CONTENTS. 424180 PAGE INTRODUCTION. HE lectures contained in this volume THE are in continuation of those of 1891, which dealt with the fundamental truths of revealed religion as distinguished from those of natural religion, and were suggested by the last lecture in that course on "Grace and the Sacramental System;" in truth these lectures are but an amplification of it, and it may be regarded as introductory to them. The subjects treated in this volume under the general title of "The Church's Ministry of Grace," are Baptism, The Holy Eucharist, Confirmation, Holy Orders, Holy Matrimony, Penance, and Unction, that is to say, those two Sacraments which are stated in the Catechism to be generally necessary to salvation-Sacraments of the Gospel, Greater Sacraments as they are sometimes called-and five Sacramental rites, or as they have been described, the ecclesiastical Sacraments, or sometimes also the five lesser Sacraments. Whether they be called rites or Sacraments would seem to be a mere contention about words; as it cannot be denied that they are ordinances of God for the conveyance of spiritual grace, and that in the service for, or the administration of, each, an outward sign or form is prescribed or used and an inward grace spoken of. If Saint Augustine's description of a Sacrament, referred to in the Homilies, be accepted, as comprising "a visible sign of an invisible grace," * the five rites may properly be called Sacraments; but if the outward sign must have been ordained by Christ Himself and expressly commanded in the New Testament, then only Baptism and the Eucharist are Sacraments. * Homily on Common Prayer and Sacraments, p. 374. The XXV Article of Religion, following very ancient authority, accords special honor and pre-eminence to those two Sacraments which according to the Fathers flowed from the riven side of Christ, but does not deny that the other five, "commonly called Sacraments," are in some sense Sacraments, but only that they are Sacraments of the Gospel. The Article says of the five that they "have not the like nature of Sacraments with Baptism and the Lord's Supper for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained by God." The difference between them and the two greater Sacraments, as laid down in the Article, does not relate to the inward grace but to the outward form. The Homilies, speaking of Absolution, point out the same distinction. We read in the Homily on Common Prayer and Sacraments, “For although Absolution hath the promise of forgiveness of sin, yet by the express word of the New Testament it hath not this promise annexed and tied to the visible sign, which is |