Lo, how rich therefore is a Christian, or one who is baptised! Even if he would, he cannot lose his salvation, however much he sin, unless he will not believe. For no sin can condemn him save unbelief alone. All other sins,--if faith in God's promise made in baptism return or remain,--all other sins, I say, are immediately blotted out through that same faith, or rather through the truth of God, because He cannot deny Himself if you but confess Him and cling believing to Him that promises. But as for contrition, confession of sins, and satisfaction[86],--with all those carefully thought-out exercises of men,--if you turn your attention to them and neglect this truth of God, they will suddenly fail you and leave you more wretched than before. For whatever is done without faith in the truth of God, is vanity of vanities and vexation of spirit [Eccl. 1:2, 14].

Again, how perilous, nay, how false it is to suppose that penance is the second plank after the shipwreck! How harmful an error it is to believe that the power of baptism is broken, and the ship has foundered, because we have sinned! Nay; that one, solid and unsinkable ship remains, and is never broken up into floating timbers; it carries all those who are brought to the harbor of salvation; it is the truth of God giving us its promise in the sacraments. Many, indeed, rashly leap overboard and perish in the waves; these are they who depart from faith in the promise and plunge into sin. But the ship herself remains intact and holds her steady course; and if one be able somehow to return to the ship, it is not on any plank but in the good ship herself that he is borne to life. Such an one is he who through faith returns to the sure promise of God that abideth forever. Therefore Peter, in his second epistle, rebukes them that sin, because they have forgotten that they were purged from their old sins [2 Peter 1:9]; in which words he doubtless chides their ingratitude or the baptism they had received and their wicked unbelief.

What is the good, then, of making many books on baptism and yet not teaching this faith in the promise? All the sacraments were instituted for the purpose of nourishing faith, but these godless men so completely pass over this faith that they even assert a man dare not be certain of the forgiveness of sins, that is, of the grace of the sacraments. With such wicked teachings they delude the world, and not only take captive but altogether destroy the sacrament of baptism, in which the chief glory of our conscience consists. Meanwhile they madly rage against the miserable souls of men with their contritions, anxious confessions, circumstances[87], satisfactions, works and endless other absurdities. Read, therefore, with great caution the Master of the Sentences[88] in his fourth book, or, better yet, despise him together with all his commentators, who at their best write only of the material and form[87] of the sacraments, that is, they treat of the dead and death-dealing letter of the sacraments, but pass over in utter silence the spirit, life and use, that is, the truth of the divine promise and our faith.

Beware, therefore, lest the external pomp of works and the deceits of human traditions mislead you, so that you may not wrong the divine truth and your faith. If you would be saved, you must begin with the faith of the sacraments, without any works whatever; but on faith the works will follow: only do not think lightly of faith, which is a work, and of all works the most excellent and the most difficult to do. Through it alone you will be saved, even if you should be compelled to do without any other works. For it is a work of God, not of man, as Paul teaches [Eph. 2:8]. The other works He works through us and with our help, but this one He works in us and without our help.

From this we can clearly see the difference, in baptism, between man the minister and God the Doer. For man baptises and does not baptise: he baptises, for he performs the work, immersing the person to be baptised; he does not baptise, for in that act he officiates not by his own authority, but in the stead of God. Hence, we ought to receive baptism at the hands of a man just as if Christ Himself, nay, God Himself, were baptising us with His own hands. For it is not man's baptism, but Christ's and God's baptism, which we receive by the hand of a man; just as every other created thing that we make use of by the hand of another, is God's alone. Therefore beware of dividing baptism in such a way as to ascribe the outward part to man and the inward part to God. Ascribe both to God alone, and look upon the person administering it as the instrument in God's hands, by which the Lord sitting in heaven thrusts you under the water with His own hands, and speaking by the mouth of His minister promises you, on earth with a human voice, the forgiveness of your sins.

This the words themselves indicate, when the priest says: "I baptise thee in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen"--and not: "I baptise thee in my own name." It is as though he said: "What I do, I do not by my own authority, but in the name and stead of God, so that you should regard it just as if our Lord Himself had done it in a visible manner. The Doer and the minister are different persons, but the work of both is the same work, or, rather, it is the work of the Doer alone, through my ministry." For I hold that "in the name of" refers to the person of the Doer, so that the name of the Lord is not only to be uttered and invoked while the work is being done, but the work itself is to be done not as one's own work, but in the name and stead of another. In this sense Christ says, "Many shall come in my name," [Matt. 24:5] and in Romans i it is said, "By whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith, in all nations, for His name." [Rom. 1:5]

This view I heartily endorse; for there is much of comfort and a mighty aid to faith in the knowledge that one has been baptised not by man, but by the Triune God Himself through a man acting among us in His name. This will dispose of that fruitless quarrel about the "form"[90] of baptism, as these words are called. The Greeks say: "May the servant of Christ be baptised," while the Latins say: "I baptise." Others again, pedantic triflers, condemn the use of the words, "I baptise thee in the name of Jesus Christ"[91]--although it is certain that the Apostles used this formula in baptising, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles--and would allow no other form to be valid than this: "I baptise thee in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." But their contention is in vain, for they bring no proof, but merely assert their own dreams. Baptism truly saves in whatever way it is administered, if only it be not administered in the name of man but of God. Nay, I have no doubt that if one received baptism in the name of the Lord, even though the wicked minister should not give it in the name of the Lord, he would yet be truly baptised in the name of the Lord. For the effect of baptism depends not so much on the faith or use of him that confers it as on the faith or use of him that receives it; of which we have an illustration in the case of the play-actor who was baptised in jest[92]. Such anxious disputings and questionings are aroused in us by those who ascribe nothing to faith and everything to works and forms, whereas we owe everything to faith alone and nothing to forms, and faith makes us free in spirit from all those scruples and fancies.

[Sidenote: The Second Part of Baptism: The Sign, or Sacrament]

The second part of baptism is the sign, or sacrament, which is that immersion into water whence also it derives its name; for the Greek baptizo means I immerse, and baptisma means immersion. For, as has been said[93], signs are added to the divine promises to represent that which the words signify, for, as they now say, that which the sacrament "effectively signifies." We shall see how much of truth there is in this. The great majority have supposed that there is some hidden spiritual power in the word or in the water, which works the grace of God in the soul of the recipient. Others deny this and hold that there is no power in the sacraments, but that grace is given by God alone, Who according to His covenant aids the sacraments He has instituted[94]. Yet all are agreed that the sacraments are effective signs of grace, and they reach this conclusion by this one argument: If the sacraments of the New Law merely "signified," it would not be apparent in what respect they surpassed the sacraments of the Old Law. Hence they have been driven to attribute such great power to the sacraments of the New Law that in their opinion they benefit even such men as are in mortal sins, and that they do not require faith or grace; it is sufficient not to oppose a "bar," that is, an actual intention to sin again.

But these views must be carefully avoided and shunned, because they are godless and infidel, being contrary to faith and to the nature of the sacraments. For it is an error to hold that the sacraments of the New Law differ from those of the Old Law in the efficacy of their "signifying." The "signifying" of both is equally efficacious. The same God Who now saves me by baptism saved Abel by his sacrifice, Noah by the bow, Abraham by circumcision, and all the others by their respective signs. So far as the "signifying" is concerned, there is no difference between a sacrament of the Old Law and one of the New; provided that by the Old Law you mean that which God wrought among the patriarchs and other fathers in the days of the law. But those signs which were given to the patriarchs and fathers must be sharply distinguished from the legal types which Moses instituted in his law, such as the priestly rites concerning robes, vessels, meats, dwellings, and the like. Between these and the sacraments of the New Law there is a vast difference, but no less between them and those signs that God from time to time gave to the fathers living judges under the law, such as the sign of Gideon's fleece [Judges 6:36], Manoah's sacrifice [Judges 13:19], or the sign which Isaiah offered to Ahaz, in Isaiah vii [Isa. 7:10]; for to these signs God attached a certain promise which required faith in Him.