The Work Wrought 73
The Work Wrought 1. That the sacraments do give grace by the work wrought, that is, that the action of the minister or the element of itself and by itself by a corporal virtue actively, effectually, and immediately gives grace, it has not been held by the church for whole twelve hundred years; but is a scholastical fiction, approved by the Council of Trent.
2. The fathers say that the sacraments do give grace, but not properly (as the law cuts, not properly), but symbolically, in a mystical respect, by reason of their signification and promise annexed unto them, because when we use them aright as the tokens of grace, God gives that grace immediately. "The man," says Jerome, in Isa., "gives the water, but God gives the Holy Ghost, whereby we are purged from filth and our bloody sins are purified." In like manner
Augustine, lib. 15, de Trinit., cap. 26, says, "How then can it be that He is not God that giveth the Holy Ghost? Nay rather how great a God is He that giveth God? For never a disciple that He had could give the Holy Ghost. They did pray that it might be infused upon those upon whom they laid their hands, but they infused it not themselves, which custom the church now observes in its overseers."
And in his questions upon Leviticus, lib. 3, quest. 84, "Moses," says he, "in his ministry sanctified by visible sacraments, but the Lord by His invisible grace through the Holy Spirit, wherein lies all the fruit and the worth of the visible sacraments; for without that sanctification of invisible grace, what are the visible sacraments good for?" A little after: "Therefore here we gather that some have had invisible sanctification and the benefit thereof without the visible sacraments, but that visible sanctification which is performed by the visible sacraments cannot be of any value without that other invisible sanctification." "Who so thinks," says another, viz. Author, qq. de
Veteri & Novo test., quest. 59, "that baptism is after a carnal manner, this man is not spiritual, nor can he obtain the gift of God that believes himself changed by water, not by faith; for the water is seen, but that Spirit which is not seen works faith in him." "Although God does give the sacrament of grace by wicked men," says Paschasius, de corp. & sang. Domini, cap. 35, "yet He gives not grace itself but by Himself in whom is remission of sins." And to this assertion the schoolmen themselves do agree. "We may not by any means say," says Bonaventure, 4 dist. 1, q. 3, "that there is grace essentially contained in the sacraments, as water in a vessel, or medicines in a box. To understand them so, is erroneous. But they are said to contain grace, because they do signify it, and because grace is always given in them (unless there be a defect in him that receives them). It must be so understood, that grace is in the soul, and not in the visible signs." This also he teaches, q. 4, and herein he is followed by Scotus,
Durand., Richardus, Occam, Marsilius, and Biel, in 4 d. 1, and of the later writers very many.
3. Some divines do deny that grace is given by the sacrament of matrimony, among whom the master of the Sentences is the chief, who denies it in his fourth book and 26th distinction. And so does
Durandus in his third question upon the same distinction, with which many canonists take part. And Godfridus for one, tit. de
Sacram. non iterandis, in his Summe. "The sacraments," quotes he, "are otherwise divided, for there are some wherein grace is given, and othersome wherein grace is not given, as matrimony contracted." Hostiensis, in like manner, lib. 2, tit. de sacram. non iterandis, says, "This is the third division of sacraments, because there are some that do give grace, and othersome wherein grace is not given, as matrimony, either in contraction or consummation."
Yea, the extravagants also hold this opinion, de simonia cum in ecclesiae corpore. And Bernard, in Apparatus, says, "We are