# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1857_S9
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

On the Efficacy of the Sacraments.                    9

of Scripture is plainly evident from Mark 16:16 and Acts 8:36-37, where for the right, blessed use of baptism faith is expressly required. But what holds of baptism naturally also holds of the holy Supper, since it stands in exactly the same relation to the Word of the gospel; compare 1 Corinthians 11:29. — Of the many testimonies of our faithful fathers which we could adduce here, we wish, besides the words of the Catechism on the benefit of baptism — "it (baptism) works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe, as the words and promise of God declare" — to cite only one, the glorious testimony from Chemnitz's Examen Concilii Tridentini, which follows immediately after the words cited above:

"Now as the gospel is a power of God to save all who believe on it — not that any magical power adheres to the letters, syllables, or the sound of the words, but because it is the means, instrument, or tool by which the Holy Spirit is effective, in that he presents, offers, extends, distributes, and imparts the merit of Christ and the grace of God unto the salvation of all who believe on it — so also a power or efficacy is attributed to the sacraments; not that in the sacraments, apart from and above the merit of Christ, the mercy of the Father, and the working of the Holy Spirit, grace unto salvation is to be sought; but rather the sacraments are intermediate causes, such that through these means or instruments the Father wills to extend and bestow his grace and to impart it, the Son to communicate his merit to believers, the Holy Spirit to exercise his power, unto the salvation of all who believe. In this way God retains his honor, in that grace is not sought anywhere else than with God the Father; the price or the cause of the forgiveness of sins and of eternal life nowhere else than in the death and resurrection of Christ; the power of regeneration unto salvation nowhere else than in the working of the Holy Spirit. But the sacraments hold out to us those benefits in the Word, offer them to us, extend them, seal them, and so lead us to Christ, to the grace of God, to the power of the Spirit. For because God wills to deal with us in the things that concern our salvation by means of certain instruments, he has both ordained this practice itself and also appointed the word of promise of the gospel to this end — a word which is sometimes conveyed by itself alone and simply proclaimed, sometimes, however, clothed or made visible through certain rites or sacraments instituted by God. The Word, then, and the sacraments show us where faith should seek, and where it may find Christ the Mediator, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, so that these deal with us, hold out to us, impart, and seal the benefits which Christ has earned and which the gospel preaches. And in the use of the sacraments, faith seeks and looks to no essential power or efficacy that