# Questions about FV quotes



## nwink (Jul 23, 2013)

How should we understand the following quotes contra what FV asserts regarding the efficacy of baptism? (I am somewhat new to these issues)

Second Helvetic Confession
"WHAT IT MEANS TO BE BAPTIZED. Now to be baptized in the name of Christ is to be enrolled, entered, and received into the covenant and family, and so into the inheritance of the sons of God; yes, and in this life to be called after the name of God; that is to say, to be called a Son of God; to be cleansed also from the filthiness of sins, and to be granted the manifold grace of God, in order to lead a new and innocent life. Baptism, therefore, calls to mind and renews the great favor God has shown to the race of mortal men. For we are all born in the pollution of sin and are the children of wrath. But God, who is rich in mercy, freely cleanses us from our sins by the blood of his Son, and in him adopts us to be his sons, and by a holy covenant joins us to himself, and enriches us with various gifts, that we might live a new life. All these things are assured by baptism. For inwardly we are regenerated, purified, and renewed by God through the Holy Spirit and outwardly we receive the assurance of the greatest gifts in the water, by which also those great benefits are represented, and, as it were, set before our eyes to be beheld."

Bucer's liturgy on baptism (1537)
"Almighty God, heavenly Father, we give you eternal praise and thanks, that you have granted and bestowed upon this child your fellowship, that you have born him again to yourself through holy baptism, that he has been incorporated into your beloved son, our only savior, and is now your child and heir..."


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## RamistThomist (Jul 23, 2013)

The same Reformers who said these quotes also talked about the signs and seals of the sacraments, not to mention the sacramental union between the two. I"ve never seen FV guys talk about the sacramental union. If you interpret all of those quotes in light of the concept of sacramental union between sign and thing signified, then the shocking FV novelty disappears (which is why they never mention it).


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## nwink (Jul 23, 2013)

Where's the "Reply With _Quotation_" on here so I can reply to Josh? (Is that a proper usage of the word?)


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## Semper Fidelis (Jul 24, 2013)

nwink said:


> How should we understand the following quotes...


Sacramentally.

WCF XVII


> II. There is in every sacrament *a spiritual relation, or sacramental union*, between the sign and the thing signified; whence it comes to pass that the names and effects of the one are attributed to the other.
> 
> III.* The grace which is exhibited* in or by the sacraments, rightly used, *is not conferred by any power in them*; neither doth *the efficacy of a sacrament depend* upon the piety or intention of him that doth administer it, but *upon the work of the Spirit*, and the word of institution, which contains, together with a precept authorizing the use thereof, a promise of benefit *to worthy receivers.*



Second Helvetic


> NOT ALL WHO ARE IN THE CHURCH ARE OF THE CHURCH. Again, not all that are reckoned in the number of the Church are saints, and living and true members of the Church. For there are many hypocrites, *who outwardly hear the Word of God, and publicly receive the sacraments*, and seem to pray to God through Christ alone, to confess Christ to be their only righteousness, and to worship God, and to exercise the duties of charity, and for a time to endure with patience in misfortune. *And yet they are inwardly destitute of true illumination of the Spirit, of faith and sincerity of heart, and of perseverance to the end. *But eventually the character of these men, for the most part, will be disclosed. For the apostle John says: "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would indeed have continued with us" (I John 2:19). And although while they simulate piety they are not of the Church, yet they are considered to be in the Church, just as traitors in a state are numbered among its citizens before they are discovered; and as the tares or darnel and chaff are found among the wheat, and as swellings and tumors are found in a sound body, And therefore the Church of God is rightly compared to a net which catches fish of all kinds, and to a field, in which both wheat and tares are found (Matt. 13:24 ff., 47 ff.).



and again


> SIGNS TAKE NAME OF THINGS SIGNIFIED. And as we learn out of the Word of God that these signs were instituted for another purpose than the usual use, therefore we teach that they now, in their holy use, take upon them the names of things signified, and are no longer called mere water, bread or wine, but also regeneration or the washing of water, and the body and blood of the Lord or symbols and sacraments of the Lord's body and blood. Not that the symbols are changed into the things signified, or cease to be what they are in their own nature. For otherwise they world not be sacraments. If they were only the thing signified, they would not be signs.
> 
> THE SACRAMENTAL UNION. Therefore the signs acquire the names of things because they are mystical signs of sacred things, and because *the signs and the things signified are sacramentally joined together*; joined together, I say, or united by a mystical signification, and by the purpose or will of him who instituted the sacraments. For the water, bread, and wine are not common, but holy signs. And *he that instituted water in baptism did not institute it with the will and intention that the faithful should only be sprinkled by the water of baptism; and he who commanded the bread to be eaten and the wine to be drunk in the supper did not want the faithful to receive only bread and wine without any mystery as they eat bread in their homes; but that they should spiritually partake of the things signified, and by faith be truly cleansed from their sins, and partake of Christ*.


Notice that those who have faith are truly cleansed and receive the reality of what is signified.


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