But what would be quite incomprehensible, had he actually read the scholastic theologians whose “civil, Aristotelian doctrine of justice” he was so constantly attacking, is, that he charges them with having stopped short at this natural justice and with not having taught anything higher; this higher justice was what he himself had brought to light, this was the “Scriptural justice which depended more on the Divine imputation than on the nature of things,”[189] and was not acquired by deeds but bestowed by God. The fact is, however, that the Schoolmen did not rest content merely with natural justice, but insist that true justice is something higher, supernatural and only to be attained to with the help of grace; it is only in some few later theologians with whom Luther may possibly have been acquainted, that this truth fails to find clear expression. Thomas of Aquin, for instance, distinguishes between the civil virtue of justice and the justice infused in the act of justification. He says expressly: “A man may be termed just in two ways, on account of civil [natural] justice and on account of infused justice. Civil justice is attained to without the grace which comes to the assistance of the natural powers, but infused justice is the work of grace. Neither the one nor the other, however, consists in the mere doing of what is good, for not everyone who does what is good is just, but only he who does it as do the just.”[190] With regard to supernatural (infused) justice, the Church’s representatives, quite differently from Luther, had taught that man by his natural powers could only attain to God as the Author of nature but not to God as He is in Himself, i.e. to God as He has revealed and will communicate Himself in heaven; it is infused, sanctifying grace alone that places us in a higher order than that of nature and raises us to the status of being children of God; in it we love God, by virtue of the “habit” of love bestowed upon us, as He is in Himself, i.e. as He wills to be loved; sanctifying grace it is that brings us into a true relation with our supernatural and final end, viz. the vision of God in heaven, in which sense it may be called a vital principle infused into the soul.[191]