turn the senses thither, and then exercise faith, the promise of which they hold forth[1], and draw to brotherly charity. And while all this is done, one and the same Spirit operates; who, as He bloweth, draws at one time without, at another with, an instrument, whither, as much as, and whom. He wills." This is the strongest passage in Zuingli; and one rejoices to find even this recognition of spiritual influence at, though not properly through, the Sacrament. This then is the sum of Zuingli's doctrine of the Sacraments, that they are symbols, that they exhibit Divine truths forcibly to the mind, so as to kindle it, and that thereat the Holy Spirit exercises an influence where, and upon whom He wills. But to judge of the effects of Zuingli's doctrine upon others, such an insulated passage will not suffice. We must take into account the illustrations which he continually employs, and which all tend to represent the Sacraments as mere outward symbols. They are "testaments, not the thing bequeathed[2];" "writings;" "the giving up of keys to another;" "signs of a covenant;" "the seal-ring[3] given by the father of a family to the absent wife, with his own image impressed thereon;" signs of a past gift, memorials, tokens, by the sight whereof our love may be cherished, but not means of grace. These popular illustrations convey far more than abstract statement. We must consider also the impression made by the positive contrary statements which Zuingli so often repeated and inculcated; "The Sacraments are only badges of the Christian society, and confer nothing towards salvation," and the like; and that this was his general mode of teaching: but chiefly one must look upon him as bending his great energies to this one point, "to eradicate (in the words of his Apologist[4]) these notions "from the minds of men;" for which end in treating the belief
- ↑ "Quam et proximo pollicentur." I doubt about the meaning; for Zuingli says again and again that "Sacraments do not impart faith;" and "that the only faith which they produce (faciunt) is an historical, (i.e. as memorials that Christ has suffered,) and that, whether they be received or no; but that he has died for us, that they signify only to the pious believer." (Fidei Christianæ Expos, t. ii. f. 555).
- ↑ Ad. P. G. f 545. v.
- ↑ Ibid. f. 549.
- ↑ Hospinian l. c. p. 49.
