A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

Sabellius taught that there was but one person in the Godhead; and, in confirmation of this doctrine, he made use of this comparison: as a man, though composed of body and soul, is but one person, so God, though he is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is but one person. Hence the Sabellians reduced the three persons in the Trinity to three characters or relations, and maintained that the Word and Holy Spirit are only virtues, emanations, or functions of the Deity; that he who is in heaven is the Father of all things; that he descended into the Virgin, became a child, and was born of her as a son; and that, having accomplished the mystery of our redemption, he diffused himself upon the apostles in tongues of fire, and was then denominated the Holy Ghost.

Between the system of Sabellianism and what is termed the indwelling scheme, there appears to be a considerable resemblance, if it be not precisely the same, differently explained. The indwelling scheme is chiefly founded on a false and unauthorized sense of that passage in the New Testament, where the apostle, speaking of Christ, says, “In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Dr. Watts, towards the close of his life, introduced the Sabellian heresy, and wrote several pieces in its defence. His sentiments on the Trinity appear to have been, that “the Godhead, the Deity itself, personally distinguished as the Father, was united to the man Christ Jesus, in consequence of which union or indwelling of the Godhead he became properly God.” Mr. Palmer observes that Dr. Watts conceived this union to have subsisted before the Saviour’s appearance in the flesh, and that the human soul of Christ existed with the Father from before the foundation of the world; on which ground he maintains the real descent of Christ from heaven to earth, and the whole scene of his humiliation, which he thought incompatible with the common opinion concerning him. Dr. Doddridge is supposed to have entertained the same sentiments.

SACRAMENT. (See Seven Sacraments.) In classical writers, observes Bishop Kaye, in his learned treatise on Tertullian, the word sacramentum means an oath or promise ratified by a sacred or religious ceremony: thus, the oath taken by the military was called sacramentum. In strict conformity with this, its original signification, it is used to express the promise made by Christians in baptism. From the oath the transition was easy to the ceremony by which it was ratified. Thus sacramentum came to signify any religious ordinance, and in general to stand for that which in Greek is expressed by the word μυστήριον (mystery), any emblematical notion of a sacred import, any external act having an internal or secret meaning. If the word is understood in this extended sense, the Romanists are clearly wrong in confining the title to only seven rites or ordinances. The first who did this was probably the celebrated Master of the Sentences [Peter Lombard, in the twelfth century]. Certain it is that the number of seven sacraments was first decreed by Eugenius in the fifteenth century, that the first provincial council which confirmed the decree was one convened in the sixteenth century, and that the first council, even pretending to be general, that adopted it with an anathema was the Council of Trent.

This is, in fact, our dispute on this point with Rome. If the Romanists take the word sacrament in its enlarged sense, then they ought not to confine it, as they do, to seven rites; if they take it in its strict sense, then they ought to confine it to two, baptism and the supper of the Lord. Taking the word in its general sense, the Church of England directs the clergy to speak to the people of matrimony as a sacrament. “By the like holy promise the sacrament of matrimony knitteth man and wife in perpetual love,” &c.—Homily on Swearing, part i. The Church of England in this sense acknowledges other rites to be sacraments besides baptism and the eucharist. (See below, the extract from the Homily, Of Common Prayer and Sacraments.) This is a very important distinction: “Let it be clearly understood,” says Bishop Jeremy Taylor, “it is none of the doctrine of the Church of England that there are two sacraments only, but that of those rituals commanded in Scripture, which ecclesiastical use calls sacraments, by a word of art, two only are generally necessary to salvation.”—Taylor’s Dissuasive, p. 240. In like manner Archbishop Secker says, “As the word sacrament is not a Scripture one, and hath at different times been differently understood, our catechism doth not require it to be said absolutely that the sacraments are two only, but two only necessary to salvation; leaving persons at liberty to comprehend more things under the name if they please, provided they insist not on the necessity of them, and of dignifying them with this title.”—Secker’s Lectures, xxxv. Of Baptism. It will be seen that this is in accordance with the answer in the catechism to the question, How many sacraments has Christ ordained in his Church? the answer being not simply two, but “two only as generally necessary to salvation.”

We have said that the distinction is important, for it enables us to take high ground on this doctrine. It is not by depressing the other ordinances of the Church which Cranmer and Taylor call sacramentals, but by placing baptism and the eucharist in their proper place and dignity, that we best defend the English Church on this point. If, with the latitudinarians, we depress the proper sacraments and make baptism a mere ceremony, and the eucharist only a more solemn form of self-dedication or worship, our controversy becomes a childish dispute about words. Not so if we distinguish, with the Church of England, baptism and the eucharist from all other ordinances, because they are, what the others are not, necessary for salvation to all men, wherever they can be had. Other ordinances may confer grace, but baptism and the eucharist alone unite with Christ himself. “By baptism we receive Christ Jesus, and from him the saving grace which is proper to baptism; by the eucharist we receive him also imparting therein himself, and that grace which the eucharist properly bestows.” Again; baptism and the eucharist are what none of the other ordinances are, federal rites, the one for initiating, the other for renewing the covenant of grace, instituted for a reciprocal communion between God and man, of blessings on the one part and duty on the other; they are not merely a means to an end, but they are actually a part of our moral and Christian holiness, piety, and perfection; “as much a part of virtue,” says Dr. Waterland, “as the performance of any moral duty is, as much as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked,” &c.

From what has been said it will be seen,

1. That, in the large acceptation of the word sacrament, there are many more sacraments than seven.

2. That, in the strict definition of the word, there are only two, baptism and the eucharist.

But we may sum up the whole in the words which the Church of England uses in one of the homilies: “You shall hear how many sacraments there be, that were instituted by our Saviour Christ, and are to be continued, and received of every Christian in due time and order, and for such purpose as our Saviour Christ willed them to be received. And as for the number of them, if they should be considered according to the exact signification of a sacrament, namely, for visible signs, expressly commanded in the New Testament, whereunto is annexed the promise of forgiveness of our sins, and of our holiness, and joining in Christ, there be but two, namely, baptism and the supper of the Lord. For, although absolution hath the promise of forgiveness of sin, yet by the express word of the New Testament it hath not this promise annexed and tied to the visible sign, which is imposition of hands. For this visible sign (I mean laying on of hands) is not expressly commanded in the New Testament to be used in absolution, as the visible sign in baptism and the Lord’s supper are; and therefore absolution is no such sacrament as baptism and the communion are. And though the ordering of ministers hath this visible sign and promise, yet it lacks the promise of remission of sin as all other sacraments besides the two above-named do. Therefore neither it, nor any other sacrament else, be such sacraments as baptism and the communion are. But in a general acceptation, the name of a sacrament may be attributed to anything; whereby an holy thing is signified. In which understanding of the word, the ancient writers have given this name, not only to the other five, commonly of late years taken and used for supplying the number of the seven sacraments, but also to divers and sundry other ceremonies, as to oil, washing of feet, and such like, not meaning thereby to repute them as sacraments, in the same signification that the two forenamed sacraments are. And therefore St. Augustine, weighing the true signification and exact meaning of the word, writing to Januarius, and also in the third book of Christian doctrine, affirmeth, that the sacraments of the Christians, as they are most excellent in signification, so are they most few in number, and in both places maketh mention expressly of two, the sacrament of baptism and the supper of the Lord. And although there are retained by order of the Church of England, besides these two, certain other rites and ceremonies about the institution of ministers in the Church, matrimony, confirmation of children, by examining them of their knowledge in the articles of the faith, and joining thereto the prayers of the Church for them, and likewise for the visitation of the sick; yet no man ought to take these for sacraments in such signification and meaning as the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper are.”—Homily of Common Prayer and Sacraments.

A sacrament is defined in the catechism, in the strict sense, as “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us, ordained by Christ himself as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof.”