THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
for grace. Finally he deepened the distinction between operating and cooperating grace. The beginning and continuance of salvation are not dependent upon grace in an equal degree; the fact that after conversion will is not only caused, but causes, justifies a special consideration of the share which it has in good works. The meritorious work of the converted is meritum de congruo in so far as it proceeds from his free will, meritum de condigno in so far as it originates from grace. According to Duns Scotus, man is the sovereign ruler of his will and the sole cause of the individual acts of will. Grace does not create the good, it only increases it.
Luther began as a disciple of Augustine. With
him he taught the total incapacity of the natural
man for the truly good. All good is a work of grace.
There is no preparation for its recep-
4. Luther tion on the part of man. The scho-
and Me- lastic conception of the infusion of lanchthon. grace was at first accepted by Luther, but even then the idea of Paul began to take possession of him that the real blessing is not moral transformation, but the forgiveness of sins. The grace of forgiveness depends upon Christ and his work, which must be seized as the power of God that effects redemption. The means by which God bestows grace is the Word. The Evangelical thought that grace is not an infused quality, but the personal favor of God, first appears in the works of Melanchthon, who explains gratia by " favor." It is only from God's benevolence that the gift of the Holy Spirit follows. The same interpretations are to be found in the works of Luther and Calvin. Thus the personal character of grace, as found in Paul, was restored, and the merits of man vanished behind the one merit of Christ. In his treatise De servo arbitrio (1525) Luther tried to build the necessity of grace and the certainty of salvation through faith upon metaphysical ideas of determinism and predestination. But the influence of these thoughts upon the Lutheran Church has been slight. Beside Luther's religious determinism, there appeared after 1527 Melanchthon's doctrine of liberty. Both tendencies culminated in the synergistic controversy (see Synergism). The opponents of Philippism upheld the sole causality of God in conversion, but they did not approve the doctrine of a grace that acts irresistibly and can not be lost. The Formula of Concord concluded that there is no cooperation of man in conversion, but at the same time it restricted predestination to the eternal will of God to save those who believe in Christ (art. xi.). Thus, by putting into the background metaphysical questions, it tried to uphold the religious position of Luther.
In the Reformed Church the doctrine of grace
is closely connected with that of predestination.
With Calvin as well as with Zwingli it
5. The originated undoubtedly in the relig- Reformed ious interest of the certainty of salva-
Church. tion, but it follows from the doctrine of salvation only under the condition that there is a concurrent attempt at a metaphysical explanation of the general divine world-rule. But if thought be concentrated upon the fact that God's grace is not his all-effective will in general, but that
will which is manifest and effective in Christ and directed toward salvation, there is no need of explaining the reality and power of grace by metaphysical constructions and of representing its effectiveness otherwise than as a personal manifestation of will, which changes and influences another personal will. (0. Kirn.)
Bibliography: On the Biblical conception consult: W. Beyschlag, New Testament Theology, 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1895; H. Schultz, Old Testament Theology, 2 vols., ib. 1895; DB, ii. 254-257; Lichtenberger, ESR, v. 645-653. On the dogmatic conception, besides the works on systematic theology, consult: C. E. Luthardt, Die Lehre vom freien Willen und seinem VerhaUniss zur Gnade, Leipsic, 1863; F. Worter, Die christliche Lehre von Gnade und Freiheit, vol. i., Freiburg, 1856; idem, Beitrage zur Dogmengeschichte des Semipelagianismus, Paderborn, 1898; H. Reuter, Augustinische Studien, Gotha, 1887; H. Schultz, Der sittliche Begriff des Verdienstes und seine Anwendung auf das Verstandniss des Werkes Christi, in TSK, lxvii (1894), 1-50, 245-314. 554-614.
GRACE, MEANS OF: In Protestant theology the Word and the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, considered as means divinely ordained by which God offers through his grace to all sinners the salvation won by Christ the mediator, and gives and preserves in them a true faith. These means were those given by Christ for the continual propagation of his Church, and received by the apostles as having this specific content and purpose. What they thought of the preaching of the Word may be seen in such passages as I Cor. ii. 1, 4, 5; I Thess. i, 5, ii. 13; and as in it the presence of God is felt (I Cor. xiv. 25), so from it proceed definite divine workings, faith and the creation of a new moral nature (Acts xviii. 8; Rom. i. 16; I Pet. i. 23; James i. 18). In like manner baptism is regarded as a means for imparting communion with Christ and moral renovation (Acts ii. 38; Eph. v. 26; Heb. x. 22; Rom. vi. 3 sqq.; Col. ii. 11; Gal. hi. 27; Titus iii. 5; I Pet. iii. 21); and the appropriation of the new covenant in the blood of Christ, the remission of sins, excepted from the recurrent presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. The two sacraments are thus connected by Paul in I Cor. x. 1-5, as a parallel to the great works of salvation wrought by God for the children of Israel under the old covenant.
In the early Church great stress was laid upon the preaching of the Word, at first entrusted to persons specially endowed with charismata (" apostles, teachers, prophets "), and then becoming part
of the regular official functions of the
The Word Church. In spite of all developments
and Sacra- in a formal direction, many citations
ments. might be adduced to show how long
the primitive relation of Word and sacraments, of baptism and communion, was insisted on in the ancient sense. Medieval theology raised the sacraments as means of grace above the Word; Dionysius the Areopagite taught the East to seek grace in the " mysteries," and Abelard revised the Augustinian arrangement of faith, love, hope, replacing hope by a developed sacramental doctrine with a keen insight into the tendencies of his age. From his day and that of Peter Lombard, the sacramental system formed an important separate section of medieval dogmatics. The absence of a