But we must also notice another condition of the realization of this doctrine; which is provided in the Catholic system; and which, like that of purgatory, has been rather neglected by Protestantism. {91} It has been noticed by some writers that the sacramental system of the church provides an admirable safeguard, and one in an especial manner necessary in the middle ages, against outbreaks of fanaticism. According to the teaching of the Catholic Church, the sacraments are the great means, channels, and conditions of grace. And this produces a system and an order, a definite method of procedure in the spiritual life, which, assisted by the ascetical and mystical theology so minutely cultivated, abundantly directs enthusiasm and represses fanaticism. And we do not doubt that if Protestantism, with its doctrine of private judgment and private direction, had been the form of Christianity existing in the middle ages, Christianity would have sunk into a condition of which paganism and the Gnostic heresies alone afford a parallel. But this sacramental system has also another, though a co-ordinate effect. Grace is insensible and unfelt, to confound it with the natural religious feelings and emotions is to make religion no longer a discipline and a duty, but a sentiment. And because it is unfelt, it is necessary that it should ordinarily be given through some external and sensible rite, in order to ward off undue and pernicious doubt and anxiety. Now, according to Catholic teaching, while, on the one hand, it is impossible for any one to know with absolute certainty what is his spiritual state before God; on the other hand, the doctrine of confession and absolution supplies all with a means of knowing, with a greater of less amount of probability, what their real condition is. On the morally beneficial tendency of the first part of this teaching it is unnecessary to dilate, and any scrupulosity or vain terror which, if it stood alone, it might excite, is amply provided against by the second. And thus, through the correlative doctrines of purgatory, of the consequent distinction between mortal and venial sins, of confession and absolution, and by means of its moral theology, Catholicism provides that the doctrine of eternal punishment shall press with greater or less force, exactly as its influence is more or less required. It does not leave the believer to the diseased imaginations of his own mind, but provides an external code to which he must submit, and an external direction by which he will be guided. It provides a means by which he may know whether he is or is not in a state of sin, and a definite remedy whereby he may extricate himself from it; while it holds out a hope of salvation to all, and teaches that no man ever existed whose case was so desperate that he could not, if he co-operated with grace, as he has the power of co-operating, look for pardon. With the heretical sects the case is widely different. The very name of Calvinism