The Sacrament of Baptism and our participation in Christ

Tomorrow my son will receive the Sacrament of Baptism in our parish church. My thoughts have turned to Richard Hooker's reflections on the necessity of the Sacraments for our participation in Christ.

Hooker's critique of aspects of some Reformation theologies of the Sacraments - "bare resemblances or memorialls ... naked signes and testimonies" - flows from his reflection on the Incarnation and the subsequent "mysterie of our coherence with Jesus Christ" (Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Polity, The Fifth Book, chapter 51 ff). On the basis of the Christological confession of Chalcedon, Hooker affirms that the "personall union" of flesh and Godhead in the person of Christ means that "the bodie separated from the word can in no true sense be termed the person of Christ". It is this classical account of the Incarnation which shapes Hooker's understanding of the grace bestowed through the waters of Baptism and the bread and wine of the Eucharist:

"It greatlie offendth, that some, when they labor to show the use of the holie Sacraments, assigne unto them no ende but only to teach the minde, by other senses, that which the worde doth teach by hearinge. Whereupon how easilie neglect and careles regarde of so heavenlie mysteries may followe ...

There is of Sacramentes therefore undoubtedly some other more excellent and heavenlie use ... For wee take not baptisme nor the Eucharist for bare resemblances or memorialls of thinges absent, neither for naked signes and testimonies assuringe us of grace received before, but (as they are in deed and in veritie) for meanes effectuall whereby God when we take the sacramentes delivereth into our hands that grace available unto eternal life ...

Wee receive Christ Jesus in baptisme once as the first beginner, in the Eucharist often as beinge by continewall degrees the finisher of our life. By baptisme therefore wee receive Christ Jesus and from him that savinge grace which is proper unto baptisme. By the other sacrament wee receive him also impartinge therein him selfe and that grace which the Eucharist properlie bestoweth".

(Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Polity, The Fifth Book, Chapter 57.)