Zwinglian and Remonstrant Doctrine.
According to the doctrine of Zwingle afterwards adopted by the Remonstrants, the sacraments are not properly “means of grace.” They were not ordained to signify, seal, and apply to believers the benefits of Christ’s redemption. They were indeed intended to be significant emblems of the great truths of the Gospel. Baptism was intended to teach the necessity of the soul’s being cleansed from guilt by the blood of Christ and purified from the pollution of sin by the renewing of the Holy Ghost. They were further designed to be perpetual memorials of the work of redemption, and especially to be the means by which men should, in the sight of the Church and of the world, profess themselves to be Christians. As a heathen, when he desired to be admitted into the commonwealth of Israel, received circumcision, which was the divinely appointed seal of the Abrahamic covenant, so participation in the Christian sacraments was the appointed means for the public profession of faith in Christ. Paul presents the matter in this light in 1 Corinthians x. 15-22, where he argues that participation in the sacred rites of a religion involves a profession of that religion, whether it be Christian, Jewish, or heathen. The sacraments, therefore, are “badges of Christian men’s profession.” This doctrine, however, attributes to them no other than what Zwingle calls in the passage above quoted, “an objective power;” that is, the objective presentation of the truth which they signify to the mind.
“Ex quibus hoc colligitur sacramenta dari in testimonium publicum ejus gratiæ, quæ cuique privato prius adest… . . Ob hanc causam sacramenta, quæ sacræ sunt cerimoniæ (accedit enim verbum ad elementum et fit sacramentum), religiose colenda, hoc est in precio habenda, et honorifice tractanda sunt, ut enim gratiam facere non possunt, Ecclesiæ tamen nos visibiliter sociant, qui prius invisibiliter sumus in illam recepti, quod cum simul cum promissionis divinæ verbis in ipsorum actione pronunciatur ac promulgatur, summa religione suscipiendum est.”1 In his treatise on true and false religion, Zwingle says: “Impossibile est, ut res aliqua externa fidem hominis internam confirmet et stabiliat.”2 And again he says3 that the sacraments as other memorials can only produce historical, but not religious faith. Zwingle in the use of such language, had doubtless more a negative, than an affirmative object before his mind. He was more intent on denying the Romish doctrine of the inherent power of the sacraments, than of asserting anything of their real efficacy. Nevertheless it is true that Zwingle has ever been regarded as holding the lowest doctrine concerning the sacraments of any of the Reformers. They were to him no more means of grace than the rainbow or the heaps of stone on the banks of the Jordan. By their significancy and by association they might suggest truth and awaken feeling, but they were not channels of divine communication.
Doctrine of the Reformed Church.
The first point clearly taught on this subject in the Symbols of the Reformed Church is that the sacraments are real means of grace, that is, means appointed and employed by Christ for conveying the benefits of his redemption to his people. They are not, as Romanists teach, the exclusive channels; but they are channels. A promise is made to those who rightly receive the sacraments that they shall thereby and therein be made partakers of the blessings of which the sacraments are the divinely appointed signs and seals. The word grace, when we speak of the means of grace, includes three things. 1st. An unmerited gift, such as the remission of sin. 2d. The supernatural influence of the Holy Spirit. 3d. The subjective effects of that influence on the soul. Faith, hope, and charity, for example, are graces.
The second point in the Reformed doctrine on the sacraments concerns the source of their power. On this subject it is taught negatively that the virtue is not in them. The word virtue is of course here used in its Latin sense for power or efficiency. What is denied is that the sacraments are the efficient cause of the gracious effects which they produce. The efficiency does not reside in the elements, in the water used in baptism, or in the bread and wine used in the Lord’s Supper. It is not in the sacramental actions; either in giving, or in receiving the consecrated elements. Neither does the virtue or efficiency due to sacraments reside in, or flow from the person by whom they are administered. It does not reside in his office. There is no supernatural power in the man, in virtue of his office, to render the sacraments effectual. Nor does their efficiency depend on the character of the administrator in the sight of God; nor upon his intention; that is, his purpose to render them effectual. The man who administers the sacraments is not a worker of miracles. The Apostles and others at that time in the Church, were endued with supernatural power; and they had to will to exercise it in order to its producing its legitimate effect. It is not so with the officers of the Church in the administration of the sacraments. The affirmative statement on this subject is, that the efficacy of the sacraments is due solely to the blessing of Christ and the working of his Spirit. The Spirit, it is to be ever remembered, is a personal agent who works when and how He will. God has promised that his Spirit shall attend his Word; and He thus renders it an effectual means for the sanctification of his people. So He has promised, through the attending operation of his Spirit, to render the sacraments effectual to the same end.