Page:Theartofdyingwel00belluoft.djvu/95



HAVING now explained the principal virtues which teach us how " to live well." I shall add some remarks on the Sacraments, which, no less than the former, instruct us in this most necessary Art. There are seven Sacraments instituted by Christ our Lord: baptism, confirmation, holy Eucharist, penance, holy orders, matrimony, and extreme unction. These are the divine instruments, as it were, which God uses by the ministry of his servants, to preserve, or increase, or restore His grace to us; that so being freed from the servitude of the devil, and translated to the dignity of the " Sons of God," we may one day arrive at eternal happiness with the holy angels. From these holy Sacraments, therefore, it is our intention briefly to show who are they that advance in the " Art of living well," and who fail in it. We may then know who can hope for a happy death; and who, on the contrary, may expect a miserable one, unless he change his life.

Let us begin with the first Sacrament. Baptism, being the first, is justly called the "gate" of the Sacraments, because, unless