the Atonement sufficient grace is given to every soul for its salvation; but grace, though sufficient, if neglected, becomes of no avail" (p. 82)." “Тһе In- carnation and the Atonement affected humanity as a race only.” Some means, therefore, was needed to transmit the priceless gifts which flowed from them to the individuals of which the race was comprised, not only at the time when our Lord was on earth, but to the end of the world. For this need, therefore, our Lord founded the Church" (p. 88). “Thus the Church became the living agent by which the graces and blessings, which flowed from Christ were dis- pensed to each individual soul which would appropriate them" (p. 84). “Тһе Church claims not only to be the teacher of the truth and the guide in morals, but
. . the dispenser of that grace which enables us to fulfil her laws" (p. 100), “the dispenser of that grace which alone can enable man to believe what is true, to do what is right, and to attain his true end, to serve God acceptably here, and to live with God happily hereafter" (p. 114). “The chief means of grace are the Sacraments” (p. 120). “Тһеу are the channels by which the spiritual gift is conveyed to our souls. . . . The Christian Sacraments, therefore, do not merely signify grace; they actually confer it. Hence they are called ‘effectual’ signs of grace. Their action is ex opere operaio" (p. 122). “Baptism is absolutely necessary to salvation, for a person can have no life who has not been born. This is called the 'necessitas medii, since Baptism is the means by
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which the supernatural life is given to the soul and the individual is incorporated into Christ." “Without the help of (the Eucharist), salvation would be so difficult to attain as to be practically impossible" (p. 127). Here obviously is as express a sacerdotalism as that of the Church of Rome itself, from which, indeed, it has been simply borrowed. The Church has completely taken the place of the Spirit of God as the proximate source of grace, and the action of the divine Spirit in applying salvation is postponed to and made sub- ject to the operations of the Church through its ordinances. Thus the soul is removed from immediate dependence on God and taught rather to come to the Church and to expect all endowments of grace directly from it.
A modified and much milder form of sacerdotalism is inherent in Confessional Lutheranism, and is con- tinually rising to more or less prominence in certain phases of Lutheran thought, thus creating a high- church party in the Lutheran Church also. It has been the boast of Lutheranism that it represents, in distinction from Calvinism, a “conservative reforma- tion.” ® The boast is justified, as on other grounds, so also on this, that it has incorporated into its con- fessional system the essence of the sacerdotalism which characterized the teaching of the old church. Confessional Lutheranism, like Romanism, teaches that the grace of salvation is conveyed to men in the means of grace, otherwise not. But it makes certain modifications in the sacerdotal teaching which it took
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over from the old Church, and these modifications are of such a far-reaching character as to transform the whole system. We do not commonly hear in Lutheran sacerdotalism much of “the Church,” which is the very cor cordis of Roman sacerdotalism: what we hear of instead is “the means of grace." Among these “means of grace" the main stress is not laid upon the sacraments, but on ‘‘the Word," which is defined as the chief “means of grace." And the means of grace are not represented as acting ex opere operato, but it is constantly declared that they are effective only to faith. I do not say the scheme is a consistent one: in point of fact it is honeycombed with incon- sistencies. But it remains sufficiently sacerdotal to confine the activities of saving grace to the means of grace, that is to say, to the Word and sacraments, and thus to interpose the means of grace between the sin- ner and his God. The central evil of sacerdotalism is therefore present in this scheme in its full mani- festation, and wherever it is fully operative we find men exalting the means of grace and more or less for- getting the true agent of all gracious operations, the Holy Spirit himself, in their absorption with the in- strumentalities through which alone he is supposed to work. It is in a truly religious interest, therefore, that the Reformed, as over against the Lutherans, in- sist with energy that, important as are the means of grace, and honored as they must be by us because honored by God the Holy Spirit as the instruments by and through which he works grace in the hearts [80]
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of men, yet after all the grace which he works by and through them he works himself not out of them but immediately out of himself, extrinsecus accedens.