pantheism.  According to it, under the latter aspect, all our actions are simply divine operations, and modern transcendentalism, which divinizes all our natural instincts, and identifies even our lusts with the interior operations of the Holy Spirit,——a doctrine which meets us in nearly every contemporary  novel or romance,——is only a logical development of Evangelicalism, of Protestantism as taught by Luther and Calvin, and refined by Edwards and those of our New England divines who have followed him.

But let us hear out tract-writer still further:

"'I do not think so, either,' I answered. 'But what I wish to ask is, whether the good you have done, either secretly or in behalf of your neighbor, has been for the honor of religion, to show your love to God your Saviour, or only an expression of your desire to gain thus the favor of the Eternal One, the forgiveness of your sins, and finally the safety of your soul?'

"My question addressed itself to the conscience of this honest man.  He pondered over it some minutes—then answered by this acknowledgment: 'I perceive that a man thinks of himself, when, in doing good, he seeks the reward which comes from God.  I have fallen into this error, and I confess your remark has made a deep impression upon me.  But I beg you to tell me whether to do what God commands, not with an ostentatious pride, but to obtain one day the approbation of heaven, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant," is not right, and if this motive is not the one God himself wishes us to have?'

"I answered: 'As long as I, a rebellious soldier, seek to be governed by the commands of my king, for fear that my revolt will conduct me to death, or in order that the king, at last perceiving me worthy, may give me his favor, however modestly or secretly I carry out my resolutions and my efforts, I am always acting for myself, and only work for my own safety.  The law which makes me act is that of constraint and not that of liberty; still less that of love; and if I rise and go forward, it is because two swords drive me, namely, these—fear of pain, and hope of reward.'

"Reader! how difficult it is for the heart of man to understand this concerning his obedience to the commands of God!  We perceive it clearly if an inferior seeks to gain the favor of a superior, and we call every token of submission or zeal interested, when actuated by such a motive.  But when we are speaking of the sinner and the Eternal One, the same motives change their appearance and their name: and we say, we preach and we publish, 'that the man who forsakes his vices, because he is afraid of the last judgment, that he who dispenses his superfluous wealth, who gives himself to strict devotions, or who spends his life in penances, in order to blot out his previous faults and to gain heaven, does it for love of God,' as if love could be united to fear; as if he loved any one but himself.

"The old man felt that my answer contained this reproach, for he said very gravely: 'Sir, if I understand you rightly, you wish to say that if I follow my religion in order thus to gain the approbation of God, and by that even the forgiveness of my sins, I have acted for myself and not at all for God; and, in fact, I see it is so, and perhaps, my works, when deprived of all ostentation, have had secretly this impure character.  It is a very serious thing, and I question myself if a single man exists who can be virtuous otherwise than by this motive——of interest.'

"'Do you not think,' I answered, 'that if it please the king to remit my faults, by a pardon full and complete I should have the certainty that the law can no longer touch me; and that from this moment my obedience would flow from quite a different source from that which produced it before he had granted me mercy?'" ——pp. 18-21.

The tract is undoubtedly right in saying that our good deeds should be done for God, propter Deum, as their last end, but its author forgets that no act can be done for God as final cause, unless it is done from him as first cause; so no act can be done for the God-man, our Lord and Saviour, unless we are united to him as the first cause, or fountain of life in us.  We cannot act for him as our end, unless we act from him as our beginning.  To tell a man, not regenerated, that his acts are not Christian virtues, because not done for the sake of Jesus Christ, is to talk without knowing well what one says.  They are not virtues in the supernatural order, not solely because they are not referred to him as their last end, but because they do not proceed from him as their principle.  Proceeding only from the principle of natural life as their terminus a quo, they cannot reach a supernatural end or terminus ad quem.  You must elevate your agent to the plane of the supernatural end, before it is possible for him to act to or for such an end.  Here is a point the Calvinist overlooks, or fails to meet, in his doctrine of regeneration, because, according to his doctrine, the grace that regenerates does not lift man out of the order of nature, and become in him a supernatural principle of action; it simply conveys to him an assurance of forensic pardon, and acceptance, but leaves him, as to the principle from which he acts, a mere natural man as he was before.  The man, should he refer all his acts to God, could refer them to him only as the author and end of nature, and, consequently, would only fulfil the law of nature, without performing any supernatural or strictly Christian virtue.  

The objection the tract makes to the old man, then, can be got over only on the Catholic doctrine of infused grace as the principle of a new and supernatural life,——a doctrine the author of the tract denies.

The author, in consequence of his bad philosophy, and worse theology, can see no virtue in acts done from a hope of reward.  He does not see that the hope of reward in the Christian is the hope of possessing God as our supreme good, and, therefore, necessarily includes a love of God.  Acts done from the simple hope of the enjoyment of heaven, or simple fear of the torments of hell, though they dispose to virtue, are not themselves perfect Christian virtues.  But to hope for heaven in God, or to fear hell because it is alienation from God, and loss of God as our supreme good, is a hope or a fear that has its principle only in the love of God, and therefore is a virtue, as St. Paul teaches, when he says, "Now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." 1 Cor. xiii. 13.  Our author cannot, however, on his doctrine, regard hope as a supernatural or Christian virtue, because he recognizes no infused grace in man, which is the principle of supernatural virtue.  Hope with him is simply the hope of happiness, and fear is simply the dread of pain, in which God, instead of being honored, is dishonored, because he holds all acts done out of grace are sins,——a doctrine we certainly do not accept.  But suppose the man elevated by indwelling grace to the supernatural order, that is, brought into living union with Christ his head.  Suppose that he hopes to possess him, to be one with him, because he is his supreme good, and that he fears hell because hell is the utter loss of that good, you must concede that both his hope and his fear are virtuous, for they proceed from grace, the root of charity, as their principle, and, proceeding from it, necessarily partake of its nature.  Hope loves and desires God, because he is our supreme good.  In it, we no doubt have this much of interestedness, that it is as our good we desire him, but we have also this much of disinterestedness, that in it we desire our good in him, and in him only.  It is then a virtue, though not so high or so perfect a virtue as charity, which loves God because he is not only our supreme good, but because he is the supreme good in itself.  Yet love itself is not absolutely disinterested under all its phases.  Its real nature is to unify, to make one, the lover and the beloved.  If, on the one hand, the lover would give himself wholly to the beloved, he would, on the other, take the beloved wholly up into himself.  So charity would give all to God, and at the same time it would wholly possess him,——have, so to speak, all of God.  Hence God gives, in the Incarnation, all to man that can be given, and in return asks man to give himself wholly to him.