Sacramental Efficacy: Signs and Seals
How sacraments confer grace without operating ex opere operato or being bare memorials.
Settled clearly
Background
Reformed sacramentology had to thread a needle between Rome's ex opere operato (the sacrament confers grace by the act performed, by the power of the act itself) and Zwingli's bare memorialism (the sacrament is only a memorial sign, with no conferral of grace). Calvin had developed a third position — the sacraments as signs and seals of the covenant of grace, conferring the grace signified through the Spirit's work upon the faith of the worthy receiver. The continental Reformed confessions (Belgic, Helvetic, Heidelberg) had taken this line. Westminster needed to reaffirm it confessionally and apply it to both baptism and the Lord's Supper, in a context where Particular Baptists were pressing memorialist tendencies and Lutheran sacramentalism remained a live alternative.
The Assembly’s handling
WCF XXVII (sacraments generally), XXVIII (baptism), and XXIX (the Lord's Supper) work out the signs-and-seals position with great care. XXVII.1 defines sacraments as 'holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace…to represent Christ and his benefits.' XXVII.3 rejects ex opere operato: 'The grace which is exhibited in or by the sacraments rightly used, is not conferred by any power in them.' XXVIII.6 affirms the conferral of grace through baptism upon worthy receivers — by the Spirit's work, not by mere outward administration. XXIX.7 rejects both the Roman mass (transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the mass) and the bare-memorial reading: worthy receivers 'really and indeed' (yet 'not carnally and corporally, but spiritually') receive Christ in the Lord's Supper.
Parties
The Westminster signs-and-seals consensus
Sacraments are signs and seals of the covenant of grace, conferring the grace signified upon worthy receivers by the Spirit's work and the word of institution. Not bare memorials, not ex opere operato.
- Edmund Calamy the Elder (1600–1666)
- Edward Reynolds (1599–1676)
- Anthony Tuckney (1599–1670)
- William Gouge (1575–1653)
- Samuel Rutherford (c. 1600–1661)
- George Gillespie (1613–1648)
- Thomas Bedford (d. 1653)
Roman ex opere operato (rejected)
Sacraments confer grace by the act performed, independent of the recipient's faith. Trent, Session VII, canons 6-8.
Zwinglian bare memorialism (rejected)
Sacraments are merely memorial or instructive signs with no conferral of grace through them. Some early Baptists; some radical Independents.
Confessional language
WCF XXVII.3: '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…' WCF XXIX.7: 'Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements in this sacrament, do then also, inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally but spiritually, receive and feed upon Christ crucified, and all benefits of his death…'
Ontology placement
This crux bears on the following attribute of the Westminster ontology. The Westminster baseline value is marked WCF.
VII · Ecclesiology & Worship · Sacramental Efficacy
Legacy
The Westminster handling of the sacraments has been the Reformed standard. Solomon Stoddard's later doctrine of the Lord's Supper as a converting ordinance (1690s, Northampton) departed from XXIX.7's restriction to worthy receivers; Edwards's rejection of his grandfather's practice in the 1740s and his consequent dismissal from Northampton (1750) was a debate over Westminster's sacramental theology. Modern Reformed sacramental discussions (Federal Vision, the OPC reports on baptismal efficacy) all return to Westminster's signs-and-seals language.