of Pope Innocent III. ' Even Augustine, De peccat. merit, et remiss. Ub. i. c. 24, § 34 : " Praster bap- tiamum et participationem mensae dominicse non solum ad regnum Dei, sed ncc ad § 91. THE SACRAMENTS IN GENERAL. 477 in tliem, especially in baptism and the encharist, the divinely appointed means of appropriating the forgiveness of sins and the grace of God. Yet with this view they firmly held that not the want of the sacraments, bnt only the contempt of them, was damning.' In favor of this they appealed to Moses, Jere- miah, John the Baptist, the thief on the cross, — who all, how- ever, belonged to the Old Testament economy — and to many Christian martyrs, who sealed their faith in Christ with their blood, before they had opportunity to be baptized and to com- mune. The Virgin Mary also, and the apostles, belong in some sense to this class, who, since Christ himself did not bap- tize, received not the Christian baj)tism of water, but instead were on the day of Pentecost baptized with Spirit and with lire. Thus Cornelius also received through Peter the gift of the Holy Ghost before baptism ; but nevertheless submitted himself afterwards to the outward sacrament. In agreement with this view, sincere repentance and true faith, and above all the blood-baptism of martyrdom,^ were regarded as a kind of compensation for the sacraments. The mimher of the sacraments remained yet for a long time indetinite ; though among the church fathers of our period bap- tism and the Lord's Supper were regarded either as the only sacraments, or as the prominent ones. Augustine considered it in general an excellence of the New Testament over the Old, that the number of the sacraments salutem el vitam aetemam posse quemquam hominem pervenire." This would, strict- ly considered, exclude all Quakers and unbaptized infants from salvation ; but Augus- tine admits as an exception the possibility of a conversion of the heart without bap- tism. See below. The scholastics distinguished more accurately a threefold neces- sity : (1) absolute : simpliciter nccessarium ; (2) teleological : in ordine ad finem ; (3) hypothetical or relative: necessarium ez supposUmie, quce est necessitas conse- qiientice. To the sacraments belongs only the last sort of necessity, because now, under existing circumstances, God will not ordinarily save any one without these means which he has appointed. Comp. Hahn, 1. c. p. 26 ff. According to Thomas Aquinas only three sacraments are perfectly necessary, viz., baptism and penance for the individual, and ordination for the whole church. ' " Non defectus, sed contemptus sacramenti damnat." Comp. Augustine, De bapt. contra Donat. 1. iv. c. 25, §32: "Conversio cordis potest quidem inesse non percepto baptismo, sed contemto non potest. Neque enim ullo modo dicenda est conversio cordis ad Deum, cum Dei sacramentum contemnitur." ■■' Baptismus sanguinis. 478 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. was diminished, but tlieir import enhanced/ and calls baptism and the Supper, with reference to