SACRAMENTS (_continued_).
We have now to apply these general principles to concrete examples, and
to see how they explain and justify the sacramental rites found in all
religions.
It will be sufficient if we take as examples three out of the Seven
Sacraments used in the Church Catholic. Two are recognised as obligatory
by all Christians, although extreme Protestants deprive them of their
sacramental character, giving them a declaratory and remembrance value
only instead of a sacramental; yet even among them the heart of true
devotion wins something of the sacramental blessing the head denies. The
third is not recognised as even nominally a Sacrament by Protestant
Churches, though it shows the essential signs of a Sacrament, as given
in the definition in the Catechism of the Church of England already
quoted.[334] The first is that of Baptism; the second that of the
Eucharist; the third that of Marriage. The putting of Marriage out of
the rank of a Sacrament has much degraded its lofty ideal, and has led
to much of that loosening of its tie that thinking men deplore.
The Sacrament of Baptism is found in all religions, not only at the
entrance into earth-life, but more generally as a ceremony of
purification. The ceremony which admits the new-born--or adult--incomer
into a religion has a sprinkling with water as an essential part of the
rite, and this was as universal in ancient days as it is now. The Rev.
Dr. Giles remarks: "The idea of using water as emblematic of spiritual
washing is too obvious to allow surprise at the antiquity of this rite.
Dr. Hyde, in his treatise on the _Religion of the Ancient Persians_,
xxxiv. 406, tells us that it prevailed among that people. 'They do not
use circumcision for their children, but only baptism, or washing for
the purification of the soul. They bring the child to the priest into
the church, and place him in front of the sun and fire, which ceremony
being completed, they look upon him as more sacred than before. Lord
says that they bring the water for this purpose in bark of the
Holm-tree; that tree is in truth the Haum of the Magi, of which we spoke
before on another occasion. Sometimes also it is otherwise done by
immersing him in a large vessel of water, as Tavernier tells us. After
such washing, or baptism, the priest imposes on the child the name given
by the parents.'"[335] A few weeks after the birth of a Hindu child a
ceremony is performed, a part of which consists in sprinkling the child
with water--such sprinkling entering into all Hindu worship. Williamson
gives authorities for the practise of Baptism in Egypt, Persia, Thibet,
Mongolia, Mexico, Peru, Greece, Rome, Scandinavia, and among the
Druids.[336] Some of the prayers quoted are very fine: "I pray that this
celestial water, blue and light blue, may enter into thy body and there
live. I pray that it may destroy in thee, and put away from thee, all
the things evil and adverse that were given to thee before the beginning
of the world." "O child! receive the water of the Lord of the world who
is our life: it is to wash and to purify; may these drops remove the sin
which was given to thee before the creation of the world, since all of
us are under its power."
Tertullian mentions the very general use of Baptism among non-Christian
nations in a passage already quoted,[337] and others of the Fathers
refer to it.
In most religious communities a minor form of Baptism accompanies all
religious ceremonies, water being used as a symbol of purification, and
the idea being that no man should enter upon worship until he has
purified his heart and conscience, the outer washing symbolising the
inner lustration. In the Greek and Roman Churches a small receptacle for
holy water is placed near every door, and every incoming worshipper
touches it, making with it on himself the sign of the cross ere he goes
onward towards the altar. On this Robert Taylor remarks: "The baptismal
fonts in our Protestant churches, and we need hardly say more especially
the little cisterns at the entrance of our Catholic chapels, are not
imitations, but an unbroken and never interrupted continuation of the
same _aqua minaria_, or _amula_, which the learned Montfaucon, in his
_Antiquities_, shows to have been vases of holy water, which were placed
by the heathens at the entrance of their temples, to sprinkle themselves
with upon entering those sacred edifices."[338]
Whether in the Baptism of initial reception into the Church, or in these
minor lustrations, water is the material agent employed, the great
cleansing fluid in Nature, and therefore the best symbol for
purification. Over this water a mantra is pronounced, in the English
ritual represented by the prayer, "Sanctify this water to the mystical
washing away of sin," concluding with the formula, "In the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." This is the Word
of Power, and it is accompanied by the Sign of Power, the Sign of the
Cross made over the surface of the water.
The Word and the Sign give to the water, as before explained, a property
it previously had not, and it is rightly named "holy water." The dark
powers will not approach it; sprinkled on the body it gives a sense of
peace, and conveys new spiritual life. When a child is baptised, the
spiritual energy given to the water by the Word and the Sign reinforces
the spiritual life in the child, and then the Word of Power is again
spoken, this time over the child, and the Sign is traced on his
forehead, and in his subtle bodies the vibrations are felt, and the
summons to guard the life thus sanctified goes forth through the
invisible world; for this Sign is at once purifying and
protective--purifying by the life that is poured forth through it,
protective by the vibrations it sets up in the subtle bodies. Those
vibrations form a guardian wall against the attacks of hostile
influences in the invisible worlds, and every time that holy water is
touched, the Word pronounced, and the Sign made, the energy is renewed,
the vibrations are reinforced, both being recognised as potent in the
invisible worlds, and bringing aid to the operator.
In the early Church, Baptism was preceded by a very careful preparation,
those admitted to the Church being mostly converts from surrounding
faiths. A convert passed through three definite stages of instruction,
remaining in each grade till he had mastered its teachings, and he was
then admitted to the Church by Baptism. Only after that was he taught
the Creed, which was not committed to writing, nor ever repeated in the
presence of an unbeliever; it thus served as a sign of recognition, and
a proof of the position of the man who was able to recite it, showing
that he was a baptised member of the Church. How truly in those days the
grace conveyed by Baptism was believed in is shown by the custom of
death-bed Baptism that grew up. Believing in the reality of Baptism, men
and women of the world, unwilling to resign its pleasures or to keep
their lives pure from stain, would put off the rite of Baptism until
Death's hand was upon them, so that they might benefit by the
sacramental grace, and pass through Death's portal pure and clean, full
of spiritual energy. Against that abuse some of the great Fathers of the
Church struggled, and struggled effectively. There is a quaint story
told by one of them, I think by S. Athanasius, who was a man of caustic
wit, not averse to the use of humour in the attempt to make his hearers
understand at times the folly or perversity of their behaviour. He told
his congregation that he had had a vision, and had gone up to the
gateway of heaven, where S. Peter stood as Warder. No pleased smile had
he for the visitant, but a frown of stern displeasure. "Athanasius,"
said he, "why are you continually sending me these empty bags, carefully
sealed up, with nothing inside?" It was one of the piercing sayings we
meet with in Christian antiquity, when these things were real to
Christian men, and not mere forms, as they too often are to-day.
The custom of Infant Baptism gradually grew up in the Church, and hence
the instruction which in the early days preceded Baptism came to be the
preparation for Confirmation, when the awakened mind and intelligence
take up and re-affirm the baptismal promises. The reception of the
infant into the Church is seen to be rightly done, when man's life is
recognised as being lived in the three worlds, and when the Spirit and
Soul who have come to inhabit the new-born body are known to be not
unconscious and unintelligent, but conscious, intelligent, and potent in
the invisible worlds. It is right and just that the "Hidden Man of the
heart"[339] should be welcomed to the new stage of his pilgrimage, and
that the most helpful influences should be brought to bear upon the
vehicle in which he is to dwell, and which he has to mould to his
service. If the eyes of men were opened, as were of old those of the
servant of Elisha, they would still see the horses and chariots of fire
gathered round the mountain where is the prophet of the Lord.[340]
We come to the second of the Sacraments selected for study, that of the
Sacrifice of the Eucharist, a symbol of the eternal Sacrifice already
explained, the daily sacrifice of the Church Catholic throughout the
world imaging that eternal Sacrifice by which the worlds were made, and
by which they are evermore sustained. It is to be daily offered, as its
archetype is perpetually existent, and men in that act take part in the
working of the Law of Sacrifice, identify themselves with it, recognise
its binding nature, and voluntarily associate themselves with it in its
working in the worlds; in such identification, to partake of the
material part of the Sacrament is necessary, if the identification is to
be complete, but many of the benefits may be shared, and the influence
going forth to the worlds may be increased, by devout worshippers, who
associate themselves mentally, but not physically, with the act.
This great function of Christian worship loses its force and meaning
when it is regarded as nothing more than a mere commemoration of a past
sacrifice, as a pictorial allegory without a deep ensouling truth, as a
breaking of bread and a pouring out of wine without a sharing in the
eternal Sacrifice. So to see it is to make it a mere shell, a dead
picture instead of a living reality. "The cup of blessing which we
bless, is it not the communion [the communication of, the sharing in] of
the blood of Christ?" asks the apostle. "The bread which we break, is it
not the communion of the body of Christ?"[341] And he goes on to point
out that all who eat of a sacrifice become partakers of a common nature,
and are joined into a single body, which is united to, shares the nature
of, that Being who is, present in the sacrifice. A fact of the invisible
world is here concerned, and he speaks with the authority of knowledge.
Invisible Beings pour of their essence into the materials used in any
sacramental rite, and those who partake of those materials--which become
assimilated in the body and enter into its ingredients--are thereby
united to those whose essence is in it, and they all share a common
nature. This is true when we take even ordinary food from the hand of
another--part of his nature, his vital magnetism, mingles with our own;
how much more true then when the food has been solemnly and purposely
impregnated with higher magnetisms, which affect the subtle bodies as
well as the physical. If we would understand the meaning and use of the
Eucharist we must realise these facts of the invisible worlds, and we
must see in it a link between the earthly and the heavenly, as well as
an act of the universal worship, a co-operation, an association, with
the Law of Sacrifice, else it loses the greater part of its
significance.
The employment of bread and wine as the materials for this
Sacrament--like the use of water in the Sacrament of Baptism--is of very
ancient and general usage. The Persians offered bread and wine to
Mithra, and similar offerings were made in Tibet and Tartary. Jeremiah
speaks of the cakes and the drink offered to the Queen of Heaven by the
Jews in Egypt, they taking part in the Egyptian worship.[342] In Genesis
we read that Melchisedek, the King-Initiate, used bread and wine in the
blessing of Abraham.[343] In the various Greek Mysteries bread and wine
were used, and Williamson mentions their use also among the Mexicans,
Peruvians, and Druids.[344]
The bread stands as the general symbol for the food that builds up the
body, and the wine as symbol of the blood, regarded as the life-fluid,
"for the life of the flesh is in the blood."[345] Hence members of a
family are said to share the same blood, and to be of the blood of a
person is to be of his kin. Hence, also, the old ceremonies of the
"blood-covenant"; when a stranger was made one of a family or of a
tribe, some drops of blood from a member were transfused into his veins,
or he drank them--usually mingled with water--and was thenceforth
considered as being a born member of the family or tribe, as being of
its blood. Similarly, in the Eucharist, the worshippers partake of the
bread, symbolising the body, the nature, of the Christ, and of the wine
symbolising the blood, the life of the Christ, and become of His kin,
one with Him.
The Word of Power is the formula "This is My Body," "This is My Blood."
This it is which works the change which we shall consider in a moment,
and transforms the materials into vehicles of spiritual energies. The
Sign of Power is the hand extended over the bread and the wine, and the
Sign of the Cross should be made upon them, though this is not always
done among Protestants. These are the outer essentials of the Sacrament
of the Eucharist.
It is important to understand the change which takes place in this
Sacrament, for it is more than the magnetisation previously explained,
though this also is wrought. We have here a special instance of a
general law.
By the occultist, a visible thing is regarded as the last, the physical,
expression of an invisible truth. Everything is the physical expression
of a thought. An object is but an idea externalised and densified. All
the objects in the world are Divine ideas expressed in physical matter.
That being so, the reality of the object does not lie in the outer form
but in the inner life, in the idea that has shaped and moulded the
matter into an expression of itself. In the higher worlds, the matter
being very subtle and plastic, shapes itself very swiftly to the idea,
and changes form as the thought changes. As matter becomes denser,
heavier, it changes form less readily, more slowly, until, in the
physical world, the changes are at their slowest in consequence of the
resistance of the dense matter of which the physical world is composed.
Let sufficient time be given, however, and even this heavy matter
changes under the pressure of the ensouling idea, as may be seen by the
graving on the face of the expressions of habitual thoughts and
emotions.
This is the truth which underlies what is called the doctrine of
Transubstantiation, so extraordinarily misunderstood by the ordinary
Protestant. But such is the fate of occult truths when they are
presented to the ignorant. The "substance" that is changed is the idea
which makes a thing to be what it is; "bread" is not mere flour and
water; the idea which governs the mixing, the manipulation, of the flour
and water, that is the "substance" which makes it "bread," and the flour
and the water are what are technically called the "accidents," the
arrangements of matter that give form to the idea. With a different
idea, or substance, flour and water would take a different form, as
indeed they do when assimilated by the body. So also chemists have
discovered that the same kind and the same number of chemical atoms may
be arranged in different ways and thus become entirely different things
in their properties, though the materials are unchanged; such "isomeric
compounds" are among the most interesting of modern chemical
discoveries; the arrangement of similar atoms under different ideas
gives different bodies.
What, then, is this change of substance in the materials used in the
Eucharist? The idea that makes the object has been changed; in their
normal condition bread and wine are food-stuffs, expressive of the
divine ideas of nutritive objects, objects fitted for the building up of
bodies. The new idea is that of the Christ nature and life, fitted for
the building up of the spiritual nature and life of man. That is the
change of substance; the object remains unchanged in its "accidents,"
its physical material, but the subtle matter connected with it has
changed under the pressure of the changed idea, and new properties are
imparted by this change. They affect the subtle bodies of the
participants, and attune them to the nature and life of the Christ. On
the "worthiness" of the participant depends the extent to which he can
be thus attuned.
The unworthy participant, subjected to the same process, is injuriously
affected by it, for his nature, resisting the pressure, is bruised and
rent by the forces to which it is unable to respond, as an object may be
broken into pieces by vibrations which it is unable to reproduce.
The worthy partaker, then, becomes one with the Sacrifice, with the
Christ, and so becomes at one with also, united to, the divine Life,
which is the Father of the Christ. Inasmuch as the act of Sacrifice on
the side of form is the yielding up of the life it separates from others
to be part of the common Life, the offering of the separated channel to
be a channel of the one Life, so by that surrender the sacrificer
becomes one with God. It is the giving itself of the lower to be a part
of the higher, the yielding of the body as an instrument of the
separated will to be an instrument of the divine Will, the presenting of
men's "bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God."[346]
Thus it has been truly taught in the Church that those who rightly take
part in the Eucharist enjoy a partaking of the Christ-life poured out
for men. The transmuting of the lower into the higher is the object of
this, as of all, Sacraments. The changing of the lower force by its
union with the loftier is what is sought by those who participate in it;
and those who know the inner truth, and realise the fact of the higher
life, may in any religion, by means of its sacraments, come into fuller,
completer touch with the divine Life that upholds the worlds, if they
bring to the rite the receptive nature, the act of faith, the opened
heart, which are necessary for the possibilities of the Sacrament to be
realised.
The Sacrament of Marriage shows out the marks of a Sacrament as clearly
and as definitely as do Baptism and the Eucharist. Both the outer sign
and the inward grace are there. The material is the Ring--the circle
which is the symbol of the everlasting. The Word of Power is the ancient
formula, "In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost." The Sign of Power is the joining of hands, symbolising the
joining of the lives. These make up the outer essentials of the
Sacrament.
The inner grace is the union of mind with mind, of heart with heart,
which makes possible the realisation of the unity of spirit, without
which Marriage is no Marriage, but a mere temporary conjunction of
bodies. The giving and receiving of the ring, the pronouncing of the
formula, the joining of hands, these form the pictorial allegory; if the
inner grace be not received, if the participants do not open themselves
to it by their wish for the union of their whole natures, the Sacrament
for them loses its beneficent properties, and becomes a mere form.
But Marriage has a yet deeper meaning; religions with one voice have
proclaimed it to be the image on earth of the union between the earthly
and the heavenly, the union between God and man. And even then its
significance is not exhausted, for it is the image of the relation
between Spirit and Matter, between the Trinity and the Universe. So
deep, so far-reaching, is the meaning of the joining of man and woman in
Marriage.
Herein the man stands as representing the Spirit, the Trinity of Life,
and the woman as representing the Matter, the Trinity of formative
material. One gives life, the other receives and nourishes it. They are
complementary to each other, two inseparable halves of one whole,
neither existing apart from the other. As Spirit implies Matter and
Matter Spirit, so husband implies wife and wife husband. As the abstract
Existence manifests in two aspects, as a duality of Spirit and Matter,
neither independent of the other, but each coming into manifestation
with the other, so is humanity manifested in two aspects--husband and
wife, neither able to exist apart, and appearing together. They are not
twain but one, a dual-faced unity. God and the Universe are imaged in
Marriage; thus closely linked are husband and wife.
It is said above that Marriage is also an image of the union between God
and man, between the universal and the individualised Spirits. This
symbolism is used in all the great scriptures of the world--Hindu,
Hebrew, Christian. And it has been extended by taking the individualised
Spirit as a Nation or a Church, a collection of such Spirits knit into a
unity. So Isaiah declared to Israel: "Thy Maker is thine Husband; the
Lord of hosts is His name.... As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the
bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee."[347] So S. Paul wrote that
the mystery of Marriage represented Christ and the Church.[348]
If we think of Spirit and Matter as latent, unmanifested, then we see no
production; manifested together, there is evolution. And so when the
halves of humanity are not manifested as husband and wife, there is no
production of fresh life. Moreover, they should be united in order that
there may be a growth of life in each, a swifter evolution, a more rapid
progress, by the half that each can give to each, each supplying what
the other lacks. The twain should be blended into one, setting forth the
spiritual possibilities of man. And they show forth also the perfect
Man, in whose nature Spirit and Matter are both completely developed and
perfectly balanced, the divine Man who unites in his own person husband
and wife, the male and female elements in nature, as "God and Man are
one Christ."[349]
Those who thus study the Sacrament of Marriage will understand why
religions have ever regarded Marriage as indissoluble, and have thought
it better that a few ill-matched pairs should suffer for a few years
than that the ideal of true Marriage should be permanently lowered for
all. A nation must choose whether it will adopt as its national ideal a
spiritual or an earthly bond in Marriage, the seeking in it of a
spiritual unity, or the regarding it as merely a physical union. The one
is the religious idea of Marriage as a Sacrament; the other the
materialistic idea of it as an ordinary terminable contract. The student
of the Lesser Mysteries must ever see in it a sacramental rite.