Divine calling and election. By it those sealed are marked by Cod as His. Thejf are enrolled in 'a nation from the midst of nations.' They are made members of the Body of Christ. And the gift of the Holy Spirit accompanying their initia- tion is a gift of 'the Holy Spirit of promise,' the 'earnest' {appa^wv) of an 'inheritance.' The Lord's Supper, again, is a seal of the New Covenant in Christ's blood, an assurance of eternal life now, an anticipation of the Parousia, a promise of resurrection, a pledge of the Messianic triumiili, a foretaste of the great Supper of the Kingdom of Heaven (Mt 2G»«- =», Mk 14-^- ==, Lk 22-"- '«-'», Jn 6", 1 Co 1 !■■»'; al.so Mt 22'"", Lk 14'»"=<). But the actual bestowal of the blessings represented by the sacraments was also regarded as an ell'ect of their observance. They operated respectively as verit- able means of their own distinctive grace. And they accomplished this not through any natural psychological process — an explanation which really reverts to the theory of empty symbols — but by the power of the Holy Ghost. They acted not upon intellect only, but upon the person, upon life. Baptism was the actual occasion of those efl'ects which it represented — of the forgiveness of sin (Ac '2™ 22'", Eph 5'^, Tit 3^), of the gift of the Holy Spirit (Ac 2'"*, 1 Co 12'^), of the dying and burial with Christ (Ko 6^" ■*, Col 2'-), and of regeneration (.In 3', Tit 3'). The Eucharist was the actual occasion of the communication and communion of the body of Christ and of the blood of Christ (1 Co 10"") and of all that was represented by the ministration and reception of the bread and wine in the sacrament (see also Jn e'^""*, and Ignatius, Bom. vii. 3, Philad. iv. 1, Smyrn. vi.). How the sacraments become thus eSectual ; what relation exists between the elements and that which is bestowed through them ; in particular, what the body and blood of Christ precisely signify, and how such sacred realities ought to be conceived of as related to the consecrated bread and wine — these are questions which do not expressly emerge in this period. But, although no theory of sacra- mental grace is formulated as yet, the materials for its future construction are already provided. Among the prolegomena of sacramental theory, the doctrine of the Incarnation must always hold the place of supreme importance. That doctrine, not so much in its bearing upon the earthly life of our Lord as in its bearing upon His heavenly state and ministry, and in the conclusions to be drawn from it as to the perpetuity of the human nature assumed, as to the permanent relation of that human nature to His Divinity, as to its glorifica- tion, as to its endowment with the power of the Holy Spirit in full measure, and as to its potential omnipresence, constitutes the very basis of the whole sacramental fabric. And not only was that doctrine, uncodified as yet in creeds, and waiting still to be followed into its consequences, funda- mental in the faith and teaching of the Apostolic Church, but certain aspects of it, which, as challenged by Docetic tendencies, receive marked prominence in the Johannine writings (Jn 1'*, 1 Jn 4", 2 Jn ') and prominence at least not less marked in the Epistles of Ignatius, are the very aspects which look in the direction of sacramental theology, and in the light of which sacramental theology was afterwards developed (e.g. see Justin Martyr, Apol. i. 66, and J. H. Srawley's comment. The Early History of the Liturgy, Cambridge, 1913, p. 35). In one place, indeed, in which Ignatius refers to Docetic separatists in such terms as to suggest that the Eucharist implies the reality of Christ's flesh (Smyrn. vi. ), the doctrine of the Incarnation and the doctrine of the Eucharist are brought into a closeness of contact which illus- trates the derivation of the sacramental principle
SACKAMENTS
SACRIFICE
431
from the contents of the truth that ' the Word beiiime l'le>.h and dwelt anu)ii<; us.' In the two natures uuiU'il in our Lord's Person, the two parts of the sncranient, its outward si^;n and its invisible f;race, found their analo<:y. Our Lord's bodily jiresence was in fact the eonipcndinm of all sacra- nit-nts ; and all sacraments were the \ irtual exten- sion of our Lord's l)odil}' presence and activity. Of doctrine such as this the foundation had been laid already in the Apostolic Age, and the nuiterial provided, lint it was left to subsetiuent centuries of constructive faith and devout relle.xion to rear upon that foundation and -with that material the doctrinal edilice of the sacramental system.
(c) A/t/iouffh either sacrament wax regarded as the spccijic means of its own appropriate grace, both had a common reference to t/ie whole way of salva- tion in Christ; and, while the complexity of this rifcrence permitted certain aspects of it to receive jirciiliar jirominencefrom time to time, there is no sufficient ground for the assumption that all were not cqunlly implied in the nature of the institutions from the first. Baptism and the Lord's Supi>er had each its own distinctive purpose in the economy of grace. But they jiossessed in common similar general relations to the entire scheme of redemp- tion. Both were means towards the fullilment of the mystical union with Christ. Both liad respect to the sacrifice ottered by Him on tlie Cio.ss. Both were inseparably connected with the cardinal fact of the Resurrection. Both looked up to a I'rince and a Saviour by the right hand of God e.xalted. Both were dependent for their vitality upon the opera- tion of the Holy Ghost sent forth from Him. Both had in view- the constitution and service of the body corporate and the communion of saints. Both belonged to a new and spiritual order which bore witness to the one hope of the coming and kingdom of the Christ of God. Their common outlook was thus not in one direction only but in many — an outlook so comprehensive that it is strictly accurate to describe the blessings represented, sealed, and applied by them as being nothing less than ' Christ and the benefits of the New Covenant ' (Shorter Catechism, Q. 92). This manifoldness of the sacra- mental outlook is, indeed, made evident in the facility with which each succeeding modern hypo- thesis as to what was 'central' in primitive Christianity can claim the witness of the sacra- ments for its support. If, e.g., the gosjjel of the Kingdom was mainly eschatological in its contents, there is no diHiculty in showing that the sacra- ments looked forward to a Kingdom yet to come, of which they were the seals. If, on the other hand, the gospel of the Kingdom was mainly spiritual in its contents, it is equally easy to demonstrate that the sacraments as means of grace find tlieir purpose in a Kingdom of God realizing itself gradually here and now. It may quite well be that at dill'erent periods, in dillerent Churches, and by diH'erent teachers, particular aspects of the sacra- ments — whether the personal aspect or the corporate, the commemorative, the mystical, the ethical, or the prophetic — may have been given superior prominence. The Pauline theology may have laid more stress upon tlieir relation to Christ's death, and the Johannine upon their rela- tion to Christ's life ; but it is not necessary to assume that only one aspect can be primitive, that all others were superinduced and represent de- flexions from the original ordinance. It seems to be more reasonable to attribute the real variety of meaning and purpose which may be assigned to the sacraments to the intrinsic wealth of the sacra- ments themselves. If they were, as the Apostolic Church believed, the very institution of Christ Himself, it is not surprising to find that they exhibit the same many-sidedness of significance