Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 2.djvu/85

73 "There is the visible element of water, which is the sacrament; and these three are found in one: representation from similitude, significance from appointment, virtue from sanctification. The similitude is from creation, the appointment from dispensation, the sanctification from benediction. The first is imparted to it through the Creator, the second is added through the Saviour, the third is given through the administrator."

Passing to the second consideration, Hugo finds that the sacraments were instituted with threefold purpose, for man's humiliation, instruction, and discipline or exercise. The man contemning them cannot be saved. Yet God has saved many without them, as Jeremiah was sanctified in the womb, and John the Baptist, and those who were righteous under the natural law. "For those who under the natural law possessed the substance (res) of the sacrament in right faith and charity, did not to their damnation lack the sacrament" And Hugo warns whoever might take a narrower view, to beware lest in honouring God's sacraments, His power and goodness be made of no avail. "Dost thou tell me that he who has not the sacraments of God cannot be saved? I tell thee that he who has the virtue of the sacraments of God cannot perish. Which is greater, the sacrament or the virtue of the sacrament—water or faith? If thou wouldst speak truly, answer, 'faith.'" One notes that the twelfth century had its broad-mindedness, as well as the twentieth.

While passing on discursively to consider the classification of the sacraments, Hugo considers many matters, and then opens his treatment of the sacraments of the natural law with a recapitulation:

"The sacraments from the beginning were instituted for the restoration and healing of man, some under the natural law, some