and he smote thrice and stayed. This was sacramentum victoria, 'the sacrament of his future victory.' For the man of God was wroth with him, and said, "Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then thou hadst smitten Syria until thou hadst consumed it, whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice." In which it is remarkable, that though it was not that smiting that beat the Syrians, but the ground; yet God would effect the beating of the Syrians by the proportion of that sacramental smiting. The sacraments are God's signs, the opportunities of grace and action. "Be baptized and wash away thy sins," said Ananias to Saul: and therefore it is called the "laver of regeneration" and of "the renewing of the holy Ghost;" that is, in that sacrament, and at that corporal ablution, the work of the Spirit is done; for although it is not that washing of itself, yet God does so do it at that ablution, which is but the similitude of Christ's death, that is the sacrament and symbolical representation of it; that to that very similitude a very glorious effect is imputed, "for if we have been planted together in the LIKENESS of His death, we shall be also in the LIKENESS of His resurrection"." For the mystery is this; by immersion in baptism and emersion we are configured to Christ's burial and to His resurrection: that's the outward part: to which if we add the inward, which is there intended, and is expressed by the apostle in the following words, "knowing that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin," that's our spiritual death, which answers to our configuration with the death of Christ in baptism; "that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life;" there's the correspondent of our configuration to the resurrection of Christ: that is, if we do that duty of baptism, we shall receive that grace; God offers us the mercy at that time, when we promise the duty, and do our present portion. This S. Peter calls the "stipulation of a good conscience";" the postulate' and 'bargain' which man then makes with God; who promises us pardon and immortality, resurrection from the dead, and life eternal, if we repent toward God and have faith in the Lord Jesus, and if we promise we have and will so abide. The same is the case in the other most glorious sacrament; it is the same thing in nearer representation; only what is begun in baptism proceeds on to perfection in the holy communion. Baptism is the antitype of the passion of Christ ;" and the Lord's supper σημαντικὸς τῶν παθημάτων that also represents Christ's passion; a baptism is the union of the members of Christ and the admission of them under one head into one body: as the apostle a affirms, “we are all baptized into one body;" and so it is in the communion b; "the bread which we break, it is the communion of the body of Christ; for we being many, are one body and one bread:" in baptism we partake of the death of Christ: and in the Lord's supper we do the same, in that as babes, in this as men in Christ: so that what effects are affirmed of one, the same are in greater measure true of the other; they are but several rounds of Jacob's ladder reaching up to heaven, upon which the angels ascend and descend; and the Lord sits upon the top. And because the sacraments evangelical be of the like kind of mystery with the sacraments of old; from them we can understand that even signs of secret graces do exhibit as well as signify for besides that there is a natural analogy between the ablution of the body and the purification of the soul; between eating the holy bread and drinking the sacred calice, and a participation of the body and blood of Christ; it is also in the method of the divine economy, to dispense the grace which Himself signifies in a ceremony of His own institution; thus at the unction of kings, priests, and of prophets, the sacred power was bestowed; and as a canon is invested in his dignity by the tradition of a book, and an abbat by his staff, a bishop by a ringe (they are the words of S. Bernard") 'so are divisions of graces imparted to the divers sacraments.' And therefore although it ought not to be denied that when in scripture and the writings of the holy doctors of the church the collation of grace is attributed to the sign, it is by a metonymy and a sacramental manner of speaking, yet it is also a synecdoche of the part for the whole; because both the sacrament and the grace are joined in the lawful and holy use of them, by sacramental union, or rather by a confederation of the parts of the holy covenant. Our hearts are purified by faith",' and so our 'consciences' are also made clean in the cestern of water. "By faith we are saved; and yet He hath 'saved us by the laver of regeneration;' and they are both joined together by S. Paul, 'Christ gave Himself for His church, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water, by the word: that is, plainly by the sacrament; according to the famous commentary of S. Austin, Accedit verbum ad elementum et tum fit sacramentum, 'when the word and the element are joined, then it is a perfect sacrament,' and then it does effect all its purposes and intentions. Thus we find that the grace of God is given by the imposition of handsh; and yet as S. a [1 Cor. xii. 13.] b1 Cor. x. 16, 17.] [episcopus per baculum et annulum simul'] d Serm. [.] de coena Domini, [col. 145 A.] e [Acts xv. 9.] [Eph. v. 26; Rom. iii. 28; Luke vii. 50; Tit. iii. 5.] [In Joan. xv. tract. lxxx. § 3.-tom. iii. part. 2. col. 703 C.] [2 Tim. i. 6.] ; Austin' rightly affirms, God alone can give His holy spirit; and the apostles did not give the holy Ghost to them upon whom they laid their hands, but prayed that God would give it; and He did so at the imposition of their hands. Thus God sanctified Aaron; and yet He said to Moses, 'Thou shalt sanctify Aaron:' that is, not that Moses did it instead of God; but Moses did it by his ministry, and by visible sacraments and rites of God's appointment; and though we are born of an immortal seed, by the word of the living God;' yet S. Paul said to the Corinthians, "I have begotten you through the gospel;" and thus it is in the greatest as well as in the least he that drinks Christ's blood and eats His body "hath life abiding in Him;" it is true of the sacrament and true of the spiritual manducation, and may be indifferently affirmed of either, when the other is not excluded; for as the sacrament operates only by the virtue of the Spirit of God, so the Spirit ordinarily works by the instrumentality of the sacraments. And we may as well say that faith is not by hearing, as that grace is not by the sacraments; for as without the Spirit the word is but a dead letter, so with the Spirit the sacrament is the means of life and grace: and the meditation of S. Chrysostom' is very pious and reasonable, "If we were wholly incorporeal, God would have given us graces unclothed with signs and sacraments; but because our spirits are in earthen vessels, God conveys His graces to us by sensible ministrations." The word of God operates as secretly as the sacraments, and the sacraments as powerfully as the word; nay, the word is always joined in the worthy administration of the sacrament, which therefore operates both as word and sign, by the ear and by the eyes, and by both in the hand of God, and the conduct of the Spirit, effect all that God intends, and that a faithful receiver can require and pray for m. For justification and sanctification are continued acts: they are like the issues of a fountain into its receptacles; God is always giving, and we are always receiving; and the signal effects of God's holy spirit sometimes give great indications, but most commonly come without observation. And therefore in these things we must not discourse as in the conduct of other causes and operations natural for although in natural effects we can argue from the cause to the event, yet in spiritual things we are to reckon only from the sign to the event. And the signs of grace we are to place instead of natural causes: because a sacrament in the hand of God is a proclamation of His graces; He then gives us notice that the springs of heaven are opened, and then is the time to draw living waters from the fountains of salvation. When Jonathan shot his arrows beyond the boy, he then by a sacrament sent salvation unto David; he bade him be gone and fly from his father's wrath; and although Jonathan did do his business for him by a continual care and observation, yet that symbol brought it unto David: for so we are conducted to the joys of God by the methods and possibilities of men. In conclusion, the sum is this. The sacraments and symbols, if they be considered in their own nature, are just such as they seem, water, and bread, and wine; they retain the names proper to their own natures; but because they are made to be signs of a secret mystery, and water is the symbol of purification of the soul from sin, and bread and wine of Christ's body and blood, therefore the symbols and sacraments receive the names of what themselves do sign; they are the body and they are the blood of Christ"; they are metonymically such. But because yet further; they are instruments of grace in the hand of God, and by these His holy spirit changes our hearts and translates us into a divine nature; therefore the whole work is attributed to them by a synecdoche; that is, they do in their manner the work for which God ordained them, and they are placed there for our sakes, and speak God's language in our accent, and they appear in the outside; we receive the benefit of their ministry, and God receives the glory. SECTION IV. THE BLESSINGS AND GRACES OF THE HOLY SACRAMENT ENUMERATED IN the reception of the blessed sacrament, there are many blessings which proceed from our own actions, the conjugations of moral duties, the offices of preparation and reception, the reverence and the devotion; of which I shall give account in the following chapters. Here I am to enumerate those graces which are intended to descend upon us from the Spirit of God in the use of the sacrament itself precisely. But first I consider, that it must be infinitely certain that great spiritual blessings are consequent to the worthy receiving of this divine sacrament, because it is not at all received but by a spiritual hand. For it is either to be understood in a carnal sense that Christ's body is there eaten, or in a spiritual sense. If in a carnal, it profits nothing. If in a spiritual He be eaten, let the meaning of that be considered, and it will convince us that innumerable blessings are in the very reception and communion. Now what the meaning of this DS. August. in Levit. [lib. iii.] q. 57. [tom. iii. part. 1. p. 516.] Solet autem res quæ significat, ejus rei nomine quam significat, nuncupari. Theodoret. dial. i. c. 8.-[tom. iv. p. 26.] Τῷ μὲν σώματι τὸ τοῦ συμβόλου τέθεικεν ὄνομα, τῷ δὲ συμβόλῳ τὸ τοῦ σώματος. spiritual eating is, I have already declared in this chapter; and shall yet more fully explicate in the sequel'. In the sacrament we do not receive Christ carnally, but we receive Him spiritually; and that of itself is a conjugation of blessings and spiritual graces. The very understanding what we do, tells us also what we receive. But I descend to particulars. 8 1. And first I reckon that the sacrament is intended to increase our faith: for although it is with us in this holy sacrament as it was with Abraham in the sacrament of circumcision; he had the grace of faith before he was circumcised, and received the sacrament after he had the purpose and the grace; and we are to believe before we receive these symbols of Christ's death: yet as by loving we love more, and by the acts of patience we increase in the spirit of mortification; so by believing we believe more; and by publication of our confession we are made confident; and by seeing the signs of what we believe, our very senses are incorporated into the article; and he that hath shall have more;' and when we concorporate the sign with the signification, we conjoin the word and the spirit, and faith passes on from believing to an imaginary seeing, and from thence to a greater earnestness of believing, and we shall believe more abundantly; this increase of faith not being only a natural and proper production of the exercise of its own acts, but a blessing and an effect of the grace of God in that sacrament; it being certain, that since the sacrament being of divine institution it could not be to no purpose, for in spiritalibus sacramentis ubi præcipit virtus, servit effectus', 'where the commandment comes from Him that hath all power, the action cannot be destitute of an excellent event,' and therefore that the representing of the death of Christ being an act of faith, and commanded by God, must needs in the hands of God be more effectual than it is in its own nature; that faith shall then increase not only by the way of nature, but by God's blessing His own instruments, can never be denied but by them that neither have faith nor experience. For this is the proper scene and the very exaltation of faith the Latin church " for a long time into the very words of consecration of the calice hath put words relating to this purpose, "For this is the cup of My blood of the New and eternal testament, the mystery of faith, which for you and for many shall be shed for the remission of sins." And if by faith we eat the flesh of Christ, as it : Chap. iii. sect. 5. • Ante communicationem corporis Christi et sanguinis, juxta orientalium partium morem, unanimiter clara voce sacratissimum fidei recenseant symbolum, ut primum populi quam credulitatem teneant, fateantur.-[Vid.] concil. Tolet. iii. can. 2. [tom. iii. col. 479 D] et S. Ambros. [?] Quibus [symbolis] vescentes confessionem fidei suæ adde VIII. D bant: respondebant, Amen.-Idem etiam sancitum in concil. Agath. [can. 13. tom. ii, col. 999 E.] Euseb. Emiss. [hom. v. de Pasch.p. 560 B.]-Habetur [apud Gratian, decret.] de consecrat. dist. ii. [cap. 35. col. 2098.] [Can. antiq. miss. Ambros. apud Murator. liturg. rom. vet., tom. i. 133.] |