Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 2.djvu/302

92 not understand an actual, real, though not physical, imparting of to the soul of the believer through the Sacraments: it was to him a miracle, of which he had no outward evidence, nor any tangible proof : and having no sense for it, he rejected it as an unattested miracle, and preferred bending the words of Scripture, which pointed to it. Zuingli's system appears to have been, in this respect, negative: he held the two parts upon which the Calvinistic system of the Sacraments was subsequently built: the idea that the Sacraments were signs of grace before received, and the absolute irrespective election by, not to the privileges of the Covenant, but of persons, whether within or without it, to life eternal. He does not seem, however, to have systematized these views, and though Scriptural authority is alleged, it does not appear to have been the basis of his theory. His notions of the meaning of a Sacrament, were derived originally, not from Scripture, but from classical usage. "Sacramentum," he says, "according to Varro is a pledge, which they who had a suit, deposited by some altar. Again, Sacramentum is an oath, which use of the word still holds in the popular language of Gaul and Italy; and lastly, there is the military Sacramentum, whereby soldiers are bound to their leaders: for, that it is used for a sacred and mysterious thing among the antients, appears not. Whence also we have given no place to this meaning. Neither does it express the word , for which it is used in the Latin translation of the Old Testament. Whence we are led to think that a Sacrament is no other than an initiation or pledging. For as litigants deposited a certain sum of money, which the victor only might remove; so those who are initiated by the Sacraments, bind, pledge themselves, and receive as it were a gage, that they should not retreat." This etymology he frequently repeats; and from it he infers that since the Sacrament is an initiation or public sealing, it has no