2. Inferences as to sacramental doctrine. — {a) As rittutl acts of faith and ubedietice toioards God, the sacraments possessed the character of worship from the first. True sacraments are always capable of consideration under two aspects : a Godward aspect and a nianward aspect. In the former they appear as acts of worship ; in the latter they appear as means of grace. 'There is, indeed, a third aspect in which they are sometimes con.sidered — that in which they become cognizable as forms of public or mutual self-expression. The last, however, is really an incidental accompani- ment of the first, and quite subordinate to it. Only when the devotional life of the Church grows cold are the sacraments much thought of in this light. In the Apostolic Church they were not contemplated as formal means by which either the corporate religious consciousness or the decisions
and experiences of personal religion received ex- pression. That they did express such conscious- ness— the consciousness of blessings enjoj'ed, of the reality of ' the rebirth which is tj'pitied by the Church's .sacrament of initiation' and of 'the participation in the Divine Life which is dramatised in its sacrament of communion' (E. Underbill, The Mystic Way, London, 1913, p. 33 f.) — may be in a sense true ; but this was not regarded as their purpose. The decisions and experiences of personal religion, indeed, could not fail to be shown forth or implied in the sacraments. Inasmuch as these observances were distinctive and elementary acts of Christian faith and love they became at once prominent tokens of the Christian profession ; and to this circumstance, no doubt, they owe in some measure their investment with the desiguation sacramenta. In the case of the initiatory rite, the rupture with the past (Ro 6^ Eph 4-"-^^ Col 3», etc.) and 'the good confession in the sight of many witnesses' (1 Ti 6''^) .and Hie new habit of life (Ro G'-\ Eph 4^-", Col 3'", etc.) were circum- stances so arresting that Baptism must always in those days have worn the complexion of an open avowal. In the case of the Eucharist, that rite which postulated devotion to Him whose memorial it was, in which also declared fellowship with the one Body was time after time renew ed, participa- tion became not only a badge of continued fidelity and an example in perseverance calculated to encourage others (He lO^- '^, where it is surely natural to understand as included a reference to the eucharistic service), but, at a later date, a criterion as well by which adherence to sound doctrine (Ignatius, Smyrn. vi.) might be tested. Nevertheless, as an observance of personal faith, neither Baptism nor the Eucharist was an act of self-e.xpression otherwise than incidentally. Both, primarily, were solemn acts of worship performed towards God. But both did not fulfil this character in the same way. The germ of a future classifica- tion of rites into sacraments singular and sacra- ments capable of repetition is already latent in their divergent types. Baptism is worship in the form of delinitive self-surrender to God in Christ, accompanied with repentance and acknowledgment of faith. It is the dedication of a living sacrifice, the acceptance of office in a holy priesthood, the response to a calling of God to become the ' lively stones' of 'a spiritual house,' and, indeed, to be a temple bodily through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. The Eucharist, on the other hand, as the distinctive Christian form of stated common worship, was to be taken part in continually. By it the worship of the Church was diH'erentiated from the worship of the synagogue ; and it became at an early date the central act of the whole Christian cultus. This aspect of the observance connected itself from the first with the ottering of the thanksgiving in accordance with our Lord's example ; and the rapid specialization of the name (vx^-pi-cria, applied therefore to the sacrament re- garded as worship, may be traced from St. Paul (1 Co 14'") througli St. Clement of Rome (Ep. ad Cor. i. 41 [see Liglitfoot]) to its preci.se and settled use in Ignatius (Eph. xiii. 1, Philad. iv. 1, Smyrn. vi., viii. 1) and in the Didache (ix. 1, 5). The Eucharist was the culminating point of Christian worship. Elements of service — ' lections, chants, homilies, and luayers' — might be and were bor- rowed from the Jewish liturgy (L. Duchesne, Christian Worship, Eng. tr.'', London, 1912, p. 47 f.). But ' the eucharistic celebration . . . was the new and vivifying principle, the centre round which these adopted elements ranged themselves ' (J. B. Liglitfoot, Apostolic Fathers, pt. i., 'St. Clement of Rome,' London, 1890, i. 393). (6) In their aspect as means of grace the sacra-
SACRAMENTS
SACKAMEJS'TS
429