THe sacraments haue no power to giue or conferre grace to the receiuer: neither are they immediate instruments of our iustification: instrumentall meanes they are to encrease and confirme our faith in the promises of God: of themselues they haue no operation, but as the spirit of God worketh by them, our internall senses being moued and quickened by those externall obiects. Neither doe we say, that the sacraments are bare and naked signes of spirituall graces: but they doe verily exhibite and represent Christ to as many, as by faith are able and meete to apprehend him. So to conclude: looke how the word of God worketh being preached, so doe the sacraments: but the word doth no o∣therwise iustifie vs, but by working faith at the hearing thereof: So sacraments doe serue for the encrease of our faith: faith is not a seruant and handmaide to the sacraments, (as the Iesuite declared by the homely similitude of the fire and drie wood) but faith is the more principall, and the sacraments haue no other vse or end, then as they are helpes for the strengthening of our faith. Grace of themselues they can giue or conferre none.
Argum. 1. Rom. 1.17. The iust shall liue by faith: Ergo, he liueth not, that is, he is not iustified by any worke wrought, as by the sacraments, but onely by faith: faith therefore giueth life and efficacie to the sacramentes, it is not con∣tained absolutely in themselues. Againe, Saint Paul saith, That faith was impu∣ted to Abraham for righteousnes, before he was circumcised, Rom. 4.10. Ergo, he was not iustified by circumcision: no more are we by the sacraments: but both he and we are iustified onely by faith.
Argum. 2. Saint Peter sayth, Baptisme saueth vs, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but in that a good conscience maketh request vnto God, by the resurrection of Christ, 1. Pet. 3.21. Ergo, it is faith in the resurrection of Christ, which worketh in vs peace of conscience, and not the outward washing, that sa∣ueth or iustifieth, Kemnitij argum.
Augustine thus writeth: Aliud est aqua sacramenti, aliud aqua,* 1.1 quae significat spiritum dei: ista visibilis est, & abluit corpus, & significat, quid fit in anima, per illum spiritum anima mundatur & saginatur. The water of the Sacrament is one thing, the water which signifieth the spirit is another: the one is visible, and washeth the flesh, and signifieth what is done in the soule: but by the spirit the soule is cleansed. The Sacrament of Baptisme then, by this fathers sentence, and so all other sacraments, doe not giue grace, but signifie onely and represent grace.