52 Card. Pallavicini, what intention

the opinion of some before him, and that the Legates interfered to check what was said by the Master of the Sacred Palace against him.

"Whence it is made out, that the opinions defended by Catharin were no objects of suspicion to the fathers, nor had they any intention to proscribe them. Had it been so, they would never have had him promoted to the Episcopate by common acclamation, nor would the then legate, afterwards Sovereign Pontiff, have advanced him to a higher Episcopate. It is certain that that which was proscribed at Trent was what Leo X., by his Constitution, condemned in Luther, viz., that the sacrament was so instituted by Christ, that, although the minister perform it in manifest mockery and jest, it would obtain its effect; an institution, of which it is most evident how alien it is from the dignity of the Church, the mind of the faithful, and the condition upon which all other acts are done by men. But the Catholic Doctors, whom we have enumerated, agree in requiring, for the efficacy of the sacraments, the will, not only to do that outward act, physically considered, which the Church enacts (for this will exists alike in the man who administers a sacrament in jest), but the will of exercising that act through that external ceremony of a man acting seriously, which the Church uses, and the visible appearance of a man directing to the intent to which the Church directs it."

I have taken purposely low ground, for I think it narrows one topic of controversy as to our Orders. It was with this view that I meant to draw attention to the fact that the consecrators of Parker were anxious to adhere to the ancient

forms. The process of Confirmation they took from the account of the Confirmation of a Bishop or Bishops in the time of Archbishop Chichele, when, the intercourse with Rome being interrupted, they had to fall back upon ancient pre

is necessary to validity of the Sacrament. 53

cedents. The words of consecration they translated from the Exeter Pontifical, "Take the Holy Ghost." They intended, apparently, to guard themselves against any objections which might be raised, in that all four consecrating Bishops imposed hands, all four used the words. Surely this care to do what the Church had done is, in itself, evidence enough of the intention required!

Pallavicini himself held the stricter opinion, and points out that the difficulties which Paolo Sarpi alleged, extended, in truth, much wider, and that all alike were to be met by a trust in the superintending and overruling mercy of God.

"I wish he would answer whether there would not be the same stumbling-block, howsoever it be conceded, that there is no need of such intention of the minister. And first, in all confessions, what is easier for the priest, than that, while absolving in a low voice, he should omit some little word necessary to the sacrament, and so should render that sacred action null, so that countless men, while believing that God was reconciled to them, should continue under the yoke of the devil? Could not village priests, at their fancy, do the same in conferring Baptism, where none of the peasants know what is the necessary form? And herefrom, that something is void in the administration of such Baptism, seeing it is the door of all other sacraments, might arise that avoidance of many receptions of Holy Orders, and so of countless consecrations and absolutions, so long as the world should last. Wherefore, in the case of each opinion alike, we must flee to the Providence of God, which either so rules the hearts of men as to keep off these inconveniences (and that the more, since no stimulus of present advantage incites any one to perpetrate such a sacri

1 L. c. p. 11.

54

Catharin and Vazquez, what intention

lege, and no one loves guilt without some dowry of utility), or by His own special indulgence remedies the secret defects of the action; and, in brief, so orders things that the Church should not be defrauded of these singular antidotes formed by His precious Blood."

Certainly Catharin followed high authority, since Pope Nicolas (as he alleged) formally laid down, that those who had been, in numbers, baptized by a Jew, of whose conversion nothing was known certainly, were not to be re-baptized; for, however the Jew may have intended (on whatever ground) to baptize, he could not have intended to confer the effect of the sacrament, of which, if a Jew, he believed nothing. The authority of S. Thomas Aquinas is the weightier, because they are his words which were adopted by Pope Eugenius, so that he would be the most authen

2 "By a certain Jew (whether Christian or Pagan you know not) you assert that many in your country were baptized, and consult what is to be done therein. If they were baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity, or only in the name of Christ, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, for it is one and the same thing, as S. Ambrose expounds it (De Sp. S. i. 3), it is certain that they are not to be again baptized. But first you should inquire whether the Jew himself was a Christian or a Pagan, or whether he was afterwards made a Christian, although we believe that that is not to be overlooked, which S. Augustine says of Baptism, 'We have sufficiently shown that to Baptism, which is consecrated by the words of the Gospel, the error of any one giving or receiving it, appertaineth not, whether it be as to the Father, Son, or Holy Ghost, that he thinketh otherwise than the heavenly doctrine suggests."" Resp. ad. Bulg. c. 104, Concil. ix. 1566, Col.

necessary to validity of Sacrament.

55

tic expositor of his own words. But Vazquez says,

"In the second solution, which he himself employs and in which he seems to acquiesce, he approves the sentiment of those who say, that in Baptism and in other sacraments which have in the form an act exercised, an interior intention is not required, but an expression of the intention through the words instituted sufficeth, provided that nothing is added repugnant to the words. But the argument was, that if any other intention were required, no one but the minister himself would be certain as to a true sacrament being received. But here he [S. Th. Aq.] proposes the same argument in the second place, and answers in the same two ways as in the fourth (book on the Sentences) and seems plainly to employ as his own the second solution, which is altogether the same as that which we have given; for in both places he refutes the other."

Vazquez's third corollary is,

"There may, in any heretic and infidel, who believes no mystery, be this intention of doing what the Church does, as has been by us explained. For, as we showed in the preceding disputation (c. 2), the substance of the sacrament does not depend on the faith of the minister. Then, too, since, although any one think that which the Church does is false and of no moment, he can will to administer and do it, as a ceremony of the Church, whatever may follow from it (for the intention of the effect of the sacrament does not appertain to the nature of the sacrament); so, although the minister think that the sacrament is of no effect, he can administer it with that intention, which we said to be necessary. And although an Arian does not believe the mystery of the Trinity true (as the heathen also does not believe it), yet if he pronounce the words of the form which the Church uses, with that general intention of doing what

56 Aquinas on the doctrine of "intention."

the Church does, he will make the sacrament. For, as he who knows not what is signified by those words, if he utter them with the aforesaid intention, makes the sacrament, so also he who does not believe what is signified by those words, may have that intention generally, and make the sacrament, although in act he believes the contrary, because that intention may exist with the opposite error"."

S. Th. Aq. is answering the objection to the doctrine of intention, "The intention of a man is certain to no one but himself. If then intention is required to Baptism, it will not be certain to any one that he is baptized, except to him who baptized him; and this is inconvenient, that a man should be in so great doubt of salvation." S. Th. says, "On this second point it is to be said, that to this a twofold answer is given according to different opinions. For some say, that if the mental intention be wanting in the baptizer, he does not bestow the sacrament of Baptism; yet that, in an adult, faith and devotion supplies the effect of Baptism, so that no peril should thence accrue to the baptized who is ignorant of the intention of the baptizer. But if it be a child, it is piously believed that the supreme priest, i. e. God, supplies the defect and confers salvation on him; but if not, He does not unjustly, as neither to him who is not made a subject of the sacrament. Others say that in Baptism and other sacraments, which have in the form an act exercised, a mental intention is not required, but the expression of the intention by the words instituted by the Church sufficeth; and therefore that, if the form is preserved, and nothing is said outwardly which should express a contrary intention, he is baptized. For not without cause in sacraments of necessity, as Baptism and some others, the act of the baptizer is so carefully expressed for the expression of the intention" (iv. Dist. 6, q. 1, art. 2, q. 1, ad 2). In the Summa he more distinctly adopts the second explanation against the first. "Some say that a mental intention is required in the minister, which if it be lacking, the sacrament is not perfected; but that in children (who have not the intention of coming to the