ABSTRACT
The Sacraments are a sensible presentation of that contradiction of idealism and materialism, of subjectivism and objectivism, which belongs to the inmost nature of religion. The essence of religion, its latent nature, is the identity of the divine being with the human; but the form of religion, or its apparent, conscious nature, is the distinction between them. Faith, being inherently external, proceeds even to the adoption of outward fact as its object, and becomes historical faith. Faith has in its mind something peculiar to itself; it rests on a peculiar revelation of God; it has not come to its possessions in an ordinary way, that way which stands open to all men alike. That God is the creator, all men could know from Nature; but what this God is in person, can be known only by special grace, is the object of a special faith. This theoretic contradiction must necessarily manifest itself practically.
