De Usu Sacramentorum
The Purpose of the Sacraments
The Sacraments are instituted as signs and testimonies of God's will to stir up and strengthen faith, requiring faith to receive the promises they offer.
Regarding the use of the Sacraments, they teach that the Sacraments were instituted not only to be outward badges of our profession among people, but more to be signs and testimonies of God's will toward us, meant to stir up and strengthen faith in those who receive them. So the Sacraments should be used in such a way that faith goes out to meet them — faith that trusts the promises offered and displayed through the Sacraments.
Faith, Not Works, Justifies
The chapter condemns the teaching that Sacraments justify by the work performed apart from faith that believes sins are forgiven.
Therefore they condemn those who teach that Sacraments justify by the work performed, and that faith isn't required in the use of the Sacraments — faith that believes sins are forgiven.1
Read the original Latin
De usu Sacramentorum docent, quod Sacramenta instituta sint, non modo ut sint notae professionis inter homines, sed magis ut sint signa et testimonia voluntatis Dei erga nos, ad excitandam et confirmandam fidem in his qui utuntur proposita. Itaque utendum est Sacramentis ita, ut fides accedat, quae credat promissionibus, quae per Sacramenta exhibentur et ostenduntur.
Damnant igitur illos qui docent, quod Sacramenta ex opere operato iustificent, nec docent fidem requiri in usu sacramentorum, quae credat remitti peccata.
Notes
- 1 ↩The phrase ex opere operato ('by the work performed') is a technical scholastic formula: the Sacrament's efficacy is located in the rite itself rather than in the recipient's disposition. The Confession rejects this as sufficient without faith. The relative quae credat most naturally attaches to fidem (faith that believes), though a secondary reading could attach it to Sacramenta; the sense is largely the same either way.
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