Theorema de sacramentorum nucleo

III. What it is.

Nor do we doubt that all these things are truly and solidly persuaded to the Saints.

1. Sacraments are Signs, by which the justice of faith, and the κοινωνία communion and association of the faithful with Christ the head, and with all the living Members of his mystical Body, is sealed. Rom. 4:11. 1 Cor. 12:13.

2. They have the same constituting form, which shines in the most beautiful analogy and similarity of the Sign and the Signified: although they are discerned from one another by a διακριτικῇ discriminating difference, when in the New Testament, the one indeed represents παλιγγενεσίαν regeneration, or our Regeneration in Christ, while the other represents the Nourishment which the same Christ supplies to the Regenerate, most excellently indeed.

3. All Sacraments are as it were coverings, which, when unfolded and shelled by the Holy Spirit, as the Mystagogue guide to mysteries, seal by faith, by representing to us JESUS CHRIST, both already perceived and to be perceived more and more with every spiritual blessing.

4. Without the justice of faith and Christ Jesus, there are no Sacraments: therefore, the Symbols which are otherwise accustomed to be applied by God's institution for the grace of the faithful, are to infidels nothing more than weak and beggarly elements of the world, and empty Ceremonies: just like wax attached to a parchment on which nothing is written.

That this can be gathered not only in this age from the Circumcision of the impious Mahometists, but also from the equivocally named Baptism of the Pseudo-Christians, is taught by this divine oracle, in which those circumcised in flesh only and the Gentiles are joined. Behold, the days are coming, said Jehovah, and I will visit every one who is circumcised and uncircumcised, Egypt and Judah, Edom and the children of Ammon, Moab and all who dwell in the extreme corner of the world, who dwell in the desert: because all the nations are