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Porro saith, Zanchius in cultum ipsum excessu ut, peccatur; si quid illi quem Christus instituit, jam addas, aut ab aliis additum sequar is; ut si sacramentis a Christo institutis, alia addas sacramenta; si sacrificiis, alia sacrificia; si ceremoniis cujusvis sacramenti, alios addas ritus, qui merito omnes superstitionis nomine appellantur.
II. suit cette doctrine comme une verite constante; l'on ne peut, dit ce S. Docteur, baptiser les enfans qui sont renfermes dans le sein de leurs meres, & S. Thomas est fonde sur ce, que les enfans ne sont point nes, & ne peuvent etre comptes parmi les autres hommes; d'ou il conclud, qu'ils ne peuvent etre l'objet d'une action exterieure, pour recevoir par leur ministere, les sacremens necessaires au salut: Pueri in maternis uteris existentes nondum prodierunt in lucem ut cum aliis hominibus vitam ducant; unde non possunt subjici actioni humanae, ut per eorum ministerium sacramenta recipiant ad salutem.
The century writers make out of Dionysius Alexandrinus’s epistle to Xistus, bishop of Rome, that the custom of the church of Alexandria in receiving the sacrament, was, ut mensae assisterent. It is also noted by Hospiman, that in the days of Tertullian the Christians stantes sacramenta percipiebant.
But that the incidents described so vividly by Homer, and by Gaius with even more than the usual crudity of technical language, have substantially the same meaning, I cannot doubt; and, in confirmation of this view, it may be added that many observers of the earliest judicial usages of modern Europe have remarked that the fines inflicted by Courts on offenders were originally sacramenta.
Seeing the great difficulties that lie in the way of increasing charities so as to meet the increase of population, or even so as to follow it, and the manifold desirableness of parish Churches, with the material dignity that in a right state of Christian order would attach to them, as compared with meeting-houses, chapels, and the like all more or less 'privati juris', I have often felt disposed to wish that the large majestic Church, central to each given parish, might have been appropriated to Public Prayer, to the mysteries of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and to the 'quasi sacramenta', Marriage, Penance, Confirmation, Ordination, and to the continued reading aloud, or occasional chanting, of the Scriptures during the intervals of the different Services, which ought to be so often performed as to suffice successively for the whole population; and that on the other hand the chapels and the like should be entirely devoted to teaching and expounding.
But of the two denials the former was now to him the least tolerable. "Catholicism," he said, "was my life, because it was that of humanity." Sacramenta, propter homines; the Church was made for man, and not man for the Church. Given the dilemma, who shall blame his choice? But the dilemma was purely subjective and imaginary.
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