But while we may speak of "natural sacraments" the word is strictly appropriate only where a distinction is drawn between the everyday world and a "sacred" world transcending this, al though not necessarily separated from it in space or time. Where the use of the term is extended to the communication of spiritual illumination or power through material symbols apart from re ligion, we have to do either with a metaphor or, more usually, with a conviction that what is experienced in religion may be em ployed as a key to the true or ultimate nature the world as a whole, including those features of it which are revealed to us in that part of our experience which is not in itself specifically re ligious. For Christians the "sacred" sphere is that which is directly related to Christ, and accordingly nothing can be properly called a "sacrament" which cannot claim authorization by Christ as a vehicle of Divine grace. While a statement in the Bible was taken as, by its presence there, guaranteed to be, when rightly understood, free from error, the undoubted occurrence in Scrip ture of direct statements that Christ instituted baptism and the eucharist was sufficient to establish their claim. Critical study of the Bible has here, however, altered the situation. Few scholars would now be prepared to regard Matt. xxviii. 19, and i Cor. xi. 23 sqq. as putting it beyond doubt that the historical Iesus actually prescribed the permanent observance of these rites by his follow ers. Thus the old question as to the number of sacraments cannot be argued on the old grounds, but rather on that of the continuity between any rite now in use and a rite observed in the primitive Christian community from which the New Testament proceeded ; and of the degree in which that community regarded it as inti mately bound up with that fellowship with the crucified and risen Saviour which this community existed to offer to all who would join themselves with it.
That baptism and the eucharist were regarded as very intimately bound up with it is certain. Converts were always initiated by a ceremonial washing in Christ's name ; such a washing, symbolical of cleansing from sin, being (whether or no actually practised or enjoined by Jesus) familiar to Jews as used in the admission of proselytes and specially associated with Christ's own baptism by John the Baptist, whose mission Christians believed to have been preparatory to their Master's. From the first the followers of Jesus continued the custom, which had plainly been characteristic of his daily intercourse with his disciples, of the solemn blessing and breaking of bread at their social meals; a custom invested with specially solemn associations by the circumstances of His last supper whereat he was believed to have used words identifying the bread and cup shared among his companions with his own body and blood, which were so soon after to be broken and shed upon the cross.
The credentials of the other rites acknowledged by many Chris tians as sacraments were more doubtful. A laying on of hands symbolical of the gift of the Spirit seems usually from the begin ning to have formed part of the initiatory rite, though some times detached from the baptism proper; but no tradition con nected it with any injunction of Jesus; the gift imparted was asso ciated in the New Testament with extraordinary manifestations not destined to be permanent ; of the anointing which later became the chief feature of "confirmation" Scripture says nothing. Jesus had
been wont to forgive sins and sins were believed to be washed away in baptism ; but no ceremony or fixed formula is recorded to have been used by Jesus in this connection ; only gradually was it realized that sin after baptism would be a normal feature of the Christian's life ; nor can scriptural authority be claimed for the system of penitential discipline which was gradually developed in the Church. The unction of the sick mentioned in James was not, like the later rite which appealed to its precedent, intended to be "extreme"; its primary purpose was not the imparting of a spirit ual gift, but bodily healing, which alone is mentioned as the object of unction in the only scriptural passage (Mark vi. 13) which ap pears to represent it as performed by Christ's direction. The setting apart of office bearers in the Christian community by lay ing on of hands is certainly apostolical ; but this symbolic mode of appointment is nowhere stated in Scripture to have been used or enjoined by Jesus himself. Lastly, the only claim of the im memorial and universal institution of marriage to be a "sacrament of the new law" appears, as said above, to be the incidental ob servation of St. Paul (doubtless suggested by the prophetic use of it as a symbol of the bond between Yahweh and Israel) that it is a "great mystery" or "sacrament" as representing the union of Christ with his Church.
But though only certain rites may be reckoned as sacraments in a prerogative sense, the whole system through which individual members of a religious group are placed, through symbols, con ventionally recognized therein as instruments of its communica tion, in contact with the spiritual life which gives unity to the group may be regarded as sacramental. In Christianity—and the associations of the word "sacrament" are Christian—this is the divine life historically manifested in the person and work of Jesus Christ and believed to be continued in the community which, as inspired by His Spirit, may be called His "mystical body." Here those rites, the continuous experience of grace received through which throughout the history of the community attest the un broken presence therein of the same source of spiritual life are entitled to the name of sacraments. It is clear that only where there exists faith in the reality of this divine life and in the organic relation of the community thereto, can any significance or efficacy be attributed to these ; but also that such faith can only be other than an illusion if this life and this relation are in fact real.
BisuocRApHY.—Peter Lombard, Sententiae, Book iv. ; St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologist, Part 3; Concilii Tridentini Canones et Decreta; Sylloge Confessionum sub tempus reformandae Ecclesiae edi tarum (Oxford, 1827) ; Calvin, Institutes, Book iv.; Harnack, Dogmen geschichte; cf. the articles on Sacraments in Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics and the bibliographies there given. (See also