Chapter 1 The Sacraments in General
For some time past we have been occupied with the subject of the ordinances of the Christian Church. We have discussed the questions connected with the public worship appointed in the Church, the special time set apart and sanctified for worship, and the ministry by means of which the worship of the Church is conducted. All these are outward ordinances which Christ has established in His Church, as parts of that external provision which He has made for the spiritual benefit and advancement of His people, and which He specially makes effectual to that end by the presence and power of His Spirit. All of these ordinances are in themselves, perhaps, and naturally adapted by their inherent character and influence to promote the edification of Christians; but above and beyond this natural or moral efficacy for that end, there is a spiritual blessing connected with them in consequence of the positive appointment of Christ, and the positive promise of His Spirit fulfilled in the right use of them. There may be a natural or moral efficacy in the ordinances of the Church considered in themselves, so that, apart from any other influence, they would, to a certain extent, be beneficial and advantageous in the case of those who used them. But in addition to this, there is a spiritual efficacy in the ordinances of the Church, distinct from the natural, and which is derived from the blessing of Christ and the working of His Spirit in them who by faith make use of them as He has appointed. What this spiritual and supernatural efficacy of outward ordinance exactly is,—what is the measure or amount of the inward benefit to the believer,—in what way and to what extent grace is connected with the external observance,—how beyond the sphere of this natural or moral influence the positive institutions of the Church have a blessing not natively their own,—these are questions which it is impossible for us distinctly to answer. The only wise and fitting reply to such questions is, that we have now reached the region of the supernatural, and that there we have no data to guide us beyond what has been revealed. We know, from revelation, that there is a promise of grace annexed to outward ordinances when rightly used; we know that in the external observances Christ meets with His people to bless them and to do them good;—but beyond this we do not know. The character, the measure, the amount of the blessing promised,—how it stands connected with the outward ordinance, and what is the extent and efficacy of the supernatural grace over and above the natural efficacy of the ordinance,—of all this we know nothing, because we have been told nothing. We can distinctly understand, from the analogy of other cases, how the preaching of the Word, viewed as a system of human teaching of truth, and no more, may have a natural tendency to benefit the understanding and the heart. But we do not understand the supernatural efficacy which, over and above the natural, is imparted to it by the presence and the power of the Spirit in the ordinance.
In passing, as we do at this stage, from the non-sacramental to the sacramental ordinances appointed by Christ in His Church, it is of great importance to carry this general principle along with us. A supernatural grace is not peculiar to the Sacraments, although it may be found in them in larger measure than in other ordinances. It is common to all the ordinances which Christ has appointed in His Church. Whatever mystery there may be in the connection which by the promise of Christ has been established between the outward act and the inward blessing,—between the external observance rightly used and the internal grace divinely bestowed,—it is a mystery not belonging to Sacraments alone, but belonging to them in common with all Church ordinances. There is the supernatural element in them all. There is that supernatural element connected in some manner with the outward act of the believer in the use of ordinances. There is a mystery in respect to any ordinance, not less than in respect of sacramental ordinances, which we cannot explain. It is, in short, the mystery of the Spirit of God, promised to dwell in the Church, and making every ordinance of the Church, whether sacramental or not, the channel for the conveyance of supernatural grace. If we would rid ourselves of this mystery, we can only do so by denying that the Spirit is present in ordinances at all. “As the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth,”—so is every ordinance, as well as each person, touched and sanctified of the Holy Ghost. There can be no natural explanation of the supernatural.1
What, then, is the character of those special ordinances instituted by Christ in His Church, which are usually denominated sacramental ordinances; and in what respect are they to be distinguished from the other ordinances of the Christian Church, not sacramental? In administering Sacraments, what is the peculiar nature or character of the Church’s act; and in what manner does the administration differ from that of common ordinances?
The term Sacrament, by which these peculiar ordinances are known, is not of scriptural, but of ecclesiastical origin; and there is some doubt as to the manner in which it came to be applied to these special solemnities of the Church, and to be restricted to the peculiar meaning in which it is now almost universally employed. In classical use, the word “sacramentum” is almost always, if not invariably, employed to signify an oath,—more especially the military oath by which a soldier bound himself to obey the officer placed over him. And it has been conjectured that from its classical use it was transferred into the service of the Church, as significant of the obligation which the Christian comes under, in voluntarily participating in the Sacraments, to serve Christ as the Captain of his salvation,—these Sacraments being the characteristic badges or symbols by which the Christian is distinguished from other men. There is a second explanation, advocated by not a few, of the way in which the Latin term Sacrament came to be appropriated to its present ecclesiastical sense. It is the ordinary translation of the Greek word μυστηριον among the ecclesiastical writers of the early ages, and more especially in the Vulgate and other old Latin translations of the Bible. The term Sacrament, according to this supposition, came to be employed to signify the “mysteries” of Christianity,—whether “mystery” is employed to denote a doctrine unknown until it was revealed, or a type or emblem bearing a hidden and secret meaning.2 There is some reason to believe that both the Greek term μυστηριον and the Latin translation of it—sacramentum—came at an early period to be applied by the primitive Christians to those special solemnities of their faith, which, although made up of outward and sensible signs or actions, bore in them a secret and spiritual meaning. In one or other of these ways, or perhaps in both, the term “Sacrament” soon came to be restricted in its meaning and application, by ecclesiastical practice, to those outward ordinances of Christianity which signify and seal its most precious and momentous truths. But as the term itself is of Church origin, and not found in Scripture, we must look not to it, but to the descriptions and intimations given in Scripture in regard to the ordinances themselves, for an explanation of their true nature and import.3 In what respects, then, do the Scriptures represent the Sacraments of the Church as differing from its other ordinances which are not sacramental? What, according to Scripture, must we regard as the true nature and design of a Sacrament? To this general question we shall direct our attention in the first place, postponing for the present the special consideration of the Sacraments individually. And in endeavouring to ascertain the real nature and design of the Sacraments of the New Testament, we shall be enabled to understand at the same time, and by means of the same inquiry, in what respects they differ from other ordinances not sacramental.
[Bannerman, Inspiration: The infallible Truth and Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures, Edin. 1865, pp. 217–228, 472 f.]↩︎
Turrettin, Opera, loc. xix. qu. i. 1–6. Halley, The Sacraments, Lond. 1844, pp. 7–14.↩︎
[“The Apostle calleth the vocation of the Gentiles a mystery (Eph. 3:4–6); the conjunction quhilk is begun here betwixt us and Christ is called a mystery (Eph. 5:32), and the Latin Interpreters call it a Sacrament; and, to be short, ye will not find in the Book of God a word mair frequent nor the word mystery. . . . Alwayis, the word Sacrament is very ambiguous in itself, and there raise about the ambiguity of this word many tragedeis quhilk are not yet ceased, nor will cease while the warld lasts; quher otherwise, gif they had keeped the Apostle’s words, and called them, as the Apostle calls them, signs and seals, all this digladiatioun, strife, and contention appearandly had not fallen out. But quher men will be wiser than God, and give names to things beside God, upon the wit of man, quhilk is but mere folly, all this cummer falls out. . . . The ancient theologues took the word Sacrament in a fourfold manner. Sometimes they took it for the hail action, that is, for the hail ministrie of the elements. Sometimes they took it, not for the hail action, but for the outward things that are used in the action of Baptism and of the Supper; as they took it for the water and sprinkling of it, for the bread and wine, breaking, distributing, and eating thereof. Again, they took it, not for the hail outward things that are used in the action, but only for the material and earthly things,—the elements; as for bread and wine in the Supper, and water in Baptism. After this sort sayeth Augustine: ‘The wicked eats the body of our Lord concerning the Sacrament only;’ that is, concerning the elements only. (Aug. in Joann. Tract xxvi. 18). Last of all, they took it not only for the elements, but for the things signified by the elements. And after this manner, Irenæus saith, ‘that a Sacrament stands of twa things,—the ane earthly, the other heavenly.’ (Adv. Hæres. lib. iv. cap. 18.) The ancients, then, taking the word after thir sorts, na question all thir ways they took it rightly.”—Robert Bruce, Sermons on the Sacraments, p. 6, Wodrow Soc. ed. Edin. 1843.]↩︎