But what is meant by sacramental extension, and why should it be so?
To answer this question, let us get first a true metaphysical idea of the sacrament. The term sacrament in theological language is applied as conveying the idea of an instrument of grace. Hence, to get at the idea, we must inquire into the idea of instrument. Now, what is an instrument? It is an organism which contains a force. And what is force? It, being one of the first
elements of our thoughts, can be defined but imperfectly, less by its essence than by its effects. It might be defined to be the energy of a being retaining its existence through the means of an effort of concentration, or diffusing it outwardly by a movement of expansion. Every act of force must be reduced to this two-fold movement: either we shut ourselves, as it were, in ourselves to concentrate our life, and give ourselves the highest possible sensation; or we expand ourselves to communicate our life to others, and according to the degree of this double tension we exhibit the phenomenon of force. The hand contracted or closed is the symbol of the force of concentration; the hand open to give is the image of the force of expansion. The force of concentration in its highest possible act is eternity—the possession of interminable life all at once. He alone possesses it who in an instant—one, indivisible, and absolute—experiences in himself and for ever the plenitude of his being, and says, I am who am; the sublimest idea ever conceived and ever uttered. The force of expansion at its highest possible act is the external action; and he alone possesses it who, absolutely sufficient to himself in the plenitude of his being, can call to life, without losing of his own, whomsoever and whatsoever he lists—bodies, spirits, worlds, and for ever in ages without number, and in space without limits.
Now, God, in giving us being, has given us force, without which a being could not conceive itself, and has given us this force in its double element of concentration and expansion: the one, which enables us to continue its existence, and to develop ourselves; the other, which enables us to propagate ourselves: the one, by which we tend to the act of eternity;
the other, by which we tend to the act of creation.
But there is this difference among others between us and the infinite, that he possesses in himself and by himself the force of concentration and expansion, whereas our force is borrowed and communicated to us by means of instruments, which his infinite wisdom has prepared. Life is kept in us by something forcing to us the instruments to which God has communicated the power of sustaining and repairing it.
We subsist by the invisible force contained in an organism. The same must be said of the force of expansion. We cannot act outside ourselves, on any being at all capable of resistance, by the simple direct act of our will, but must make use of instruments, among which our body is the first.
Now, the reasons of this are, that, if we possessed the force of concentration and expansion in ourselves and by ourselves, it would follow that, as these two forces constitute the essence of life, we should have life in ourselves and by ourselves, we should be to ourselves the reason of our being and subsistence, and consequently we should be infinite and not finite. Hence, pantheism, which admits the unity of substance independent and self-sufficient, and all else as phenomena of this substance, rejects all idea of instrument in metaphysics, and all idea of sacrament in theology.
Nor would it do to say that God might communicate that double force to us immediately by himself without the aid of any instruments. For two reasons we must reject such a supposition: First, the law of secondary agency, which requires that created substance should act, and it would not for any purpose do so were God to do everything immediately by himself. Second, the law of
communion, so necessary to the unity of the cosmos, which is founded exclusively upon the action of one element upon the other, else the communion would be merely imaginary and fictitious.