what no one would dispute: but it does mean more; and while the old doctrine of the Sacraments is stigmatized under the term physical, (as if forsooth physical were corporeal,) a subtle rationalism is imperceptibly introduced. For thus the gift of Baptism, and with it, all spiritual influences, instead of being an actual imparting of Divine grace to the human soul, a real union with Christ, are explained away to be the mere exhibition of outward motives, high indeed and heavenly, but still outward to man's soul, whereby he is led to act as he thinks will please God.
The participation of Christ in and out of the Sacraments (though not the same) will be conceived of in the same way; and so the doctrine of the Sacraments again affects that other great doctrine of our sanctification by the Holy Ghost. For if men conceive of Sacraments as external symbols, and acting through a moral operation, by representing to our souls the greatness of His love. His humiliation, His sufferings, and thus kindling our faith, and thereby uniting us with Him; then, and much more, will all the operations of the Holy Spirit be resolved into the presenting to the mind outward motives; and His sanctifying influence will become as merely external, any, far more so, than the ministration of what men call "the outward word." It is well to see the tendency of these doctrines, and how, under the semblance of removing what men call physical, they do in fact destroy all real, immediate, mysterious influence of God upon the human soul. "The Spirit," says one[1], "sanctifies no otherwise than that He impresses upon our minds the objects, which in the cross and resurrection of Christ, and in the other parts of the Christian religion, are incitements to lay hold of Christian virtues, as also whatever is offered to us in the preaching of the Gospel; and moreover, when fading from our mind He recalls them to our recollection, and, lastly, so illumines them with His light, that they descend from the mind into the affections, and in them continually struggle against the vice implanted by nature." And this impressing of objects, or their moral representation, is contrasted with the direct "action upon
- ↑ Amyraldus Disp. de Pædobaptismo. Ap. Wit, l.c. §. 35.
