The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments Part 7

And this is just what we should expect from a G.o.d of love. The child is not consulted about his first birth, neither is he consulted about his second birth. He does not wait (as the Baptists teach) until he is old enough to make a free choice of second birth, but as soon as he is born into the world ("within seven or fourteen days," the Prayer Book orders) he is reborn into the Church. Grace does not let nature get ten to twenty years' start, but gives the soul a fair chance from the very first: and so, and only so, is a G.o.d of love "justified in His saying, and clear when He is judged".

_Adoption_.

But there is a second word. The Baptismal Thanksgiving calls the Baptized "G.o.d's own child by Adoption". A simple ill.u.s.tration will best explain the word. When a man is "naturalized," he speaks of his new country as the land of his _adoption_. If a Frenchman becomes a naturalized Englishman, he ceases legally to be a Frenchman; ceases to be under French law; ceases to serve in the French army. He {77} becomes legally an Englishman; he is under English law; serves in the English army; has all the privileges and obligations of a "new-born"

Englishman. He may turn out to be a bad Englishman, a traitor to his adopted country; he may even hanker after his old life as a Frenchman--but he has left one kingdom for another, and, good, bad, or indifferent, he is a subject of his new King; he is a son of his adopted country. He cannot belong to two kingdoms, serve under two kings, live under two sets of laws, at the same time.

It is so with the Baptized. He has been "adopted" into a new kingdom.

He is a subject of "the Kingdom of Heaven". But he cannot belong to two kingdoms at the same time. His "death unto sin" involves a "new birth (regeneration) unto righteousness". He ceases to be a member of the old kingdom, to serve under the sway of the old king, to be a "child of wrath". He renounces all allegiance to Satan; he becomes G.o.d's own child by "adoption". He may be a good, bad, or indifferent child; he may be a lost child, but he does not cease to be G.o.d's child.

Rather, it is just because he is still G.o.d's child that there is hope for him. It is because he is {78} the child of G.o.d by adoption that the "spirit of adoption" within him can still cry, "Abba, Father," that he can still claim the privilege of his adopted country, and "pardon through the Precious Blood". True, he has obligations and responsibilities, as well as privileges, and these we shall see under the next word, Election.

_Election_.

The Catechism calls the Baptized "the elect people of G.o.d," and the Baptismal Service asks that the child may by Baptism be "taken into the number of G.o.d's elect children". What does it mean? The word itself comes from two Latin words, _e_, or _ex_, out; and _lego_, to choose.

The "elect," then, are those chosen out from others. It sounds like favouritism; it reads like "privileged cla.s.ses"--and so it is. But the privilege of election is the privilege of service. It is like the privilege of a Member of Parliament, the favoured candidate--the privilege of being elected to serve others. Every election is for the sake of somebody else. The Member of Parliament is elected for the sake of his const.i.tuents; the Town Councillor is elected for the sake of his fellow-townsmen; the Governor is elected for the sake of the {79} governed. It is so with spiritual elections. The Jews were "elect"; but it was for the sake of the Gentiles--"that the Gentiles, through them, might be brought in". The Blessed Virgin was "elect"; but it was that "all generations might call her blessed". The Church is "elect," but it is for the sake of the world,--that it, too, might be "brought in". No election ends with itself. The Baptized are "elect," but not for their own sakes; not to be a privileged cla.s.s, save to enjoy the privilege of bringing others in. They are "chosen out" of the world for the sake of those left in the world. This is their obligation; it is the law of their adopted country, the kingdom into which they have, "by spiritual regeneration," been "born again".

All this, and much more, Baptism does. How does it do it?

(III) HOW DOES IT DO IT?

This new Birth! How is it accomplished? n.o.body knows. How Baptism causes all that it effects, is as yet unrevealed. The Holy Ghost moves upon the face of the waters, but His operation is overshadowed. Here, we are in the realm of faith. Faith is belief in that which is out of {80} sight. It is belief in the unseen, not in the non-existent. We hope for that we see not.[18] The _mode_ of the operation of the Holy Ghost in Baptism is hidden: the result alone is revealed. In this, as in many another mystery, "We wait for light".[19]

[1] See Service for the "Private Baptism of Children".

[2] Service for the Ordination of Deacons.

[3] From an old word, Gossip or _G.o.dsib_, i.e. G.o.d relation.

[4] Cf. Rom. vi. 4; Eph. v. 26.

[5] _Trine_ Immersion, i.e. dipping the candidate thrice, or thrice pouring water upon him, dates from the earliest ages, but exceptional cases have occurred where a single immersion has been held valid.

[6] From _Chrisma_, sacred oil--first the oil with which a child was anointed at Baptism, and then the robe with which the child was covered after Baptism and Unction, and hence the child itself was called a _Chrisome-child_, i.e. a child wearing the Chrisome robe.

[7] In the 1549 Prayer Book, the Prayer at the Anointing in the Baptismal Service ran: "Almighty G.o.d, Who hath regenerated thee by water and the Holy Ghost, and hath given unto thee the remission of all thy sins, He vouchsafe to anoint thee with the Unction of His Holy Spirit, and bring thee to the inheritance of everlasting life. _Amen_."

[8] St. Jerome, writing in the second century, says of the Baptized, that he "bore on his forehead the banner of the Cross".

[9] 1 Kings vii. 22.

[10] It is a real loss to use the Service for the Public Baptism of Infants as a private office, as is generally done now. The doctrinal teaching; the naming of the child; the signing with the cross; the response of, and the address to, the G.o.d-parents--all these would be helpful reminders to a congregation, if the service sometimes came, as the Rubric orders, after the second lesson, and might rekindle the Baptismal and Confirmation fire once lighted, but so often allowed to die down, or flicker out.

[11] 1 Pet. iii. 21.

[12] Baptismal Service.

[13] Rev. iii. 11.

[14] Not more, it is estimated, than two or three out of every eight have been baptized.

[15] I may take an _additional_ Christian name at my Confirmation, but I cannot change the old one.

[16] The present Town Clerk of London has kindly informed me that the earliest example he has found dates from 1418, when the name of John Carpenter, Town Clerk, the well-known executor of Whittington, is appended to a doc.u.ment, the Christian name being omitted.

[17] The following letter from Mr. Ambrose Lee of the Heralds' College may interest some. "... Surname, in the ordinary sense of the word, the King has none. He--as was his grandmother, Queen Victoria, as well as her husband, Prince Albert--is descended from Witikind, who was the last of a long line of continental Saxon kings or rulers. Witikind was defeated by Charlemagne, became a Christian, and was created Duke of Saxony. He had a second son, who was Count of Wettin, but clear and well-defined and authenticated genealogies do not exist from which may be formulated any theory establis.h.i.+ng, by right or custom, _any_ surname, in the ordinary accepted sense of the word, for the various families who are descended in the male line from this Count of Wettin.... And, by-the-by, it must not be forgotten that the earliest Guelphs were merely princes whose baptismal name was Guelph, as the baptismal name of our Hanoverian Kings was George."

[18] Rom. viii. 25.

[19] Is. lix. 9.

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CHAPTER VI.

THE BLESSED SACRAMENT.

The Blessed Sacrament!--or, as the Prayer Book calls it, "The Holy Sacrament". This t.i.tle seems to sum up all the other t.i.tles by which the chief service in the Church is known. These are many. For instance:--

_The Liturgy_, from the Greek _Leitourgia_,[1] a public service.

_The Ma.s.s_, from the Latin _Missa_, dismissal--the word used in the Latin Liturgy when the people are dismissed,[2] and afterwards applied to the service itself from which they are dismissed.

_The Eucharist_, from the Greek _Eucharistia_, thanksgiving--the word used in all the narratives {82} of Inst.i.tution,[3] and, technically, the third part of the Eucharistic Service.

_The Breaking of the Bread_, one of the earliest names for the Sacrament (Acts ii. 42, 1 Cor. x. 16).

_The Holy Sacrifice_, which Christ once offered, and is ever offering.

_The Lord's Supper_ (1 Cor. xii. 10), a name perhaps originally used for the _Agape_, or love feast, which preceded the Eucharist, and then given to the Eucharist itself. It is an old English name, used in the story of St. Anselm's last days, where it is said: "He pa.s.sed away as morning was breaking on the Wednesday before _the day of our Lord's Supper_".

_The Holy Communion_ (1 Cor. x. 16), in which our baptismal union with Christ is consummated, and which forms a means of union between souls in the Church Triumphant, at Rest, and on Earth. In it, Christ, G.o.d and Man, is the bond of oneness.

All these, and other aspects of the Sacrament, are comprehended and gathered up in the name which marks its supremacy,--The Blessed Sacrament.

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Consider: What it is; What it does; How it does it.