A Treatise on the Sacraments of Baptism, And, the Lord's Supper PDF

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Promises, not that they, but we, stood in need afean firmation by such means. - Now, of this definition which we have set, we understand that a sacrament is never without We it, but rather IS a Jome as aeertam addition annexe - (tm it, to this end, that it should confirm and seal the promise itself, and make it more approved unto us, yea, after a certain manner ratified.

Tich mean the Lord foreseeth to be needful, first for our ignorance and dulness, and then for our weakness; and yet, to speak properly, not so much to confirm his holy word, as to stablish us in the faith thereof.

For the truth of God is by itself sound and certain enough, and cannot, from any other where, receive better confirmation than from itself.

But our faith, as it is small and weak, unless it he stayed on every side, and be by all means upholden, is by and by shaken, wavereth, staggereth, yea, and fainteth. And herein, verily, the merciful Lord, according to his great tender kindness, tempereth himself to our capacity; that, whereas we are natural men, who always creeping upon the ground, and sticking fast in the flesh, do not think, nor so much as conceive, any spiritual thing, he vouchsafeth even by these earthly elements to guide us unto himself, and in the flesh itself to set forth a mirror of spiritual good things.

For if we were un bodily, as Chrysostome saith, he would have given us the very same things naked and unbodily. (ham. 60. Ad papal.) Now, because we have souls put within bodies, he giveth spiritual things under visible things.

Not because there are such gifts planted in the natures of the things which are set forth to us in the sacra ments, but because they were signed by God to this signification. 4. With the Sacraments the Word ofpromise to be joined, not as they join it in the Church of Rome.