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B. THE DOCTRINE OF SANCTIFICATION IN HISTORY.
1. BEFORE THE REFORMATION.
In the historical unfolding of the doctrine of sanctification, the
Church concerned itself primarily with three problems: (a) the relation of the grace of God in
sanctification to faith; (b) the relation of sanctification to justification; and (c) the degree of
sanctification in this present life. The writings of the early Church Fathers contain very little
respecting the doctrine of sanctification. A strain of moralism is quite apparent in that man was
taught to depend for salvation on faith and good works. Sins committed before baptism were
washed away in baptism, but for those after baptism man must provide by penance and good
works. He must lead a life of virtue and thus merit the approval of the Lord. “Such dualism,”
says Scott in his The Nicene Theology,[p. 200.] “left the domain of sanctification only indirectly
related to the redemption of Christ; and this was the field in which grew up, naturally, defective
conceptions of sin, legalism, Sacramentarianism, priestcraft, and all the excesses of monkish
devotion.” Asceticism came to be regarded as of the greatest importance. There was also a
tendency to confound justification and sanctification. Augustine was the first one to develop
rather definite ideas of sanctification, and his views had a determining influence on the Church
of the Middle Ages. He did not clearly distinguish between justification and sanctification, but
conceived of the latter as included in the former. Since he believed in the total corruption of
human nature by the fall, he thought of sanctification as a new supernatural impartation of
divine life, a new infused energy, operating exclusively within the confines of the Church and
through the sacraments. While he did not lose sight of the importance of personal love to Christ
as a constituent element in sanctification, he manifested a tendency to take a metaphysical
view of the grace of God in sanctification, — to regard it as a deposit of God in man. He did not
sufficiently stress the necessity of a constant preoccupation of faith with the redeeming Christ,
as the most important factor in the transformation of the Christian’s life. The tendencies
apparent in the teachings of Augustine came to fruitage in the theology of the Middle Ages,
which is found in its most developed form in the writings of Thomas Aquinas. Justification and
sanctification are not clearly distinguished, but the former is made to include the infusion of
divine grace, as something substantial, into the human soul. This grace is a sort of donum
superadditum, by which the soul is lifted to a new level or a higher order of being, and is
enabled to achieve its heavenly destiny of knowing, possessing, and enjoying God. The grace is
derived from the inexhaustible treasury of the merits of Christ and is imparted to believers by
the sacraments. Looked at from the divine point of view, this sanctifying grace within the soul
secures the remission of original sin, imparts a permanent habit of inherent righteousness, and
carries within itself the potency of further development, and even of perfection. Out of it the
new life develops with all its virtues. Its good work can be neutralized or destroyed by mortal
sins; but the guilt contracted after baptism can be removed by the eucharist in the case of
venial sins, and by the sacrament of penance in the case of mortal sins. Considered from the