The Catholic Faith professes that the Sacrament of Order instituted by Christ, by which are conferred spiritual power and grace to perform properly ecclesiastical functions, is one and the same for the universal Church; for, just as Our Lord Jesus Christ gave to the Church but one and the same government under the Prince of the Apostles, one and the same faith, one and the same sacrifice, so too He gave her but one and the same treasury of efficacious signs of grace, that is, Sacraments. For these Sacraments instituted by Christ Our Lord, the Church in the course of the centuries never substituted other Sacraments, nor could she do so, since, as the Council of Trent teaches, the seven Sacraments of the New Law were all instituted by Jesus Christ Our Lord, and the Church has no power over “the substance of the Sacraments,” that is, over those things which, as is proved from the sources of divine revelation, Christ the Lord Himself established to be kept as sacramental signs.
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All agree that the Sacraments of the New Law, as sensible signs which produce invisible grace, must both signify the grace which they produce and produce the grace which they signify (…) If it was at one time necessary even for validity by the will and command of the Church, every one knows that the Church has the power to change and abrogate what she herself has established.
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