# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1857_S15
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

On the Working of the Sacraments.                                    15

"...of sins and of eternal blessedness. Thus there is required not only God, who bestows it, the sacraments through which He bestows it, and the Christian, who receives it, but also faith, which lays hold of it." —

Let us therefore, in the face of such a clear, plain, certain, and manifoldly attested truth, remain confidently and unshakenly by the conclusion of our precious Apology, in the chapter "Of the Sacraments and Their Right Use," which reads thus:

"Here we must freely condemn the whole crowd of the scholastici and censure their error, in that they teach that those who use the sacraments outwardly, if they do not place an obstacle (obicem), obtain God's grace ex opere operato, even though the heart at that time has no good thought. But this is downright a Jewish error, in that they hold that we should become righteous and holy through a work and outward ceremonies without faith, even when the heart is not present in it at all; and yet this harmful doctrine is preached and taught far and wide, throughout and everywhere in the whole realm of the Pope and the churches of the Pope. Paul cries out against this and says that Abraham was made righteous before God not through circumcision, but that circumcision was a sign given to exercise and strengthen faith. Therefore we also say that faith belongs to the right use of the sacraments — faith which believes the divine promise and receives the promised grace which is offered through the sacrament and the word. And this is a certain, right use of the holy sacrament, on which a heart and a conscience may venture and rely. For no one can grasp the divine promise except through faith alone. And the sacraments are outward signs and seals of the promise. Therefore faith belongs to the right use of the same. As when I receive the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, Christ says plainly: "This is the New Testament." Then I am to believe with certainty that grace and forgiveness of sin, which is promised in the new testament, comes to me. And this I am to receive in faith, and therewith comfort my terrified, timid conscience, and stand assured upon it that God's Word and promise do not fail, but are as certain, and even more certain, than if God let a new voice or a new miraculous sign be given me from heaven, whereby grace would be promised to me. But what would miraculous signs help, if faith were not present? And here we speak of the faith by which I myself believe with certainty, for myself, that my sins are forgiven me — not merely of the fides generalis, by which I believe that there is a God. That same right use of the sacrament truly comforts and refreshes the conscience. — But as for the ugly, shameful, ungodly doctrine of the opere operato, in which they teach that when I use the sacrament, the deed performed makes me righteous before God and obtains grace for me, even though the heart has no good thought toward it — introduced as an abuse and an error — no one can sufficiently consider, wri-