_The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church by Heinrich Schmid, D.D. Third edition, revised Translated from German and Latin by Charles A. Hay, D.D. and Henry E. Jacobs, D.D. Copyright 1875 and 1889, Charles A. Hay and Henry E. Jacobs Copyright 1899, Henry E. Jacobs and Charles E. Hay Reprinted 1961 by Augsburg Publishing House_ Pages 520-582 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER II. OF THE SACRAMENTS. PARA. 53. Of the Sacraments in General. Saving grace is imparted to man not only through the Word, but also through the Sacraments; [1] and, as in the case of the Word, so also in the case of the Sacraments, an ex- ternal and visible element, which in the sacred rite is offered to man, becomes the vehicle of th Holy Ghost. [2] A Sacra- ment is, therefore, a holy rite, appointed by God, through which, by means of an external and visible sign, saving grace is imparted to man, or, if he already possess it, is assured to him. [3] The Evangelical Church enumerates only two such rites, Baptism and the Lord's Supper; for only through these two rites, in accordance with the direction of Chirst, is such saving grace imparted, and, among all the sacred ordinances prescribed in the Scriptures, it is only in these two that these two distinguishing characteristics of a sacrament are combined, viz., (1) a special divine purpose, in accordance with which, in the sacred rite, and external element is to be thus employed; and (2) the promise given in the divine Word that by the ap- plication of this element evangelical saving grace shall be im- ----------------End of Page 520------------------------------------ parted. [4] By these marks these two sacred rites are distin- guihhsed from all other religious services, and hence, for the purpose of thus distinguishing them, are called Sacraments. [5] In the element thus consecrated by the Word, we have presented to us then no longer merely that which is obvious to the senses, but we have, at the same time, to assume something invisible and more exalted as present and operating through the elements; so that, therefore, the Sacrament consists of both something visible and something invisible. [6] From what has been said, it follows, further, that just as a religiou service can be called a Sacrament only when both the above- mentioned marks are combined in it, so also it is not a Sacra- ment, and does not operate as such, unless it be administered exactly in the mode prescribed by its Founder and for the pur- pose designed by Him. [7] Hence (1) the words of the institution must be uttered dur- ing the administration of the ordinance, according to the direc- tion of the Founder, for, before that, the element is only an external, simple, and inoperative opbject; (2) it must be ad- ministered and received in the manner prescribefd by the Founder; [8] and (3) it must be administered only to those who alrready belong to the Church, or to those who desire to be received into it through the Sacrament. Finally, order requires that, except in extraordinary cases, it be administered only by regular ministers of the Church. [9] When all these things are observed in this sacred act, according to the instruc- tion of its Founder, then it is a Sacrament; nor is the moral character or the internal intention of the adminstrator, [10] or the faith of the recipient, [11] necessary to constitute the act a Sacrament. Still, the good or evil effect of the Sacra- ment depends on the faith or unbelief of the recipient, just as in the case of the good or evil effect of the divine Word. [12] The immediate design of the Sacrament is to impart saving grace to man, or to establish those in it who already possess it. [13] At the same time, however, the Sacraments, as they are administered only within the Church, serve as a mode of re- cognizing those who partake of them as members of the Church; they serve, likewise, to remind the recipients of the blessings of salvation that are imaged forth in them, to stimu- ----------------End of Page 521---------------------------------- late those who have come together with this same purpose to new mutual love, and excite them to cultivate that internal spiritual life which is symbolically indicated in the Sacra- ments. [14] [1] BR. (639): "Since, besides the Word of God, the Sacra- ments also are means of regeneration, conversion, and renovation, and therefore of conferring, sealing,and increasing faith, we must also treat more particularly of these." [2] QUEN. (IV, 73): "God has added to the Word of the Gos- pel as another communicative (dotikon) means of salvation, the Sacraments, which constitute the visible Word." Strictly speak- ing, there is but one means of salvation, which is distinguished as the audible and visible Word; through both one and the same grace is imparted to man, at one time through the mere Word, at another through the external and visible element. CHMN. (Ex. Trid., II, 35): "For God in those things which pertain to our salvation, is pleased to treat with us through certain meaans; He Himself has ordained this use of them, and instituted the Word of Gospel promise, which sometimes is proposed to us absolutely by itself or nakedly, and sometimes clothed or made visible by certain rites or Sacraments appointed by Him." The two means of salvation are thus distinguished only by the manner in which they operate on men. AP. CONF. (VII, 5): "As the Word enters the ear that it may reach the heart, so the external rite strikes the eye that it may move the heart." The effect of both is the same. AP. CONF., 1. c.: "The effect of the Word and of the rite is the same, as Augustine has forcibly expressed it, viz., a Sacrament is a visible word, because the rite is presented to the eyes, and is, as it were, a picture of the Word, signifying the same thing as the Word. Wherefore, the effect of both is the same." Comp. below, Note 13. [3] AP. CONF. (VII, 3): "(The Sacraments are) rites com- manded by Christ, and to which is added the promise of grace." AP. CONF. (XII, 18): "A Sacrament is a ceremony or work in which God holds out to us that which the promise annexed to the rite offers." BR. (650): "A Sacrament in general may be defined as an action divinely appointed through the grace of God, for Christ's sake, employing an external element cognizable by the senses, through which, accompanied by the words of the insitution, there is conferred upon or sealed unto men the grace of the Gospel for the remission of sins unto eternal life." -----------------End of Page 522------------------------------------ GRH. (VIII, 328): "A Sacrament is a sacred and solemn rite, divinely instituted, by which God, through the ministry of amn, dispenses heavenly gifts, under a visible and external element, through a certain word, in order to offer, apply, and seal to the individuals using them and believing, the special promise of the Gospel concerning the gratuitous remission of sins." HUTT. (Comp. Loc. Th., 221, 214): "A Sacrament is a sacred action, divinely instituted, consisting partly of an external element or sign, and partly of a celestial object, by which God not only seals the promise of grace peculiar to the Gospel (i.e., of gratui- tous reconciliation), but also truly presents , through the external elements, to the individuasl using the sacrament, the celestial blessings promised in the institution of each of them, and also savingly applies the same to those whobelieve." By the grace of the Gospel is understood "the applying grace of the Holy Spirit namely, grace that calls, illuminates, regenerates, etc." The differences of these definitions, and the reason why we have quoted so many of them, will appear in Note 6. [4] GRH. (VIII, 207): "We say that two things are absolutely requisite to constitute a Sacrament, properly so called, viz., the Word and the element, according to the well-known saying of Augustine; `The Word is added to the element, and it becomes a Sacrament.' This assertion is based upon the very nature and aim of the Sacraments, since the Sacraments are intended to present to the senses, in the garb of an external element, that same thing that is preached in the Gospel message; from which it read- ily follows that neither the Word without the element, nor the element without the Word, constitutes the Sacrament. By the Word is understood, first, the command and divine institution through which the element, because thus appointed by God, is separated from a common, and set apart for a sacramental use; and, secondly, the promise, peculiar to the Gospel, to be applied and sealed by the Sacrament. By the element is meant not any arbirarily chosen element, but that which has been fixed and mentioned in the words of institution." [5] It is generally acknowledged that the question as to what sacred rites can be called Sacraments, cannot be decided merely by the signification of the word Sacrament, for this word has been somewhat arbitrarily used to sddesignate these two sacred rites. According to its etymology, it is derived from sacrare (Varro, Book IV), and signifies every consecrated thing, hence the money de- posited by contending parties with the priest, "to the end that he ------------End of Page 523--------------------------------------------- who gained the suit should rec4eive his own, and he who lost it should have his money confiscated;" and also an oath, particularly that of soldiers, by which they consecrated themselves to death if they proved unfaithful. The Vulgate translates the Greek word musterion by sacramentum. But Tertullian first uses the word in re- lation to Baptism in the sense of juramentum. Accordingly, in the language of the Chruch, there is a threefold meaning of the word Sacrament. QUEN. (IV, 73): "The word Sacrament is understood (1) in a very general sense, for any hidden or secret thing. Thus, the incarnation of Christ, 1 Tim. 3:16; the union of Christ and the Church, Eph. 5:32; the calling of the Gentiles, Eph. 3:3, etc., are called musteria, which the old Latin interpreter translated sacra- menta. Thus also the Fathers call every mystery and ever sacred doctrine that was not very plain a sacrament, as the sacra- ment of the Trinity, the sacrament of the incarnation and of faith. (2) It is understood in a special sense, for the external sign of a sacred and heavenly object, thus seed, grain, pearls, are sacraments or signs of the kingdom of heaven, Matt. 13:24, etc. (3) In a very particular sense, for the solemn action instituted, prescribed, and commanded by God, in which, by an external and visible sign, in- visibble benefits are graciously offered, conferred, and sealed." We cannot then determine from the meaning of the word Sacrament per se, what sacred servidcces are to rank as Sacraments, but the marks which belong to the two services by common consent designated as Sacraments, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, are examined, and all other rites are excluded from this conception of a Sacrament which do not present similar marks. In doing this, it is not affirmed that the idea of a Sacrament per se does not belong to them, but it is maintained that it is not applicable to them in the same sense as to the two geneuine Sacraments. CHMN. (Ex. Conc. Trid., II, 14): "We will not contend about the definitions of this or that man, of the ancients or the moderns, but we shall assume the ground which is beyond controversy, and acknowledged among all. Baptism and the Eucharist are confessed by all to be truly and properly Sacraments." BR. (641): "Thus, therefore, from the commonly received conceptions of the marks in which those rites agree that are undoubtedly Sacraments, it is apparent that those which may perchance be called Sacraments, but have not these common requisites, are not Sacraments in the same sense and reality as those which are properly socalled, but are only equivo- cally designated as such." According to this canon, the doctrine of seven Sacraments, held by the Church of Rom, is rejected. Luther, as early as his Larger ----------------End of Page 524------------------------------------- Catechism (1529), retains only two, but the APOL. still retains three (VII, 4): "Therefore these are truly Sa raments, viz., Baptism, the Lord's Supper, and Absolution, which is the Sacrament of pen itence." And MEL. (Loc. c. Th., I, 307) is inclined to regard ordination also as a Sacraament: "I add also ordination, as they call it, i.e., the vocation to the gospel ministry and the public appro- bation of that call, bfor all these are commanded in the Gospel." From this it is plain that in the early period of the Reformation there was still some heeesitation about the number of the Sacraments, which is explained from the fact that both absolution and ordina- tion possesss ome of the marks which we find in Baptism and the Lord's Supper. CHMN. (Ex. Conc. Trid., II, 14) thus explains himself on absolution: "Our theologians have often said that they would not contend, but willingly grant that absolution should be ranked among the Sacraments, because it has the application of a general promise to the individuals iusing this service. But still it is certain that absolution has not an established external element, or sign, or rite insituted or commanded of God. And although the imposition of hands or some other external rite may be ap- plied, yet it is certainly destitute of a special and express divine command. Nor is there any promise that through any such ex- ternal rite God will efficaciously appoly the promise of the Gospel. We have, indeed, the promise that through the Word He wishes to be efficacious in believers; but in order to constitute anything a Sacrament, not only is a naked promise in the Word required, but that, by a divine appointment or institution, it be expressly clothed with some sign or rite divinely commanded. But the announce- ment or recitation of the Gospel promise is not such a sing, for in that way the general preaching of the Gospel would be a Sacra- ment.... Therefore absolution is not properly and truly a Sacrament in the way or sense in which Baptism and the Lord's Suppper are Sacra- ments; but if any one, with this explanation and difference added, would wish to call it a Sacrqament on account of the peculiar appli- cation of the promise, the Apology of the Augsburg Confession declares that it would not oppose the idea." CHMN. (Ex. Trid., II, 14) treats it most extensively: "Any ordinance that is to be properly regarded as a Sacrament of the New Testament must have the following requisites: (1) It must have an external, or corporeal and visible, elemtnt or sign, which may be handled, exhibited, and used in a certain external rite. (2) The element or sing, and the rite in which it is employed, must have an express divine command to authorize and sanction it. (3) It must be commanded and instituted in the New Testa- ----------------End of Page 525-------------------------------------- ment. (4) It must be instituted not for a certain period or gene- ration, but to be in force until the end of the world. (5) There must be a divine promise of grace as the effect or fruit of the Sacra- ment. (6) That promise must not only simply and by itself have the testimony of God's Word, but it must by the divine ordinance be annnexed to the sign of the SAcrament, and, as it were, clothed iwith that sing or element. (7) That promise must not relate to the general gifts of God, whether corporeal or spiritual, but it must be a promise of grace or justification, i.e., of gratuitous reconciliation, the remission of sins, and, in a word, of all the benefits of redemption. (8) And that promise, in the Sacraments, is either signifed or announced not in general only, but on the authority of God is offered, presented, applied, and sealed to the individuals who use the Sacraments in faith." The later theologians say: "There is required for a Sacrament (1) that it must be an action commanded by God; (2) it must have a visible element divinely prescribed (united with the celestial object through the medium of the words of the institution (HOLL., 1054)); (3) it must ahve the promise of evangelical grace." [6] By this the early Dogmaticians mean as yet nothing more than that the element thus consecrated by the Word must not be regarded as ordinary or common; hence HFRFFR. cites as the sub- stantials of a Sacrament, the element and the Word, and in this sense Luther also appears to have taken it, when in CAT. MAJ. (IV, 17) he says of Baptism: "It is not mere natural or common, but di= vine, celestial, sacred, and saving water... and this just for the sake of the Word, which is the divine and sacred 'Word." But the later Dogmaticians unite another sense to it. (See the history of the origin of the later modes of expression in BR., p. 670, who proves that occasion for a diffferent mode of expression was for the first time given at the Muempelgard Colloquy (1586) in consequence of the controversy which there arose between Beza, on the one side and Jacob Andraeae and Luke Osiander on the other.) They dis- tinguish, for instance, in a Sacrament, "a twofold material, a terrestrial and a celestial, and they understand by the former the element or external symbol, which is the corporeal visible object ... ordained to the end that it might be athe vehicle and exhib- itive medium of the celestial object (water in Baptism, bread and wine in the Lord's Supper). By the latter they understand an in- visible and intelligible object (presented in an earthly object, as the divinely instituted medium), on which the effect of the Sacra- ment principally depends;" yet they remark that for the latter the word materia or matter is not an adequate one (since the Sacrament -------------------End of Page 526---------------------------------- is not a corporeal substance, it is plain that it does not consist of matter properly so called; yet analogically matter is ascribed to that whith which the Sacrament is employed). (HOLL., 1059.) They mean, then, tha the terrestrial material is the vehicle of something more exalted and divine, which is imparted through the medium of the external element. What this divine thing is, we learn in each Sacrament, for it is different in each. QUEN. (IV, 75): "But what that is which comes in each sacra- ment under the name of res coelestis, can and should be known in its proper place, i.e., from the words of the institution of each Sacrament." This materia coelestis is not in their opinion identical with the grace of the Gospel; hence, they do not (as in the pas- sages above referred to in CAT. MAJ. and HFRFFR.) adopt as the essence of a Sacrament the Word and element, but they still care- fully distinguish the Word from the materia coelestis, and hold that the latter is imparted by the word of consecration. (HUTT. (Loc. c., 597): "The Word is never sacramentally joined either with the terrestrial or the celestial part; and;, hence it does not enter into the substance of the Sacrament. Therefore, the Word cannot be called either the material or the form of the Sacrament..... THus I say, that this Word is the effective cause (aitios poietikos), i.e., it causes that these two essential parts constitute one Sacrament in the use of the Sacraments.") Neither do they regarrd the materia coelestis as identical with evangelical grace, which the earlier Dog- maticians also teach is conferred through the Sacrament; but they believe that that grrace is conveyed only through the medium of the materia coelestis. While the ealer Dogmaticians only maintain that, with the word of consecration, the external elemnent ceases to be a common and external one, without distinguishing the im- parted divine material as something separate from the Word, the later theologians regard the two as distinct. It is easy to under- stand how they were led to this conclusion. In the Lord's Sup- per, namely, the body and blood of Christ are communicated; there is, therefore, throught eh word of sconsecration, something added and brought to man which is as different from the Word as it is from saving gfrace. Something corresponding to this they think must be asssumed in regard to Baptism also, and in both cases they designate it as a celestial material. When we compare the views of the earlier Dogmaticians with those of the more modern, we find their difference to consist in this, that the earlier Dogmaticians are solely concerned to prove the analogy of the Word and Sacraments as the two means of sal- vation, according to which in the one case, evangelical grace is -------------------End of Page 527------------------------------- communitcated by the Word, and in the other by the external visible sign. In this view, however, there is no notice taken of the fact, that, above all, in the Lord's Supper, besides grace, there is something in addition present and communicated, viz., the body and blood of Christ. The later theologians, on the other hand, keep this particularly in view, that even if by the Sacraments, as well as by the Word, the grace of salvation (i.e., conversion, justification, regeneration, etc.) be conferred, yet that this grace is not the first and proximate object conferred in the Sacraments, as it is in the Word, but that in the Sacraments there is something else which precedes it (in the Lord's Supper, body and blood), the design of which is to impart saving grace. It is this, then, that theymean to vconvey by the general expression, matrieia coelestis, applicable to both Sacraments, but it is difficult for them to show the materia coelestis in Baptism in the same way as in the Lord's Supper. And, in this view of the subject, the force of the analogy also between a Sacrament and the Word as the two means of salvation, is weakened. In assuming a materia coelestis, they assumed also a particular union of the materia coelestis et terrestris. QUEN. (IV, 75): "As a Sacrament is composed of a terrestrial and a celestial object, ther4e must necessarily be a certain union and koinonia which we properly call sacramental. For that union is neither essentialmm, nor natural, nor accidental, but, in view of the material united, it is extraordinary; in regard to the design , it is sacramental. Therefore, one does not esxist without the other, for instance, water without the Spirit, nor the Sprit without water, because these two are most intimately united in the sacramental act, nor can one be a Sacrament without the other." This method of developing the doctrine, which from the times of GRH. was gen- erally adopted, though with many diversities of statemtn as to what constitutes the celestial material in Baptism, was opposed only by BR. and several other theologians of Jena. As, namely, the celestial material, which has to be assumed in Baptism, is altogether different from that which is found in the Lord's Supper; inasmuch, also, as the union of the material and the element in the two Sacraments is very different; and, finally, inasmuch as those who hold this doctrine neither agree as to what is meant by this celestial material, nor use the term in the same literal sense as in the case of the Lord's Supper; therefore, BR. contends that the expression, celestial material, should be entirely ignored in the doctrine of the sacraments in general, and we should adhere to the simple doctrine of the earlier Dogmaticians, who do not mention it at all. He speaks, therefore, only of a terrestrial material (644): -------------End of Page 528------------------------------------------- "By the material of a Sacrament two things are meant: first, an external and visible element; secondly, an action performed with the element )e.g., washing, distributing, etc.) (645). As to what some call the other part of the Sacrament (i.e., the words of the institution),... viz., the celestial and invisible material of the Sacrament, it must be acknowledged, that this is rather the form or formal part of the Sacrament, than the material. And when some understand, that by the name, celestial material, something else is signified, relatively opposed to the element as a sign--not the fruit itself of the Sacrament, but that upon which the opera- tion and fruit of the Sacrament depend; they nevertheless confess that this same thing which they call the celestial material is some- times, indeed, not even really present. But it is difficult to con- sider anything as the material, and therefore an essential part of a Sacrament, which, when the Sacrament exists, does not for this reason then itself exist. Otherwise, also, if that be indeed present, reason then itself exists. Otherwise, also, if that be indeed present, whicich is regarded as the celestial material, yet some again main- tain, that from the presence of the material is not a vaid infer- ence; but that it is required, that what can be called material must be present after the manner of a material. They do not even ex- plain sufficiently what it is to be present after the manner of a material in a Sacrament, so far as the Sacraments in general are concerned; but what it is to be thus present in the individual Sacrament, they leave to be learned from the institution of each. Whence you may infer that the celestial material of a Sacrament in general cannot be known, unless this knowledge be drawn from the Sacraments individually. And, since in the Lord's Supper the body and blood of Christ are called the celestial material,... it will be confessed that the celestial material is not in the same way present in all the Sacraments. Therefore, most especially if, when we are treating of Sacraments in general, we assume a celestial material, the term must be taken in so wide a sense, that one thing will not be, after the manner of a material, in one Sacra- ment, just in the same way as another thing is, after the manner of a material, in the other Sacrament. Whence it further follows, that there is something, after the manner of a material, present in one Sacrament literally, and in the other figuratively." [7] HFRFFR. (465): "It is especially required that in each Sacrament, the whole action, as instituted and ordained by Christ, should be observed; neither in the use of the Sacraments to be ap- plied to foreign ends and objects. Hence the rule: `Nothing has the authority or nature of a Sacrament beyond the application and action instituted by Christ.' For example, if the water of Baptism -----------End of Page 529-------------------------------------------- be employed for the baptism of bells, or for the cure of leprosy; or when the consecrated bread is not distributed and taken, but is either stored away in the pyx, or offered in sacrifice, or carried about in processions, this is not the use, but the abuse and pro- fanation of the Sacraments." [8] HOLL. (1060): "The form of a Sacrament is the external action (and that entirely occupied about the terrestrial and celestial part of each Sacrament), which is constitutted of three formal ob- servances, immediately following each other (1) The recitaation of the words of the institution (consecration). (2) The sacramental dispensation (dosis). (3) /The reception of the Sacrament (lepsis)." 1. "The consecration, i.e., the separation from a common to a sacred use, which is made by reciting and pronouncing the words of the institution." GRH. (VIII, 240): "The consecration is not, (1) a mere recitation of the words of the institution directed only to the hearers, (2) nor is the change of symbols, which consecration effects, a mere change of names, a significative analogy, a represen- tation of an absent celestial thing,... but it is a sacred and efficacious action, by which the sacramental symbols are truly sanctified, i.e., separated from a common and set apart for a sacra- mental use. But there is no (a) magical or superstitious action dependent of the dignity or quality of the person, i.e., on the power and character of the minister, who renders the Sacrament valid by the force of his intention; nor (b) is it to be thought that there is a certain occult subjective power in the sound or number of words, by which the consecration is accomplished; (c0 nor that by it the external elements are essentially changed and transub- stantiated into the heavenly object: but the presence of the heavenly, and its union with the earthly object, depend altogether upon the institution, command and will of Christ, and upon the efficacy of the original institution continuing in the Church even until the present day, which the minister, or rather Christ Himself by the voice of the minister, continually repeats. The minister, therefore, in the consecration, (10 repeats the primitive institution of the Sacrament according to the command of Christ: `Do this,' etc., etc.; (2) he testifies that he does this not of his own accord, nor celebrates a human ordinance, but, as the divinely appointed steward of the mysteries, he administers the venerable Sacrament in the name, authority, and place of Christ; (30 he invokes the name of the true God, that it may please Him to be efficacious in this Sacccrament according to His ordinance, institution, and prom- ise; (4) he separates the external elements from all other uses to a sacramental use, that they may be organs and means by which celestial benefits may be dispensed." -----------------End of Page 530--------------------------------------- 2. As to the dispensation: "We must distinguish between the thing itself and its mode; between the dosis and lepsis themselves (the giving and receiving) and the doseos kai lepseos tropos (the manner of giving and receiving). The dosis kai lepsmis, i.e., the administration, dispensation, presentation, and reception of the Sacrament are essential, nor do they allow of any exception; but the mode of the administration and reception admits of some liberty and varioation. A few examples will render it more plain. In Baptism, it is abso- lutely necessary that a person should be baptized with water, i.e., washed in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; but it is no matter whether this ablution be performed by immersion into water or by afflusion with water." HOLL. (1057): "The Church cannot change anything in the substantials of the Sacraments, yet she rejoices in the liberty of making some change in teh circum- stantials." [9] HOLL. (1056): "God has intrusted the right of dispensing the Sacraments to the Church, which commits the execution or exercise of this right, for the sake of order and propriety, to the called and ordained ministers of the Gospel. But in case of ex- tremem necessity, where the Sacrament is necessary and could not be omitted without peril of salvation, any Christian, whether lay= man or woman, may validly administer the Sacrament of Baptism or initiation. 1 Pet. 2:9, Rev. 1:6." [Nothtaufe, Jachtaufe.] [10] AP. CONF. (IV, 47): "The Sacraments are efficacious, even if they be administered by wicked ministers, because the ministers officiate in the stead of Christ and do not represent their own person." QUEN. (IV, 74): "The Sacraments do not belong to the man who dispenses them, but to God, in whose name they are dis- pensed, and therefore the gracious efficacy and operation of the Sacrament depend on God alone, 1 Cor. 3:5, and not on the char- acter or quality of the minister. The dispute about the intention of the minister is more intricate. Propriety requires that he who administers the Sacraments should bring to the altar a good inten- tion of performing what God has commanded and instituted: a mind not wandering but collected and fixed. It is absolutely necess- sary that the intention of Christ be observed in the external act. I say in the external act, for the intention of the minister to perform the internal act is not necessary; that is performed by the Church. On the other hand, the Church of Rome teaches that the intention of the minister is necessary to the integrity, verity, and efficacy of the Sacrament; that this intentiion has respect not only to the ex- ternal act of administering the Sacrament according to the form of -------------End of Page 531------------------------------------------- the institution, but to the design and effect of the Sacrament itself. Thus the Council of Trent: `If any one declare that the intention of doing what the Church does is not required in the ministers, while they dispense the Sacraments, let him be anathema.'" (78). [11] FORM. CONC. (Sol. Dec., VII, 24): "We thus conclude and ddeclare that even if a bad and vicious man should take or dis- tribute the Lord's Supper, he yet takes the true Sacrament, i.e., the body and blood of Christ, not less than the man who takes or distributes it in the most worthy manner. For this Sacrament is not founded on the holiness of man, but on the Word of God... 27... It is conclusively demonstrated that this presence is to be understood not only of the eating by believing and worthy persons, but also buy the unbelieving and unworthy." HOLL. (1061): "Faith is not required to the substantial integ- rity of a Sacrament (just as the Word of God, which hypocrites hear, is the true Word, so also that is a Sacrament which adult hypocrites, destitute of faith, receive)." [12] The Evangelical Church herewith most distinctly opposes the Romish doctrine of the efficacy of the Sacrament ex opere operato. (AP. CONF., VII, 18): "We condemn the whole crowd of Scho- lastics, who teach that the Sacraments confer grace on him who places no hindrance in the way, ex opere operato, even though there be no good impulse in the recipient. This is plainly a Jewish notion, to suppose that we are justified by a mere ceremony or ex- ternal work, without any good impulse of the heart, i.e., without faith.... We teach that faith is necessary to the proper use of the Sacraments: a faith which believes the promises and receives the things promised, which are here offered in the Sacrament. And the reason of this is plain and undeniable. A promise is useless to us unless it be embraced by faith. But the Sacraments are signs of the promises. Therefore faith is necessary to their proper use." CHMN. (Ex. C. Trid., II, 36): "The instrumental cause in this doctrine is twofold:: one is, as it were, the hand of God, by which, through the Word and Sacraments, He offers, presents, applies, and seals the benefits of redemption to believers; the other is, as it were, our hand, by which we in faith ask, apprehend, and receive those things which God offers and presents to us through the Word and Sacraments. The efficacy of the Sacraments is not such as though through them God were to infuse and impress grace and salvation even on the unbelieving or those receiving them without faith." HOLL. (1061): "Faith is necessarily required in order to the re- ception of the salutary efficacy of the Sacrament." Id. (1064): ----------------End of Page 532----------------------------------- "The Sacraments confer no grace on adults, unless when offered they receive it by true faith, which existed in their hearts pre- visously. In infants, the Holy Spirit kindles faith by the Sacra- ment of initiation, by which infants receive the grace of the covenant." [13] HOLL. (1062): "The primary design of the Sacraments is the offering, conferring, applying, and sealing of Gospel grace." "Gospel grace is offered to all who use the Sacraments; it is con- ferred on those who worthily use them; it is applied and sealed to adult believers." Hence the Sacraments are not merely significative signs but such as also present and tender what they set forth; for this is included already in the idea of a Sacrament as the means of salva- tion. When in the Symbbolical Books (AP. CONF., V, 42, A.C., XIII) they are called "signs and testimonies of the will of God toward us," they are such "not essentially, as if their whole nature and essence were limited to signifying, or as if the very nature of the earthly and the heavenly object in all the Sacraments were merely significative." (GRH., VIII, 213.) Of the falese views of the word, Sacrament, CHMN. (Ex. C. Trid., II, 33) says: "In our times some take too low a view of the Sacra- ments. They hold that the Sacraments are nothing else than signs and marks of the Christian profession, by which Christians are dis- tinguished from Jews and the heathen.... Some have thought that the Sacraments are only the symbols of Christian society, by which we may be excited and bound to the mutual performance of duties. Others see nothing else in the use of the Sacraments than mere allegories or representations of Christian mortification unto sin,regeneration, and quickening, etc.... There are those who seem desirous of appearing to entertain exalted views of the Sacra- ments, and yet teach that the Sacraments are only signs of grace, offered and exhibited before, and irrespective of the use of the Sacraments; so that through the Sacraments God confers and pre- sents nothing to those who with faith use them, but that they are only the signs of grace offered before and in another way. Allied to this is the opinion of those who think that the use of the Sacraments is only by way of commemoration, to excite faith which elsewhere and in another way, but not in the true use of the Sacra- ments, seeks and receives grace; just as such commemoration can be derived also from pictures." GRH. (VIII, 215): "Those who follow Calvin hold to a two- fold signification in the Sacraments: one by which the terrestrial object signifies the absent celestial object; the other, by which the entire Sacrament signifies the spiritual grace." ----------------End of Page 533--------------------------------------- CHMN. (II, 35): "The Ap. CONF. correctly declares that the effect, virtue or efficacy of the Word and of the Sacraments, which are the seals of trhe promises, is the same.... As, therefore, the Gospel is the power of God unto the salvation of every one that believeth, not because there is any magical force in the letters, syllables, or sounds of the words, but because it is the means, organ, or instrument by which the Holy Spirit is efficacious, proposing, offering, presenting, distributing, and applying the merit of Christ and the grace of God to the salvation of every one that believeth; so also is power and efficacy attributed to the Sacraments, not be= cause saving grace is to be sought in the Sacraments above and beyond the merit of Christ, the mercy of the Father, and the efficacy of the Holy Spirit, but that the Sacraments are instru- mental causes in this way, that through these means or organs the Father desires to present, bestow, and apply His grace, the Son to communicate His merit to believers, and the Holy Spirit to exer- cise His efficacy for the salvation of everyone that believeth. As, according to this, the Sacraments effect the same grace as the Word, the question may arise, Why has God employed a twofold means to this end? CHMN. (Ex. C. Trid., II, 29) answers: "To such attacks and to the clamors of fanatics, we properly reply from the Word of God, that the Sacraments which God has instituted to be aids to our salvation can in no way be considered either usenless or superfluous, or be safely neglected and despised.... And, indeed, (as Chrysostom says) if we were angels, we would need no external sign; but our carnal infirmity hinders, disturbs, distracts, and weakens our faith. For it is hard to continue firmly per- suaded of those things proposed in the Word which are not appar- ent to the senses.... Moreover faith, when it determines that the divine promise is in general a living one, is yet principally con- cerned about the question, Does this promise belong to me indi- vidually?... God, therefore, who is rich in mercy... desires to present His grace to us only in one way, that is, by His mere Word; but He desires also to help our infirmity by certain aids, namely, by Sacraments instituted and annexed to the promise of the Gospel, i.e., by certain signs, rites, or ceremonies obvious to the senses, that by them He might admonish, instruct, and make us sure that what we see performed in a visible manner, externally, is effected internally in us by the power of God." "In this way the Sacraments are, in respect to us, signs confir- ing our faith in the promise of the Gospel; in respect to God, they are organs or instruments, through which God in the Word pre- sents, applies, seals, confirms, increases, and preserves the grace of ----------------------End of Page 534---------------------------------- the Gospel promise in believers. The grace tendered in the Word is not different from that tendered in the Sacraments, nor is the promise in the Gospel different from that in the Sacraments; but the grace is the same and the Word one and the same except that in the Sac- raments the Word is rendered visible, as it were, on account of our infirmity, by signs divinely appointed." The question of the necessity of the Sacraments is thus decided by CHMN. (Ex. C. Trid., II, 30): "The Sacraments are necessary both by reason of the infirmity of our faith, which needs aids of this kind, and by reason of the divine institution.... And in this sense we not unwillingly grant that the Sacraments are necessary to salvation, as the instrumental cause; but yet this declaration is to be added, that the necessity of the Sacraments to salvation is not so precise as that of faith and the Word.... But if any one have true faith in Christ form hearing the Word, and if the ability to use the Sac- raments according to the divine institution be not conceded himn, in such a case surely the necessity of the Sacraments to salvation is not to be considered an absolute; for then salvation would be denied to those who have no ability to use the Sacraments, although they embrace Christ as their Saviour by faith in the Word." HOLL. (1065): "The Sacraments are necessary by the necessity of the precept and of the means. They have no absolute, but an ordinate or conditionate necessity." QUEN. (IV, 77): "Baptism is neces- sary in infants, not only by the necessity of the precept, but by the necessity of the means, beccause there is no other means by which they bmay be regenerated; but in adults it is necessary by reason of the precept, because in that case it requires faith. The Eucharist is necessary to all Christian adults by the necessity of the precept." [14] HOLL. (1062): "The secondary designs of the Sacraments are: (a) That they may be marks of the Church, by which it is distinguished from unbelievers" ("and symbols of confession by which we separate ourselves from other sects." QUEN., IV., 77). "(b) That they may be monuments of the bnefits of Christ. Luke 22:19. (c) That they bmay be bonds of love and the nerves of public assemblies. Eph. 4:5; 1 Cor. 10:17. (d) That they may be incitements to the exercise of the virtues (Baptism signifies the burying of the old Adam, Rom. 6:4; the Lord's Supper ex- cites us to a grateful remembrance of the death of Christ, 1 Cor. 11:26)." Observation.--As the Old Testament also contains the Word of God as a means of salvation, the Dogmaticians hold also that there are Sacraments in it, and regarrd as such circumcision and the passover, the types of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. CHMN. ---------------End of Page 535---------------------------------- (Ex. C. Trid., II, 18): "God, in all ages of the word, by giving a certain Word, revealed His will concerning the mystery of re- demption to the human race, concerning the gratuitous reconcilia- tion and acceptance of believers to life eternal through faith, because of the sacrifice of His Son as Mediator. He also added to the Word, by His own divine institution, certain external signs, by which to seal and confirm more clearly the promise of righteous- ness by faith. The institution and use of Sacraments did not, therefore, first begin in the time of the New Testament; but the fathers in the time of the Old Testament, even before the publica- tion of the Law, had their certain signs or Sacraments divinely instituted for this use, which were the seals of the righteousness of faith. Rom. 4. But though it is the same God, the same Medi- ator, the sam e grace, righteousness, promise, faith, salvation, etc., yet those esternal signs or seals are sometimes changed for others, substituted in their place by divine institution, so that the mode of revelation was constantly rendered more clear,which at first was like a lamp shining in a dark place; afterwards the morning star succeeded, until at length, the night being past, the Sun of right- eousness arose." On the relation of the Sacraments of the Old Testament and the New, QUEN. (IV, 84) says: "By the Sacra- ments of the New Testament, the grace of Christ is more clearly, fully, perfectly, and abundantly dispensed to believers; but from this it does not follow, as the Romanists maintain, that by the Sacraments of the Old Testament divine grace and remission of sins were not clearly presented nor conferred on believers. For now, the work of redemption being consummated, truth succeeds to figures, bsubstance to shadows." Ger. IX, 4: "In those of the New Testament, the present Christ is tendered and given; in those of th Old Testament, He was signified and prefigured." PARA. 54. Of Baptism. Of the two Sacraments, Baptism precedes the Lord's Sup- per. [1] We are to treat of the nature of Baptism, the form in which it is to be administered, and the design of its institution. 1. Baptism is an act enjoined by the Lord, and accom- panied with a promise, Matt. 28:19. Hence we have in Baptism not merely water, and not common water, but also the Word of God. But therre is superadded to this a higher efficacy than exists in mere natural water, [2] and it is this which, by means of the water, effects saving grace. [3] 2. But if we expect such a result from Baptism, it must be ----------------End of Page 536--------------------------------- administered precisely according to the instructions of the Lord. The consecration must be according to His will, and the act itself administered to the baptized person agreeably to the prescribed mode. [4] If all this be done, then the Bap- tism is to be regarded as valid, whether the officiating minis- ter be a believer or not, or whether the person baptized believe in the Sacrament or not. [5] 3. The immediate design of Baptism is, finally, to work saving grace in man. [6] But also the Word of God has the like effect, Baptism is intended to produce this result only in such cases in which it is applied at an earlier period than the Word; this is the case with infants who are not yet sus- ceptible to the preaching of the Gospel. [7] But in adults who, with ettheir alrready developed reason, can undertstand the preaching of the Gospel, the Word has precedence, and pro- duces its results before the Sacrament. But, in such instances, Baptism serves to seal and establish the gracious result already accomplished by the Word. [8] Hence in the case of adults, who are yet to be baptized, faith must be demanded as the condition on which the ordinance effects this blessed end. [9] This cannot be expected of infants; but it does not follow that they are for that reason to be deprived of Baptism, for they need grace as well as adults, and are invited to it by God. It is, therefore, God's will that they be baptized, and Baptism serves also to create in them this faith. [10] The efficacy of Baptism is not limited to the moment of its administration, but it continues to confer strength upon its subject. Nor is this efficacy lost if, in its administration, the intended result, because of some hindrance on man's part, be not immediately produced; for still, if the ordinance were properly adminis- tered, a covenant has been entered into with God, and thereby there is forever established a disposition on God's part to pro- duce the gracious effect to its full extent, when the individual no longer gstrives agasinst it. [11] At the same time, in re- pentance man still has the means to appropriate to himself the blessed efficacy of Baptism, of which he has hitherto by his own neglect been deprived; for repentance is nothing else than a continuation or renewal of that which was symbolicallly indicated in Baptism, namely, crucifying the old man within ---------------End of Page 537------------------------------- us, so that in repentance we can recover that which was ne- glected on man's part in Baptism. [12] On this ground, also, the repetition of Baptism is as unnecessary as it is inad- missible. [13] Finally, Baptism is necessary, because it is commanded by God; but, as God can save us through other means also, we hope that the children of Christian parents who, without their own fault, are prevented from being baptized, will not be lost. [14] As Baptism,at the same time, distinguishes us from the great mass of those who do not belong to the Church, and imposes on us the obligation to be faithful to our baptismal covenant, the following may be considered as secondary de- signs of Baptism: (1) The distinction between Christians and Gentiles, and the union of the former with the Church, 1 Cor. 12:12. (2) The obligation to true fatith and a godly life, 1 Pet. 3:21. [15] [1] GRH. (IX, 67): "The Sacrament of Baptism must be con- sidered first, as it precedes the Lord's Supper in (1) the time of its institution, for it was divinely established in the very commence- ment of the New Testament dispensation; (2) in administration, for John and the disciples of Christ baptized before the Lord's Supper was instituted; (3) in order, for Baptism is the first portal to grace, the Sacrament of initiation; the Lord's Supper is the Sacrament of confirmation. By Baptism we are regenerated; by the Lord's Supper we are fed and nourished to eternal life. As therefore in nature, so also in grace, we must be born before we are fed; we must be begotten before we can grow. By Baptism we are received into the covenant of God; by the Lord's Supper we are preserved in it. By Baptism faith and the other gifts of the Spirit are ex- cited in us; by the Lord's Supper they are increased and confirmed. Baptism was prefigured by circumcision; the Lord's Supper, by the paschal lamb. No one can have access to the Lord's Supper unless he has been baptized; as in the Old Testament none but the circumcised were permitted to eat the paschal lamb." The Dogmaticians have extensively discussed the question, What relation did John's Baptism sustain to that of Christ? CHMN. (Ex. C. Trid., II, 66): "The same difference that exists between' the Word concerning Christ to come, Christ coming, and Christ offered [to men in the preaching of the Gospel], exists also between ---------------End of Page 538--------------------------------------- circumcision, the Baptism of John, and the Baptism of Christ. But although as to the mode of the publication of the doctrine con- cerning Christ there may be some difference, yet as to its substance it has been the same and has had the same effects on believers in every age. As it is then with the Word, so also is it with circum- cision, the Baptism of John, and of the apostles. Nor are these to be too nicely discriminated. For if these subtleties be allowed, in this way we can also establish the difference between the Baptism performed by the apostles before the passion and resurrectioon of Christ, and that which they administered afterwards." The ques- tion, Whether it was necessary for those who were baptized by John to re- ceive afterwards the Baptism of Christ? CHMN. leaves undetermined. All the Dogmaticians agree in not referring the words "fire and spirit," in Matt. 3:11 to actual Baptism, because Christ, Acts 1:5 long after Baptism was administered, refers their fulfilment to the later period; but they understnad them as relating to the effusion of the Holy Ghost on Pentecost and the gifts of the Sprit con- nected with it. [2] CAT. MAJ. (IV, 14): "If you be asked, What is Baptism? answer, that it is not mere water, but such as is comprehended and included in the Word and command of God, and santified by them, so that it is nothing else than a water of God, or a divine water; not that it is in itself of more value than other water, but that God's Word and commandment are added to it." (See ART. SMALCALD, V, 2, 3.) The earlier Dogmaticians were satified with this simple expression, and hence designate, as the substance of the SAcrament, the external element of water and the Word of the in- stitution and promise. (CHMN. (Loc. c. Th., III, 161): "The distinction is to be retained, viz., that the substance of Baptism consists in the act and in the words, `I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.'") BUt the olater writers (see Of the Sacraments in General, note 6, p. 544 sq.) speak of a double matter in Baptism: the earthly object, which is natural, pure water, everywhere at hand; and the heavenly ob- ject, by which they designate that which they suppose is super- added by the words of the consecration. This most of them consider to be the whole Trinityk, others the Horly Sprit, and others the blood of Christ. These different views arise from the fact that some of them regard the heavenly object as indicated in the bap- tismal formula, others in John 3:5, and others again in 1 John 5:6. But there is as little contradiction in these different views of the heavenly object as there is in the passages just cited. (QUEN. (IV, 110): "The opinions of the orthodox of the heavnely object -----------------End of Page 539------------------------------------ are indeed diverse, but not contradictory, only subordinate and may easy be harmonized.") The sense in which the heavenly object is by some regarded as the whole Trinity, by others as the Holy Spirit, and by others as the blood of Christ, is thus explained by GRH> (concerning the presence of the Trinity) (IX, 133 sq): "As the name of God is nothing else than God Himself, and the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is, according to the in- stitution of Christ, joined with the wate4r of Baptism, it hence fol- lows that the whole Trinity is present by His grace in Baptism, and by the water of Baptism is efficacious to the salvation of men; ... therefore the other substantial part of Baptism is the name of the whole adorable Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; that is, the infinite majjesty, the ineffable sanctity, the unspeakable goodness, the admirable virtue and grace of the whole Trinity, which, with all its virtue and the benefits of grace, are efficacious by water united to and sanctified by the Word." (Concerning the presence of the Holy Spirit): "As the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, and as Baptism is administered not only in the name of the Father and the Son, but also of the Holy Spirit, it follows that the Sprit acts efficaciously in, with and by the water of Baptism, works faith, regeneration, and renovation in those who do not strive against God, and seals the covenant of grace in the hearts of the baptized. (The Holy Spirit is named alone, because regeneration is attributed to Him as His peculiar work. He makes the water of Baptism a salutary means of regeneration, not as though the other persons were excluded, for the works of the Trinity ad extra are undivided, yet with the order and distinction of persons preserfved.) As the Holy Spirit was supernaturally and peculiarly united with the dove in which He descended on Christ at His Baptism, so even at the present day is He supernaturally and peculiarly united with the water of Baptism." (Concerning the presence of the blood of Christ): "As the Son of God in the fulness of time assumed true human nature, and personally and inseparbly united it to Himself, it follows that Christ is present in Baptism, not only according to His divine nature, but also in His human nature, and hence that the blood of Christ is by no means to be excluded from Baptism." But GRH. (IX, 137) adds: "Al- though Christ the God-man is present in Baptism, and by His blood, through the medium of faith, washes us from our sins, yet the most distinguished theologians maintain that the blood of Christ cannot very well be called the other material part of Bap- tism." The most of the Dogmaticians agree in saying, "the heavenly object of Baptism is analogically called the whole ssacred Trinity, ----------------End of Page 540------------------------------------- but peculiarly and terminatively the Holy Sprit. (HOLL., 1085.)" CALOV. (IX, 166) attempts to combine the three expressions: "The heavenly object, considered as a whole, is the most holy Trinity, namely, the Father, the Son of God... (to whose entire- ness, not the divine nature alone, but also the human nature con= tributes, as that to which alone also the blood belongs, and of which He became a partaker for our sake), and also the Holy Spirit; and this [i.e., the most holy Trinity] in one expression is called the Word and the name of God, i.e., God Himself, threefold and one, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, according to the well-known rule handed down from Augustine: `The Word is joined to the element and it becomes a Sacrament.' This Word of the institution is found in Matt. 28:19." The fluctuation of the Dogmaticians in these definitions is also manifest in this, that some suppose the expression, "the heavenly object is the whole Trinity," signifies nothing more than the other earlier one, viz., "the second essential part [of Baptism] is the Word," since in the Word God is in- cluded; while the others (HUTt., for instance) expressly maintain that the Word is not a substantial part, but only the active (poietikon) principle of Baptism, which, from this point of view, appears the more correct. It is from this diversity of views that the difference in the expression of the earlier and later Dogmaticians, as noticed in the previous section, note 6, proceeds. The opposition of BR. to this mode of expression we have mentioned in the preceding section. In relation to Baptism, he says (683): "When it is ac- knowledged (1) that the words of the institution, besides the water, belong to the substance of Baptism; and (2) from the force of these words it is further acknowledged that the Holy Sprit and the whole Trinity are the author of this Sacrament as a means of grace; and when (3) it is acknowledgfed that the Holy Spirit and the triune God, wherever and whenever Baptism is rightly admin- istered, is present in the same way, by virtue of His measureless essence; and (4) is present by His grace in such a manner that, being present, He not only seriously offers spiritual benefits through this Sacrament, adn (5) enters into the covenant of grace, with the person baptized, never to be broken on His part, and seals it through Baptism; but also (6) in the person baptized who does not resist the divine grace accomplishes, in this act itself, the work of regeneration and renovation through this Sacrament in such a manner that, (7) not by a separate and peculiar action, but jointly with the water of Baptism, adn through it by one undi- vided action, He enkindles and confirms fatith; and that (8) on account of the merit of the God-man, Christ, truly present as to ---------------End of Page 541-------------------------------------- both natures, and on account of His blood shed for our sins (for, (9) since faith is conferred by baptism, by this also the blood of Christ is sprinkled, as far as His merit is applied by faith), when, I say, these things are acknowledged and maintained, we may well, as far as the rest is concerned, with the more ancient theo- logiians, be silent about the name, heavenly object, and its almost inexplicable nature, and rather confess a cautious ignorance than profess false knowledged." The assumption of a heavenly object involves that of a "sacramental union, which is the union of true water with the Holy Strinity, and therefore not only with the Father, but also with the incarnate Son adn with the Holy Sprit. For, neither is the water given or received without the most Holy Trinity, or without the Holy Sp[irit;, nor the latter or the former without the water; because these two are most closely united in the sacramental act, nor can one be a Sacrament without the other. And this union is not relative only, or figurative, or typical, such as it was in the Sacraments of the Old Testament, but it tenders the celestial object, and is really and truly present; whence water, in its sacramental form, is not to be regarded as mere water, but in its sacramental form, is not to be regarded as mere water, but the laver of regeneration in the Word, and as united with the most Holy Trinity in an ineffable manner, John 3:5; Eph. 5:26; Titus 3:5; 1 Pet. 3:21; 1 John 1:7." QUEN. (IV, 112). [3] BR. (693): "Baptism may be defined as a sacred action, instituted by Christ, by which men are washed with water, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and are thus regenerated and renewed, that they may secure eternal life." ART. SMALCALD (V, 1): "Baptism is nothing else than the Worde of God with washing in water, according to His institution and command; or, as Paul says, Eph. 5:26, the washing of water by the Word." HOLL. (1080): "Baptism is a sacred and solemn action divinely instituted, by whic sinful men, living and actually born,* without distinction of sex and age, are washed in water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that by this washing of water divine grace, promised in the Gospel, may be applied, conferred upon, and sealed to them." [4] GRH. (IX, 137): "The form of Baptism consists in the action, that is, in the mersion of the person baptized into water, or, what is just as well, in the affusion of waterk, and in the recitation of the words of the institution: `I baptize thee in the name of the Father,' etc.; so that there are, in general, three substantial parts -------------------------------------------------------------------- *[This is in opposition to the baptism infantum nondum in lucem editorum. SEe GERHARD, IX, 209: "Those not yet born, cannot be born again."] ----------------End of Page 542--------------------------------------- of Baptism to be maintained, which cannot be separated or changed, viz., water, the Word, and the action, which latter em- braces mersion of the person into water, or the aspersion of water, sand the recitation of the words of the institution.... We do not ascribe to the external recitation of the Word any magical or secret power, when we assert that there would be no Baptism unless it be done in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; but by this we teach and assert that it is incumbent on the true disciples of Christ to adhere with godly simplicity to His Word, and observe His institution with involable accuracy." The signification fo tthe words of the institution employed in the administration of Baptism is thus explained by GRH. (IX, 132): "When the Officiating minister says: `I baptize thee,' etc., the words are to be taken in this sense: (1) That Baptism is not a ceremony devised by man, but an ordinance of the true God, and a holy Sacrament divinely instituted.... (2) That he does not administer this Sacrament of his own private will, but in the place of God, the dispenser of whose mysteries and whose minister he is. lll (3) That on this water of Baptism the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the one true God, is invoked, that in this action,c ommanded by Him, He may be present, acfcording to His promise, and receive the baptized person into favor.... (4) That the water of Baptism is no longer simply and merely water, but water through which the wyhole blessed Trinity desires to be efficacious to the salvation fo the subject baptized, and there- fore through which the Trinity, in this very action of the baptizing minister, operates efficaciously according to His promise, `I bap- tize thee,' etc., i.e., I testify that by this Sacrament thou art re- ceived into the covenant of grace, that the Father accepts thee as his child, that the Son washes thee from they isins bin His blood and clothes thee with the garjment of righteousness, that the Holy Spirit frregenerates and renews thee to eternal life, so that in this way thou mayest become a child of God the Father forever.... (5) That the person baptized, being thus received by His Sacrament into the covenant of grace, is obligated to know the one true God through His Word, to supplicate, worship, and serve Him alone."... To the act, as above described, there is added a series of ceree- monies and usages more or less important, all of which are, how- ever, not essential to Baptism, but are intended only to render the act more solemn. GRH. (IX, 308, sq.) specifies these as ussual in our Chruch: "The admonition concerning original sin [since John admonisehed those coming to his baptism, of the fruitlessness of their lives, Matt. 3:10], the giving of the name [as in circum- ---------------End of Page 543--------------------------------------- cision, Luke 1:59], the minor exorcism, the sign of the cross ["to testify that the infant's reception into grace occurs only by the merit of Christ curucified"], prayers [after our Lord's example, Matt. 19:14; Mrak 10:14], recitation of the Gospel, the imposi- tion of hands, recitation of the Lord's Prayer, the use of sponsors." Here belongs also the renunciation of Satan ("by which those whoa re to be baptized solemnly and in express words renounce Satan and all his pomp"). Concerning exorcism, GERHARD (ib. (310) says: "It is a testimony: 1. Of the spiritual captivity of infants in the kingdom of Satan, because of sin. 2. Of the fact that the Messiah has come, and of the redemption wrought by His work; that the strong man armed is overcome, and the spoils are distributed through Word and Sacraments. 3. Of the divine efficacy belonging to baptism, whereby infants are transferred frrom the power of darkness into the kingdom of God's Son. 4. Of the chief end of the ministerial office, consisting not only in the application of the benefits of Christ to believers,k but also in unceas- ing warfare against Satan. 5. It is a public confession of the Church against the errors of Pelagians, Anabaptists, Zwinglians. It is approved by the testimonies of the primitive Church. But our exorcism difffers from that of the Papists: 1. Ours rests on human authority, and is an adiaphoron, and of free observance; that of the Papists pretends to rest on apostolic authority. 2. Ours is emblematic, signifying original sin and deliverance there- from by Christ; to that of the Papists efficacious operation is ascribed." CHMN. (Loc. c. Th., III, 161): "Those who omit or reject exorcism with the opinion of and for the same reason as the Anabaptists and Sacramentarians, because they think that infants either have no sins, and therefore are not by nature the children of wrath,k or under the power of Satan; or that they, although hborn in sin, yet on account of their birth according to the flesh from be- lieving parents, even before Baptism and without Baptism, are not out of the kingdom of heaven or under the power of darkness, in- deed deserve to be rebuked and blamed.... But if this doctrine of original sin, of the power and kingdom of Statan and the efficacy of Baptism, be granted by an open confession, the substance, in- tegrity, and efficacy of Baptism are not dependent on that pre- scribed rite of the words of exorcism; but the Church has the liberty of propounding and explaining that doctrine in other words more agreeable to the Scriptures." The formula in the ancient Church was this: "I adjure thee, thou unclean spirit, that thou come out of this servant of Jesus Christ, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." BR. (6092), however, observes: ------------End of Page 544---------------------------------------- "The words have, it is true, the form of a command, but they are to be taken in the sense of a prayer to God, with confidence, and with innate animosity hence begotten against the enemy to be expelled." [5] CAT. MAJ. (IV, 53): "If the Word is connected with the wate, Baptism must be regarded as proper and valid, even if faith be not connected with it. For my faith does not constitute Baptism, but it receives and apprehends it. Baptism is not vitiated or cor- rupted by men abusing it or not properly receiving it; for it is not bound to our faith, but to the Word of God." The same is true with regard to the state of mind of the person who administers it, and Baptism even by a heretic is not invalid. HOLL. (1084): "If Baptism be administered by a heretic, who retains the substantials of the ordinance, we must not doubt its efficacy. But if it may be administered in a flourishing church, where an orthodox minister can be procured, it is a great sin to ask it of a heretic. But in a church under oppresion, in a case of urgent necessity, it may be asked for and received without blame from a heretic who uses the customary formula of Baptism; but then a protest must be added that the infant is not to be bound by this Baptism to embrace false doctrine." Baptiems by others than ministers, in case of necessity (Noth-taufe), is also valid. HOLL. (1081) says: "Ordinarily, ministers of the Church, legitimately called and ordained, orthodox, and of a blameless life, administer Baptism. Extraordinarily, however, and in case of necessity, any godly Christian, skilled in sacred rites, whether male or female, can administer the ordinance." [6] CAT. MAJ. (IV, 24):... "Hence, conceive of the whole thing as simply as possible, namely, that the power, work, fruit and end of Baptism is to save men.... But to be saved, we know, is nothing else than to be delivered from the tyranny of sin, death, and the devil, to be transferred into the kingdom of Christ, and to dwell with Him forever." GRH. (IX, 148, 157): "As Baptism is not simply water, but water comprehended in, santified by, and united to the Word of God, it is not therefore used to wash away the impurity of the body, but it is a divine and salutary means and organ by which the whole sacred Trinity efficaciously operates for the salvation of man. Although the effects of Baptism are various and multiform, yet, following the apostle, Tit. 3:5, we reduce them all to these two heads: that Baptism is the washing of regeneration (John 3:5), which embraces the gift of faith (Tit. 3:5), the remission of sins (Luke 3:3; Acts 2:38; 22:16; Rom. 6:3), reception into the ---------------End of Page 545---------------------------------------- covenant of grace (1 Pet. 3:21), adoption as the sons of God (Gal. 3:26), the putting on of Christ (Gal. 3:27), deliverance from the power of Satan and the possession of eternal life (Col. 1:13, 14; Mark 16:16); and renewal (Tit. 3:5), that is, the Holy Spirit is given to him, who begins to renew the intellect, the will, and all the powers of the soul, so that the lost image of God may begin to be restored tin him, that the inner man may be renewed (2 Cor. 4: 16) that the old man may be put off, and the new one put on (Col. 3:10), that the Spirit may oppose the flesh and rule over it, sso that sin may not obtain dominion in the body." HOLL., more generally (1095): "The primary design of Baptism is the offering application, conferring, and sealing of evangelical grace." HFRFFR. (497): "The fruit or effect of Baptism is re- generation and the remission of sins (John 3:5; Tit. 3:5; Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3; Acts 2:38; 22:16; Eph. 5:26), salvation and participation in all the benefits of Christ, into whom we are in- grafted by Baptism (Tit. 3:5; 1 Pet. 3:21; Rom. 6:3; Gal. 3: 27; 1 Cor. 12:13), a good conscience toward God, or the assurance of faith as to the forgiveness of sins (1 Pet. 3:21; 2 Cor. 1:21), newness of life (Rom. 6:3; Col. 2:11)." IN opposition to the assertion of the Papal Church, that "sin is destroyed by Baptism, so that it no longer exists," the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins by Baptism is thus more particularly de- fined: "The guilt and dominion of sin is taken away by Baptism, but not the root or incentive (fomes) of sin." (HOLL., 1096) AP. CONF. (I, 35): "(Luther) always thus wrote, that Baptism re- moves the guilt of original sin, although the material of sin, as they call it, may remain, i.e., concupoiscence. He also affirmed of this material, that the Holy Spirit, given by Baptism, begins to mortify concupiscence and creates new emotions in man. Augustine speaks to the same effect when he says: `Sin is forgiven in Bap- tism, not that it does not exist, but that it is not imputed.'" [7] GRH. (IX, 236): "There is no other ordinary means of re- generation than the Word and the Sacrament of Baptism. By the Word infants cannot be influenced, but only adults, who have come to years of discretion. It remains, therefore, that they are regenerated, cleansed from the contagion of original sin, and made partakers of eternal life, through Baptism." [8] BR. (690): "But here, as regards the immediate design [of Baptism] a diversity exists in respect to the different subjects. For faith is at first conferred upon and sealed to all infants alike by Baptism,and by this faith the merit of Christ is applied to them. But adults, who receive faith from hearing the Word before their -------------End Of Page 546--------------------------------------- Baptism, are only sealed and confirmed in their faith by it. )(Examples, Acts 2:41; 8:12, 36-38; 16:14, 15, 31, 33; 18:8.) And not only now, when Baptism is received, but afterwards, and throughout their whole life, it efficaciously contributes to the con- firmation of their faith and further renewal." GRH. (IX, 169): "To infants Baptism is, primarily, the ordi- nary means of regeneration and purification from sin;... sec- ondarily, it is the seal of righteousness and the confirmation of faith. To adult believers it serves principally as a seal and testi- mony of the grace of God, sonship and eternal life; but in a less principal sense it increases renovation and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Infants by Baptism receive the first fruits of the Spirit and of faith; adults, who through the Word have received the first fruits of faith and of the Holyy Spirit, procure an increase of these gifts by Baptism." HFRFFR. (5000): "But what? Suppose one is regenerated by the Word. Has he need of Baptism also? And can Baptism be said to be to him the laver of regeneration? Answer: BOth. For believers, too, ought to be baptized, unless they be excluded by a case of necessity. And when they are baptized, Baptism is truly to them the laver of regeneration, because it augments regeneration, wrought by the Word, by a wonderful additon; because, also, the sacramental act seals the regeneration of faith to absolute certainty." [9] "Although Baptism, where it is rightly performed, is a Sacra- ment and offers saving grace, without any respect to the faith of the recipient, yet it is also true that, in the case of adults, a bene- ficial result follows only where Baptism is received by faith. The question: Is a hypocrite, therefore, also regenerated, if he receives Baptism? is thus answered by HFRFFR. (499): "In such a case we must distinguish between the substance of Baptism and its fruits. For a hypocrite, if he be baptized, receives indeed true Baptism, as to its substance, which consists in the legitimate administration of the Sacrament according to the words of the institution and in the promise of divine grace. But as long as he perseveres in his hypocrisy and infidelity, he is destitute of its salutary fruits and effects, which only believers experience. Therefore, God really offers His grace and forgiveness of sins to him who is baptized, and desires on His part to preserve that covenant perpetually firm and entire without any change, so that the grace promised in the covenant may always be accessible to him who is baptized, and that he may enjoy it as soon as he repents; but as long as he re- mains a hypocrite and impenitent, he is destitute of it." QUEN. (IV, 117): "Even to all hypocrites Baptism offers spiritual gifts, -----------------End of Page 547------------------------------------- as regeneration and whatever is comprehended untder it, the gift of faith, remission of sins, etc.,... but some adults, by actual im-penitence, hypocrisy, and obstinacy, defraud themselves of the saving efficacy of Baptism; and hence, although these gifts be offered to them, they are not actually conferred: yet, in the mean- time, it is and remains in itself a salutary organ and means of re- generation, since the dprival of the first act does not follow from the deprival of the second act through some fualt of the subject." CAT. MAJ. (IV, 33): "Faith alone makes the person worthy to receive profitably this salutary and divine water. For, as this is offered and promised to us in the words together with the water,' it cannot be received otherwise than by cordially believing it. Without faith, Baptism profits nothing; although it cannot be de-nied that in itself it is a heavenly and inestimable treasure." From this follows the antithesis against the Romanists, who maintain: "That Baptism confers grace ex opere operato, i.e., by virtue of the sacramental action itself, so that faith is excluded by ethe efficiency of sacramental grace." [10] BR. (696): "That infants are to be baptized, is plain from the testimony of John 3:5, and Mark 10:14, taken together, thus: 1. Whom Christ desires to come to Him for salvation, but who cannot attain to eternal life in the ordinary way except through the medium of Baptism, upon these Baptism should be conferred, as the ordinary means, and to them it should not be denied. But, Christ desires infants to be saved (Mark 10:14), who cannot attain to eternal life in the ordinary way unless through the medium of Baptism (by virtue of the general assertion, John 3:5). There- fore, etc. 2. Whom Christ desires to be brought to Himself, that they may enjoy His spiritual blessings, they are to be brought to Him by Baptism as the ordinary means. But Christ desires in- fants to be brought to Him, that they may enjoy a spiritual bless- ing (mark 10:14). Therefore, etc. 3. The command, Matt. 28: 19, to baptize all nations, is properly extended to infants also, who constitute a portion of the nations. 4. The examples which show that whole bfamilies were baptized, e.g., Acts 15:14, 33; 18:8; 1 Cor. 1:16, are properly believed to embrace infants, who doubt- less constituted a part of the families. 5. Add also the analogy of circumcision, which was administered to infants; and, 6. That, as the promise of the coveanant of grace, Acts 2:39, belongs to infants, so also does the seal of the covenant, which is Baptism. Fianlly, 7. As the whole Church is cleansed by the washing of water through the Word (Eph. 5:26), this properly refers to infants also, for they too, although unclean by nature, are nevertheless to be engrafted into the Church." -------------------------End of Page 548----------------------------- CAT. MAJ. (IV, 49): "That the Baptism of infants is pleasing and grateful to Christ is abundantly manifest from what He Him- self has done, viz., because God has sancctified, and made partakers of the Holy Spirit, many of those who were baptized immediately after their birth. But there are many also, at the present day, of whom we perceive that they have the Holy Spirit, as they give cer- tain proof of this, both in doctrine and life; just as by the grace of God there is granted to us the ability to interpret the Scriptures and know Christ, whiche very one knows to be impossible without the aid of the Holy Spirit.... But if the Baptism of children were not pleasing to Christ, He woudl not give to any of them the Holy Spirit, nor even a particle of it; and, that I may say in a word what I think, there would not have been among men a single Christian through all the ages that have elapsed until the present day." The objection of the oppponents, viz., "The Sacraments are of no advantage without faith, but infants have no faith," is considered untenable; for faith is taken into the account only in the case of adults, whoare already capable of being influenced by the Word. Stated generally, however, the proposition, "that the Sacraments are operative only when faith is present," is false; for the Sacra- ment, as a means of salvation and as the visible Word, is designed, just as the audible Word, to produce faith, and really produces it when there is no hindrance opposed to it on the part of man, which is the case in children. BR. (690) says: "Infants, on account of their age, cannot put any hindrance in the way of divine grace, or maliciously oppose it, and hence they immediately obtain grace by the use of the cconstituted and unimpeded means." GRH. (IX, 246): "We therefore invert the argument: Infants have no faith, viz., with respect to their corrupt nature, because, on account of their carnal generation from their parents, they are flesh; there- fore, they are to be baptized, that they may secure faith and assalva- tion." The Dogmaticians accordingly maintain most positively, upon the authority of Tit. 3:5, thatr faith is produced in children through Baptism (GRH. (IX, 246): "Baptism is the washing of regeneration; but regeneration cannot take place without faith"), although they confess that they cannot clearly understand what kind of faith this is. GRH. (IX, 275): "We are not solicitous about the mode of this faith, but we simply acquiesce in the fact that infants really believe." [CHEMNITZ, Formula 1567, quoted by GRH. (IX, 273): "When we say that infants believe or have faith, it must not be imagined that infants understand or perceive the movements of faith; but the error of those is rejected who imagine ------------------------End of Page 549---------------------------- that baptized infants please God and are saved, without any action, within them,k of the Holy Spirit, while Christ clearly says: `Except a man be born,'" etc. "The Holy Spirit also is aleways given with the remission of sins, nor can any one, without the Holy Spirit, please God, Rom. 8. Since, therefore, it is certain that baptized infants are members of the Church, and please God, it is also certain that the Holy Spirit is efficacious within them, and that, too, in such a way that they can receive the kingdom of heaven, i.e., the grace of God, and the forgiveness of sins. Al- though we neither understand nor can explain in words of what are baptized, nevertheless, from the Word of God it is certain that this occurs. This action or operation of the Holy Spirit in infatns we call faith, and say that infants believe. For the means or in- strument whereby the kingdom of God, offered in the Word and Sacrament, ris received, Scripture calls faith, and says that believers receive the kingdom of God."]... QUEN. (IV, 153) calls attention to a difference between the primary and immediate act or operation of justifying faith, "by which it reposes in Christ the Mediator and apprehends His bene- fits by the operation of the Holy Spirit, which is the internal and formal faith which we attribute to children; and the secondary and mediate, by which faith is drawn out externally towards our neigh- bors in acts of charity, which we deny to infants."... The ob- jection, that infants are incapable of faith because their reason is not developed, he opposes with the distinction "between an intel- ligent and rational soul, and its operation and use. Faith requires an intelligent and rational soul as its subject, and hence faith can- not be excited in brutes; yet this faith does not depend on the operation and use of the same." CHMN. (Loc. c. Th., III, 160): "We by no means grant that infants who are baptized are either without faith or are baptized on the faith of others. The faith of others, indeed, that is, of parents or those offering them, leads children to Christ in Baptism, Mark 10: 13, and prays that they may be endowed with faith of their own. But there is no doubt that, through the washing of water by the Word, Christ operates by His Spirit in children who are baptized, and causes their reception itnto the kingdom of God, although we do not understand in what manner this is done. For Baptism is the laver of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, who is poured out upon those baptized, that, being justified, they may become heirs of eternal life, Tit. 3:5; Matt. 10:15; and this is called the faith of infants. For, as the curcumcision of children, ---------------End of Page 550--------------------------------------- in the Old Testament, was the seal of the righteousness of faith, so, because in the New Testament baptized infants please God and are saved, they cannot and ought not to be cast out among unbelievers, but are properly reckoned among believers; though faith cometh of hearing in another way in intelligent, sensible, willing adults, than in infants, not yet having the use of their reason." BR. (690) adds to this: "It is not to be supposed that the actual benefit of regeneration, or the production of faith in infants, is to be deferred to years of discretion, and that they meanwhile are in no way re- ceived into grace." Hence Confirmation cannot be considered the completion of Infant Baptism. The AP. CONF. (VII, 6) says of it only this: "Confirmatin and extreme uncition are rites received from the fathers, which, however, the Church never requires as necessary to salvation, becaause they are not commanded by God." CHMN. (Ex. C. Trid., II, 113): "Our theologians have often shown that the rite of confirmation, when the useless, superstitious, and unscriptural traditions respecting it have been laid aside, may be used piously and to the edification of the Church in this way: viz., that those who were baptized in infancy, when they come to years of discretion, should be diligently instructed by a clear and simple setting forth of the doctrines of the Church; and, when tey seem moderately grounded in the rudiments, they should be pre- sented before the bishop* and the church; and then the child, having been baptized in infancy, should first be admonished in a short and simple address concerning his Baptism.... Secondly. The child itself should make a personal and public profession of this doctrine and faith. Thirdly. He should be questioned con- cerning the principal doctrines of the Christian religion.... Fourthly. He should be reminded, and should show by his profes- sion, that he differs from all heathen opinons. Fifthly. A serious and solemn exhortation should be added.... Sixthly. Public prayer should be made for these children;... to which prayer, without superstition, the imposistion of ahands may be added. Nor would such prayer be fruitless, for it is supportefdd by the promises concerning the gifts of perseverance and the grace of confirmation." [11] BR. (690): "Baptimsm efficaciously contributes to the con- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- *[The "REFORMATION OF COLOGNE," prepared by Bucer, Melanchthon, Sar- ceriusk, etc., in 1543, says: "It is not the prerogative of bishops so that no one else may administer it, since Baptism, which is far higher, is administered by or- dinary ministers, yea, in case of necessity, by any Christian. It is assigned to bishops only that they may learn to know their people." Sor the MARK-BRAN- DENBURG AGENDE of 1540: "Since, thank God, the population in our lands is great, and since the bishops are few, so that there will be too many for them to hear and instruct individually, they may commit this to their pastors."] -----------------End of Page 551---------------------------------------- firmation of the faith of believers and their further renovation, not only when it is received, but throughout their whole life. (For the covenant of grace, of which Baptism is the seal, will continue firm and ratified forever on the part of God.)" CHEMNITZ (Examen, Preuss. ed., p. 276): "Christ Himself affirms that the action of Baptism respects not merely either the past or the present, but He uses the future in Mark 16:16. It is noteworthy how Scripture extends the efficacy of Baptism for be- lievers to all times, present (1 Pet. 3:21), past (Tit. 3:5), and future (Mark 16:16; Eph. 5:26. 27). The purifying and sancti- fying virtue, efficacy and operation of Baptism, therefore, accord- ing to Scripture, remain and work throughout the enitire life of the Christian; as Paul clearly teaches in many words, Rom. 6. The compact of grace and covenant of peace which God makes in Bap- tism is not merely for the past, or for theat momehjtn; but it is an eternal covenant, as He says in Is. 54:10. For the covenant was not made upon the condition that, if we should fall from it by sin, it would be so broken that, even though we should return to it in true repentance by faith, God would no longer keep it. For see Rom. 3:3; 2 Tim. 2:13, and that most charming description, Jer. 3:1 sqq. That this comfort is rightly applied to Baptism, is shown by the marriage illustration in Eph. 5. Lest there might still be doubt, Paul recalls the Galatians who had fallen after Baptism to the promise mad e in their Baptism, Gal. 3:27, as he also did the Corinthians in 1 Cor. 12:13.... Baptism is the solemn seal and perpetual attestation that communion and partici- pation in Christ's blessings are presented and given us if we be-lieve; `for he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.' But there is true faith, not only when in the very action of Baptism one apprehends the promise of grace, but even when after Baptism he retains it; yea, when after a fall he again in repentance lays hold of it, the faith is true, adn what Christ says, remains true, viz., `He that believeth,' etc." CAT. MAJ. (IV, 76): "In Baptism, grace, the Spirit, and the power are given to the baptized, to subdue the old man in us, that the new man may come forth and be strengthened. Hence Baptism always remains the same; and, although any one driven by the storms of sin may fall away from it, yet the way of access to it is always open, that we may again subject the old man under the yoke of repentance. But it is not necessary to be again sprinkled with water; for, if we were immersed in water one hundred times, yet it would be only one Baptism. But the work and the signification continues and is permanent." ---------------End of Page 552--------------------------------- HOLL. (1097): "Baptism is of such wonderful efficacy, in con- sequence of its divine appointment, that God, on His part, inview of the baptismal covenant, recalls the sinner to Himself and for- gives his offences, if he be penitent; and the contrite sinner, on his part, panting after the grace of God, can encourage himself by the remembrance of his Baptism." HFRFFR. (497): "But `Do we not often sin again after Bap- tism?' True, but that requires no repetition of Baptism; for God, who, in this ordinance enters into ta covenant of grace with us, is unchangeable in His will and promises, and on His part seriously and earnestly desires to preserve it perpetually inviolate, firm, and unbroken. Only let us return by repentance to Him who in Baptism has promised us grace and forgiveness of sins; and thus, in the newness of life we shall finally enjoy the fruits of Baptism, of which we have in the meanwhile been deprived by impeneitence." [12] CAT. MAJ. (IV, 64): "Finally, we must not omit to mention, or fail to understand, what is signified by Baptism, and why God has commanded this Sacrament, whereby we are first admitted to the Christian communion, to be administered with such external signs and acts. The work, moreover, or act, is, that we who are to be baptized are plunged into water, by which we are covered, and, after having been immersed, we are again drawn forth. These two things, to be plunged into the water and to come out of it again, signify the power and efficacy of Baptism, which are nothing else than the destruction of the old Adam and the resurrection of the new man. These two things are to be unceas- ingly practiced by us throughout our whole life; so that the Christian life is nothing else than a daily Baptism, begun indeed once, but continually perpetuated." (74): "From this you see very clearly that Bap- tism, both by its efficacy and its signification, embraces also the third Sacrament, which they are accustomed to call penance, which really is nothing else than Baptism, or its exercise. For what is penitence, unless it be earnestly to attack the old man, that his lusts may be subdued, and to put on the new man? Wherefore, if you are living in penitence, you are living in Bap- tism, which not only signifies this new life, but also produces it, both beginning and carrying it on." (79): "So that repentance or penitence is nothing else than a return and re-approach to Bap- tism, that what had before been begun, but negligently intermitted, may again be sought and practiced." [13] QUEN. (IV, 117): "Baptism, properly administered, is not to be repeated and reiterated: (1) because it is the Sacrament of ---------------End of Page 553-------------------------------------- initiation, for, as we are born but once, so also we are but once born again; (2) because there is no precept, no promise, no ex- ample, in Holy Scripture for such repetition; (3) because the fruit of Baptism is perpetual, and the unbelief of man does not make the faith of God of no effect." CHEMNITZ, Examen, Preuss, p. 279: "This doctrine concerning the non-repetition of Baptism, has been given, not only that we should dispute that it should not be repeated but that the sources of consolation might be shown, so that even after a fall, when again converted, we have re-access to the covenant of peace, made and sealed unto us in our Baptism." [14] GRH. (IX, 282): "(We teach) that Baptism, as the ordi- nary Sacrament of initiation, and the means of regeneration, is necessary for regeneration and salvation to all without exception, even to the children of believers; yet, meanwhile, that, in case of deprivation or of impossibility, the children of Christians may be saved through an extraordinary and peculiar divine dispensation. For the necessity of Baptism is not absolute, but ordinate. On our part, we are bound to receive Baptism; yet an extraordinary act of God is not to be denied in the case of infants brought to Christ by godly parents and the Church through prayer, and dying before the blessing of Baptism could be brought to them, since God will not so bind His grace and saving efficacy to Baptism, but that He is both willing and able to exert the same extraordinarily in case of deprivation.... We neither can, nor ought to, rashly con- demn those infants that die either in their mother's womb, or suddenly for any caause before receiving Baptism; we should rather conclude that the prayers of godly parents, or, if the parents in this matter are neglectful, the prayers of the Church, poured out before God for these infants, are mercifully heard, and that they are received into favor and life by God." HOLL. (1098): "Baptism is necessary, through the necessity of precept and means, i.e., through an ordinate and not an absolute necessity; inasmuch as we believe that the children of Christians dying without Baptism are saved." [15] KG. (244) this compendiously states the designs of Bap- tism: "There is a supremem design of Baptism, and an intermediate one. The supreme design is either absolutely supreme, viz., the glory of the divine wisdom and goodness; or secondarily supreme, viz., the salvation of souls. The intermediate design is either primary or secondary. The primary, in infants, is the conferring of faith and of covenant grace; in adult believers, the confirmation and sealing of faith and grace; with respect to all kinds of candi- dates for Baptism, the offer of faith and grace, and the spiritual --------------End of Page 554---------------------------------------- blessings belonging thereto. The secondary design is (1) the dis- tinguishing of Christians from the assemblies of the Gentiles; (2) an admonition with respect to natural depravity; (3) the com- memoration of the love of Christ; (4) an exhortation to newness of life." PARA. 55. (2.) The Lord's Supper. As in Baptism, so in the Holy Supper, we distinguish essential nature, form, and design. 1. ITS ESSENTIAL NATURE.--This is expressed in the words of the institution, to which alone we are referred; [1] and these declare, if we interpret and understand them agreeably to the language (and we dare not adopt any other mode, [2]_, that we are to partake therein not only of bread and wine, but at the same time also of the body and blood of Christ. [3] According to this, bread and wine are only the external visi- ble elements through which the body and blood of Christ are communicated, and the Holy Supper is the sacred act in which this takes place. "The Sacrament of the Altar is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, in and under bread and wine, instituted and commanded by the Word of Christ to be eaten and drank by us Christians." CAT. MAJ. (V, 8). [4] But, in order most distinctly to state the meaning of such a participation of the body and blood of Christ, we add: (a) That, as by bread and wind real and true bread an real wine are understood, so also, by the body and blood of Christ, the real and true body and the real and true blood of Jesus Christ, as He possesses both since His glorification, must be understood; [5] and, as the bread and wine, so also this body and this blood of Christ are really and truly pres- ent. [6] (b) That in the same sense, and in the same manner, in which we partake of bread and wine, so also we partake of the body and blood of Christ; so that therefore in both cases the participation is not to be understood in a metaphorical, but in a literal sense. As there is therefore an oral and real participation of bread and wine, so there is also of the body and bloood of Christ; [7] but yet so that, in the mode of the participationk, the same differences which naturally exist be- tween bread and wine and body and blood are here also to be ----------------End of Page 555------------------------------- observed, according to which, therefore, our mouth receives the purely material elements of bread and wine in a different way from that in which it receives the glorified body and glorified blood of Christ. [8] Inasmuch as, according to this, we cannot partake of bread and wine in the Holy Supper without at the same time partak- ing of the body and blood of Christ, and inasmuch as we can partake of the body and blood of Christ only through the medium of the participation of the bread and wine, we per- ceive from this, that in the Holy Supper a peculiar union of the bodya nd blood of Christ takes place with the bread and wine. [9] But we are not able to describe this union, accord- ing to its essential nature, for it is unique in its character and incomprehensible; hence we must limit ourselves to removing false representations of it. It would be a false representation of it if we believed in a change of one substance into the other, as the Romish Church does in the dogma of transub- stantiation, which is altogether a false doctrine, for the Holy Scriptures declare both that the bread and wine, and that the body and blood, are present in the Holy Supper; or,k if we be- lieved in the combination of both substances into one; or, if we thought that this union were one extending beyond the Lord's Supper and continually existing; or, if we maintained that the body and blood were somehow locally included in the bread and wine; or, finally, if we held that this union is of the same nature as that between the divine and the human nature of Christ. [10] 2. THE FORM.--In the bread and wine the body and blood of Christ are communicated to us only when the mode pre- scribed by the Lord in this solemnity is perfectly observed. there must be, therefore: (a) The consecration. (b) The con- secrated elements must be really distributed and partaken of; for only in these cases do bread and wine cease to be common and ordinary elements, and at the same time the body and blood of Christ are comprehended in and by them. [11] Where all this is done, there also the Holy Supper is a real Sacrament, and neither the faith of the communicant [12] nor the state of mind of the officiating minister [13] is a con- dition of the real presence of the body and blood of Christ. ---------------End of Page 556------------------------------------ 3. THE DESIGN.--According to the express command of the Lord, Christians are to partake of the Holy Supper in remem- brance of Him. [14] The believing participation will have the effect that the communicants, with the body and blood of Christ, will receive also all the benefits which Christ procured by the offering of His body on the cross. All the benefits, then, which Christ procuredd for us by His death, are com- municated to us in the Holy Supper, [15] but yet in such manner that faith is presupposed as already existing in those who partake of the Holy Supper; and therefore the effect of the Supper does not consist in the production, so much as in the more thorough establishment and confirmation and more cordial appropriation of those benefits. [16] The most prom- inent result is: (a) The sealing of the Gospel promise of the remission of sins, and the confirmation of our faith,k for no surer and more certain pledge can bbe given us than the body and blood of Christ; (b) The ingrafting into Christ and spir- itual nourishment to eternal life, for it is in the Supper that the closest union with Christ takes place. [17] In the parti- cipation of the Holy Supper, Christians acknowledge them- selves as belonging to one Head, and thus the Holy Supper, at the same time, serves to strengthen the bond of love among them. [18] [1] HOLL. (1107): "The norm of the whole doctrine of the Sacrament of the Eucharist is given in the words of the institution, which are found in Matt. 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:23. The Capernaitic discourse of Christ, John 6:26 sq., is by no means the norm or foundation of knowing or establishing this doctrine." CHMN. (de c. Dom., 9): "As some dogmas of the Church and single articles of faith have, as it were, their proper foundation in certain particular passages of Scripture where they are expressly taught and explained, so that their true and genuine meaning may be properly sought and surely gathered from those passsages; so, beyond controversy, the correct doctrine of the Lord's Supper has its peculiar place and proper foundation in the words of the insti- tution. All confess and yield this to the words, but when the' thing spoken of comes to be treated, there is plainly a difference. For all the Sacramentarians, however many theree may be, do not derive what they wish to think and believe concerning the Lord's ------------------End of Page 557------------------------------------ Supper from the words of the institution, understood literally and simply as they stand; but they take their opinion from other pas- sages of the Scriptures, most of which say nothing about the Lor'd Supper, each one choosing other passages, according to some analogy of his own, as his fancy may dictate. And often they gather from other Scripture passages what they wish to be- live on this subject, then at last they go to the words of the institution, and then comes the tug and toil of intruding upon the words of the institution, by a figurative and violent interpretation, their opinion elsewhere conceived. And thus among those argu- ments which the Sacramentarians accumulate to establish and confirmm their opinion of the Lord's Supper, the words of the institution have properly no place. But when, in refutation, those things which seem to oppose their asserted opinion arre to be overthrown, then at last these words are heard, viz,. `this is my body;' yet so as to signify, not that which they declare, but so as to be compelled to serve a presumptiuous opinion derived elsewhere." [2] FORM. CONC. (Epit. VII, 7): "We believe, etc., that the words of the Testament of Christ are not to be taken in any other sense than as the words sound to the very letter." HOLL. (1111): "We must not depart from the obvious meaning of the words of the Holy Supper, but they are to be understood most simply and literally as they stand. Note: We do not here speak of all the words of the institutionk, but of the substantial and constitutive words: `This is my body, this is my blood.'" BR. (703) very briefly condenses the proof as follows: "That these words of Christ are to be taken in their native force and in-] tention, and that we are not to pervert them from their proper signification to a figurek, appears: (1) From the common and nat- ural rule of interpretation, which retains the literal signification, unless urgent necessity compel us to adopt a figurative one; which rule is indeeed most solicitously to be observed in regard to super- natural subjects and those which pertain to faith. (2) That when the three Evangelists and Paul, at different times and places, speak of the institution of the Lord's Supper, not one of them ever inti- mates that the words have a figurative meaning, or that we are to believe that we eat, not the body, but a sign of the body; a that we drink, not the blood, but a sign of the blood. (3) From the har- mony of 1 Cor. 11:27, 28, and 10:16. In the former passage the unworthy communicant is said to be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, received in an unworthy or contumelious manner, be- cause the bread and wine are the communion of the body and -------------------End of Page 558-------------------------------- blood of Christ, as is taught in the latter passage. But this com- munion is not a mere significance, but a real union. (4) From the nature of testaments, in which literalness and perspicuity of language are particularly required; and least of all is it to be su- posed that Christ, in His testament, has either designedly or im- prudently given occasion of dispute and strife by figurativeness of language." Others derive an additional argument from the ab- surdity of the figurative meaning. FORM. CONC. (Sol. Dec., VII, 43-60.) [3] The literal sense is thus explained by HOLL. (1108): "In the former proposition (this is my body) the demonstrative pro- noun this denotes the entire sacramental complex, consisting of every=- thing in the Sacrament composed of the wine and the blood of Christ, mysteriously united." (Inasmuch as the pronoun this is employed with regard to both the bread and the body, the Romish doctrine of a transubstantiation is excluded.) "The substantive verb is connects the predicate with the subject, and denotes that that which is offered in the Holy Supper is really and truly not only bread, but also the body of Christ." The meaning of the words then is this: "This which I offer to you, which youa re to receive and eat, is not only bread, but it is besides my body. This which I offer to you, and which you are to receive and drink, is not ony wine, but besides it is my blood." Or, as it is most frequently expressed: "In, with, and under the bread and wine, Christ presents His true body and blood to be truly and substantially eaten and drank by us." This mode of expression is confirmed by the FORM. CONC> (Sol. Dec., VII, 35) thus: "Besides those phrases used by Christ and Paul [viz., that of the body of Christ], we employ other forms of speech also, e.g., when we say that the body of Christ is present and presented under the bread; this we do for weighty reasons. For, first, we use these phrases in order to reject Romish transubstantiation. In the next place, we wish also in this way to teach the sacra- mental union of the substance of the unchanged bread with the body of Christ. In the same way, the passage, John 1:14, `The Word was made flesh,' is repeated and declared in other analogous passages, ex. gr., Col. 2:9; Acts 10:38; 2 Cor. 5:19. These passages, besides the one quoted from John, repeat and declare, viz., that by the incarnation the divine essence was not changed into the human nature, but that the two natures are personally ----------------End of Page 559---------------------------------- united without confusion." Still another mode of expression is this: "This, which is exhibited through the medium of bread, is the body of Christ." [4] HUTT. (Loc. Th., 230): "The Lord's Supper is a Sacra- ment of tne New Testament instituted by Christ, in which the true body and true blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, in and under bread and wine, is truly distributed to all who eat and drink, and the promise of grace is applied and sealed to every believer." KG. (248): "The Lord's Supper is the second New Testament Sacrament, in which God, to-day, by the hand of the regular min- ister of the Church, through the medium of the consecrated bread, truly and really presents to the communicants His true and sub- stantial body to be eaten by the bodily mouth, yet in a super-' natural way; and through the medium of the consecrated wine, He truly and reallyy presents to the communicants His true and substantial blood, to be drank by the bodily motuth, yet in a manner hyperphysical and unknown to us; and by this He confirms their faith and seals to them His covenant grace, to the praise of His goodness and wisdom, and the salvation of those who partake." In the Scriptures this Sacrament is called the Lord's Supper, deipnon kuriakon, 1 Cor. 11:20; the table of the Lord trapeza tou kuriou, 1 Cor. 10:21; communion, koinonia, 1 Cor. 10:16; the new cov- ennant, kaine diatheke, Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25. In the writings of the Church Fathers, the eucharist, eucharistia; a religious service, sunaxis; a love-feast, agape; a liturgy, leitourgia; a sacrifice, thusia; an offering, prosphora; a mystery, musterion. In the writings of the Latin Fathers, the Sacrament of the altar--the mass--missa. The Dogmaticians accordingly distinguish between the celestial and the terrestrial matter in the Lord's Supper. HOLL. (21116): "The terrestrial matter of the Lord's Supper is partly bread; in re- gard to its substance genuine. It is not important, however, in re- gard to its quantity, whether it be more or less, or whether it be round or oblong; in regard to its quality, whether it be unfer- mented or fermented; in regard to the kind of grain, whether it be wheat, rye, or barlye. It is partly wine; in regard to its sub- stance, genuine; but it is of no account whether it be red or white, pure or somewhat diluted with water. The celestial matter is the true and substantial body of Christ, and also the true and sub- stantial blood of Christ." [5] CHMN. (d. c. D., 14): "When, in speaking of the bread in the Lord's Supper, we say that it is the body of Christ, the word bread has and retains its literal signification. And when to the word body is added the phrase, `which is given for you,' we are -----------------End of Page 560--------------------------------- compelled to take it in no other than in its literal and natural meaning, namely, of that substance of Christ's human nature, which was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, and suspended on the cross." HOLL. (1118): "It is readily in- ferred that in the Eucharist with the consecrated bread there is given us to eat not a typical body, or a figurative one, such as was the body of the paschal lamb, so far as it shadowed forth and prefigured the body of Christ; not a mystical body, which is the Church, Eph. 1:23; not the sign of a body, for that was not cruci- fied for us; but the true and personal body of Christ, belonging to the Son of God, and therefore full of God, and majestic.... It is the now glorified and most glorious body of Christ. For, al- though we always partake of the crucified and dead body of Christ, as to its merit, yet it is now no longer in that condition; but we partake of it in the state in which it now is. It is not] therefore to be circumscribed by the laws. of nature." [6] FORM. CONC. (Sol. Dec., VII, 9): "It is taughtk, that in the Holy Supper the true body and blood of Christ are truly present, and distributed and received under the form of bread and wine." GRH. (X, 165): "After it is demonstrated that the words of the Holy Supper are to be taken kata to hreton, according to their genuinek, literal and natural meaning, the opinion of our churches concern- ing the true, real, and substantial presence of the body and blood of 'Christ in the Supper cannot be doubtful or uncertain, since it immediately flows from the words of the institution kata hreton, and taken literally." This presence is called sacramental (ib., 168), "because the celestial object in this mystery is bestowed and pre- sented to us through the medium of external sacramental symbols; it is called true and real, to exclude the figment of a figurative, imaginary, and representative presence; substantial, to exclude the subterfuge of our oppponents concerning the merely efficacious presence of the boyd and blood of Christ in this mystery; mystical, supernatural, and incomprehensible, because in the mystery the body and blood fo Christ are present, not i a worldly manner, but in a mystical, supernatural, and incomprehensible manner. Some of our theologians have called it a corporeal presence, but only with respect to the object and not at all to the mode; they wish to say by this, that not only the virtue and efficacy, but the substance itself of the body and blood of Christ is present in the Holy Supper; for they oppose this word to spiritual presence as it is defined by their opponents, but by no means wish to say thereby that the body of Christ is present in a corporeal and quantitative manner." -----------End of Page 561------------------------------------------- In order to reply to the charge, that the Lutheran Dogma- ticians had only inferred the do ctrine of this presence from their doctrine of the person of Christ, HUTT. (Loc. c., p. 716) remarks: "We must consider, that in this controversy concerning the Eucharist, not one, but two different questions are mooted. One of these is concerning the will and intention of Christ: `Whether He wisheed really to present His body to be eaten in the Supper and His blood to be drank, and so to be most closly present by His body and blood in teh Eucharistic bread and wine?' In re- gard to this Lutehr maintained, that we agree with him, that be- yond all doubt the decision of this question is to be sought nowhere else than in the article concerning the Lord's Supper. The other question is concerning the power of Christ: `Whether He be really able to be present, by His body and blood, in all places where this Sacrament is dispensed?' In regard to this, he must be stupid who maintains that the decision is to be sought anywhere else than in the article concerning the person of Christ." If, namely, in the article just mentioned, the possibility, at least, of an omni- presence of Christ was proved, in general (comp. PARA. 33, note 20, at the end), then nothing of consequence can any longer be objected to this mode of special presence which takes place in the Lord's Supper. The Dogmaticians take pains to distinguish carefully between' this kind of presence and other kinds of presence. Luther, already, made three distinctions of this kind. Comp. FORM. CONC. (Sol. Dec., Vii, 99): "Christ could be anywherer: first, in a comprehensible and corporeal manner, which He employed when He sojourned corporeally upon earth,k when He was quanti= tatively circumscribed in a certain place.... Secondly, He can be present anywehre in another, incomprehensible and spiritual manner, so as not to be circumscribed by a place, but to penetrate all creatures, by virtue of His own perfectly free will; just as my sight penetrates the air, or the light penetrated dthe water, and is in these things, and yet is not circumscribed by a place... This manner of being present Christ employed when in His resur= rection, He came forth from the closed and sealed tomb,... and thus He is also in the bread and wine of the Supper.... Besides, He can be anywehre present in a divine and celestial manner, accord- ing to which He is one person with God. In this way creatures are much more naearly present to Him and more easily penetrated than according to the second kind of presence." In addtition to the distinction made between the presence assumed in the Lord's Supper and the general presence (by virtue of which Christ, the -----------End of Page 562---------------------------------------- God-man, is illocally present to all creatures0, QUEN. adds also the following distinctions (IV, 193): "We are not inquiring (1) con= cerning the glorious presence, by which He is present in heaven, in a peculiar manner, among angels and saints; nor (2) concerning the hypostatic presence, by which the logos is everywhere near to His assumed flesh, adn this in turn near to Him; nor (3) concerning the spiritual presence (operative or virtual), i.e., whether Christ be present in the Holy Supper effectually or operatively, as the sun is present to us through light and heat; (4) nor is the question, whether the body and blood of Christ be present in the Holy Supper through a sign, figure, or image of Him; nor (5) does the question concern the Holy Supper that is celebrated in heaven; nork, finally, (6) concerning a presence through apprehension, through faith soar- ing to heaven; but the question is: Whether the body and bloood of Christ, in the administration of the Supper, be so present in their own substance, that with the distributed bread there is at the same time given the very substance of the body aof Christ, and in the presented cup there is at the same time presented that very blood which was poured out for us upon the altar of the cross?" This is maintained. The presence, however, is "not physical, local, and circumscriptiva, such as be- longs to natural bodies," but a "hyperphysical or supernatural (which we cannot recognize by natural perception)." HOLL. (1120) distinguishes still further a double method of the hyper- physical presence: "Definitive presence is that of a being which is present somewhere, without the local occupation of space. In this way angels aree present, who, because they are spiritual essences, cannot be measureed by any interval of space. This definitive mode of being present will be common to our bodies also, in the life to come. This method Christ also employed when He came forth throught eh sepulchral stone from the tomb, etc. In this method, we may rightly conclude, the body of Christ is present also in teh elemental bread, in the administration of the Lord's Supper; although there is, besides this, also a sacramental union of the bread with the body of Christ, which depends not precisely or simply upon that definitive mode of the presence, but upon a special divine promise. The respetive presence is omnipresence, which belongs to God alone, per se and essentially, and to the human nature of Christ by virtue of its union with the divine, and personally."* Other erroneous conceptions are guarded against by CAL. (IX,k 307), as follows: "We maintain that the body and blood of ----------------------------------------------------------------- [*See Appendix II. Circumscriptiva.] --------------End of Page 563---------------------------------------- Christ are present in the Supper; not, indeed, through metouoia, or by substantial transmutation, as the Papists hold; nor by sunousia, or consubstantiation, which the Calvinists calumniously chareg upon us; nor by local inclusionk, namely, impanation, as flesh is in a meat-pie and invination, as they are accustomed to charge against us; nor in the way of a sdescent from heaven and from the Right Hand of God, to be followed again by an ascent o heaven and to the Right Hand of God."... The objection urged by the Zwinglians against this presence, viz.: "If the body of Christ be present at the same time in Heaven, and upon earth in the Lord's Supper, it necessarily fol- lows that it is not a true and human body, for such majesty can be attributed to God alonek, but the body of Christ is not at all capable of it," is set adside by the doctrine of the Communicatio Idiomatum (Genus III), to the fuller development of which the Lutheran Church was led by these very objections on the part of the Reformed. (Comp. FORM. CONC., VIII, De Persona Christi.) QUEN. (IV, 200) replies to this objection: "There is no contra= diction; the body of Christ is finite, and the same is substantially present everywhere )and especially in the Lord's Supper) without any extension and divisioon. Both these statements agree with the Scriptures; both are to be believed, nor is the one to be opposed to the other. The axiom which our adversaries here usually bring up against us, viz., `a natural and finite body ccannot be at one and the same time in many places,' avails only in so far as a nat- ural mode of presence is concerned, and is therefore incorrectly applied to articles of mere faith, or is rather used in opposition to the words of Christ. And if the human nature of Christ, without any prejudice to its reality and finitelness, could be assumed into the infinite person of the Logos, why, therefore, may not the body of Christ be substantially present everwhere (and especially in the Lord's Supper) without any prejudice to its reality? Place is an accident; it does not constitute a bodyk, but is accidentallly conse- quent upon some other accident, for instance, quantity, for the explanation of which no actual limitation is required, but for which the quality of being limitable is of itself sufficient. And accurately speaking, it is not locality, but locability, not the being in a place, but the ability to be in a place, that its thequality of a physical body. The multiplication of the limit of the presence is not the multiplication of the subject that is present; the variety of the mode is not the multiplication of the thing. The same Christ is preseent in the Eucharist without the multiplication of Himself, as the same God is present in all believers without multiplication. -------------End of Page 564-------------------------------------------- We must distinguish, moreover, between a body merely human and left to itself, and the body peculiar to the logos and personally united with Him. The philosophical axiom, `A natural body cannot be at one and the same time in many places,' is true of a merely human body, but not of the body united with the Logos." Further objections are the following "(1) That the doctrine of the omnipresence of Christ according to His human nature is op-] posed to the doctrine of the real, peculiar, divine presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Holy Supper." To this HOLL. (1125) replies: "We distinguish between the general and special omnipresent, and nevertheless is presented to a particular person by a special kind of presence. For thus we read that the omni- present Holy Spirit descended on Christ in the form of a dove, Matt. 3:16; was bestowed upon the disciples by an external breathing, John 20:22; was communicated to the apostles under the form of fiery tongues, Acts 2:3; and dwells truly and by His gracious presence in the bodies of the godlyk, 1 Cor. 3:6. Al- though, therefore, a general omnipresence is communicated to the assumed flesh of Christ by reason of the personal union, yet that does not prevent or destroy a special and sacramental preseence of the body of Christ. (2) `The substantial presence of the body of Christ in, with and under the bread is contrary to the first institu- tion and administration of the Supper: for when Christ took the bread from the table, broke, and distributed it, He was reclining, together with His disciples, at the table. He was not in, with and under the bread, nor did He carry Himself in His hands.' We reply: It is not contrary to the first institution and administration of the Supper. When Christ took bread from the table, brake, and distributed it, He was of course reclining at the table with His disciples; and, when He distributed the bread, He at the same time caused His body to be sacramentally in, with, and under the bread, not by removing from the table, but by the presence of His body multiplied by the divine omnipotence." (3) A third ob- jection was based upon the ascension of Christ to heaven. For an answer, comp. PARA. 38, Note 26, and GRH., X, 147: "Christ thus ascended to heaven that He might ascend also above all heavens, and sit down at the Right Hand of God, i.e., according to the statement of the AUG. CONF., III, `That He might powerfully reign and have dominion over all creatures.' This explanation is drawn from the Scripture itself, Ps. 8:6; Matt. 28:18; Eph. 1: 20; 4:10; 1 Cor. 15:25. By the power which is given to Christ, ------------------End of Page 565------------------------------- exalted as to His human nature to the Right Hand of the Father, He is able to subject all things to Himself, Phil. 3:21; by this same power, therefore, He is able to give His body to be eaten by us in the Supper. Where, notice that the ascension of Christ to heaven is described in the Holy Scrip;tures not only abstractly and separately, as if it were only a movement of ascent, by which the body of Christ by a local removal (metastasis) had been carried away from the earth, and by degrees lifted up on high to heaven; ... but also concretely and conjointly, so that the ascent at the same time embraced the exaltation of Christ to the Right Hand of God. Wherefore, since, after the ascent according to the flesh, Christ was elevated to the omnipotent and omnipresent Right Hand of God; therefore, from the ascent, which is inseparable from the sitting at the Right Hand of God, we are by no means to infer any infirmity of any king or absence of the flesh of Christ, but rather His infinite majesty and the effects of His divine power." [7] HOLL. (1130): "The body and blood of Christ, in the proper administration of the Lord's Supper, are received, eaten and drank by the communicants, not only by the mouth of faith, but also by the mouth of the body." CHMN. (d. c. D., 19): "It is certain that not bread alone is eaten in the Lord's Supper, for of that which is received and eaten in the Supper, CHrist says, `This is my body.' Therefore, in the Holy Supper there is eaten the body of Christ also; but not simply mentally and spiritually, by faith alone. For, if the word eat in those words of the Holy Supper meant that faith ascended above all heavens in its thoughts, the Lord's Supper might be celebrated without the external oral reception of anything, which no one has ever dared to imagine. The word eat, therefore, in this place, has and retains its literal and natural signification. For Christ com- manded a taking in His Supper when He said, `Take;' and He de- fines the mode of reception to be with the bodily mouth, when He adds, `Eat.' But of that which is taken by the mouth and eaten the Son of God Himself adds, `This is my body.' But it is impos- sible that one and the same word, in the same proposition, should at the same time have a literal and a figurative meaning." But from this oral manducation, which, because it occurs only in the Lord's Supper, is called sacramental, there is to be distin- guished the spiritual manducation. FORM. CONC. (Sol. Dec., VII, 61): "There is a twofold eating of the flesh of Christ; one is spirit- ual, of which mainly Christ speaks in John 6, which occurs in no other way than in spirit and in faith, in the hearing of and medi-= tation upon the Gospel, not less than when in the Lord's Supper is ------------End of Page 566------------------------------------------ received worthily by faith. This spiritual manducation is useful and salutary in itself, and necessary to the salveation of all Chris- tians in all ages, without which spiritual participation the sacra- mental manducation in the Lord's Supper, or that which occurs with the mouth only, is not only not salutary, but prejudicial also, and is a cause of condemnation. This spiritual eating, therefore, is nothing else than believing the preached Word of God, in which Christ, true God and man, is offered to us, with all the benefits which He procured by His flesh delivered up to death for us , and by His blood shed for us. These benefits are the grace and mercy of God, the forgiveness of sins, righteousness, and eternal life. He who hears these things set forth from the Word of God, receives them by faith, applies them to himself, and trusts wholly in this consolation--he spiritually eats the body and drinks the blood of Christ. The other mandducation of the body of Christ is oral and sacramental, when, in the Lord's Suppper, the true and substantial body and blood of Christ are orally received and partaken of by all who eat and drink the consecrated bread and wine." Thus the spiritual eating is not denied, but in the Lord's Supper it only fol- lows the sacramental manducation. HOLL. (1130) thus contrasts them: "The former (the spiritual eating) is common to all times; the latter is peculiar to the New Testament. The former is uncon- nected with the Supper; the latter takes place only in the Suppper. The former may occur without the symbols; the latter, only through the medium of external symbols. The former always contributes to our salvation; the latter sometimes may occur to our condemnation. The former apprehends the whole Christ, with all His benefits; the latter apprehends only the body of Christ in and under the bread. The former is metaphorical; the latter is literal, by virtue of a grammatical, not a physical literalness." The different senses in which the Lutherans and Calvinists em- ploy these terms are thus stated by GRH. (X, 303): "The Calvinists thus define the sacramental eating: that we receive by the mouth the bread, which is the Sacrament, i.e., only the sign, of the absent body of Christ. We thus describe the sacramental eating: that we receive with the mouth the bread which is the communion of the truly present body of Christ. The Calvinists thus define spiritual manducation: that the soul elevates itselfk, and its organ, viz., faith, to heaven, and there enjoys the body and blood of Christ, i.e., applies to itself the benefits derived from the giving of His body and the shedding of His blood. We by no means deny the application of the benefits of Christ by faith, i.e., the spiritual eating and drinking of the body and blood of Christ, as spoken of in John 6; but we have reference --------------End of Page 567-------------------------------------- to the fruits and design of the Holy Supper, and therefore distinguish from that the sacramental manducation belonging to the form of the Eucharist. But when the sacramental eating is called spirituaal, this is meant to counteract all the carnal and earthly ideas which human reason can conceive with regard to this celestial mystery." [8] CHMN. (de c. Dom., 20): "If the union or presence of the body of Christ in the bread were physical, constituted in a natural way and after the manner of the things of this world, then the evident and manifest manner of the sacramental manducation could be reasonably asked for and could also be shown. For the manducation is the same in kind as the union or peresence of Christ in the Supper. But that union or presence is not physical, con- stituted after the manner of the things of this world. It is there- fore more easy to show what sacramental eating is not than what it is. It is plainly not physical, which consists in the mastication, de- gluition, and digestion of the substance which is eaten, because the presence of Christ in the Supper is not natural, constituted after the manner of the things of this world; yet nevertheless not figurative or feigned, but true and substantial, although it is effectedd by a supernatural, celestial, and inscrutable mystery." Accordinly, there is indeed assumed an oral mnaducation of bread and wine, as of the body and blood; but, because these sub-= stances are in their nature so fdifferent, the mode of manducation in each is also distinguished. In the bread and wine, as physcial and earthly things, the mode assumed ins physical; in the case of the body and blood, as heavenly things, the mode of manducation assumed is hyperphysical. HOLL. (1130): "The sacramental eat- ing and drinking is an undivided single action, by which ast one and the same moment we eat the eucharistic bread and the body of Christ sacramentally united to it. But the mode of this one eating and drinking is twofold. For, althought he terrestrial and celestial object is received by one and the same organk, yet this is not done tin the same way. Bread and wine are received by the mouth eimmediately and naturally; the body and blood of Christ are received mediately and supernaturally." The physical and hyperphysical mode are thus described by HOLL. (1130): "The former is that by which food, taken into the mouth, is passed into the stomach, digested, and ejected. The latter is that by which food that is offered is, indeed, received through the ;mouth into the body, but is not digested and ejected in a natural way. Angels ate (Gen. 18:8), and Christ ate after His resurrection; but it was not an ordinary, natural eating, nor was the food digested in a natural manner. But as the earth absorbs water in one way and the sun in another, so also was that food not digested in a natural way." ---------------End of Page 568-------------------------------------- QUEN. (IV, 204): "We must distinguish between the mandu- cation itself, with its form, definition, and properties, on the one hand, and the accidents and conseqeuents of manducation on the other. We cannot say: `The body of Christ is literally eaten, therefore it is masticated by the teeth,' etc. For it is not essentila to literal eating and drinking, in general, that the meat and drink should pass by means of deglutition into the stomach, since the above stated accidents and consequents pertain only to the physical mode of manducation and not to the hyperphysical." The physical mode of eating the body and blood is rejected, under the name also of Capernaitic manducation (according to John 6:26). FORM. CONC. (Sol. Dec., VII, 64): "That command of Christ (`take, eat'), when all the circumstances are rightly considered, must be understood of an oral, and yet not of a gross, carnal, Capernaitic, but of a super- natural and incomprehensible manducation of the body of Christ." [9] GRH. (X, 116): "The sacramental presence and union is effected in such a way that, according to the appointment of our Saviour Himself, the body of Christ is united to the consecrated bread, as a divinely appointed medium; and, to the consecrated wine as a medium also divinely appointed, the blood of Christ is united in a manner inscomprehensible to us. Thus in a sublime mystery, with the bread, by one sacramental eating, we take and eat the body of Christ, and with the wine, in one sacramental drinking, we take and ddrink the blood of Christ." Ib. (302): "We teach, therefore, that in the Holy Supper we do not receive the bread, alone and by itself, nor the body of Christ, alone and by itself;... but, that with the wine the blood of Christ is re- ceived, and this in consequence of the mystical and sacramental union of the braead and the body and of the wine and the blood of Christ,, which has its origin in the appointment of the true and omnipotent Christ, but which cannot be understoo, nor should it be investigated by human reason." HFRFFR. (517): "The sacramental union is such a real and true conjunction of the consecrated bread with the body of Christ, and of the conse rated wine with His blood, in which, by virtue of the institution and ordination of Christ, in the administration and reception of the Holy Supper, the true body and blood of Christ are taken,k eaten, and drank together with the bread and wine." QUEN. (IV, 181): "The complex subject [viz., the touto in the words of the insitution signifies that a terrestrial and a celestial object are conjointly given to be eaten and drank. But whatr are conjointly givenk, in a real presentation, these are also united after their own peculiar manner. Now, in the Holy Supper the euchar- ---------------End of Page 569------------------------------------- istic bread and the body of Christ, and also the wine and the blood of Christ, are conjointly given in a real presentation. Therefore they are also really joined in a sacramental union." HOLL. (1120): "The sacramental union of the terrestrial and the celestial object implies the mutual presence and communion of the bread and the body,, also, that of the wine and the blood of Christ, so that the consecrated bread is the vehicle of the boyd, and the consecrated wine is the vehicle of the blood of Christ." In order to avoid all misconception, it is added with special emphasis, that only the body and blood of Christ, and not the whole Christ, body and soul, are united with the bread and wine; hence there is a difference between the presence of Christ and the participation of the body and blood of Christ. QUEN. (IV, 200): "It is one thing that the whole Christ is present in the Holy Supper, and another that the whole Christ or the celestial object is united with the element of bread and wine, and thus also the whole is sacramentally eaten. The former we affirm, the latter we deny. For we say that the body of Christ only is united with the bread, and the blood with the wine, and sacramentally received by the mouth of the boyd, but that the whole Christ is received spiritually by the mouth of faith." For the difference in the doctrine of the Lord's Supper between the Lutheran and the Reformed, see FORM. CONC>, VII, 2-9. GRH. (X, 184) states the difference as follows: "Our opponenets contend (1) that the body of Christ is substantially present only in heaven; hence they draw an argument against the presence of His boyd in the Supper from the article of His ascension; (2) that Christ in His human nature is not present on earth, but that He was taken to heaven, and will remain there until the last day; (3) that presence in many places is opposed to the nature of a true body; hence they argue against our opinion from the prop- erties of a true body; (4) that the body of Christ was as much present to Abraham and to the godly of the Old Testament as He is to us in the sacrament of the Eucharist; (5) that the eating of His boyd can be performed alone by faith soaring to heaven; (6) that the body of Christ is communicated and united to us by the operation of the Holy Spirit; yet it remains in heaven, where it is rec4eived until the last day; (7) that the presence is asserted not on account of the bread, but on account of man (according to which they oppose the means to the end, which, nevertheless, are sub- ordinates); (8) that the saccramental union consists in a mere form and analogy; which they thus explain, that the bread is a sign, figure, and representation of the body, which is absent, according --------------------End of Page 570-------------------------------- to its essence; (9) that those eating unworthily do not receive the body and blood of Christ, but only the external symbols, viz., bread and wine; (10) besides the natural eating of the bread, and the spiritual eating fo the body of Christ by faith, there is no sacramental eating of the body of Christ; (11) that the body of Christ is neither locally nor illocally present; (12) that the body of Christ is neither visibly nor invisibly present; (13) that the body and blood of Christ, before His return to judge the world, is netieher ordinarily nor extraordinarily prresent on earth, where the Supper is administered. But how or in what manner may these false hypotheses be reconciled with the true opinion of the true, real, and substantial presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Supper? How great must be their effontery, to assert that the question is only concerning the mode of the presence, and not of the presence itself, when we have always protested that we will not dispute with any one about the mode, for that is unknown to human reason." [10] HFRFFR. (517): "The sacramental union is not (1) a tran- substantiation of the bread into the body of Christ, for to a union at least two things are necessary; (2) it is not a consupstantiation or commixture of the substances, but in both the bread and wine the substance of the body and blood of Christ remains unmixed; (3) nor is it a local or durable adhesion or conjunction to the bread and wine apart from the use of the Supper; (4) nor the in- clusion of some small corpuscle lying hid under the bread (im- panation); (5) nor is it, finally, a personal union of the bread and body of Christ, such as exists betweeen the Son of God and the assumed humanity."* -------------------------------------------------------------------- [*The late Dr. Krauth has given the following tabular statement, which will show how the Lutheran doctrine has often been mistaken for consupstantiation: The Theories of presence may be thus classified: "I. SUBJECTIVE: 1. Natural--Zwingli. 2. Supernatural--Calvin. II. OBJECTIVE: 1. Monistic; one substance only really present--the body and blood; Roman Catholic transubstantiation. 2. Dualistic; the two substances really present--bread and wine, body and blood. a. Substantial conjunction of the two--consubstantiation, impanation, as held by John of Paris and Rupert; falsely charged on the Lutheran Church. b. Sacramental conjunction--mystical mediating relation of the natural (bread and wine) to the super- natural (body and blood), each unchanged in its substance, and without substantial conjunction; the Lutheran view." Johnson's Cyclopaedia, CONSUBSTANTIATION.] -----------------End of Page 571---------------------------------------- [11] GRH. (X, 261): "The form of this Sacrament consists in an action, and in one which Christ and the apostles observed in its administration, and, not only by their own example, but also by a precept, commanded to be observed. The three sacramental acts belonging to the form and integrity of this Sacrament are gathered from the descriptiion of the Evangelists: (1) Christ took the bread and blessed it; (2) He gave and distributed the bbroken bread to the disciples; (3) the disciples received and ate the consecrrated bread.... There are then three sacramental acts: (1) The con= secration of the bread and cup; (2) the distiribution of the conse- crated bread and cup; (3) the sacramental eating and drinking of the distributed bread and cup." FORM. CONC. (Sol. Dec., VII, 83): "But this consecration, or recitation of the words of the in- stitution of Christk, does not alone constitute the Sacrament, if the whole action of the Supper, as ordained by Christ, bbe not observed, e.g., when the consecrated bread is not distributed, received, or par- taken of, but is shut up, or offered as a sacrifice, or carried aout in 'procession. For the command of Christ (do this) which embraces the whole action, must be wholly and inviolably observed. Rule: Nothing can be called a Sacrament unless administered as insti- tuted by Christ, or according to the manner divinely appointed." From what has been said it follows that the practice of the Roman Catholic Church in excluding the laity from the participa- tion of the cup, is utterly rejected, and it is maintained "that as eating is an essential part of the Sacrament, so also is drinking; he who receives it in one kind only does not partake of the whole Sacrament, but only a part." QUEN. (IV, 226, 227). And yet QUEN. himself remarks (IV, 225): "The laity in the papacy do not on this account sustain injury to their souls, because they are deprived of the cup of the Lord; for the sin belongs to the priests, and only the suffering of injury to the people: and although the laity do not derive the benefit of the cup by partaking of the cup, because it is denied to them, yet God will make amends for this in some other way, and relieve their misery." QUEN. (IV, 179): "The consecration consists (a) in the separa- tion of the external elements, the bread and wine, from a common and ordinary use; (b) in the benediction, or setting them apart for sacred use, as appointed in the Holy Supper, by solemn prayers and thanksgiving; (c) in the sacramental union of the bread and wine with the body and blood of Christ, so that the consecrated bread becomes the communion of the body, and the consecrated wine becomes the communion of the blood of Christ." (For "by virtue of the Word the element becomes a Sacrament, without the ------------End of Page 572-------------------------------------- accession of which it remains a mere element." CAT. MAJ., V, 10.) But "this sacramental union itself does not take place except in the distribution; for the elements, bread and wine, do not be- come portative media (prospheromena) of the body and blood of Christ, until during the distribution they are eaten and drank." HUTT. (Loc. Com., 726): "The Romanists, ancient as well as modern, insist upon it that there is a hidden magical power in the pronun= ciation of these four words, Hoc est corpus meum, by the force of which the bread is essentially changed into the body, and the wine into the blood of Christ. So there are even some among ourselves who dream that, when the words of the institution have been re-' cited, there results a permanent sacramental union of the bread with the body and of the wine with the blood... Both errors result from the false premise, in which it is assumed that the sacra- mental union depends upon the force and efficacy of the recitation of the words of the institution. The purified Church, correcting this error, teaches that no sacramental union takes place until the external use is added, which consists in eating and drinking; so that if the words of the institution were recited a thousand times, and this use, i.e., the eating and drinking, were not added, there would still be no sacramental union of the bread with the body or of the wine with the blood of Christ. Therefore there is no reason for the anxious inquiry, Where are the consecrated wafers to be kept, if there be no use for them? or what is to be done if there be more consecrated wafers than communicants? For they are to be stored away and kept for use upon a subsequent occasion, and in the same place where the other unconsecrated wsafers are kept; and this for the reasons already assigned." GRH. (X, 270): "But since Christ, in the institution of the Holy Supper, expressly commanded us to do in its administration what He did, it follows that the minister of the Church, in cele- brating the Supper, should repeat the words of the institution, and consecrate the bread and wine in this manner, and distribute it to the communicants.... This consecration of the Eucharist is (1) not a magical incantation, essentially transmuting, by the power of certain words, the bread into the body and the wine into the blood of Christ; nor (2) is it only the historical repetition of the institu- tion;... but it is (3) an efficacious agiasmos (sanctification) by which, according to the command, ordination, and institution of Christ, sanctification is, as it were, carried over from the first Supper to the Supper at the present day, and the external elements destined to this sacred use, so that with these the body and blood of Christ are distributed." ---------------End of Page 573--------------------------------------- We do not, indeed, attribute to the recitation of the words of the institution such power as to make the body and blood of Christ present by some hidden efficacy inherent in the words, much less essentially to change the external elements; but we sincerely be- lieve and profess that the presence of the body and blood of Christ depends entirely upon the will and promise of Christ, and upon the perpetually enduring efficacy of the original institution: never- theless we also add, that the repetition of the primeval institution, made by the minister of the Church, is not merely historical and doctrinal, but also consecratory; by which, according to the ap- pointment of Christ, the external symbols are truly and effica- ciously set apart to sacred use, and in the very act of distribution become the communion of the body and blood of Christ."... FORM. CONC. (Sol. Dec., VII, 77): "It is not our doing, nor our pronouncing, but the command and appointment of Christ, that cause the bread to become the body and the wine to become the blood of Christ, and this is continually taking place from the first institution of the Supper to the end of the world: and by our min- istry these things are daily distributed." It was also a matter of dispute between the Lutherans and Romanists whether the consecrated host should be adored. GRH. says, in regard to this (X, 353): "When the matter of the adora- tion of the host is discussed with the Romanists, the question, properly speaking, is not (1) whether Christ, the God-man, who is really present in the administration of the Holy Suppper, and dis- tributes to us His body and blood by means of the bread and wine, is to be adored; for this we dnot only gladly admit, but also urge and inculcate;... (2) nor is the question strictly this, whether very special reverence is to be paid to this Sacrament, according to the rule of the divine Word; for we ourselves teach that the body and blood of Christ, which are presented to us in this Sacrament by means of external symbols, are to be distinguished from common food and drink;... and (3) there is properly also no question here as to the external reverence which is shown in the distribution and reception of the Eucharist; for we ourselves teach that profound reverence should be shown by the external deport- ment, and he who truly and heartily believes that Christ Himself, truly present in the administration of the Eucharist, feeds us with His boyd and blood, will manifest his profound faith and devotion by bowing his knee, and yeilding external reverence.... Con- cerning these matters, therefore, there is no question between us and the Romanists; but the three points in controversy are partic- ularly these: (1) THe Romanists maintain that the Sacrament of ------------------End of Page 574--------------------------------- the Eucharistk, or the whole of that which was appointed by the Lord to be received, is to be adored with the worship of latria. On the other hand, since the Eucharist consists of two things, a terres- trial and a celestial, we teach that adoration is not to be addressed to the terrestrial elements of bread and wine, lest we worship the creature as well as the Creator, but unto Christ, who is God and man, and who, being truly present in the administration, dis- tributes to us His body and blood. (2) The Romanists, when they contend for the worshipm adoration, and veneration of the Sacrament, do not particularly refer to this, that Christ, who is God and man, should be adored in the administration of the Holy Supper, or in its use as divinely appointed; but they labor to estab- lish the adoration of the bread aside from the use instituted and commanded by Christ, when, namely, the bread is carried about in processions. But we maintain that the bread, when not used as appointed by Christ, is not the body of Christ, and so artolatry (bread- worship) is committed when bread is adored in those solemn pro- cessions. (3) The Romanists are particularly solicitous about the external worship of the Eucharist, as that it be honored by being kept in a spledid repository, etc.... But we are particularly solicitous in the use of the Eucharist as appointed by Christ con- cerning the inner and spiritual worship, upon which genuine ex- ternal indications or internal reverence spontaneously follow." QUEN. (IV, 233): "The Lord's Supper consists in a sacramental action, viz., in the consecration, distribution, eating and drinking; and so we deny that, aside from the use of distribution, eating, and drinking, the body and blood of Christ are permanently united under the forms of bread and wine after the consecration, and we teach that the elevation, carrying about, and adoration of the con- secrated wafers is not the worship of Christ (kristolatreia), but the worship of bread (artolatreia)." (234): "That the sacrament of the Supper is not a permanent thing, but a temporary action, is proved (1) From the description which Christ gti ves of it. Whatever is described by Christ Himself as to its form, by means of actions, and has its complement and perfection in them, that is not a per- manent thing, but an action. But the sacrament of the Eucharist is described by Christ Himself, as to its form, by actions, such as blessing, distribution, eating, drinking, and has its complement and perfection in these. Therrefore, etc. (2) From the assertion of Paul, 1 Cor. 10:16. `The bread which we break,' i.e., whcih we distribute to be eaten, `is the communion of the body of Christ.' Whatever bread, therefore, is not broken or distributed, that is not the communion (koinonia) or participation of the body of Christ. -----------------End of Page 575---------------------------------- (3) From the nature of the Sacrament. No Sacrament, aside from its use as divinely appointed, is truly a Sacrament, therefore the Eucharist is not. The reason is, an institution is not observed ex- cept in its use; but where an institution is not observed, there there is no Sacrament. A Sacrament is entire through aggregation; if, therefore, one of the aggregates or connected parts be wanting, there is no Sacrament." [12] GRH. (X, 397): "Faith does not belong to the substance of the Eucharist; therefore, it is not on account of the faith of those coming to the Lord's Supper that the bread is the communion of the body of Christ, nor does the bread cease to be the communion of the body of Christ on account of their unbelief." Hence, "hypocrites and the unworthy also partake of the substance of the Sacrament, although they do not receive its benefits. 1 Cor. 11: 27." The sacramenttal manducation is theirs, but "not the spirit- ual, for this occurs through faith to eternal life;" rather, they par- take of the Holy Supper unto condemnation, while believers receive a blessing. FORM. CONC. (Sol. Dec., VII, 63): "The godly receive the body and blood of Christ as a certain pledge and confirmation that their sins are surely pardoned;... but the wicked receive the same body and the same blood of Christ also with their mouth unto judgment and condemnation." QUEN. (IV, 250): "The antithesis of the Calvinists, who maintain that the unworthy and hypocrites receive only the half of the Sacrament, viz., the external signs, but not the whole Sacrament, i.e., they are not made partakers of the body and blood fo Christ in the Holy Supper, but receive only the mere and empty signs." FORM. CONC. (Sol. Dec., VII, 68): "But it must also be dis- tinctly declared who are the unworthy guests in this Holy Supper; those, namely, who come to the Table of the Lord without true penitence and contrition, without true faith and a serious deterer- mination to amend their lives. These bring upon themselves con- demnation, i.e., temporal and eternal punishment, by their unowrthy oral manducation, and make themselves guilty of the body and blood of Christ.... But the worthy guests in the Holy Supper are those Christians, weak in faith, timid, desponding, who, while they revolve in their minds the greatness and multi- tude of their sins, are alarmed; who, in reflecting upon their great impurity, judge themselves unworthy of this most precious treasure and of the benefits of Christ; who feel and deplore the infirmity of their faith: these are the worthy guests.... Their worthiness, therefore, consists neither in the greatness nor in the weakness of ----------End of Page 576--------------------------------------------- their faith, but in the merit of Christ." The question here naturally arises, whether all who live in the Church are to be ad- mitted to the Holy Supper? GRH. (X, 381): "Nor are all Christians promiscuously to be admitted to the Lord's Supper; but, according to the rule of Paul, only those who examine them- selves, 1 Cor. 11:28; i.e., those who condemn themselves, v.31; those who distinguish the body of the Lord from other ordinary food, v.29; and who show forth the death of the Lord, v. 26. Therefore all those are excluded who are either unwilling or unable to examine themselves, as (1) those who are defiled with heresy, i.e., who pertinaciously and refractorily persevere in error con- cerning the foundation of the faith, neglecting all kinds of admo- nition; for, since by their heresy they cut themselves off from the fellowship of the true Chrurch, they also cannot at all be admitted to the Sacraments, which are the blessings peculiar to the Church: such are, e.g., those who pertinaciously deny the true and sub- stantial presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Holy Supper, Matt. 7:6; Phil. 3:2; 1 Cor. 11:29.... (2) Nortorious sinners.... (3) The excommunicated.... (4) The possessed, maniacs, the demented.... (5) Infamous persons." [13] FORM. CONC. (Sol. Dec., VII, 32): (Luther), "I confess, concerning the Sacrament of the Altar, that the true body and blood of Christ are orally eaten and drank in the bread and wine, even if the ministers who distribute the Lord's Supper, or those who receive it, do not believe, or otherwise abuse the Holy Supper. For the Lord's Supper is not based upon the faith or unbelief of men, but upon the Word of God and His appointment." But the Lord's Supper is always to be distributed only by the minister. QUEN. (IV, 177): "The dispenser of this Sacrament is none other than the minister of the Church, so that its administra- tion is not to be intrusted to any private person, even in a case of necesssity... (a) Because Christ committed the administration to the apostles. (b) Because He dispensed it, representing the person of the administrant. (c) Because He committed the admin- istration of the Sacraments, as well as the preaching of the Word, to the apostles, Matt. 28:19. (d) Because ministers are the ser- vants and ambassadors of Christ, 2 Cor. 5:19. (e) Because they are stewards of the mysteries of God, 1 Cor. 4:1. (f) Because the necessity of the Eucharist is not absolute, or such as that of Baptism; it is evident, therefore, that it should rather not be ad0- ministered, than be improperly distributed. (Comp. 1 Cor. 15, at the end.) When, therefore, regular ministers of the Church are not at hand, the saying of Augustine is applicable: `Believe, and ---------------------End of Page 577------------------------------- though hast eaten. It is necessary, also, that the minister be ortho- dox, or a minister of the true Church; for the Holy Eucharist cannot be lawfully or legitimately asked or received from any other than an orthodox minister." But COTTA remarks, upon GER- HARD'S statment (X, 21): "In a case of such necessity, where death seems immediately impending, if a pastor cannot be pro- cured, and the dying person earnestly desire to enjoy the Sacra- ment, many of our theologians maintain that the Holy Sucharist can be administered even by a layman. Let it suffice that I men- tion, among these, JN. GALLUS and TILEMAN HESSHUSS." [14] AUG. CONF. (de Missa, III, 30): "Christ commands us to do this in memory of Him; wherefore the Lord's Supper was instituted, that faith, in those who partake of the Sacrament, may call to mind the benfits which it receives through Christ, and may encourage and console the timid conscience. For, to remem- ber and feel the benefits which are truly presented to us, is to re- member Christ." HOLL. (1138): "The commemoration and annunciation of the death of Christ are made in true faith,k when we consider and believe that His body was sacrificed as a victim for us on the altar of the cross. But the application of ffaith, as far as it relates to the bodyy of Christ, is called the spiritual eating of the body of Christ, without which a mere oral manducation does not produce the saving benefit of the Eucharist, because all spiritual benefits are received by faith." QUEN. (IV, 237): "The Eucharist is not an external, visible, and properly so-clalled propitiatory sacrifice, or a procurer of all kinds of benefits, in which the body and blood of Christ are truly and literally offered to God under the visiblle form of bread and wine; but it is only a commemoration of the propitiatory sacrifice once offered by Christ upon the altar of the cross." HOLL. (1139): "Observe II. The word sacrifice may be used either literally or figuratively. Figuratively, it is used (1) for every act which is done that we may cleave unto God in holy fellowship, and having inview the end that we may become truly happy. (2) For the worship of the New Testament and the preaching of the Gospel, Rom. 15:16; Phil. 2:17. (3) For kindness and the oworks of charity towards our neighbor, Phil. 4:8; Heb. 13:16. (4) For prayers and giving of thanks to God, Heb. 13:15; Rev. 5:8. ... We do not deny that the mass, or the celebration of the Eucharist, may be figuratively called a sacrifice, because (1) it is a work which is done that we may cleave unto God in holy fel- lowship. (2) It is not the least part of the worship of the New Testament. (3) Formerly, when the Eucharist was celebrated, -------------------End of Page 578------------------------------- gifts were usually offered which fell to the use of the ministers of the Church and of the poor. (4) The administration of the Holy Supper was joined with prayers and giving of thanks. (4) It was instituted in memory of the sacrifice of Christ... offered upon the altar of the cross. Observe III. We must distinguish between a sacrifice considered materially and considered formally. If we view it materially, in the Eucharist the sacrifice is the same in number as that which was upon the cross; or, in other words, the object and the substance are just the same, that is, the victim is the same as that offered on the cross. But if we consider the sac-- rifice formally, or as the act of sacrificing, then, although the victim is one and the same, yet the act or the immolation, which takes place in the Eucharist, is not the same with that which took place upon the cross. For upon the cross the oblation was made through the true suffering and death of an immolated living subject, with- out which there could not in any way be a sacrifice, poperly speaking; in the Eucharist, however, the oblation is made through prayers and through the commemoration of the death, or of the sacrifice that was offered on the cross." [15] GRH. (X, 364): "The design and benefits of the Holy Supper are very many in number, inestimable as regards their utilityk, and inconceivable in importance. For, when we receive in the Holy Supper the literal body of the Son of God Himself, cru- cified for us, and His own literal blood shed on the altar of the cross for our sins, it plainly follows from this that all things which Christ meritoriously procured for us, by delivering His body and shedding His blood, are applied, conferred upon, and sealed to us in the salutary use of this Sacrament.... But Christ embraces all and each of these benefits with wonderful brevity in the words of the institution, when He cdeclares that His same body is offered to us to be eaten which was broken for us on the cross,... and when He commands us to do this in memory of Him." [16] Baptism and the Lord's Supper are thus distingusihed: The former is the Sacrament of initiation, the latter the Sacrament of confirmation. GRH. (X, 2): "By Baptism we are regenerated and renewed; by the Lord's Supper we are fed and nourished unto eter- nal life. In Baptism, especially that of infants, faith is kindled by the Holy Spirit; in the use of the Supper it is increased, confirmed, and sealed. By Baptism we are grafted into Christ; by the salutary use of the Lord's Supper we receive a spiritual increasse in this rela- tion. By Baptism we are received into the divine covenant; by the use of the Eucharist we are preserved in it, or, when we fall from it by sins against conscience, we are restored to it by true penitence." ----------------End of Page 579---------------------------------------- Id. (304): "As Baptism regenerates not only the soul, but the whole man, in soul and body; so with the body and blood of Christ not only the soul but also the body, or the whole man in body and soul, is nourished unto life spiritual, celestial, and eter- nal. When, therefore, the Eucharist is called the food of the soul, this is to be understood in an inclusive, not an exclusive sense. And if, indeed, the boyd of Christ is especially only the food of the soul, yet it does not hence follow that it is not received with' the bodily mouth; because the Word of God is the food of the soul (Heb. 5:12), and yet is received with the bodily ears, Rom. 10:14. Now, just in the same way the body of Christ is received with the bodily mouth, that the nutrition of the soul may be the more efficacious through the union of the bread and the body." CAT. MAJ. (V, 23): "By Baptism we are at first regenerated, but nevertheless the old and vicious covering of flesh and blood adheres to man. Now, there are here many impediments and as- saults by which we are so severely tried, on the part of the world and of the devil, that we often grow weary and weak, and some- times even fall into the filth of sin. Hence this Sacrament is given to us, that by its use our faith may again restore and refresh its strength; that it may not retreat or finally fall in this contest, but become daily stronger and stronger. For the new life is so consti- tuted that it may continaually increase and gather strength as it advances." [17] HOLL. (1138) combines both under the general name of evangelical grace which is communicated to us through the use of the Holy Supper. "Christ's design in offering His body to be eaten by us... is, that evangelical grace, or the divine grace promised and offered to us in the Gospel, may be applied and sealed to us individually. When we attentively consider this, the act of applying grace becomes very clearly known. God promises through regenerating grace to bestow faith upon all. This regenerating grace, and its effect, bviz., faith, God confirms, strengthens and in- creases through the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Moreover, he who receives the body and blood of the Lord may be most firmly assured that the promise of the Gospel belongs to him individu- ally.... Next, through justifying grace God forgives the sins of the regenerate and imputes to them the righteousness of Christ; which justifying grace and forgiveness of sins are sealed in the Holy Supper. For, when we receive in the Holy Supper the very body of Christ which was delivered up to death for us... then we are positively assured, as by a seal of the New Testament, that the forgiveness of sins is imparted, bestowed upon, and applied to ----------------End of Page 580--------------------------------------- us who believe in Christ. Through indwelling grace, God gra- ciously united Himself with us, which mystical union is rendered more close and firm by the eating of the body and the drinking of the blood of Christ, John 6:57. It is, moreover, a proof of in- effable love, that Christ, not content with being spiritually em-- braced by us through faith, in addition comes to us in His body and blood through a special appropriation, and thus unites Him- self with both our body and our soul. Through renovating grace, spiritual strength is conferred upon us, so that we bring forth the fruits of righteousness. In teh Holy Supper we are more inti- mately united with Christ, as the vine, so that in Him we, the branches, may bring forth more abundant fruit. By preserving grace, we are shielded from sin and refreshed with consolation. (Ambrose). And, just as complete refreshment or nourishment for the body consists in food, which is the dry aliment, and drink which is the moist aliment; so, in the Eucharist Christ is offered to us as both gfood and drink, lest we might think that we lacked anything needful for our complete alimony or spiritual nutrition (Augustine). Through glorifying grace, blissful immortality is conferred upon us, whose signs or pledges are the body and blood of Christ, received in the Holy Supper." [18] HOLL. (1139): "Being united through the Holy Supper with Christk, the Head, they are also united with one another as members of the mystical body, and thus the Eucharist is the basis of love between us and our neighbor, 1 Cor. 10:17. Whence, also, it is a mark of ecclesiastical fellowship and a token of the Church with which we communicate in faith. (GRH. (X. 371): `We testify that we approve the doctrine which is taught in the Church in which we, together with others, eat one Eucharistic bread and drink from one common cup')." The Dogmaticians usually distingish between the principal designs or fruits, and the less principal or secondary. As the latter, QUEN. (IV. 184) enumerates: "(a) The remembrance and commemoration of the death of Christ and of the benefits thereby acquired, Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24, 25 (anamnesis signifies both the remembrance of any one in thought, and the commemoration in words). (b) The separation of Christians from Pagans and Jews. (c) The more intimate communion of the members of the Church with one another in Christ." It follows from the conception of the Eucharist that (1) as a rule,k it should be administered in the public congregation, and not in private, unless in a case of necessity. When, moreover, ---------------End of Page 581----------------------------------- the APOL. syas (XII, 6): "We do nothing contrary to the Catholic Church, though we administer only public mass or communion; for no private masses are now administered in the Greek par- ishes"... this is not stated in opposition to the private use of the Lord's Supper, but in opposition to the solitary masses of the Romish Church, from which the congregation is entirely excluded. (2) That the frequent use of the Eucharist is not only allowable, but should be commended. ---------End of Chapter on Page 582---------------------------------- This text was converted to ascii format for Project Wittenberg by William Alan Larson and is in the public domain. You may freely distribute, copy or print this text. Please direct any comments or suggestions to: Rev. Robert E. Smith of the Walther Library at Concordia Theological Seminary. E-mail: smithre@mail.ctsfw.edu Surface Mail: 6600 N. Clinton St., Ft. Wayne, IN 46825 USA Phone: (260) 452-3149 Fax: (260) 452-2126