On the Sacraments

I once read an article by someone who had had an incredibly low view of the sacraments as a young Christian. His view had been challenged and changed by reading Calvin's Institutes on the topic, which had lead him back to the way Paul talks about things in the New Testament.

So I thought I'd share some of the good things I discovered there:

It seems to me that a simple and proper definition would be to say that it is a outward sign by which the Lord seals on our consciences the promises of his good will toward us in order to sustain the weakness of our faith...

Calvin's got a bit of a reputation for being a scary chap, but - without wanting to defend all his theology - something that strikes me about his writing is that he's very aware of his own weakness and of the gentleness of God with battered saints. What a great way of thinking about the sacraments: the whole point is to strengthen our feeble selves. Check out his descriptions of our faith, and of God:

As our faith is slight and feeble unless it be propped on all sides and sustained by every means, it trembles, wavers, totters and at last gives way. Here our merciful Lord, according to his infinite kindness, so tempers himself to our capacity that, since we are creatures who always creep on the ground, cleave to the flesh, and, do not think about or even conceive of anything spiritual, he condescends to lead us to himself even by these earthly elements.

Those quotes are from Book 4 Chapter 14: 1 and 3 of the Institutes. This counts as one of my two contributions to the Calvin-Year thing, by the way :) The second is a poem, here.