Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/324



About God the Saviour and his special relation to the human race.

Such is the title of this division. All this division, with the exception of the last chapter about retribution, is occupied with the exposition of the teaching about the church and its mysteries.

Chapter I. About God as a sanctifier. 165. Conception of sanctification; participation of all the persons of the Most Holy Trinity in the matter of sanctification, and recital of means or conditions for sanctification. In this article, after the teaching and the proofs of the fact that all three persons take part in our sanctification (the Father is the source, the Son—the cause, the Holy Ghost—the one who achieves the sanctification), it says:

“IV. In order that we might be able to make the deserts of our Saviour our own and really be sanctified, he (1) founded on earth his kingdom of grace, the church, as a living instrument through which our sanctification takes place; (2) communicates to us in the church and through the church the grace of the Holy Ghost, as a force which sanctifies us; and (3) has established sacraments in the church, as means through which the grace of the Holy Ghost is communicated to us.” (p. 187.)

Christ has founded the church for our sanctification. The concept of the church I met in the very beginning of the Theology. In the very beginning it said that a dogma was a decree of the church, and later on, in the whole exposition of the dogmas, their correctness was defined by stating that the church taught so in regard to