# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1860_S293
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Old Testimonies against New Errors concerning the Effect etc. 293

...always seeks the supports of the senses. Moreover, faith too, even when it holds that the promise of God is in general true, is nevertheless troubled, in particular, over the question: does it also concern me, for my own person? Therefore God, who is rich in mercy, in order to show and commend to us the riches of his goodness, has willed to impart his grace to us not in one way alone, namely through the bare word, but has willed to come to the aid of our weakness by certain means, namely through the institution of the sacraments, which are bound to the promises of the gospel — that is, certain signs, rites, or ceremonies, which fall under the senses, in order to remind and instruct us, and to assure us, that what we see enacted outwardly in visible form is wrought inwardly by God's power and might; for as the word falls upon the ears and strikes the heart, so the ceremony of the sacraments falls upon the eyes, to move the heart, that it doubt not that God deals with us and wills to work effectually in us according to the word, unto salvation.. God has therefore instituted the sacraments, that they might be outward and visible signs and pledges of the grace and will of God toward us, by which he testifies, as by a solemn and visible witness, that the promise pertains to each individual who lays hold of it in the use of the sacraments.. It is, however, not one grace that is imparted in the word of promise and another that is imparted in the sacraments; nor is it one promise in the word of the gospel and another in the sacraments. Rather it is one and the same grace, one and the same word, except that in the sacraments, through the signs instituted by God, the word is made visible, as it were (as Augustine says), for the sake of our weakness. Faith therefore seeks in the sacraments no other grace than in the word; neither does it seek grace apart from the promise, beside or outside the promise, in the sacraments. For the word of promise is that object which faith has before its eyes in the sacraments, and in it faith lays hold of what is promised, offered, and imparted through the word in the sacraments.. In this sense we gladly grant that the sacraments are necessary to salvation, as an instrumental cause; yet this explanation must be added, that the necessity of the sacraments for salvation is not so unconditional as that of faith and of the word. For without faith no one can be saved, and without the word there can be no true faith. Rom. 10. He, therefore, who does not have the word of God cannot be saved, because he cannot attain to faith. But he who, from hearing the word of God, already has true and justifying faith, will, though he has obtained reconciliation through faith, nevertheless in no way despise the use of the sacraments, for the reasons already discussed; or if he does despise it, then his faith is not a true one, for it lacks its essential property, which consists in the mutual relation of the word and of faith,