X. This reasoning will also serve for a solution of the objections with which some persons are greatly disturbed; that if we attribute to creatures either the increase or confirmation of faith, we derogate from the Spirit of God, whom we ought to acknowledge as its sole Author. For we do not, at the same time, deny him the praise of its confirmation and increase; but we assert that the way in which he increases and confirms our faith is by preparing our minds, by his inward illumination, to receive that confirmation which is proposed in the sacraments. If the way in which this has been expressed be too obscure, it shall be elucidated by the following similitude. If you intend to persuade a person to do a certain act, you will consider all the reasons calculated to draw him over to your opinion, and to constrain him to submit to your advice. But you will make no impression upon him, unless he possess a perspicuous and acute judgment, to be able to determine what force there is in your reasons; unless his mind also be docile, and prepared to listen to instruction; and lastly, unless he have conceived such an opinion of your fidelity and prudence as may prepossess him in favour of your sentiments. For there are many obstinate spirits, never to be moved by any reasons; and where a person’s fidelity is suspected, and his authority despised, little effect will be produced, even with those who are disposed to learn. On the contrary, let all these things be present, and they will insure the acquiescence of the person advised, in those counsels which he would otherwise have derided. This work also the Spirit effects within us. Lest the word should assail our ears in vain,—lest the sacraments should in vain strike our eyes,—he shows us that it is God who addresses us in them; he softens the hardness of our hearts, and forms them to that obedience which is due to the word of the Lord; in fine, he conveys those external words and sacraments from the ears into the soul. Our faith is confirmed, therefore, both by the word and by the sacraments, when they place before our eyes the good-will of our heavenly Father towards us, in the knowledge of which all the firmness of our faith consists, and by which its strength is augmented; the Spirit confirms it, when he makes this confirmation effectual by engraving it on our minds. In the mean time, the Father of lights cannot be prohibited from illuminating our minds by means of the lustre of the sacraments, as he enlightens our bodily eyes with the rays of the sun.
XI. That there is this property in the external word, our Lord has shown in a parable, by calling it “seed.”[[1110]] For as seed, if it fall on a desert and neglected spot of ground, will die without producing any crop, but if it be cast upon a well manured and cultivated field, it brings forth its fruit with an abundant increase,—so the word of God, if it fall upon some stiff neck, will be as unproductive as seed dropped upon the sea-shore; but if it light upon a soul cultivated by the agency of the heavenly Spirit, it will be abundantly fruitful. Now, if the word be justly compared to seed,—as we say that from seed, corn grows, increases, and comes to maturity,—why may we not say that faith derives its commencement, increase, and perfection, from the word of God? Paul, in different places, excellently expresses both these things. For, with a view to recall to the recollection of the Corinthians with what efficacy God had attended his labours, he glories in having the ministry of the Spirit, as if there were an indissoluble connection between his preaching and the power of the Holy Spirit operating to the illumination of their minds, and the excitement of their hearts.[[1111]] But in another place, with a view to apprize them how far the power of the word of God extends, merely as preached by man, he compares ministers to husbandmen; who, when they have employed their labour and industry in cultivating the ground, have nothing more that they can do. But what would ploughing, and sowing, and watering, avail, unless heavenly goodness caused the seed to vegetate? Therefore he concludes, “Neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God, that giveth the increase.”[[1112]] The apostles, then, in their preaching, exerted the power of the Spirit, as far as God made use of the instruments appointed by himself for the exhibition of his spiritual grace. But we must always keep in view this distinction, that we may remember how far the power of man extends, and what is exclusively the work of God.
XII. Now, it is so true that the sacraments are confirmations of our faith, that sometimes, when the Lord intends to take away the confidence of those things which had been promised in the sacraments, he removes the sacraments themselves. When he deprived Adam of the gift of immortality, he expelled him from the garden of Eden, saying, “Lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.”[[1113]] What can be the meaning of this language? Could the fruit restore to Adam the incorruption from which he had now fallen? Certainly not. But it was the same as if the Lord had said, Lest he should cherish a vain confidence, if he retain the symbol of my promise, let him be deprived of that which might give him some hope of immortality. For the same reason, when the apostle exhorts the Ephesians to “remember that” they “were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world,” he states that they were not partakers of circumcision;[[1114]] thereby signifying that not having received the sign of the promise, they were excluded from the promise itself. To the other objection which they make, that the glory of God is transferred to creatures to whom so much power is attributed, and thereby sustains a proportionate diminution, it is easy to answer, that we place no power in creatures; we only maintain that God uses such means and instruments as he sees will be suitable, in order that all things may be subservient to his glory, as he is the Lord and Ruler of all. Therefore, as by bread and other aliments he feeds our bodies, as by the sun he enlightens the world, as by fire he produces warmth,—yet bread, the sun, and fire, are nothing but instruments by which he dispenses his blessings to us,—so he nourishes our faith in a spiritual manner by the sacraments, which are instituted for the purpose of placing his promises before our eyes for our contemplation, and of serving us as pledges of them. And as we ought not to place any confidence in the other creatures, which, by the liberality and beneficence of God, have been destined to our uses, and by whose instrumentality he communicates to us the bounties of his goodness, nor to admire and celebrate them as the causes of our enjoyments,—so neither ought our confidence to rest in the sacraments, or the glory of God to be transferred to them; but, forsaking all other things, both our faith and confession ought to rise to him, the Author of the sacraments and of every other blessing.
XIII. The argument which some persons adduce from the very name of sacrament is destitute of any force;—though the word sacrament has various significations in authors of the first authority, yet it has but one which has any agreement or connection with signs or standards, (signa;) that is, when it denotes the solemn oath taken by a soldier to his commander when he enters on a military life. For as by the military oath new soldiers bind themselves to their commander, and assume the military profession, so by our signs we profess Christ to be our Leader, and declare that we fight under his banners. They add similitudes for the further elucidation of their opinion. As the dress of the Romans, who wore gowns, distinguished them from the Greeks, who wore cloaks; as the different orders among the Romans were distinguished from each other by their respective badges, the senatorial order from the equestrian by purple habits and round shoes, and the equestrian from the plebeian by a ring; as French and English ships of war are known by flags of different colours, the French flags being white and the English red; so we have our signs or badges to distinguish us from unbelievers. But from the observations already made, it is evident that the ancient fathers, who gave our signs the name of sacraments, were not at all guided by the previous use of this word in Latin writers; but that they gave it a new sense for their own convenience, simply denoting sacred signs. And if we wish to carry our researches any further, it may be found that they transferred this name to the signification now given, on the same principle of analogy which induced them to transfer the word faith to the sense in which it is now used. For as faith properly signifies truth in the fulfilment of promises, yet they have applied it to the assurance or certain persuasion which a person has of the truth itself; so, as a sacrament is an oath by which a soldier binds himself to his leader, they have applied it to the sign by which the leader receives soldiers into his army. For by the sacraments the Lord promises that he will be our God, and that we shall be his people. But we pass over such subtleties, as I think I have proved by sufficient arguments that the ancients had no other view, in their application of the word sacrament, than to signify that the ceremonies to which they applied it were signs of holy and spiritual things. We admit the comparison deduced from external badges, but we cannot bear that the last and least use of the sacraments should be represented as their principal and even sole object. The first object of them is, to assist our faith towards God; the second, to testify our confession before men. The similitudes which have been mentioned are applicable to this secondary design, but the primary one ought never to be forgotten; for otherwise, as we have seen, these mysteries would cease to interest us, unless they were aids of our faith, and appendices of doctrine, destined to the same use and end.
XIV. On the other hand, we require to be apprized, that as these persons weaken the force of the sacraments, and entirely subvert their use, so there are others of a contrary party, who attribute to the sacraments I know not what latent virtues, which are nowhere represented as communicated to them by the word of God. By this error the simple and inexperienced are dangerously deceived, being taught to seek the gifts of God where they can never be found, and being gradually drawn away from God to embrace mere vanity instead of his truth. For the sophistical schools have maintained, with one consent, that the sacraments of the new law, or those now used in the Christian Church, justify and confer grace, provided we do not obstruct their operation by any mortal sin. It is impossible to express the pestilent and fatal nature of this opinion, and especially as it has prevailed over a large part of the world, to the great detriment of the Church, for many ages past. Indeed, it is evidently diabolical; for by promising justification without faith, it precipitates souls into destruction: in the next place, by representing the sacraments as the cause of justification, it envelops the minds of men, naturally too much inclined to the earth, in gross superstition, leading them to rest in the exhibition of a corporeal object rather than in God himself. Of these two evils I wish we had not had such ample experience as to supersede the necessity of much proof. What is a sacrament, taken without faith, but the most certain ruin of the Church? For as nothing is to be expected from it, but in consequence of the promise, which denotes God’s wrath against unbelievers as much as it offers his grace to believers,—the person who supposes that the sacraments confer any more upon him than that which is offered by the word of God, and which he receives by a true faith, is greatly deceived. Hence also it may be concluded, that confidence of salvation does not depend on the participation of the sacraments, as though that constituted our justification, which we know to be placed in Christ alone, and to be communicated to us no less by the preaching of the gospel than by the sealing of the sacraments, and that it may be completely enjoyed without this participation. So true is the observation, which has also been made by Augustine, that invisible sanctification may exist without the visible sign, and, on the contrary, that the visible sign may be used without real sanctification. For, as he also writes in another place, “Men put on Christ, sometimes by the reception of a sacrament, sometimes by sanctification of life.” The first case may be common to the good and the bad; the second is peculiar to believers.
XV. Hence that distinction, if it be well understood, which is frequently stated by Augustine, between a sacrament and the matter of a sacrament. For his meaning is, not only that a sacrament contains a figure, and some truth signified by that figure, but that their connection is not such as to render them inseparable from each other; and even when they are united, the thing signified ought always to be distinguished from the sign, that what belongs to the one may not be transferred to the other. He speaks of their separation, when he observes, that “the sacraments produce the effect which they represent, in the elect alone.” Again, when he is speaking of the Jews: “Though the sacraments were common to all, the grace which is the power of the sacrament was not common; so now, also, the washing of regeneration is common to all; but the grace itself, by which the members of Christ are regenerated with their Head, is not common to all.” Again, in another place, speaking of the Lord’s supper: “We also in the present day receive visible meat; but the sacrament is one thing, and the power of the sacrament is another. How is it that many receive of the altar and die, and die in consequence of receiving? For the morsel of bread given by the Lord to Judas was poison; not because Judas received an evil thing, but because, being a wicked man, he received a good thing in a sinful manner.” A little after: “The sacrament of this thing, that is, of the unity of the body and blood of Christ, is prepared on the table of the Lord, in some places daily, in other places on appointed days, at stated intervals of time; and is thence received, by some to life, by others to destruction. But the thing signified by this sacrament is received, not to destruction, but to life, by every one who partakes of it.” He had just before said, “He shall not die, who eats; I refer not to the visible sacrament, but to the power of the sacrament; who eats internally, not externally; he who eats in his heart, not he who presses with his teeth.” In all these passages we find it maintained, that a sacrament is separated from the truth signified in it, by the unworthiness of a person who receives it amiss, so that there is nothing left in it but a vain and useless figure. In order to enjoy the thing signified together with the sign, and not a mere sign destitute of the truth it was intended to convey, it is necessary to apprehend by faith the word which is contained in it. Thus, in proportion to the communion we have with Christ by means of the sacraments, will be the advantage which we shall derive from them.
XVI. If this be obscure in consequence of its brevity, I will explain it more at large. I affirm that Christ is the matter, or substance, of all the sacraments; since they have all their solidity in him, and promise nothing out of him. So much more intolerable is the error of Peter Lombard, who expressly makes them causes of righteousness and salvation, of which they are parts. Leaving all causes, therefore, of human invention, we ought to adhere to this one cause. As far as we are assisted by their instrumentality, to nourish, confirm, and increase our faith in Christ, to obtain a more perfect possession of him and an enjoyment of his riches, so far they are efficacious to us; and this is the case when we receive by true faith that which is offered in them. Do the impious, then, it will be said, by their ingratitude, frustrate the ordinance of God, and cause it to come to nothing? I reply, that what I have said is not to be understood as implying, that the virtue and truth of a sacrament depends on the condition or choice of him who receives it. For what God has instituted continues unshaken, and retains its nature, however men may vary; but as it is one thing to offer, and another to receive, there is no incongruity in maintaining, that a symbol, consecrated by the word of the Lord, is in reality what it is declared to be, and preserves its virtue, and yet that it confers no benefit on a wicked and impious person. But Augustine happily solves this question in a few words: he says, “If thou receive it carnally, still it ceases not to be spiritual; but it is not so to thee.” And, as in the passages already cited, this father shows that the symbol used in a sacrament is of no value, if it be separated from the truth signified by it, so, on the other hand, he states that it is necessary to distinguish them, even where they are united, lest our attention be confined too much to the external sign. “As to follow the letter,” says he, “and to take the signs instead of the things signified, betrays servile weakness, so it is the part of unsteadiness and error to interpret the signs in such a manner as to derive no advantage from them.” He mentions two faults, against which it is necessary to guard. One is, when we take the signs as if they were given in vain, and disparaging or diminishing their secret significations by our perverse misconstruction, exclude ourselves from the advantage which we ought to derive from them. The other is, when, not elevating our minds beyond the visible sign, we transfer to the sacraments the praise of those benefits, which are only conferred upon us by Christ alone, and that by the agency of the Holy Spirit, who makes us partakers of Christ himself, by the instrumentality of the external signs which invite us to Christ, but which cannot be perverted to any other use, without a shameful subversion of all their utility.
XVII. Wherefore let us abide by this conclusion, that the office of the sacraments is precisely the same as that of the word of God; which is to offer and present Christ to us, and in him the treasures of his heavenly grace; but they confer no advantage or profit without being received by faith; just as wine, or oil, or any other liquor, though it be poured plentifully on a vessel, yet will it overflow and be lost, unless the mouth of the vessel be open; and the vessel itself, though wet on the outside, will remain dry and empty within. It is also necessary to guard against being drawn into an error allied to this, from reading the extravagant language used by the fathers with a view to exalt the dignity of the sacraments; lest we should suppose there is some secret power annexed and attached to the sacraments, so that they communicate the grace of the Holy Spirit, just as wine is given in the cup; whereas the only office assigned to them by God, is to testify and confirm his benevolence towards us; nor do they impart any benefit, unless they are accompanied by the Holy Spirit to open our minds and hearts, and render us capable of receiving this testimony: and here, also, several distinct favours of God are eminently displayed. For the sacraments, as we have before hinted, fulfil to us, on the part of God, the same office as messengers of joyful intelligence, or earnests for the confirmation of covenants on the part of men; they communicate no grace from themselves, but announce and show, and, as earnests and pledges, ratify, the things which are given to us by the goodness of God. The Holy Spirit, whom the sacraments do not promiscuously impart to all, but whom God, by a peculiar privilege, confers upon his servants, is he who brings with him the graces of God, who gives the sacraments admission into our hearts, and causes them to bring forth fruit in us. Now, though we do not deny that God himself accompanies his institution by the very present power of his Spirit, that the administration of the sacraments which he has ordained may not be vain and unfruitful, yet we assert the necessity of a separate consideration and contemplation of the internal grace of the Spirit, as it is distinguished from the external ministry. Whatever God promises and adumbrates in signs, therefore, he really performs; and the signs are not without their effect, to prove the veracity and fidelity of their Author. The only question here is, whether God works by a proper and intrinsic power, as it is expressed, or resigns the office to external symbols. Now, we contend, that whatever instruments he employs, this derogates nothing from his supreme operation. When this doctrine is maintained respecting the sacraments, their dignity is sufficiently announced, their use plainly signified, their utility abundantly declared, and a proper moderation is preserved in all these particulars, so that nothing is attributed, which ought not to be attributed to them, and nothing that belongs to them is denied; while there is no admission of that figment, which places the cause of justification and the power of the Spirit in the sacramental elements, as in so many vehicles; and that peculiar power which has been omitted by others is clearly expressed. Here, also, it must be remarked, that God accomplishes within, that which the minister represents and testifies by the external act; that we may not attribute to a mortal man what God challenges exclusively to himself. Augustine has judiciously suggested the same sentiment. “How,” says he, “do Moses and God both sanctify? Not Moses instead of God. Moses does it with visible signs, by his ministry. God does it with invisible grace, by his Holy Spirit. Here also lies all the efficacy of visible sacraments. For what avail those visible sacraments without that sanctification of invisible grace?”
XVIII. The term sacrament, as we have hitherto treated of its nature, comprehends generally all the signs which God has ever given to men, to certify and assure them of the truth of his promises. These he has been pleased to place in natural things, and sometimes to exhibit in miracles. Examples of the former kind are such as these: when he gave Adam and Eve the tree of life, as a pledge of immortality, which they might assure themselves of enjoying as long as they should eat of the fruit of that tree;[[1115]] and when he “set” his “bow in the cloud,” as a token to Noah and his posterity, that there should “no more be a flood to destroy the earth.”[[1116]] These Adam and Noah had as sacraments. Not that the tree would actually communicate immortality to them, which it could not give to itself; or that the rainbow, which is merely a refraction of the rays of the sun on the opposite clouds, would have any efficacy in restraining the waters; but because they had a mark impressed upon them by the word of God, constituting them signs and seals of his covenants. The tree and the rainbow both existed before, but when they were inscribed with the word of God, they were endued with a new form, so that they began to be something that they were not before. And that no one may suppose this to be spoken in vain, the bow itself continues to be a witness to us in the present age, of that covenant which God made with Noah: whenever we behold it, we read this promise of God in it, that he would never more destroy the earth with a flood. Therefore, if any smatterer in philosophy, with a view to ridicule the simplicity of our faith, contend that such a variety of colours is the natural result of the refraction of the solar rays on an opposite cloud, we must immediately acknowledge it, but we may smile at his stupidity in not acknowledging God as the Lord and Governor of nature, who uses all the elements according to his will for the promotion of his own glory. And if he had impressed similar characters on the sun, on the stars, on the earth, and on stones, they would all have been sacraments to us. Why is not silver of as much value before it is coined, as it is after, since the metal is the very same? The reason is, that it has nothing added to its natural state; stamped with a public impression, it becomes money, and receives a new valuation. And shall not God be able to mark his creatures with his word, that they may become sacraments, though before they were mere elements? Examples of the second kind were exhibited, when God showed Abraham “a smoking furnace and a burning lamp;”[[1117]] when he watered the fleece with dew while the earth remained dry, and afterwards bedewed the earth without wetting the fleece, to promise victory to Gideon;[[1118]] when “he brought the shadow ten degrees backward in the dial,”[[1119]] to promise recovery to Hezekiah. As these things were done to support and establish the weakness of their faith, they also were sacraments.
XIX. But our present design is to treat particularly of those sacraments which the Lord has appointed to be ordinarily used in his Church, to keep his worshippers and servants in one faith and in the confession of the same. “For,” to use the language of Augustine, “men cannot be united in any profession of religion, whether true or false, unless they are connected by some communion of visible signs or sacraments.” Our most merciful Father, therefore, foreseeing this necessity, did, from the beginning, institute for his servants certain exercises of piety, which Satan afterwards depraved and corrupted in a variety of ways, transferring them to impious and idolatrous worship. Hence those initiations of the heathen into their mysteries, and the rest of their degenerate rites, which, though fraught with error and superstition, at the same time furnish an evidence that such external signs are indispensable to a profession of religion. But as they were neither founded on the word of God, nor referred to that truth which ought to be the object of all religious emblems, they are unworthy of notice, where mention is made of the sacred symbols which have been instituted by God, and which have never been perverted from their original principle, which constitutes them aids of true piety. Now, they consist not of mere signs, like the rainbow and the tree of life, but in ceremonies; or, rather, the signs which are here given are ceremonies. And, as we have before observed, as they are testimonies of grace and salvation on the part of the Lord, so on our part they are badges of our profession, by which we publicly devote ourselves to God, and swear obedience and fidelity to him. Chrysostom, therefore, somewhere properly calls them compacts, by which God covenants with us, and we bind ourselves to purity and sanctity of life; because a mutual stipulation is made in them between God and us. For as the Lord promises to obliterate and efface all the guilt and punishment that we have incurred by sin, and reconciles us to himself in his only begotten Son, so we, on our parts, by this profession, bind ourselves to him, to serve him in piety and innocence of life; so that such sacraments may justly be described as ceremonies by which God is pleased to exercise his people, in the first place, to nourish, excite, and confirm faith in their hearts; and in the next place, to testify their religion before men.