§ 18.
The contradiction in the Sacraments is the contradiction of naturalism and supernaturalism. In the first place the natural qualities of water are pronounced essential to Baptism. “Si quis dixerit aquam veram et naturalem non esse de necessitate Baptismi atque ideo verba illa domini nostri Jesu Christi: Nisi quis renatus fuerit ex aqua et Spiritu sancto, ad metamorpham aliquam detorserit, anathema sit.—Concil. Trident. (Sessio vii. Can. ii. de Bapt.) De substantia hujus sacramenti sunt verbum et elementum.... Non ergo in alio liquore potest consecrari baptismus nisi in aqua.—Petrus Lomb. (l. iv. dist. 3, c. l. c. 5). Ad certitudinem baptismi requiritur major quam unius guttae quantitas.... Necesse est ad valorem baptismi fieri contactum physicum inter aquam et corpus baptizati, ita ut non sufficiat, vestes tantum ipsius aqua tingi.... Ad certitudinem baptismi requiritur, ut saltem talis pars corporis abluatur, ratione cujus homo solet dici vere ablutus, v. 6, collum, humeri, pectus et praesertim caput.—Theolog. Schol. (P. Mezger. Aug. Vind. 1695, Th. iv. pp. 230, 231). Aquam, eamque veram ac naturalem in baptismo adhibendam esse, exemplo Joannis ... non minus vero et Apostolorum Act. viii. 36, x. 47, patet.—F. Buddeus (Com. Inst. Th. dog. l. iv. c. i. § 5).” Thus water is essential. But now comes the negation of the natural qualities of water. The significance of Baptism is not the natural power of water, but the supernatural, almighty power of the Word of God, who instituted the use of water as a sacrament, and now by means of this element imparts himself to man in a supernatural, miraculous manner, but who could just as well have chosen any other element in order to produce the same effect. So Luther, for example, says: “Understand the distinction, that Baptism is quite another thing than all other water, not on account of its natural quality, but because here something more noble is added. For God himself brings hither his glory, power, and might ... as St. Augustine also hath taught: ‘accedat verbum ad elementum et fit sacramentum.’” “Baptize them in the name of the Father, &c. Water without these words is mere water.... Who will call the baptism of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost mere water? Do we not see what sort of spice God puts into this water? When sugar is thrown into water it is no longer water, but a costly claret or other beverage. Why then do we here separate the word from the water and say, it is mere water; as if the word of God, yea, God himself, were not with and in the water.... Therefore, the water of Baptism is such a water as takes away sin, death, and unhappiness, helps us in heaven and to everlasting life. It is become a precious sugared water, aromaticum, and restorative, since God has mingled himself therewith.”—Luther (Th. xvi. p. 105).
As with the water in Baptism, which sacrament is nothing without water, though this water is nevertheless in itself indifferent, so is it with the wine and bread in the Eucharist, even in Catholicism, where the substance of bread and wine is destroyed by the power of the Almighty. “Accidentia eucharistica tamdiu continent Christum, quamdiu retinent illud temperamentum, cum quo connaturaliter panis et vini substantia permaneret: ut econtra, quando tanta fit temperamenti dissolutio, illorumque corruptio, ut sub iis substantia panis et vini naturaliter remanere non posset, desinunt continere Christum.”—Theol. Schol. (Mezger. l. c. p. 292). That is to say: so long as the bread remains bread, so long does the bread remain flesh; when the bread is gone, the flesh is gone. Therefore a due portion of bread, at least enough to render bread recognisable as such, must be present, for consecration to be possible.—(Ib. p. 284.) For the rest, Catholic transubstantiation, the conversio realis et physica totius panis in corpus Christi, is only a consistent continuation of the miracles of the Old and New Testaments. By the transformation of water into wine, of a staff into a serpent, of stones into brooks ([Ps. cxiv].) by these biblical transubstantiations the Catholics explained and proved the turning of bread into flesh. He who does not stumble at those transformations, has no right, no reason to hesitate at accepting this. The Protestant doctrine of the Lord’s Supper is not less in contradiction with reason than the Catholic. “The body of Christ cannot be partaken otherwise than in two ways, spiritually or bodily. Again, this bodily partaking cannot be visible or perceptible,” i.e., is not bodily, “else no bread would remain. Again, it cannot be mere bread; otherwise it would not be a bodily communion of the body of Christ, but of bread. Therefore the bread broken must also be truly and corporeally the body of Christ, although invisibly” (i.e., incorporeally).—Luther (Th. xix. p. 203). The difference is, that the Protestant gives no explanation concerning the mode in which bread can be flesh and wine blood. “Thereupon we stand, believe, and teach, that the body of Christ is truly and corporeally taken and eaten in the Lord’s Supper. But how this takes place, or how he is in the bread, we know not, and are not bound to know.”—Id. (ut sup. p. 393). “He who will be a Christian must not ask, as our fanatics and factionaries do, how it can be that bread is the body of Christ and wine the blood of Christ.”—Id. (Th. xvi. p. 220). “Cum retineamus doctrinam de praesentia corporis Christi, quid opus est quaerere de modo?”—Melancthon (Vita Mel. Camerarius, ed. Strobel, Halae, 1777, p. 446). Hence the Protestants as well as the Catholics took refuge in Omnipotence, the grand source of ideas contradictory to reason.—(Concord. Summ. Beg. Art. 7, Aff. 3, Negat. 13. See also Luther, e.g., Th. xix. p. 400.)
An instructive example of theological incomprehensibleness and supernaturalness is afforded by the distinction, in relation to the Eucharist (Concordienb. Summ. Beg. art. 7), between partaking with the mouth and partaking in a fleshly or natural manner. “We believe, teach, and confess that the body of Christ is taken in the bread and wine, not alone spiritually by faith, but also with the mouth, yet not in a Capernaitic, but a supernatural heavenly manner, for the sake of sacramental union.” “Probe namque discrimen inter manducationem oralem et naturalem tenendum est. Etsi enim oralem manducationem adseramus atque propugnemus, naturalem tamen non admittimus.... Omnis equidem manducatio naturalis etiam oralis est, sed non vicissim oralis manducatio statim est naturalis.... Unicus itaque licet sit actus, unicumque organum, quo panem et corpus Christi, itemque vinum et sanguinem Christi accipimus, modus (yes, truly, the mode) nihilominus maximopere differt, cum panem et vinum modo naturali et sensibili, corpus et sanguinem Christi simul equidem cum pane et vino, at modo supernaturali et insensibili, qui adeo etiam a nemine mortalium (nor, assuredly, by any God) explicare potest, revera interim et ore corporis accipiamus.”—Jo. Fr. Buddeus (l. c. Lib. v. c. i. § 15).