alvation because
they had lost it in its first parent, God instituted certain health-
giving sacraments to teach the difference between what grace bestowed
and human nature deserved, nature simply subjecting to punishment, but
grace, which is won by no merit, since it would not be grace if it were
due to merit, conferring all that belongs to salvation.

Therefore is that heavenly instruction spread throughout the world, the
peoples are knit together, churches are founded, and, filling the broad
earth, one body formed, whose head, even Christ, ascended into heaven in
order that the members might of necessity follow where the Head was
gone. Thus this teaching both inspires this present life unto good
works, and promises that in the end of the age our bodies shall rise
incorruptible to the kingdom of heaven, to the end that he who has lived
well on earth by God's gift should be altogether blessed in that
resurrection, but he who has lived amiss should, with the gift of
resurrection, enter upon misery. And this is a firm principle of our
religion, to believe not only that men's souls do not perish, but that
their very bodies, which the coming of death had destroyed, recover
their first state by the bliss that is to be. This Catholic church,
then, spread throughout the world, is known by three particular marks:
whatever is believed and taught in it has the authority of the
Scriptures, or of universal tradition, or at least of its own and proper
usage. And this authority is binding on the whole Church as is also the
universal tradition of the Fathers, while each separate church exists
and is governed by its private constitution and its proper rites
according to difference of locality and the good judgment of each. All,
therefore, that the faithful now expect is that the end of the world
will come, that all corruptible things shall pass away, that men shall
rise for future judgement, that each shall receive reward according to
his deserts and abide in the lot assigned to him for ever and for aye;
and the sole reward of bliss will be the contemplation of the Almighty,
so far, that is, as the creature may look on the Creator, to the end
that the number of the angels may be made up from these and the heavenly
city filled where the Virgin's Son is King and where will be everlasting
joy, delight, food, labour, and unending praise of the Creator.

[43] The concl