De Ministerio Ecclesiastico
The Ministry as Means of Grace
The ministry of Word and Sacrament is established by God as the instrument through which the Holy Spirit creates faith and grants justification by grace through Christ alone.
So that we might obtain this faith, the ministry of teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments was established. For through the Word and the Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Spirit is given, who creates faith where and when it pleases God in those who hear the Gospel—namely, that God justifies those who believe that they are received into grace on account of Christ, not on account of our merits, but on account of Christ.1
Against the Enthusiast Error
The confession rejects those who claim the Holy Spirit works apart from the external means of grace.
They condemn the Anabaptists and others who hold that the Holy Spirit comes to people through their own preparations and works, without the external word.
Read the original Latin
Ut hanc fidem consequamur institutum est ministerium docendi Evangelii et porrigendi sacramenta. Nam per verbum et sacramenta, tanquam per instrumenta donatur Spiritus sanctus, qui fidem efficit, ubi et quando visum est Deo in iis qui audiunt Evangelium, scilicet, quod Deus non propter nostra merita, sed propter Christum iustificet, hos qui credunt, se propter Christum in gratiam recipi.
Damnant Anabaptistas et alios, qui sentiunt Spiritum sanctum contingere sine verbo externo hominibus per ipsorum praeparationes et opera.
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin syntax places 'non propter nostra merita, sed propter Christum' between 'Deus' and 'iustificet', but the contrast logically modifies the justification itself (as in Article 4). The translation reorders to clarify that God justifies not by our merits but by Christ.
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