Q. 2. How many kinds of grace are there? A. It is principally divided into two kinds, actual grace and sanctifying grace.

Q. 3. What good does actual grace do to us? A. It fortifies and strengthens the soul.

Q. 4. What good does sanctifying grace do to us?

A. It washes and beautifies the soul.

SECTION Ï.

OF ACTUAL GRACE.

Q. 5. What is actual grace?

A. Actual grace is an internal supernatural help, which God communicates to the soul, to enable us to do good and avoid evil.

Q. 6. How does this actual grace operate in the soul?

A. (1.) By enlightening the understanding, to see what ought to be done or avoided, and inclining the will towards what is good, or averting it from evil; and, on this account, it is called exciting grace, and preventing grace. It is called exciting grace, because it excites and invites us, as it were, to do good and avoid evil; and it is called preventing grace, because it is wholly the work of God in our souls, and precedes every deliberate or voluntary act of our own, as experience itself teaches us; for we feel those holy inspirations arise in our souls, without any thing done by us to procure them, or having it in our power to hinder them; though, when they come, we have it always in our power either to comply with them or to resist them. (2.) When we freely comply with this first motion of actual grace, it continues to fortify and strengthen us to go on and perfect the good work we have begun; and on this account it

is called concomitant grace, because it accompa nies us during the whole good action; and strengthening or helping grace, because it helps our weakness, and enables us to perform it.

Q. 7. What does the Scripture say of this actual grace?

A. Our Saviour says himself, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." See here the exciting grace; and he immediately adds, "If any man shall hear my voice, and open to me the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with him," Rev. iii. 20. Behold the helping grace, or the continuation of his actual grace, when we comply with the first motions it works in our souls. To the same purpose St. Paul says, "It is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to his good pleasure,' Phil. ii. 13. God worketh in us to will, by his exciting grace, without which we could never of ourselves have a good thought: and to accomplish by his helping grace, without which we can do nothing. David was very sensible of this when he said, "My God, his mercy shall prevent me," Ps. lviii. 11. And again, "Thou hast held me by thy right hand, and by thy will thou hast conducted me," Ps. lxxii. 24. " And thy mercy shall follow me all the days of my life," Ps. xxxi. 6. On this subject St. Paul also says, "He who hath begun the good work in you shall perfect it," Phil. i. 6. To shew that it is God who first begins, and then enables us by his help to perfect it.

Q. 8. Can we, by our own natural strength, without the help of God's grace, do any thing towards our salvation?

A. No; we cannot of ourselves, and without the grace of God, do the least thing towards our salvation, neither in thought, word, nor deed; nor so much as have a good motion in our heart to

wards God, but which must first be excited in us by him. As this is a point of the greatest importance, the foundation of true Christian humility, and the source of all good to our souls, it is necessary to establish it in the strongest manner; the more so, because our pride, the deepest and most dangerous wound our nature has received from sin, recoils at this truth, and endeavours to hide it entirely from our eyes. From this unhappy blindness towards ourselves, and towards our own weakness and misery, innumerable evils flow to our poor souls: wherefore we must consider fully what the word of God teaches us concerning this great Christian truth.

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(1.) No man can take the smallest step to come to Jesus Christ, unless he be moved and assisted thereto by God. This our Saviour declares in express terms, "No man can come to me," says he, "except the Father who hath sent me draw him," John vi. 44.; and not by compulsion, nor by laying the free will of man under any necessity, but by the strong and sweet motions of his heavenly grace; and, therefore, a little after repeating the same truth, he says, No man can come to me, unless it be given him of my Father," ver. 66. To shew that this grace is not a force or constraint put upon us, but a gift of God, an effect of his mercy, enlightening our minds to see, and inclining our wills to do what is good, and when we consent to, and comply with that inclination, assisting us to complete the good work. To the same purpose St. Paul says, "It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy," Rom. ix. 16. Because no natural will nor endeavour of our own can ever lead us towards Christ, unless we be excited thereto by the preyenting mercy of God.

(2.) We cannot have true faith in Jesus Christ, nor believe the sacred truths of eternity with divine faith, without the help of his grace. Thus St. Paul declares, "to you it is given for Christ, to believe in him," Philip. i. 29. And again, "By grace you are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God." Ephes. ii. 8. Hence the Church of Christ, by the mouth of her general councils, pronounces Anathema upon those who teach, that" without the preventing inspiration and help of the Holy Ghost, a man can believe as he ought." Conc. Trid. Sess. 6. can. 3.

(3.) A sinner cannot, by his own strength, repent of his sins as he ought, unless he receives the grace of repentance from the mercy of God. This we have seen above, in the preceding chapter xvii. sect. 4.; to which add what St. Paul writes to the Ephesians, attributing this favour entirely to the mercy, grace, and love of God; " God," says he "who is rich in mercy, for his exceeding great charity, wherewith he loves us, even when we were dead by sins, hath quickened us together in Christ, by whose grace ye are saved," Eph.. ii. 4.

(4.) We can neither think a good thought, nor speak a good word, which can be useful towards. our salvation, without the assistance of God; for we are not sufficient to think any thing of our selves, as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is. from God, 2 Cor. iii. 5. "Wherefore I give you to understand....that no man can say the Lord Jesus, but by the Holy Ghost," 1 Cor. xii. 3. And hence the wise man says, "It is the part of the Lord to govern the tongue," Prov. xvi. 1, to show that we can never speak what is good and conducive to our salvation, unless the Lord guide and assist us in what we say.

(5.) We cannot do a good action, nor produce any good fruit conducive to eternal happiness, without the help of God. "I am the vine," says Jesus Christ, "you the branches; he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit; for without me you can do nothing," John xv. 5. He does not say, without me you can do little; because this would suppose we could do something of ourselves; but he absolutely says, "Without me you can do nothing," to show that whether little or much, we cannot do it without his assistance.

In a word, whatever we do towards our salvation, whatever progress we make in virtue or Christian perfection, all flows from the mercy and grace of God through Jesus Christ. It is he "who worketh in us both to will and to accomplish, according to his good pleasure," Phil. ii. 13. It is he who begins the good work in us, and who also perfects it," Phil. i. 6. And hence St. Paul acknowledges, that all the good that is in him, and all the good works he had wrought, flowed from this Divine grace, and mercy; "By the grace of God," says he, "I am what I am, and his grace in me hath not been void; but I have laboured more abundantly than all they; yet not I, but the grace of God with me," 1 Corinth. xv. 10.

Q. 9. Why does the Apostle say, the grace of God with me?

A. By these words he shews, that, although Almighty God is always the first to begin the good work in us, by his exciting and preventing grace; and, although it is God who carries on the good work in us to its perfection, by his assisting grace; yet it is not the grace alone that does it, but that we also co-operate with this grace, freely consenting to its motions in our soul, and willingly performing the good work to which it inclines and as