The sacraments — the visible signs by which grace is given, and what they are held to effect. Augustine called the sacrament a "visible word"; the medieval West reckoned them seven, which the Council of Trent defined and held to confer grace by the act itself; the East keeps seven mysteries; and the Reformation received two — Baptism and the Supper — as signs and seals that require faith. Sources span the Fathers to the Reformation; traditions are badged, never refereed.
1 Patristic · 2 Catholic · 1 Lutheran · 1 Anglican · 1 Reformed · 1 Orthodox
“This is a great sacrament; but I speak in Christ and in the church.”
“Jesus answered: Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
“And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the justice of the faith, which he had, being uncircumcised; that he might be the father of all them that believe, being uncircumcised, that unto them also it may be reputed to justice:”
“Take away the word, and the water is neither more nor less than water. The word is added to the element, and there results the Sacrament, as if itself also a kind of visible word.”
In his Sentences, Peter Lombard enumerated the seven sacraments — Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Orders, and Matrimony — the reckoning the medieval West received and the Council of Trent later defined.
“We firmly believe and simply confess that there is one only true God, eternal, immeasurable and unchangeable, incomprehensible, almighty and ineffable, Father and Son and Holy Spirit: three Persons indeed, but one essence, substance or nature altogether simple. The Father from none, the Son from the Father alone, and the Holy Spirit equally from both: without beginning, always and without end; the Father begetting, the Son being born, and the Holy Spirit proceeding; consubstantial and coequal and coalmighty and coeternal; one principle of all things; creator of all things visible and invisible, spiritual and corporeal; who by his almighty power from the beginning of time made together out of nothing both orders of creature, the spiritual and the corporeal, that is the angelic and the earthly, and thereafter the human, as it were common to both, composed of spirit and body. For the devil and the other demons were indeed created by God good in their nature, but they made themselves evil of their own doing. Man however sinned at the suggestion of the devil. This Holy Trinity, undivided according to its common essence and distinct according to the properties of the Persons, gave to the human race the doctrine of salvation, first through Moses and the holy Prophets and his other servants, according to the most orderly disposition of the times. And at the last the only-begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, made flesh by the whole Trinity in common, conceived of Mary ever Virgin by the co-operation of the Holy Spirit, made true man, composed of a rational soul and human flesh, one Person in two natures, showed more plainly the way of life. Who, although according to his divinity he is immortal and impassible, the same according to his humanity was made passible and mortal; who also, for the salvation of the human race, having suffered and died upon the wood of the cross, descended to the realms below, rose again from the dead and ascended into heaven — but he descended in the soul and rose again in the flesh, and ascended alike in both — to come at the end of the world, to judge the living and the dead, and to render to each according to his works, to the reprobate as to the elect: who shall all rise again with their own bodies, which they now bear, that they may receive according to their works, whether these have been good or evil; the one everlasting punishment with the devil, and the other everlasting glory with Christ. There is moreover one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved; in which Jesus Christ himself is both priest and sacrifice, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the species of bread and wine, the bread having been transubstantiated into the body and the wine into the blood by divine power, so that, to accomplish the mystery of unity, we ourselves may receive of what is his what he himself received of what is ours. And this sacrament no one at all can confect but a priest who has been rightly ordained according to the keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ himself granted to the Apostles and their successors. But the sacrament of baptism — which is consecrated in water at the invocation of God and the undivided Trinity, namely of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit — rightly conferred by anyone in the form of the Church, profits unto salvation both little ones and adults. And if anyone, after receiving baptism, has fallen into sin, he can always be restored through true penance. Moreover not only virgins and the continent, but also the married, pleasing God by right faith and good works, deserve to come to eternal blessedness.”
“A sacrament, properly speaking, is that which is ordained to signify our sanctification.”
“Whereas in certain parts of the world some rashly presume to assert that the christian people ought to receive the holy sacrament of the Eucharist under both species of bread and wine, and give communion to the lay people everywhere not only under the species of bread but also under the species of wine, and even after supper or otherwise not fasting, and obstinately assert that communion must be given so, against the praiseworthy custom of the Church, reasonably approved, which they try to condemn as sacrilegious: hence it is that this present Council … declares, decrees and defines that, although Christ instituted this venerable sacrament after supper and administered it to his disciples under both species of bread and wine, nevertheless, this notwithstanding, the authority of the sacred canons and the praiseworthy and approved custom of the Church has kept and keeps that this sacrament ought not to be confected after supper, nor received by the faithful when not fasting, except in a case of illness or of other necessity granted or admitted by law or by the Church. And just as this custom was reasonably introduced in order to avoid certain dangers and scandals, so, although in the primitive Church this sacrament was received by the faithful under both species, afterwards it came to be received by those confecting it under both, and by the laity only under the species of bread; since it is to be most firmly believed and in no way doubted that the whole body of Christ and his blood are truly contained under the species of bread as well as under the species of wine. Wherefore to say that to observe this custom or law is sacrilegious or unlawful must be judged erroneous, and those obstinately asserting the opposite of the foregoing are to be restrained as heretics and severely punished by the local diocesan bishops or their officials or by the inquisitors of heretical depravity. …”
“The Sacraments were ordained, not only to be marks of profession among men, but rather to be signs and testimonies of the will of God toward us, instituted to awaken and confirm faith in those who use them.”
Trent opens. Over eighteen years and five popes it answers the Reformers point by point — on Scripture and tradition, justification, the sacraments, the Eucharist, purgatory and the saints.
“If any one saith, that the sacraments of the New Law were not all instituted by Jesus Christ, our Lord; or, that they are more, or less, than seven, to wit, Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Order, and Matrimony; or even that any one of these seven is not truly and properly a sacrament; let him be anathema.”
“There are two Sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel, that is to say, Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord. Those five commonly called Sacraments, that is to say, Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and extreme Unction, are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel.”
“Sacraments are holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace, immediately instituted by God, to represent Christ, and his benefits… There be only two sacraments ordained by Christ our Lord in the Gospel; that is to say, baptism, and the Supper of the Lord.”
“A Mystery or Sacrament is a holy act, through which grace… works mysteriously upon man.”
The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.