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We proceed from the Church to the sacraments.
But since the sacraments are means of grace,
we must first inquire what grace is.
It is in vain to give teaching about the sacraments to those who do not feel
their need of grace.
For this reason much teaching about the sacraments
is wasted.
In the New Testament grace (χάρις)
is the favour that God shows to man.
Thus St. Paul writes,
By grace ye are saved
(Eph.2.8)
that is, by God's favour or kindness.
Later theologians have often thought of grace as a kind of substance and
have argued about different kinds of grace as a substance.
But it is not a substance,
and we ought not to think or speak of it as one.
Grace is the touch of the Holy Ghost, His power working in us.
We cannot distinguish between the Holy Ghost and His gift of grace.
When Newman calls
God's presence and His very self...
a higher gift than grace,
["Dream of Gerontius". English Hymnal, 471;
Hymns A. And M., 172.]
he is making a distinction to which the New Testament use of the word does
not allow us to assent.
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We need grace for every thought and word and deed.
We can do nothing good without it.
Our will must cooperate with God's grace,
but the cooperation of our will is itself brought about by grace.
Actual grace is distinguished from habitual grace.
They are not different kinds of grace but different ways of receiving it.
ACTUAL GRACE is the power given for a special crisis or moment.
HABITUAL GRACE is the power received by us unconsciously
and continuously in consequence of our baptism, confirmation, and other sacraments.
Both are given to us in answer to prayer.
The medieval divines known as the Schoolmen distinguished Prevenient, Concomitant,
and Subsequent Grace.
They are not different kinds of grace but different times when it is received. Prevenient
grace enables us to will to do something.
Concomitant grace enables us to do it.
Subsequent grace is the result of our doing it.
Grace is not irresistible as the Calvinists held.
We are free to cooperate with it or to reject it.
Habitual grace has for its purpose the sanctification (making holy) of the
soul.
After the act of justification, or reconciliation with God,
the process of sanctification is required.
(This is ignored by those who believe in "sudden conversion".
Even in real cases of sudden conversion such as those of St. Paul and St.
Augustine, sanctification is needed.
The complete conversion in a moment of Saul Kane, in Mr. Masefield's Everlasting
Mercy, is not in accordance with God's ordinary way of dealing with men.)
Sanctification is only possible by means of habitual grace.
The converted man must acquire the use of the sacramental life.
Otherwise his conversion will probably be a failure.
For the method of habitual grace is ordinarily the use of the sacraments
which God has given us for that purpose.
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Teaching about grace must come before teaching about the sacraments.
When those who receive the sacraments do not recognize their own need of
God's grace, the sacraments mean to them no more than magical ceremonies.
For instance, many parents bring their children to be baptized because it
is a custom which they think it would be
"unlucky" to omit, and not because they understand what baptism
is or recognize that to have their children baptized lays upon themselves
the responsibility for bringing them up as members of Christ's Church.
Popular religion in England is largely Pelagian,
and Pelagians do not believe in the need for grace.
The sense of sin was never strong among the English,
and has been very much weakened by various modern influences.
Many people in our parishes,
even among regular churchgoers,
have little or no sense of sin.
This is why the practice of self-examination and confession is so important.
One of the causes of our national Pelagianism is our intense individualism.
The ideal of relying entirely on oneself is widely held, as is shown by the
popularity of Kipling,s If. The Christian ideal, on the contrary,
is expressed in the words of St. Paul:
I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth me (Phil.4.13).
Among religious people we sometimes find the idea, once very popular, that the man who is converted is perfect and therefore needs no further grace. Those who have felt a revolutionary change in their lives through conversion are specially prone to this temptation. There is a story that a man whom Father Stanton had converted from drunkenness became so conceited that Father Stanton, after startling him with the order "Go and get drunk!", had to tell him that pride was a worse sin than drunkenness and that conversion from drunkenness was in vain if it led him to trust in himself and not in God.
Grace then is absolutely necessary to the spiritual life.
It is dispensed through the Church,
which is the steward of God for this purpose (I Cor.4.1).
God the Holy Ghost "sanctifies the elect people of
God" [Church Catechism.]
that is, the baptized members of the Church.
This is one reason why membership in the Church is necessary to a normal
Christian life. The Holy Ghost works by means of the sacraments, which
are only found within the Church and can be given only to members of the
Church.
No one who has not been baptized can receive any other sacrament.
The sacraments are not the only means of grace,
but they are necessary.
Non-sacramental grace is given to those who are separated from the Church
as well as to her faithful members.
God is not bound by His sacraments but bestows His favour upon all.
This does not excuse anyone from the duty of receiving the sacraments if
it is possible for him to do so. The Israelites lived on manna in the
wilderness; but when they reached cultivated land, they were expected to
live by tilling it (Joshua 5.12).
The sacraments are necessary because they are God's appointed means of grace. He can give us His grace without them, but He will not if we refuse to use them.
By grace ye are saved through faith;
and that not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God
(Eph.2.8).
But it is very commonly held that the religious man is the man who does something, that he is saved not only by God's gift of grace but by his own works.
It is true that faith must produce good works.
Otherwise it is not real faith.
As St. James tells us, faith without works is dead (2.25).
But it is not the works that save us
but the grace, which alone enables us to do them,
the grace, which we owe to our Lord's death and resurrection.
Good works can only be the result of a living faith due to God's favour or
grace.
The Thirteenth Article declares that "works done before
justification" (for instance, a gift to a hospital by a non-Christian) "have
the nature of sin".
The clergy are not committed to every particular statement in the Articles.
But we must insist that no one, baptized or unbaptized, can do anything good
without Divine grace whether he is conscious of it or not.
Therefore no good works can "merit" anything.
We cannot establish a claim on God.
When you have done all, say,
we are unprofitable servants
(St. Luke 17:10).
The Romanist doctrine of "works of supererogation",
the theory that sins have to be balanced against merits, which runs through
popular Romanism everywhere and is deeply rooted in the financial interests
of the Roman Communion, has already been discussed (see p. 200, 439).
But the popular modern notion that a "good-living man" deserves
Heaven is more dangerous still.
Nobody can deserve Heaven or any reward from God.
Whatever rewards God gives us come from His free grace.
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