We said[131] that there is in every sacrament a word of divine promise, to be believed by whoever receives the sign, and that the sign alone cannot be a sacrament. Now we read nowhere that the man who marries a wife receives any grace of God. Nay, there is not even a divinely instituted sign in marriage, for nowhere do we read that marriage was instituted by God to be a sign of anything. To be sure, whatever takes place in a visible manner may be regarded as a type or figure of something invisible; but types and figures are not sacraments in the sense in which we use this term. Furthermore, since marriage existed from the beginning of the world and is still found among unbelievers, it cannot possibly be called a sacrament of the New Law and the exclusive possession of the Church. The marriages of the ancients were no less sacred than are ours, nor are those of unbelievers less true marriages than those of believers, and yet they are not regarded as sacraments. Besides, there are even among believers married folk who are wicked and worse than any heathen; why should marriage be called a sacrament in their case and not among the heathen? Or are we going to prate so foolishly of baptism and the Church as to hold that marriage is a sacrament only in the Church, just as some make the mad claim that temporal power exists only in the Church? That is childish and foolish talk, by which we expose our ignorance and our arrogance to the ridicule of unbelievers. But they will say: The Apostle writes in Ephesians v, "They shall be two in one flesh. This is a great sacrament." [Eph. 5:31 f.] Surely you are not going to contradict so plain a statement of the Apostle! I reply: This argument, like the others, betrays great shallowness and a negligent and thoughtless reading of Scripture. Nowhere in Holy Scripture is this word sacrament employed in the meaning to which we are accustomed; it has an entirely different meaning. For wherever it occurs it signifies not the sign of a sacred thing, but a sacred, secret, hidden thing. Thus Paul writes in i Corinthians iv, "Let a man so account of us as the ministers of Christ, and dispensers of the mysteries[132]--i. e., sacraments--of God." [1 Cor. 4:1] Where we have the word _sacrament_ the Greek text reads _mystery_, which word our version sometimes translates and sometimes retains in its Greek form. Thus our verse reads in the Greek: "They shall be two in one flesh; this is a great _mystery_." [Eph. 5:31] This explains how they came to find a sacrament of the New Law here--a thing they would never have done if they had read the word _mystery_, as it is in the Greek[133]. Thus Christ Himself is called a sacrament in I Timothy iii, "And evidently great is the sacrament--i. e., mystery--of godliness, which was manifested in the flesh, was justified in the spirit, appeared unto angels, hath been preached unto the Gentiles, is believed by the world, is taken up in glory."[1 Tim. 3:16][134] Why have they not