Robert Bruce
It will be demanded, What need is there that these sacraments and seals should be annexed to the Word? Why are they annexed, seeing we get no more in the sacrament than we get in the Word, and we get as much in the very simple Word as we get in the sacrament? Seeing then we get no new thing in the sacrament, but the same thing which we get in the simple Word, why is the sacrament appointed to be hung to the Word? It is true certainly that we get no new thing in the sacrament; we get no other thing in the sacrament than we get in the Word. For what more would you crave than to get the Son of God, if you get Him well? Your heart cannot wish or imagine a greater gift than to have the Son of God, who is King of heaven and earth; therefore, I say, what new thing would you have? For if you get Him, you get all things with Him; your heart cannot imagine a new thing besides Him. Why then is the sacrament appointed? Not to get you any new thing. I say, it is appointed:
(1) To get you that same thing better than you had it in the Word. The sacrament is appointed that we may get a better hold of Christ than we got in the Word; that we may possess Christ, in our hearts and minds, more fully and largely than we did before by the simple Word. It is that Christ might have a larger space to make a residence in our narrow hearts than He could have by the hearing of the Word; and to possess Christ more fully is a better thing. For suppose Christ be one thing in Himself, yet the better the hold you have of Him, you are the surer of His promise. The sacraments are appointed that I might have Him more fully in my soul; that I might have the bounds of it enlarged, so that He may make the better residence in me. This, no doubt, is the cause why these seals are annexed to the evidence2 of the simple Word.
(2) They serve to this end also: to seal up and confirm the truth that is in the Word. For as the purpose of the seal hung to the evidence is not to confirm
21Letter to Bullinger, written on 14 April 1549 from Cologne, Original Letters, vol 1, p 56.
1An extract, edited, from Bruce’s Sermons on the Sacrament, “done into English” by John Laidlaw (1901). For some information on Bruce, a noted Scottish minister (c1554-1631), see the article, “A View from Inverness”, in the November 2017 issue of this Magazine.
2An “evidence”, in a sense familiar to Scottish lawyers, is strictly a “document” which not only asserts a claim, but proves it (Laidlaw).
any other truth than that which is in the evidence; and though you believed the evidence before, yet by the seals you believe it better. Even so the sacrament assures me of no other truth than is contained within the Word: yet because it is a seal annexed to the Word, it persuades me the better of it; for the more the outward senses are awakened, the more is the inward heart and mind persuaded to believe.
Now the sacrament awakens all the outward senses, as the eye, the hand and all the rest; and the outward senses being moved, there is no question but that the Spirit of God, concurring with them, moves the heart the more. The sacraments are therefore annexed to the Word to seal up the truth contained in the Word, and to confirm it more and more in your heart. The Word is appointed to work belief, and the sacrament is appointed to confirm you in this belief. But unless you feel the truth of this inwardly in your hearts, unless you have your heart as ready as your mouth, do not think that anything will do you good. All the seals in the world will not work unless the Spirit of God concurs and seals the same truth in your hearts, which the sacrament seals outwardly. Unless He makes clear the sight of your mind inwardly, and works a feeling in your heart, both Word and sacrament shall lose the fruit and effect which they should have.
All the Scriptures are full of this: the whole Scriptures of God are but a slaying letter to you, unless the Spirit of God concurs to quicken inwardly. So your whole endeavour should be to strive to feel Christ alive in your own hearts – that finding Him in your hearts and seeing Him in your minds, both Word and sacraments may be effectual. If not, your souls remain dead, you are not translated from that death wherein you were conceived. Therefore all the study of Christians should be, when they see the sacraments and hear the Word, to labour to find and feel, in their hearts and minds, that which they hear and see; and this is what I call finding Christ alive in your own souls. This cannot be unless you sanctify His lodging, for if all the corners of your soul remain a dunghill, Christ cannot dwell there. And so unless you earnestly seek a continual sanctification, and sever yourselves from every thing that severs you from Christ, it is not possible that He can live or dwell in you.
This is a great lesson, and it is not possible to do this unless, as I have said, a stronger comes in and possesses us and makes us renounce ourselves. Thus the seals would not have been annexed to the Word, except for our sakes, for there is no necessity on God’s part that God should either swear, or confirm by seals, the thing that He has spoken; for His word is as good as any oath or seal. But the necessity comes from us: there is such a great weakness in us that, when He has sworn and set His seal to His word, we are as near to belief as if He had never spoken a word. So to help our belief, the weakness
and inability that is in us; (for we are so unable by nature to believe anything but what is from ourselves; and the more we lean to ourselves; the further we are from God) – I say, to help this wonderful weakness whereby we are ready to mistrust God in every word, He has annexed His sacraments; and besides His sacraments, He swears the things that most concern our salvation, as you heard in the priesthood of Christ (Ps 110:4). He will not only speak, but He swears, for our weakness and infirmity. But yet if He does not grant the ministry of His Spirit, all these means will do us no good.