it becomes a Sacrament;" and Ridley, Comm. on the Ephes. (Fathers of the English Church, vol. 2. p. 135.) One regrets that Calvin, taking a superficial view of the passage of St. Augustine, should have represented those who believe in the efficacy of the words of consecration as maintaining that "the word whispered over the element without sense or faith, by a mere noise, had the power of consecrating the element as by a magical incantation." Instit. L. 4. c. 14. § 4. It was a part of Calvin's rationalism to suppose that the word of consecration had its efficacy simply by teaching the people, not through any virtue given by God to the invocation of the Blessed Trinity enjoined by Christ Himself, or to those words which Himself used at the Last Supper. Luther, on the contrary, adhering to the Ancient Church, says, "Baptism is not simply water, but water fenced by the command of God and united with God's word." And again in Art. Schmalc. c. 5. (quoted by Gerhard Loci, de S. Bapt. § 80) "Baptism is nothing else than the word of God with the immersion into water, according to His institution and command, or as St. Paul saith, 'washing of water with the word.'"
Note (G), on page 42.
The Chrism or Anointing is mentioned by Tertullian (de Baptismo c. 7), not only as the universal custom in his day (A.D. 200), but as having been derived from the antient dispensation. It seems, therefore, most probable that it was, from the very first, received into Christianity. "Having come out of the bath," he says, "we are anointed with the blessed unction taken from the antient dispensation, in which they used to be anointed to the priesthood with oil out of the horn. Whence Aaron was anointed by Moses; whence Christ is so called from chrism, i.e. anointing, which, being made spiritual, gave the name to the Lord, because He was anointed with the Spirit of God the Father, as it is in the Acts, 'against thy Holy Son, whom thou anointedst.' Thus in us also the anointing runs corporeally, but profits us spiritually; in like manner as the bodily act of Baptism itself, that we are dipped in the waters, being made spiritual, in that we are delivered from our offences." "The flesh," he says again, (de resurr. carnis. c. 8.) "is anointed, that the soul may be consecrated." Origen again, in a different portion of the Church, speaks of it in terms as universal, (hom. 8. in Lev. v. fin.) "When men are thus turned from sin, they are cleansed by the means above named: but the gift of the grace of the Holy Spirit is marked by the emblem of oil; so that he who is turned from sin, may obtain not cleansing only, but be filled with the Holy Ghost." And so it seems probable that Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, includes
