2. How Christ Has Led Us Back to Happiness ; Also Concerning the Seven Sacraments

THE second point is where he says " hath led" or " led back ". No one indeed has need to be led back, nor is wont to be led back unless he has gone astray. For the human nature of our first parents fell by their own fault, and that which was formerly free^ by sin became a prison and captivity, and exile and a path of birds, a straying away or wandering, to all those who are born in it. Since they are all the sons of disobedience, yet Christ, in assuming our nature led man back again. For in it He lived humbly, obediently, and dutifully, serving God the Father and men, to whom He also showed Himself faithful in teaching, in giving an example, and showing Himself kindhearted. Besides this He applied

Himself to acts of charity, He suffered most patiently and meekly, and died for love, paid our debt with justice, and finally brought our nature into liberty. Therefore that very nature was restored to liberty, and as many as in Christ are regenerate are all free. But for him who wishes to be regenerate in Christ and to be endowed with liberty it is necessary that he have faith, and first that he receive the Sacrament of Baptism, which is the sign of spiritual cleansing, and so to speak the pathway on or rather the reclothing of the new life in Christian union. He must renounce also the devil and his service, and give his faith to Christ, and thus will the vesture of innocence be restored to him, that is, his soul will be clad in the death and merits of Christ.

And he is bound to promise that he will bring this vesture of innocence unstained to Christ's tribunal. Four things follow from this. The first is that he is set free from eternal punishment. The second is that he is made worthy of eternal joys. The third is that he is infused with divine grace, relying on which in each separate hour he is able to progress in new virtues. The fourth is that he is made a participator of all good deeds that ever were or will be done. And that he may the better discharge this promise of his, and increase the grace of God within him, he must receive another Sacrament, which is called Confirmation ; and he will long to bear his Lord's cross, and that, too, against his own flesh, the world and Satan. Here moreover, three kinds of gifts are bestowed on him. First, divine grace is increased in him. Secondly, the ancient enemy is disabled and weakened, and the more shrinks from and fears man. ^Thirdly, he is strengthened in all virtues. In this way doubtless in Baptism he is regenerated and adorned, but in Confirmation he is strengthened. Frequently however it is wont to come about that through pride of soul and lust of the mind and pleasure of the body, he falls into his besetting sins, and violater of his own promise, he befouls his own mind, loses the grace of God, and holds in contempt the death and the freedom of Christ. But because he is changeable, the most kind

God, Who first of all created him, and then when he was lost, renewed him by His own death, and unwilling to lose him, left a third Sacrament in the Catholic Church, that is, that of Penance. For this, on man's part four things are required which must be done, God impelling him, or rather by the movement of God. The first is true sorrow, by which each man grieves heartily that ever he has sinned. The second is a sound desire of never sinning again henceforth. The third is a perfect desire of offering satisfaction to holy Church by confessing and doing penance according to a priest's counsel. The fourth is a fervent longing for serving God in humble obedience continually that He will bestow upon him eternal happiness, and that he may confess his sins with great bitterness. These are the four necessary dispositions : whosoever possesses these not only obtains pardon of his sins, but also a greater grace than he had before, and becomes a sharer in all the Church's good works, and because he is returning from exile to his fatherland, from strangers to his friends and kinsmen, from want to wealth, from death to life, and finally from mourning to joy, Christ instituted the fourth Sacrament in place of a special banquet, that is of His own Body and Blood, that it may be to us for Food and Drink, in which we are inseparably united. Let him receive the Sacrament worthily, with humble reverence and veneration, for he receives the Creator of himself and all things. And in the same way let him receive Him with an inward and eager disposition of his own, being assured that he is receiving Him Who out of a most faithful love for his sake endured death, and that He should give Himself to him in a blissful eternity. Then the Fifth Sacrament is Order, which applies and attaches a man already disjoined and detached from worldly pleasures and occu pations to God if, that is, he undertakes these duties with justice. It confers a discrimination of powers, and adorns him, and places him in a certain distinct dignity and excellence. The Sixth Sacrament is Matrimony, so that those who persevere in the world may live according to law, and may bestow a mutual trust in each other to be inviolably kept till death. And the Seventh and last Sacrament is Extreme Unction, which should be received with de sire when anyone thinks himself about to die, and in order that mortal and venial sins may be banished to forgetfulness, his sins are forgiven him through this Sacrament and the prayers of the priests of the church. These are the Seven Sacraments which restore man from the eternal death of original sin and of his own deadly and venial sins, and dispose and attach him to God, and finally bestow on him in time a life in accordance with law. And according to this it arises from five principal points, namely, that God has led back man to Himself by His own death and the Seven Sacraments.