Johannes Maccovius, Theological Distinctions XVII.
James Dodson
Chapter XVII
Of the Sacraments
I. The sacraments of the New Testament are called antitypes of the old, not because the old were types, but because the new have succeeded into the place of the old.
Concerning this the Papists contend with us, whether the old were types of ours. They affirm it, but they are refuted, because a corporeal thing cannot be the antitype of a corporeal thing.
II. In a sacrament, the material and the formal must be distinguished.
The symbols are the material; the signification of the symbols is the formal.
III. In a sacrament, the sign must be distinguished from the thing signified.
IV. Baptism and circumcision are sacraments of initiation and assumption into the Church. The paschal lamb and the Lord’s Supper are sacraments of nourishment and continuation in the Church.
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V. Baptism is of one kind by the Spirit, another by water, another by blood.
The ancient scholastics and fathers are accustomed to distinguish in this way; and indeed Scripture itself distinguishes between baptism of water and of the Spirit. John 3. What they say concerning blood is a certain allusion; and they call martyrdom the baptism of blood.
VI. In the Lord’s Supper there is no transmutation of the signs into the things signified, nor any existence of the things signified in the sign; but the signs are called the things signified metaphorically, not properly.
Against the Papists and Lutherans. For the former maintain that the bread is transmuted into the body; the latter, that the body is in the bread; since they do not weigh the sacramental locution, such as we also have in Genesis 17, where circumcision is called the covenant, and the paschal lamb the Passover.
VII. The change of the elements in the Supper is not of nature, but of use.
For example, it is indeed bread, but it is applied to another use. So also with the wine.
VIII. In the Lord’s Supper the trope is neither in the subject, nor in the predicate, but in the copula.
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Theologians dispute very much among themselves where the trope is in those words, “This is my body.” We say: in the copula. Just as in these statements, “The seven cows are seven years,” and “the seed is the Word of God.” For in these the copula “is” is taken to signify. So also in this case.
Objection. The copula joins things; therefore it is not a trope. Response. It joins things either properly or improperly.
IX. Sometimes a neuter pronoun is predicated of a masculine noun.
As: “The wolf is grievous to the folds; rains to the ripe fruits.”
X. It is not deprivation of the sacraments, but contempt of them, that damns.
XI. Nothing has the character of a sacrament except within legitimate use.
XII. No sign is sacramental unless it has an analogy with the thing signified.
This is Augustine’s point, founded on the nature of the sacraments; for analogy is said to be in effects. For example: as bread feeds our bodies for this temporal life, so also the body of Christ, received by faith, feeds our souls unto eternal life.
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Second: as bread passes into our nature, so that it is one with us, so the body of Christ, received by faith, is united with us, so that in a certain way we are one in spirit.