Even so it is not baptism that justifies or benefits anyone, but it is faith in the word of promise, to which baptism is added. This faith justifies, and fulfils that which baptism signifies. For faith is the submersion of the old man and the emerging of the new. Therefore it cannot be that the new sacraments differ from the old, for both have the divine promise and the same spirit of faith; although they do differ vastly from the olden types on account of the word of promise, which is the one decisive point of difference. Even so, to-day, the outward show of vestments, holy places, meats and of all the endless ceremonies has doubtless a fine symbolical meaning, which is to be spiritually fulfilled; and yet because there is no word of divine promise attached to these things, they can in nowise be compared with the signs of baptism and of the bread, nor do they in any way justify or benefit one, since they are fulfilled in the very observance, apart from faith. For while they are taking place or are being performed, they are being fulfilled; as the Apostle says of them, in Colossians ii, "Which are all to perish with the using, after the commandments and doctrines of men." [Col. 2:22] The sacraments, on the contrary, are not fulfilled when they are observed, but when they are believed.
It cannot be true, therefore, that there is in the sacraments a power efficacious for justification, or that they are effective signs of grace[95]. All such assertions tend to destroy faith, and arise from ignorance of the divine promise. Unless you should call them effective in the sense that they certainly and efficaciously impart grace, where faith is unmistakably present. But it is not in this sense that efficacy is now ascribed to them; as witness the act that they are said to benefit all men, even the godless and unbelieving, provided they do not oppose a "bar"--as if such unbelief were not in itself the most obstinate and hostile of all bars to grace. So firmly bent are they on turning the sacrament into a command, and faith into a work. For if the sacrament confers grace on me because I receive it, then indeed I obtain grace by virtue of my work and not of faith; I lay hold not on the promise in the sacrament, but on the sign instituted and commanded by God. Do you not see, then, how completely the sacraments have been misunderstood by our sententious theologians?[96] They have taken no account, in their discussions on the sacraments, of either faith or the promise, but cling only to the sign and the use of the sign, and draw us away from faith to the work, from the word to the sign. Thus they have not only carried the sacraments captive (as I have said)[97], but have completely destroyed them, as far as they were able.