# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 04 15_S135
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

135

European physician necessary, then because there is now war in that country, and the example of our nations has made the savages almost as wicked as we ourselves are. I confine myself to living as a peaceable savage in the solitary region neighboring your fatherland." — As it appears, our local "Free Men," as regards practice, agree on this point with Mr. Voltaire, against which we also have absolutely nothing to object, since it would hardly be practicable to move all the world to return to the original, natural posture of their bodies, and it would surely produce many abuses in trade and traffic if the "Free" wished to distinguish themselves from the unfree people in this way, that the former, turned toward Mother Earth, and the latter, turned toward the stars, should wish to wander through this life.

(Submitted.)

Of the Holy Sacraments.

Mr. Nast opens No. 13 of this year's Apologete, in an article with the heading: "Have the Sacraments a power in themselves saving?" a combat against the "Formalists." These "Formalists" he describes as such people as put the Sacraments of the New Covenant in the place of the grace of God or of a saving faith in Christ, yea, even in the place of the Holy Ghost. Thereby the "Formalists" indeed bring a dreadful confusion into the Christian doctrine, a confusion which the Evangelical Lutheran Church has constantly rejected in the most decided manner. We confess indeed according to the Holy Scripture that God, that the righteousness and the sufferings of Christ, that the holy Sacraments, that faith, make blessed; but we put none of these things in the place of another, but leave them in the order of Scripture. God is the chief cause (causa principalis), which makes us blessed; the righteousness and the sufferings of Christ is the meritorious cause causa meritoria), for whose sake God makes us blessed; the holy Sacraments are the means-causes on God's part (causae instrumentales ex parte Dei), whereby God makes us blessed; faith is the means-cause on the part of man (causa instrumentalis ex parte hominis), whereby man is made blessed.

Let us hear a clear testimony hereupon from our dear Chemnitz. The same says in the second part of his Examination of the Decrees of the Council of Trent, in the chapter on the efficacy and use of the Sacraments, p. 19: "The explanation is not obscure and not difficult, if one only makes that necessary distinction, in how far God imparts grace and in how far the Sacraments do not impart grace. God the Father hath reconciled the world unto himself, and receiveth the believers to grace, in that He imputeth not to them their sins. To be sure, the Sacraments do not impart grace in the manner in which God the Father Himself does. Christ is our peace, Eph. 2. The death of Christ is our reconciliation. In His blood we are justified, Rom. 5. The blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin, 1 John 1. He was raised again for our justification, Rom. 4. Also in this manner baptism certainly does not cleanse from sins as Christ Himself does. The peculiar efficacy of the Holy Ghost consists in the presentation and appropriation of grace. Neither may the Sacraments certainly be put on a level with the Holy Ghost, so that one should believe they imparted grace in the like and altogether the same manner as the Holy Ghost Himself. But shall one therefore ascribe nothing at all to the Sacraments? Certainly, shortly before, it has been stated in the words of Holy Scripture itself what the passages of Scripture ascribe to the Sacraments. But one must guard himself carefully and diligently, lest, when one treats of the power and efficacy of the Sacraments, one take that which belongs to the grace of the Father, the efficacy of the Holy Ghost, and the merit of God the Son, from God, and transfer it to the Sacraments; for that would be the sin of idolatry: neither may one add the Sacraments to the merit of Christ, the grace of the Father, and the efficacy of the Holy Ghost, as co-operating or partial causes: for that would be the same sin. For there is none other name given among men, etc., Acts 4, etc. As, therefore, the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth: not because some magical power attached to the letters, the syllables, and the sound of the words, but because it is the means, organ, or instrument through which the Holy Ghost is efficacious, in that He presents, offers, reaches forth, distributes, and appropriates to all believers, unto salvation, the merit of Christ and the grace of God: so also a power or efficacy is ascribed to the Sacraments: not because in the Sacraments, apart from or beside the merit of Christ, the mercy of the Father, and the efficacy of the Holy Ghost, a grace unto salvation were to be sought: but the Sacraments are means-causes, so that the Father, through those means or instruments, will reach forth, bestow, appropriate His grace; the Son impart His merit to the believers; the Holy Ghost exercise His efficacy upon all believers unto salvation. In this manner God keeps His honor, that grace is not sought elsewhere than with God the Father; that the treasure or cause of the forgiveness of sins and eternal life is not sought elsewhere than in the death and resurrection of Christ, and that the working of regeneration unto salvation is not sought elsewhere than in the activity of the Holy Ghost. But the Sacraments are those which set before us in the Word, bring, reach forth, and seal those benefits: and so they lead us to Christ, to the grace of God, to the efficacy of the Holy Ghost. For since God in respect of our salvation will deal with us by certain means, He has Himself appointed this usage and instituted the word of promise of the Gospel, which is sometimes set forth simply by itself or bare, but sometimes clothed or made visible through certain actions or Sacraments instituted by God. Word and Sacrament therefore show us where faith must seek and where it can find Christ the Mediator, the Father, and the Holy Ghost, so that they deal with us, reach forth, appropriate, and seal to us the goods which Christ has merited for us and of which the Gospel speaks. And in the use of the Sacraments faith seeks or beholds not an essential power or efficacy which should cleave to the outward elements of the Sacraments themselves: but in the promise which is annexed to the Sacrament it seeks, lays hold of, and receives the grace of the Father, the merit of the Son, and the efficacy of the Holy Ghost." Thus far Chemnitz.

By no means, then, do we deify the Sacraments, by no means do we ascribe to them such properties, works, and honors as belong to God alone, by no means do we put them in the place of the Holy Ghost. With the whole Christian Church we give to the Holy Ghost His honor, in that we confess that He is true God, and indeed the third Person of the Godhead, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son from eternity. To the Holy Ghost we ascribe, according to the Word of God, the work of sanctification; it is He who regenerates us, converts, enlightens, quickens, renews, and glorifies us, that we become children of God the Father, brethren of the Lord Christ, temples of the Holy Ghost, and heirs of eternal life. He who hath not the Holy Ghost cannot be saved, for God's Word saith, Rom. 8, 9: If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. Only through the efficacy of the Holy Ghost can a man come to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, 1 Cor. 12, 3: No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. All which we confess, according to the Word of God, in our Small Catechism: I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to Him, but the Holy Ghost hath called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith, etc.

But the greatest perversity it would be, if one wished to exalt the honor of the Holy Ghost by taking from the Sacraments all that God Himself ascribes to them, and disgracing and blaspheming them as mere, empty, outward signs and ceremonies. The only right course is rather that we abide childlike by the Word of God and ascribe to the Sacraments neither more nor less than what God Himself ascribes to them. Now speaketh