C. Two Corollaries

40. From this follow two things: first, that at the moment of death venial sins are remitted, because the act of venial sin does not then remain and consequently the impediment then ceases; the other, that the venial sin of someone dying in charity is remitted in this life, unless he continue the act of venial sin until death or the moment of death.

41. This second one seems probable, unless you say God has ordained that the good merits of this person will be reserved in divine acceptation until the moment of death, when, of course, he ceases to be a wayfarer, and consequently that then God gives back to him the good corresponding to his merits, but not so for any prior instant when he was a wayfarer.

42. This is probable in other cases because, since any merit (as I believe) merits an increase of grace (because it merits some determinate degree of glory for which some degree of grace is required as preceding disposition), and since God does not always, after any meritorious act, increase grace proportionate to merit, it seems that the increase due to remitted merits he keeps in reserve until the moment of death.

43. And it is the same way about this deletion of venial sins, which is a sort of non-principal reward of these merits, just as it is also an increase of charity in such or such a degree.

44. And this is reasonable, because at that moment [sc. of death] a man first comes to be in another state; and the state of being wayfarer (or something concomitant to this sort of state) was what prevented the reward of merits being rendered to him. And it is not necessary to indicate here that this reserving for the moment of death is reasonable because a man is then, on account of impending very great trials, most of all in need - for this is not true, because at the moment of death the soul is separated from the body and consequently is not a wayfarer but at the term, nor consequently is it then exposed to trials.

45. If neither of these ways [n.40] is pleasing (neither the first, namely that it is the same thing for venial sin to be remitted and for the penalty due to it to be paid; nor the second, namely because by merits acquired as wayfarer and reserved in divine acceptation, venial sin may be destroyed at the moment of death), let another way be looked for, which it is difficult to find. For that there is some good movement by which, as by a disposition or merit by congruity or desert, venial sin be destroyed in the soul after death, does not seem consonant with theological doctrine, which posits that that state is immune from these things.