XXXVIII.
The Spiritual Efficacy of the Sacraments
The confession affirms that the sacraments are true signs of inward grace and rejects those who deny their spiritual significance.
XXXVIII. Thus we hold that water, though it is a perishable element, does not fail to testify in truth to the inward washing of our soul in the blood of Jesus Christ, by the efficacy of his Spirit; and that the bread and wine, being given to us in the Lord's Supper, truly serve as spiritual nourishment, inasmuch as they show us, as if before our very eyes, that the flesh of Jesus Christ is our food, and his blood our drink.1 We reject the Fantastics and Sacramentarians who refuse to accept such signs and marks, given that our Lord Jesus declares: "This is my body, and this cup is my blood."2
Read the original French
XXXVIII. Ainsi nous tenons que l’eau étant un élément caduc, ne laisse pas de nous testifier en vérité le lavement intérieur de notre âme au sang de Jésus-Christ, par l’efficace de son Esprit, et que le pain et le vin nous étant donnés en la cène, nous servent vraiment de nourriture spirituelle, d’autant qu’ils nous montrent comme à l’œil la chair de Jésus-Christ nous être notre viande, et son sang notre breuvage. Et rejetons les Fantastiques et Sacrementaires, qui ne veulent recevoir tels signes et marques, vu que notre Seigneur Jésus prononce: Ceci est mon corps, et cette coupe est mon sang.
Notes
- 1 ↩caduc means perishable, transitory, subject to decay: an earthly element that passes away, not an empty or invalid one.
- 2 ↩Sixteenth-century polemical names: Fantastics for those who treat the sacraments as mere imagination, Sacramentarians for those who reduce them to empty signs and will not receive them as true marks of the reality they exhibit.
French Confession of Faith (Confession de La Rochelle / Gallican Confession) companion
Rule yourself daily, not just on retreat
Chosen Portion turns the mirror into a daily practice — a short reading and examining question each morning before you lead anyone.
Chosen Portion makes the mirror daily: the ruler-formation questions this collection preserves become a two-minute morning examination in the app.
- A daily formation reading drawn from centuries of counsel to those in authority
- One pointed examination question a day — two minutes, before the meetings start
- Track your practice over weeks and watch the examined life become a habit