The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments

by E. E. Holmes

CHAPTER IV.

THE CHURCH'S SACRAMENTS.

We have seen that a National Church is the means whereby the Catholic Church reaches the nation; that her function is (1) to teach, and (2) to feed the nation; that she teaches through her books, and feeds through her Sacraments.

We now come to the second of these two functions—the spiritual feeding of the nation. This she does through the Sacraments—a word which comes from the Latin sacrare (from sacer), sacred.[[1]] The Sacraments are the sacred media through which the soul of man is fed with the grace of God.

We may think of them under three heads:—their number; their nature; their names.

(I) THE NUMBER OF THE SACRAMENTS.

In the early Church the number was unlimited. After the twelfth century, the number was technically limited to seven. Partly owing to the mystic number seven,[[2]] and partly because seven seemed to meet the needs of all sorts and conditions of men, the septenary number of Sacraments became either fixed or special. The Latin Church taught that there were "seven, and seven only": the Greek Church specialized seven, without limiting their number: the English Church picked out seven, specializing two as "generally necessary to salvation"[[3]] and five (such as Confirmation and Marriage) as "commonly called Sacraments".[[4]]

The English Church, then, teaches that, without arbitrarily limiting their number, there are seven special means of grace, either "generally necessary" for all, or specially provided for some. And, as amongst her books she selects two, and calls them "The Bible," and "The Prayer Book," so amongst her Sacraments she deliberately marks out two for a primacy of honour.

These two are so supreme, as being "ordained by Christ Himself"; so pre-eminent, as flowing directly from the Wounded Side, that she calls them "the Sacraments of the Gospel". They are, above all other Sacraments, "glad tidings of great joy" to every human being. And these two are "generally necessary," i.e. necessary for all alike—they are generaliter, i.e. for all and not only for special states (such as Holy Orders): they are "for every man in his vocation and ministry". The other five are not necessarily essential for all. They have not all "the like nature of Sacraments of the Gospel," in that they were not all "ordained by Christ Himself". It is the nature of the two Sacraments of the Gospel that we now consider.

(II) THE NATURE OF THE SACRAMENTS.

"What meanest thou by this word, Sacrament?" The Catechism, confining its answer to the two greater Sacraments, replies: "I mean an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace..."[[5]]

Putting this into more modern language, we might say that a Sacrament is a supernatural conjunction of spirit and matter.[[6]] It is not matter only; it is not spirit only; it is not matter opposed to spirit, but spirit of which matter is the expression, and "the ultimate reality". Thus, for a perfect Sacrament, there must be both "the outward and visible" (matter), and "the inward and spiritual" (spirit). It is the conjunction of the two which makes the Sacrament. Thus, a Sacrament is not wholly under the conditions of material laws, nor is it wholly under the conditions of spiritual laws; it is under the conditions of what (for lack of any other name) we call Sacramental laws. As yet, we know comparatively little of either material or spiritual laws, and we cannot be surprised that we know still less of Sacramental laws. We are in the student stage, and are perpetually revising our conclusions. In all three cases, we very largely "walk by faith".

But this at least we may say of Sacraments. Matter without spirit cannot effect that which matter with spirit can, and does, effect. As in the Incarnation, God[[7]] expresses Himself through matter[[8]]—so it is in the Sacraments. In Baptism, the Holy Spirit "expresses Himself" through water: in the Eucharist, through bread and wine. In each case, the perfect integrity of matter and of spirit are essential to the validity of the Sacrament. In each case, it is the conjunction of the two which guarantees the full effect of either.[[9]]

(III) THE NAMES OF THE SACRAMENTS.

As given in the Prayer Book, these are seven—"Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord," Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and Unction.

We will think now of the two first.

[[1]] St. Leo defines a Sacrament thus: "Sacramentum. (1) It originally signified the pledge or deposit in money which in certain suits according to Roman Law plaintiff and defendant were alike bound to make; (2) it came to signify a pledge of military fidelity, a voluntary oath; (3) then the exacted oath of allegiance; (4) any oath whatever; (5) in early Christian use any sacred or solemn act, and especially any mystery where more was meant than met the ear or eye" (Blight's "Select Sermons of St. Leo on the Incarnation," p. 136).

[[2]] Symbolical of completion.

[[3]] Church Catechism.

[[4]] Article XXV.

[[5]] The answer is borrowed from Peter Lombard (a pupil of Abelard and Professor of Theology, and for a short time Bishop of Paris), who defines a Sacrament as a "visible sign of an invisible grace," probably himself borrowing the thought from St. Augustine.

[[6]] Dr. Illingworth calls "the material order another aspect of the spiritual, which is gradually revealing itself through material concealment, in the greater and lesser Christian Sacraments, which radiate from the Incarnation" ("Sermons Preached in a College Chapel," p. 173).

[[7]] God is _Spirit_, St. John iv. 24.

[[8]] The Word was made _Flesh_, St. John i. 14.

[[9]] The water in Baptism is not, of course, _consecrated_, as the bread and wine are in the Eucharist. It does not, like the bread and wine, "become what it was not, without ceasing to be what it was," but it is "_sanctified_ to the mystical washing away of sins".