All the Reformers taught that the efficacy of the sacraments depends on the promise of Christ contained in their institution, and they insisted that word and sacrament must always be taken together.
Thus Luther points out in the Babylonish Captivity of the Church, that one objection to the Romish practice is that the recipients ' never hear the words of the promise which are secretly mumbled by the priest,' and exhorts his readers never to lose sight of the all-imijortant connexion between the word of promise and the sacraments ; and in his Large Catechism he declares that the sacraments include the word. ' I exhort you,' he says, 'never to sunder the Word and the water, or to separate them. For where the Word is withheld we have only
such water as the maid uses to cools with.' The Augsburg Confession says, ' The sacraments are effectual by reason of the institution and commandment of Christ.' Non-Lutheran Con- fessions are equally decided on the necessity of connecting the promise and the words of Christ with the sacraments. The Second Helvetic Confession says, ' There remains efficacious in the Church of God, Christ's primal institution and consecration of the sacraments, so that those who celebrate the sacrament, not otherwise than the Lord instituted it at the beginning, enjoy even now that primal most glorious consecration of all. And therefore, in the celebration of the sacraments the very words of Christ are recited.' The Thirty-nine Articles declare that the sacraments are effectual because of 'Christ's insti- tution and promise.' The Heidelberg or Palatine Catechism of 1563 says that the sacraments |are holy and visible signs ordained of God to the end that He might thereby the more fully declare and seal unto us the promise of the Holy Gospel.'
Further, against the Roman doctrine of sacramental grace we have these Reformation statements. In the articles. of the Bern Synod (1532) we are told that the sacraments are mysteries of God, 'through which, from without, Christ is proffered to believers.' The First Helvetic Confession (1536) sa3's, concern- ing the Holy Supper, ' We hold that in the same the Lord truly offers His Body and His Blood, that is, Himself, to His own.' The Second Helvetic Confession (1562) declares that ' the Body of Christ is in heaven at the right hand of the Father,' and enjoins communicants ' to lift up their hearts and not to direct them downwards to the bread. For as the sun, though absent from us in the heaven, is none the less efficaciously present ... so much more the Sun of righteousness, absent from us in the heavens in His Body, is present to us not indeed corporeally, but spiritually by a life-giving activity.' The French Con- fession of 1557 says that the sacraments are pledges and seals, and adds, ' Yet we hold that their substance and truth is in Jesus Christ.' So the Scots Confession of 1560 declares that ' we assuredlie beleeve that be Baptisme we ar ingrafted in Christ Jesus to be made partakers of His justice, be quhilk our sinnes ar covered and remitted. And alswa, that in the Supper richtlie used, Christ Jesus is so joined with us, that Hee be cummis very nurishment and fude of our saules.' In the Manner of the Administration of the Lord's Supper the Scottish Reformation Church directed the minister in his exhortation to say to the people : ' The end of our coming to the Lord's Table ... is to seek our life and perfection in Jesus Christ, acknowledging ourselves at the same time to be .children of wrath and condemnation. Let us consider then that this sacrament is a singular medicine for all poor sick creatures, a comfortable help to weak souls, and that our Lord requireth no other worthiness on our part, but that we un- feignedly acknowledge our naughtiness and imperfection.'
The Reformation was a revolt from a system which removed God far from the common man's understanding by means of metaphysical specu- lations, and brought Him near only in super- stitious and materialistic ways, through sacraments and priests. It was seen again that in Christ God had come close to the ordinary believer, and the appeal to religious experience proved that alike in prayer, in worship, and in teaching, Christ filled the whole sphere of God. Jesus was God appearing in history and addressing man.
Literature. — Luther, Opera, 2nd Erlangen ed. ; Calvin, Opera Omnia {Corpus Reformatorum), 1893 ff. ; John Knox, Works, ed. D. Laing, 1846-64 ; Lindsay, History of the Re- formation, vol. i. 1906, vol. ii. 1907; E. Doumergue, Jean Calvin, 1899 ff. ; Th. Harnack, Luther's Theologie, vol. i. 1862, vol. ii. 1886 ; Kostlin, Luther's Theologie, 2nd ed. 1901 ; Miiller, Die Bekenntnisschriften der reformirten Eirche, 1903 ; Schaff, History of the Creeds of Christendom, 1877 ; and the standard works on the History of Dogma and on Christology.
Thomas M. Lindsay. CHRIST IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
— The 17th cent, is the age of Protestant scholasti- cism. A strong Catholic reaction had set in, which weighed on the minds of the defenders of the Protestant faith, and shackled the freedom of theological thought. In their treatment of the Christological problem, both Lutheran and Re- formed theologians clung fervently to the traditions of the past, and to the Confessional theology of the previous century. The main results were re- garded as finally attained ; and while the religious motive was not wanting, the genial spirit that had guided Luther in his most surprising paradoxes was now weighed down by the love of system and scholastic disputation. Instead of reconsidering the first principles involved, the orthodox theo- logians wasted their ingenuity in inventing distinc- tions to conceal the most obvious doctrinal incon- sistencies.