Thursday, August 11, 2022

Jacques Bénigne Bossuet on the Novelty of Zwingli's Theology of Baptism

  

The error of Zuinglius on Baptism.

 

Nay, the Pelagians acknowledged, that baptism could at least give grace, and remit the sins of the adult. Zuinglius more rash than they, ceases not to repeat what has been already told of him, “that baptism takes away no sin, and, gives no grace.” “It is the blood of Jesus Christ,” says he, “that remits sins, therefore, it is not baptism.” Here an instance may be seen of that perverted zeal the reformation had for the glory of Jesus Christ. It is more clear than day, that to attribute the remission of sins to baptism., which is the means of taking them away established by Jesus Christ, does no more injury to Jesus Christ, than you offer to a painter, by attributing the fine colouring and the beautiful touches of his picture to the pencil he makes use of. But the reformation carries its vain reasonings to such excess, as to imagine it gives glory to Jesus Christ, to destroy the efficacy of these instruments which he employs. And to continue so gross an illusion to the utmost extremity, when a hundred passages from the Scriptures were objected to Zuinglius, where it is said, that baptism saves us, that it remits our sins; he thinks he has fully satisfied by answering, that baptism is here taken for the blood of Jesus Christ, of which it is the sign. (Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, The History and the Variations of the Protestant Churches, 2 vols. [2d ed.; Maynooth: Richard Coyne, 1836], 1:67)