fers at once from the Koman Catholic, by its conception of a miinsleriiim in the place of a sarerdotiiim. They next differ in the relative position they assign to the means of grace. Protestants maintain that this grace is fir.st communicated through the Word of (iod, and confirmed by the sacraments; Roman Catholics, on the contrary, consider the sacraments as the chief means of grace, and the Word of (iod as accessory. Then, as re- gards the Word of (iod, Protestants consider it as con- sisting essentially in Scripture, together with exjila- nations, while by it Koman Catholics understand only the prcedicatio verbi. The latter also increase the num- ber of sacraments, and recognise other means of grace. On these points, see Woun of God and Sacrajiknts. Another distinction is the difference in which the means of grace themselves are apprehended in their connec- tion with grace and forgiveness. According to the Con- di. Trident., sess. 7, the sacraments work ex opere operato, a doctrine which the Cmif. A lit/, art. xiii, rejects. We must, of course, refer to Koman Catholic theologians to find the sense which that Church attaches to the opus operatum (Bellarmine, De sacr. ii, 1), According to them, infant baptism is efficient in itself to regenerate them, without any resistance being for a moment to be thought of. The opposition of adults to baptism, con- fession, and the mass coidd only consist in an obstacle {ponere ohiceni), a deceitfid hiding of a mortal sin, and the persistence in it, for absolution presupposes a full and candid confession. But a passive faith as saving faith, in the Protestant sense, is not rc(iuired to give ef- ficiency to the sacraments. We might then suppose that the AVord would here, as a means of grace, be placed before the sacrament, ami produce conversion, which would insure the cfTect of the sacrament. But we must remember that, for the most part. Koman Catholics are such from being born of Koman Catholic parents. Of converts themselves nothing further is demanded than that they should have enough fides iinplicila in the word announced to them to submit to the authority of the Church. History teaches us how even the word itself may become the opus operatum. j In opposition to the Koman Catholic Church, Protcs- I tants generally draw a distinction between grace and the means of grace, although they recognise their rela- tion. We must, however, distinguish between such as reject altogether the necessity and ordinance of the means of grace, and those who recognise as such the Word of God but not the sacraments. Among the for- mer we find in the time of the Reformation the Analiap- tists, in later times the t^iakers. They maintain that the Holy Spirit, without the aid of the Word, illumi- nates each man immediately by an inner light at a cer- tain time, and that by it only is man able to luulerstand the Word of God (see Barclay, Apo/.\ Still it would be unjust to say that they altogether reject the notion of means of grace, for the (Quakers are especially distin- guished for diligent searching of the .Scriptures. But they deny the existence of divinely-ordained, siiecial means of grace of the Church. The Socinians and Jlen- nonites, on the other hand, consider, in a certain sense, the Word of (iod as an objective me.ins of grace; the former considering the sacraments jiurely as symbols of the Christian faith (rerimoHitr), while the Jlennonites consider them also as objective signs of the action of grace (Riz.^'o/j/l art. .SO). Here also we miss the objec- tive character of the means of grace, but we find it again among the Arminians. Necessarily as the sphere of action of the sacraments is restricted as means of grace, that of grace itself, as immediately active, becomes en- larged; this we see exemplified in the doctrine <f res- toration of the Anabaptists, in the (Jiiaker doctrine of the action of the revealing Spirit (•• Deus spiritus reve- lationc se i|)sum semper filiis homimmi patefecit," Bar- clay,-l;m/. thes, ii), and in the Socinian notion of an extraordinary and special action of the divine i>\nnt aside from its general action through the (Jospel (Oste- rodt, Unturricht. K. p. 34). The Protestant Church, in
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its doctrine of grafia jirceveniens, recognises, with some restriction, the truth of these views, but still maintains the necessity of the sacraments. According to Script- ure, the sphere of the gratia jn-ceveniens extends beyond that of the theocratic revelation. The Spirit dwells where it chooses, the Logos shines in all human souls, and the gratia praveniens is active in all receptive hearts. Yet the prepared soul only arrives to an experi- mental knowledge of salvation within the sphere of rev- elation, and to a certainty of it by the ordained means of grace. On this point of the necessity of the means of grace, the difference, such as it is, which exists be- tween the Lutheran and the Reformed Church on that doctrine, cannot but appear. The possibility of the spir- itual enlightenment of individualmembers of the Church, sine externo ministerio, is clearly recognised by the Conf. Ilelc. ii, cap. i. StiU the article considers it as divinely ordained that it is imparted by the usitata ratio institu- endi homines. It insists still more strongly on the ne- cessity of the prcedicatin dei rerbi, to which, of course, is joined the interna Sjiirif/is tlliiininatio. But this neces- sity is defined as a >tiri.<sit,i.-: jirncepti, non absoluta, i. e. God, in the work of rcckiiiiitimi. is not confined to these means, as is proved by the pro]>hets and by revelation, but, in consideration of the weakness of our nature, has appointed these means (see Schweizer, Glauhenslehre d. €i\ ref. Kirche, ii, 561). Luther, on the contrary, refers even the inspiration of the prophets to the verhum vo- cale (A7-t. Smal. p. 333). Another difference consists in the close connection existing in the Lutheran Church between the sacrament and the Word, while in the Re- formed theology the Word takes the prominent position as the causa instrumentalis fidei (see Y.hrarA, Christliche JJogmatik; p. 578). The Lutheran Church teaches an organic joint action of grace and the means of grace, without, however, making them identical. The Re- formed Lutherans understand only an economic joint action, which, however, does not exclude irregularities or rather exceptions. As regards the Word of God. the Lutheran theologians strongly uphold its ejjicacia, and Calovius and Quenstedt speak of a unio mystica gratice sire virtutis dicinm cum verbo -(see Hahn, Lehrbuc/i, p. 549). At this point orthodoxy approaches the idea of the opus operatum (see Lange, Dogmatik, p. 1119). Ac- cording to Reformed theology, the connection of the Spirit with the Word is conditioned by the number of the elect among the number of hearers, while the Hei- delberg Catechism holds that the Spirit awakens faith in our heart through the preaching of the holy Gospel. According to Nitzsch, the point of union of the two con- fessions on this doctrine lies in the conception of the pignus. We further notice that the Reformed Church does not insist as strongly on the necessity- of baptism as the Lutheran. The Confessio Scotica (p. 127) em- phatically rejects the Roman Catholic doctrine of the damnation of children dying without baptism ; so does also Calvin, in his Instit. iv, 16, 26. As regards the con- nection between baptism and regeneration, the twenty- seventh article of the Conf. Anglic, takes a middle course, saying that baptism is a signum regenei-ationis per quod recte buptismum suscipientes ecclesiis inseruntur. By this is meant that the ecclesiastic, social regeneration is ac- complished, the individual, social regeneration made thereby perceptible to the senses, and sacramentally promised. See Regeneration.