cannot be repeated. The distinction between this and the earlier statements on the subject is clearly given by Bingham.1

THE EFFICACY OF THE SACRAMENTS.

It will suffice here to note the two assertions made by this Article on the efficacy of the two sacraments:

1. They are not bare 'tokens,' but are effectual signs (efficacia signa) of grace, through which God works.

2. This is not to be taken absolutely and invariably,(ex opere operato), but is conditional on the worthy receiving. 'In such only as worthily receive the same, they have a wholesome effect or operation.'

As these two statements will accompany us in the separate treatment of the two sacraments, it is only necessary here to call the student's attention to the preliminary fact that our Church asserts the necessity of the worthy reception' to the 'wholesome effect' of both sacraments equally. This must, therefore, be understood as underlying and qualifying the subsequent statements about Baptism and the Lord's Supper.

The doctrine of our Church will be sufficiently illustrated for our present purpose by contrasting the Tridentine statements with those of the illustrious Hooker.2

Canon 6. 'If any one shall say that the sacraments of the New Law do not contain the grace which they signify, or do not confer the grace itself on those not placing a bar (non ponentibus obicem) &c., let him be anathema.'

Canon 8. If any one shall say that grace is not conferred by these sacraments of the New Law, ex opere operato, but that faith in the Divine promise alone suffices to obtain grace, let him be anathema.'

It may be observed that the idea of sacraments containing grace and conveying grace involves a philosophical or metaphysical theory. According to this, grace is a sort of spiritual substantiality capable of this kind of residence in matter, and of a transfer into the soul apart from the soul's own action or

Antiq. b. xvii. chap. ii. 5.

2 Council of Trent. Sess. vii. De Sacramento.

consciousness. Thus when the body is in contact with the sacramental matter the grace contained is conveyed into the soul. This is really a product of the scholastic subtleties of the middle ages.

The following passage from Hooker1 will fully illustrate this Article, and is a true type of the English doctrine:

'Grace is a consequent of sacraments, a thing which accompanieth them as their end, a benefit which they have received from God Himself, the author of sacraments, and not from any other natural or supernatural quality in them. It may hereby both be understood that sacraments are necessary, and that the manner of their necessity is not in all respects as food unto natural life, because they contain in themselves no vital force or efficacy: they are not physical, but moral instruments of salvation, duties of service and worship; which unless we perform as the Author of grace requireth, they are unprofitable; for all receive not the grace of God, which receive the sacraments of His grace. Neither is it ordinarily His will to bestow the grace of sacraments on any but by the sacraments; which grace also, they that receive by sacraments or with sacraments, receive it from Him, and not from them. Sacraments

serve as the instrument of God to that end and purpose; moral instruments, the use whereof is in our hands, the effect in His: for the use we have His express commandment; for the effect His conditional promise: so that without our obedience to the one, there is of the other no apparent assurance; as contrariwise, where the signs and sacraments of His grace are not either through contempt unreceived, or received with contempt, we are not to doubt but that they really give what they promise, and are what they signify. For we take not baptism nor the Eucharist for bare resemblances or memorials of things absent, neither for naked signs and testimonies assuring us of grace received before, but (as they are indeed and in verity) for means effectual, whereby God, when we take the sacraments, delivereth into our hands that grace available unto eternal life, which grace the sacraments represent or signify.'

It may excite some surprise that a practice, obviously pos

1 Ecc. Pol. v. 57.

sible with regard to one of the sacraments only, should be referred to both. 'The sacraments' (not the elements of the Lord's Supper only) 'were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon, or to be carried about.'

There was undoubtedly a reason for this form of expression. Carelessness of diction finds no place in the Articles. That reason seems to be an intention more emphatically to deny the superstitious practices in question. The two sacraments are treated in this Article precisely on the same footing. They are spoken of, not in respect of their essential differences, but in respect of their essential similarities, by virtue of which they are properly sacraments, and by virtue of which grace is received by or with' both of them on precisely the same terms. Hence if the water in baptism is not to be carried about and elevated, neither are the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper. The only purpose of the elements in either sacrament is that we should duly use them.' Thus the use of the plural word 'sacraments' illustrates and enforces, more strongly than the singular number would, the denial of a practice which in fact has only been carried out with regard to the Eucharistic elements.

ARTICLE XXVI.

NOTES ON THE TEXT OF ARTICLE XXVI.

The comparison of the Latin with the English suggests scarcely any illustrative matter. The student will, however, note that the Latin for 'rightly' is rite, which will refer to the essentials of administration, the manner of reception being qualified by the word fide, 'by faith.'

It will be also observed that the distinction between the Church visible and invisible is implied in the wording of this Article, as well as in the Nineteenth.

The Eighth Article of the Confession of Augsburgh was evidently before the compilers of the present Article. It remains, with only a verbal change, as it stood in the formulary of King Edward.

OBSERVATIONS ON ARTICLE XXVI.

In the parallel Article of the Augsburgh Confession the Donatists et similes are condemned as having deemed the ministration of evil ministers ineffectual. But this Article no doubt chiefly regarded some of the Anabaptists of the day who held extreme views on this point. But in addition to this the reformed Church of England had special difficulties in this respect. The changes introduced into doctrine in the days of Edward and Elizabeth were ostensibly accepted by the mass of the existing clergy. The consequence was that the reformed ritual was performed in the first instance by men, the majority of whom were Romanists at heart, and too many of whom were grossly ignorant or even immoral.

This may be freely illustrated from any history of the English Reformation, and, indeed, is scarcely denied by any one. Protestants of earnest convictions, little open to consider and allow for the political or ecclesiastical exigencies from which such a state of the Church resulted, often gave vent to strong manifestations of their abhorrence of the ministrations of such persons.

This revulsion, perhaps, more than anything else, prepared the ground in which the seeds of the Puritan schismı flourished so luxuriantly. To this was added in Elizabeth's