THE SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH HAVE BEEN INSTITUTED BY CHRIST, AND ARE
ADMIRABLY ADAPTED TO THE NEEDS OF MANKIND.
It is our intention to treat, in this chapter, of the ceremonies of the
Church. And, as her Sacraments are the chief ceremonies—all other rights
being ordained on their account—we will begin by proving how absolutely
reasonable these Sacraments are. And thus, all the other rites of the
Church will be more easily understood. Christ, by His Passion, is the
universal cause of our salvation. But, just as, in the law of nature,
a universal cause only operates by means of particular causes, which
apply its virtue to particular effects, it is likewise most reasonable
that there should be some particular cause of our salvation, whereby the
virtue of the Passion of Christ should be applied to our souls. This
particular cause is found in the Sacraments of the Church, which are the
channels of Christ’s grace to the soul. And, as a particular cause must
be proportioned to the universal cause, and an instrument to the agent;
it is most reasonable and fitting, that the Sacraments should be composed
of external signs and of words, thus representing Christ, the Word of the
Eternal Father united to human nature.
And, since none can be saved without grace, we can say most truly, that
these Sacraments are Christ’s instruments in the conferring of grace.
We do not mean, that their power is able to produce the final effect
of grace; but we speak in the sense used by philosophers, when they
say that man is begotten of man and of the sun’s heat; not meaning, of
course, that either human or solar power is capable of producing the
intellectual soul of man. We must remember that an instrument acts in two
ways; first, by its own form, as in the case of a saw, which, from the
metal of which it is made and its serrated shape, is able to cut wood;
secondly, by the power and movement of the agent, which, as in the case
of the carpenter using a saw, gives a specific form to the wood. But,
this power does not always produce the ultimate effect on that on which
it is exercised. For we see, that, though creatures are the instruments
used by God in human generation, they do not beget the intellectual soul
of man, which is created immediately by God; but that they are only
instrumental in the final disposition of matter, and in the union of
soul with body. In the same way, the Sacraments are not, either by their
own virtue, or by power acquired from the movement of Christ, the chief
agent, able to produce their final effect, which is grace. Grace proceeds
from God alone; but the Sacraments dispose the soul for the reception of
grace; and this disposition, imparted by them, is, by theologians, called
their character.
We see a proof that the Sacraments thus confer grace, in the good life of
those who receive them, in their conversion from vice to virtue, and in
the progress in perfection made by those who frequent them. As we have,
however, in the preceding Book, treated at length of these effects, we
will say no more about them for the present.