1. INCREASE OF SANCTIFYING GRACE.—The first grace of justification (_gratia prima_) can never be merited;(1321) hence the meaning of the above-quoted conciliar definition is that it can be increased by good works. This increase is technically called _gratia secunda_. All Scriptural texts which assert that sanctifying grace is unequal in different individuals, also prove that it can be increased or augmented by the performance of meritorious works.(1322) a) No adult person can merit the first grace of assistance (_gratia prima actualis_), nor any one of the series of actual graces which follow it, and by which justification ultimately comes to pass. They are all purely gratuitous. Similarly, too, the first grace of justification (_gratia prima habitualis_) cannot be strictly merited by the sinner preparing for justification. This is the express teaching of Trent: “But we are therefore said to be justified freely, because that none of those things which precede justification—whether faith or works—merit the grace itself of justification; for, if it be a grace, it is not now by works; otherwise, as the same Apostle says, grace is no more grace.”(1323) To deny this would not only imperil the dogma of the gratuity of grace (because if the first grace given before active justification could be strictly merited, this would necessarily involve the _gratia prima actualis_), but it would also start a vicious circle (because the _gratia prima habitualis_ is an indispensable condition of merit). This explains why St. Paul and St. Augustine again and again insist on the gratuity both of the first grace of assistance and the grace of justification proper.(1324) “This grace of Christ,” says St. Augustine, “without which neither infants nor adults can be saved, is not bestowed for any merits, but is given freely, on account of which it is also called grace. ‘Being justified,’ says the Apostle, ‘freely through His blood.’ ”(1325) In the light of this teaching it is easy to decide the question, raised by Vasquez, whether perfect contrition justifies the sinner merely _per modum dispositionis_ or _per modum causae formalis_. Both contrition and charity, be they perfect or imperfect, are essentially acts that dispose the soul for justification.(1326) Hence, no matter how perfect, neither is capable of effecting justification itself by way of merit (_merendo_), nay, of entering even partially, as Vasquez would have it, into the formal cause of justification, because, according to the Tridentine Council, sanctifying grace and not perfect contrition is the _unica causa formalis_ of justification.(1327)