rist alone or by the remission of
his sins alone, without grace and love being diffused through his heart
by the Holy Spirit and inhering therein, or that the grace whereby we
are justified is merely the good will of God,--let him be accursed."

Canon XII: "If any one says that justifying faith is nothing else than
trust in the divine mercy which forgives sins for Christ's sake, or that
it is this trust alone by which we are justified,--let him be accursed."

Canon XXIV: "If any one says that righteousness, after having been
received, is not conserved nor augmented before God by good works, but
that these works are merely the fruits or signs of the justification
which one has obtained, and that they are not a reason why justification
is increased,--let him be accursed."

It is a well-known characteristic of the decrees of the Council of Trent
that truth and error appear skilfully interwoven in them. They are like
a double motion that is offered in a deliberative body: they contain
things which one must affirm, and other things which one must negative.
They cannot be voted on--many of them--except after a division of the
question. They contain "riders" like those in a bill that comes before a
legislative body: in order to pass the bill at all, the "rider" must be
passed along with the bill. But enough crops out in these decrees to
show that the Catholic Church is not willing to let the merits of Christ
be regarded as the only thing that justifies the sinner. He must
cooperate with the Holy Spirit to the end of being justified. He must
prepare and dispose himself for receiving justifying grace, and this
grace is infused into him, and manifests itself in holy movements of the
heart and by good works, in acts of love. The Roman Catholic Christian
is taught to believe that he is justified partly by what Christ has
done, partly by what he himself is doing. He cannot subscribe to Paul's
statement: "By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves: it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should
boast." (Eph. 2, 8. 9.) Nor is his justification ever complete, because
his love is never perfect. It must be increased even after his death.
The Roman purgatory contains sinners whom God had justified as far as He
could, the sinners remaining in arrears with their, part of the
contract. Accordingly, the sinner can never have the assurance that he
will enter heaven. It would be presumptuous for him to think so.