"The means of procuring his ordinary sanctifying graces": Mant on the Sacraments, against the Enthusiasts

Richard Mant's 1812 Bampton Lectures, An Appeal to the Gospel: Or an Inquiry Into the Justice of the Charge, Alleged by the Methodists and Other Objectors, That the Gospel Is Not Preached by the National Clergy, were a critique of the theologies of Whitefield ("the Calvinistic Founder of Methodism") and Wesley ("the Arminian Founder of Methodism").  Mant particularly highlights the experiential emphasis of both streams of Methodism:

there is no point on which Methodists of every denomination have been more prone to insist, than on their inward impulses and feelings; their experiences, in the phraseology of the sect ; as the direct witness of the Holy Spirit in their hearts.

Against "our modern Enthusiasts in their narrations of ... violent and extraordinary inspirations", Mant points to the Sacraments as the ordinary means of grace:

The condition of the Christian life is well described by one of our Reformers [Alexander Nowell], in a work bearing the sanction of authority, where he distinguishes the uses of the sacraments; that "as in baptism we have been once born again, so by the Lord's supper we are perpetually nourished and supported to a spiritual and eternal life". It is indeed in our spiritual, as in our natural, life: as we may be ill in health, and may grow better and recover, but born again we cannot be; so we may be spiritually ill, and again be renewed or reformed; but in that case we still hope for everlasting salvation upon the ground of the covenant, into which we were originally baptized: for inasmuch as there is but "one baptism," so there is but one regeneration in this world; and as we cannot be baptized again, so cannot we be a second time regenerated, or a second time be born again.

Those advocates of "the modern new birth", Mant warns, necessarily demean the Sacraments bestowed by the Lord:

And if a man can bring his mind to think thus meanly of baptism, ordained as it was by Christ himself, with a promise of salvation annexed to its legitimate administration; what will he think of Christ's other ordinances ? What of the other sacrament, the holy communion of Christ's body and blood? If the spiritual part of baptism be denied, why should the spiritual part of the communion be allowed? If water be not really the laver of regeneration, why should bread and wine be spiritually the body and blood of Christ, and convey strength and refreshment to the soul? Surely it is not too much to affirm,
that the stripping of one of God's ordinances of that, which constitutes its essential value, has a natural tendency to bring the efficacy of the others into question, and to diminish at least, if not to annihilate, a man's respect for them as means of spiritual grace. In this condition perhaps he will continue, sometimes exulting in hope, and sometimes sunk in despondency; waiting for an extraordinary impulse of the Holy Spirit, and neglecting the means of procuring his ordinary sanctifying graces.

What is more, "these modern reformers" denied a Reformed understanding of the Sacraments:

Upon this point the observation of one of our first and most celebrated Reformers is not unworthy of attention. “Like as Christ was born in rags,” says the venerable Latimer, "so the conversion of the whole world is by rags, by things which are most vile in this world. For what is so common as water, every foul ditch is full of it: yet we wash out remission of our sins by baptism; for like as he was found in rags, so we must in him by baptism. There we begin: we are washed with water, and then the words are added; for we are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost, whereby the baptism receiveth its strength. Now this sacrament of baptism is a thing of great weight; for it ascertaineth and assureth us, that like as the water washeth the body and cleanseth it, so the blood of Christ our Saviour cleanseth and washeth it from all filth and uncleanness of sins." 

Three points are worth highlighting regarding Mant's emphasis here on the Sacraments.  Firstly, it is a reminder that a rich and vibrant sacramental theology was evident in late Georgian Anglicanism.  In other words, an Anglicanism of 'empty and bare ordinances' was not awaiting a sacramental renewal by the Oxford Movement.  Secondly, Mant is here setting forth an explicitly Reformed sacramental understanding.  He concludes the lectures by invoking "the Fathers of our Reformed Church".  This High Church critique was thoroughly Protestant, rooted in "the primitive doctrines of our English Reformation ... our Church's authorized formularies and declarations of faith, as promulgated by Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley".  Thirdly, it sets out one of the abiding strengths and attractions of the Old High Church tradition: an emphasis on the Ordinary rather than (to use an in vogue term) the Weird.  Ordinary, quiet Anglican piety is not to be dismissed or patronised:

(and let the observation be cherished for the encouragement of those, who although they truly honour and serve God, yet are but little sensible to themselves of the operation of the Holy Spirit;) his influence is not of that sensible kind, which the Enthusiast represents it ... we cannot distinguish them, by their manner of affecting us, from our natural reasonings and the operation of truth upon our souls.