What is sacramental grace in Roman Catholicism?

Baptism (see Matt. 28:19), for infants or adults, imparts sanctifying grace and erases original sin. The Catholic believer keeps sanctifying grace only through "spiritual battle" (following the program of good works). Confirmation (see John 14:26) is the completion of baptism, the giving of the Holy Spirit in a fuller outpouring. Children who have been baptized are confirmed at age 12. The Holy Eucharist (see Matt. 26:26‑28; John 6:35‑58) is also called Holy Communion and is the most important sacrament of the Catholic Church. During Mass, through the miracle of transubstantiation, Christ is re‑presented as an unbloody sacrifice for sins. Penance (confession or reconciliation) (see John 20:19‑23) is how a Roman Catholic is forgiven by God - through the ministry of a priest - for the sins he commits after baptism. Anointing of the Sick (see Jas. 5:14,15) was formerly called Extreme Unction. In performing this sacrament, the priest lays hands on the sick or dying believer, prays over him or her in the faith of the Church, and anoints the believer with oil blessed, if possible, by the bishop. Holy Orders (see I Tim. 3: 1; 2 Tim. 1:6; Titus 2: 15) is the sacrament through which Catholic ministers are ordained at three levels: bishops, presbyters (priests) and deacons. Only bishops can confer the Sacrament of Holy Orders." Matrimony (see Gen. 2:18, 21‑25; Eph. 5:22,33) is the sacrament in which Christ joins a Christian man and woman in a grace - giving, lifelong union. Divorce and remarriage cut the Catholic off from eucharistic communion but not from the Church.

"I profess also, that there are truly and properly seven sacraments of the new law, instituted by Jesus Christ our Lord, and for the salvation of mankind, though all are not necessary for every one; namely, baptism, confirmation, eucharist, penance, extreme unction, orders, and matrimony, and that they confer grace; and of these, baptism, confirmation, and orders cannot be reiterated without sacrilege.

I may sum up the system in the words of a writer long subsequent, as briefly stating the system, using another's translation: "Whereas the human race, by the demerit derived to it from the fault of the first sinner, had become pierced with the darts of eternal punishment … Christ granted to it certain remedial sacraments, to the end that it might acknowledge the difference between what is merited by nature and what it received by grace; and that, as nature could bring punishment only, grace, not called grace if granted to merit, might furnish whatever appertains to salvation." This is its ripe formulary. The system began as soon as the apostles were gone.

"In direct opposition to this is the idea of the catholic church, the leading features of which may be stated in the following propositions: — First, that it is a spiritual system, not an intellectual one; a system whose purpose is a re-union of man with GOD, through the incarnation of the Second Person of the HOLY TRINITY. That this union is not effected by merely believing in a certain system of theology, or in the revelation of GOD in the Bible; but, being essentially spiritual, only effected through those means by which spiritual gifts are conveyed to man. That those means are the sacraments, which may be termed "extensions of the incarnation," or means whereby the benefits of the incarnation are applied to man. That such a union is, in most cases, and at first, independent and irrespective of any exercise of the intellect on the part of the person brought into union, but is by means of the gift of GOD in CHRIST'S own appointed way — Holy baptism. That that sacrament is the means of conferring on the recipient a new and spiritual life, similar and parallel to the natural life into which every infant enters at birth: so that it is called regeneration, or the new birth: and that one great effect of the Church is to feed, support, educate, this spiritual life till it comes to the 'measure of the fulness of the stature of Christ.' That the church is the body of persons possessing this life, and consequently wholly distinct from the 'world' without; it is, therefore, a visible body with an invisible life, and that the means of support for this invisible life is invisible grace conveyed through visible forms or signs, instituted and appointed of Christ for that purpose. That the whole being of the church rests on the incarnation, or rather, to speak properly, on the SON of GOD become man. CHRIST is 'the head of the body, the church.' (Col. 1:18.) That, in order to the extension and communication of this spiritual life and grace, our divine Lord appointed a ministry in His church, whose office is to administer the means of grace to its members; so that it is His work, though done by the hands of His ministers and ambassadors: consequently, no one can take this office on himself without a direct commission from CHRIST. That He appointed His disciples, in the first place, to be apostles, with a power to transmit their commission to others, as the need of the body required; and that without this commission no acts are valid, and no ordinances have any assurance of grace attached to them. That the episcopate and priesthood is not only a form of church government most nearly after the model of scripture; but it is the one only of divine appointment in the body, the one only which has the promise of grace attached to it, the one only which has the stamp of the divine commission." (Pages 184-186.)

Next, she is holy in the means of holiness; and the principal and most efficacious means are the sacraments, which the Protestants have reduced to two; but all other communions — Greek, Nestorian, Eutychian, Russian, Armenian, Coptic,Ethiopian — before as after their defections, agree with Catholics in making them to be seven. By these all the wants of Catholics are supplied, and the faithful, having free will, and not putting an obstacle in the way, through them have justification, or sanctification, conferred and increased. The fruits of holiness are to be seen in a multitude of saints, in all ages, whose names would be far too many to enumerate here, but whose sanctity has been attested by the miracles they have performed. These last are a divine attestation of sanctity, and have been the stamp of approval and divine recognition put upon the Catholic church in all ages.

I deny entirely what is called sacramental grace. That we are blessed in communion with Christ, in partaking in the faith of the Lord's supper, I gladly recognize. He is present with two or three, gathered together in His name, in that special and blessed remembrance of His death according to His grace; in which He in sovereign goodness cares that we should remember Him. The soul enjoys fellowship with Him, and in the most excellent way. But it is not grace in the elements. I do not believe there is any grace in the bread or the wine. It is a mere mischievous superstition. There is in scripture no consecration of elements, though they are appropriated with thanksgiving; since they are to represent Christ's body and blood, and hence to be reverently used in doing so, "discerning the Lord's body." But what we break is bread, and nothing else. The history even of the progress to Romanist views is easily traced, though of no importance. We must have "what was from the beginning," or else not abide in the Son and in the Father.

I deny entirely what is called "sacramental grace." That we are blessed in communion with Christ, in partaking in the faith of the Lord's supper, I gladly recognise. He is present with two or three, gathered together in His name, in that special and blessed remembrance of His death, according to His grace, in which He, in sovereign goodness, cares that we should remember Him: the soul enjoys fellowship with Him, and in the most excellent way. But it is not grace in the elements. I do not believe there is any grace in the bread or the wine. It is a mere mischievous superstition. There is in scripture no consecration of elements, though they are appropriated with thanksgiving; since they are to represent Christ's body and blood, and hence to be reverently used in doing so, "discerning the Lord's body." But what we break is bread, and nothing else. The history even of the progress to Romanist views is easily traced, though of no importance. We must have "what was from the beginning," or else not abide in the Son and in the Father.

On the face of the N.T. neither Jews nor Gentiles believed in the authority of the church. The Jews of Berea were even commended for searching the O.T. scriptures when the apostle Paul preached the gospel. The heathen heard what was no less inspired in the gospel; so that Dr. Milner in his End of Controversy had to own exceptional grace on their part who could know nothing of the church. But this lets out the real ignorance of the Romanists generally: they rest on saving ordinances administered by their priests, and not on that grace which alone saves any soul through the faith of Christ.

There is no telling what theological teaching may bring the mind into - making God out of a piece of flour and eternal life out of a bowl of water! Charge me not with irreverence. The irreverence is in those who invent such superstitions. The expression of "making God" is the commonest and usual expression for transubstantiation; and conferring eternal life by a little water is discussed in Luther's Catechism and taught in the English one, of course in the Roman, and, as I shall now shew, in the Presbyterian. "A sacrament is a holy ordinance, instituted by Christ, wherein, by sensible signs, Christ and the benefits of the new covenant are represented, sealed and applied to believers." Thus the benefits of the new covenant are applied by the sacrament. In the Confession of Faith it is limited to the elect, and that in a very definite way. "Yet grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed unto it as that no person can be regenerated or saved without it, or that all that are baptized are undoubtedly regenerated. The efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered; yet by the right use of this ordinance the grace promised is not only offered but really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace belongeth unto, according to the counsel of God's will, in His appointed time." Nothing can be plainer than that. By the right use of this ordinance the grace promised is conferred by the Holy Ghost when God sees fit "in His appointed time." Nothing can be more definite, precise, and positive.

The word" sacrament" is from the Latin sacramentum, the military oath of allegiance administered to the Roman soldiers, and is thus an ecclesiastical and not a Scriptural term. In the Latin translation it is used as the equivalent of the Greek word mysterion, mystery. It is so used in Eph. 5:32, where speaking of marriage the Apostle says, "this is a great mystery." Hence the Roman Catholics make matrimony a sacrament. The absurdity of this is evident when it is seen that the usual ecclesiastical sense of the word would be gone if the Greek word mysterion, is always to be considered as meaning a sacrament; for instance, "the mystery of the gospel," "the mystery of godliness," "the mystery of iniquity," etc. Yet if not always, with what authority in Eph. 5:32? The Catechism of the Church of England tells us that "a sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace," etc., "as a means whereby we receive the same." According to the Prayer-book, therefore, the elements in the Sacraments are channels or vehicles of divine grace. But the above definition of a Sacrament is erroneous, for the "inward and spiritual grace" is not necessary to the definition of a Sacrament, and is mischievously false if we are to regard the water in baptism, or the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper, as its channels or vehicles. Yet everyone knows that baptismal regeneration is the teaching of the Prayer-book, and as to the Lord's Supper, the Catechism, in answer to the question "What is the inward part, or thing signified?" replies, "The body and blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper." but the import of a sacrament in no way depends upon any subjective effort in the individual. Sacraments have also been compared with the tree of life in the garden of Eden, or with that in Rev. 22:2. These, however, in no way represent the death of Christ, and this would be moreover to maintain the opus operatum, to make them operative in themselves, a theory rejected by nearly all the Reformers.

1882 118 How are we then to define a sacrament, so that the definition may be what a definition should be, viz., adequate, yet devoid of superfluous conditions? A sacrament is an ordinance instituted by Christ Himself, and which exhibits, in a symbolical form, the way, or the meritorious cause, of our salvation. Hence the Anglican body rightly says, there are two sacraments and two only. One of these is subjective, the other objective. Baptism, the subjective, and the initiatory rite of the church, signifies that death and resurrection in and with Christ is the process of salvation. "Know ye not that so many of us as have been baptized unto Jesus Christ have been baptized unto His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him by baptism unto death." (Rom. 6:3-4). "Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him," etc. (Col. 2:12). "For ye have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God." (Col. 3:3.) "Verily, verily I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life." (John 5:24.) Death and resurrection is the fundamental principle of the gospel — on the part of Christ it is the meritorious cause of our salvation, on our part it is the necessary process; and of this truth baptism is the symbol. The Lord's Supper is the ordinance in which the sacrificial death of Christ is symbolically presented to us, as forming the subject-matter of the church's communion with the Lord, and with each other, and that in peace with God. The Lord's Supper is particularly connected with the church as the body of Christ "For we being many are one bread (loaf), and one body" (1 Cor. 10:17); but we are baptized into one body, not by water, but by the Holy Ghost.