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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." (t) 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: (v) 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 body, 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

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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 sacra ments, 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 pursuasion 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 subtilties, 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 apprised, 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 envelopes 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 the faithful; 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 sacra ments, 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 the faithful.

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 at 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 VOL. III. 2 R

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