'Signs and tokens of the marvellous works and holy effects which God worketh in us': Cranmer's 'Answer to Gardiner'

In his Answer to Gardiner (1551), Cranmer responds to Gardiner's allegation that he taught, regarding the Sacraments, "there is nothing to be worshipped, for there is nothing present but in figure, and in a sign: which whosever saith, calleth the thing in deed absent". In doing so, Cranmer emphasises that while the water, bread, and wine of the Sacraments do not have within themselves grace, they are yet holy for they are signs of the truth and reality of God's grace:

And as concerning the holiness of bread and wine, (whereunto I may add the water in baptism,) how can a dumb or an insensible and lifeless creature receive into itself any food, and feed thereupon? No more is it possible that a spiritless creature should receive any spiritual sanctification or holiness. And yet do I not utterly deprive the outward sacraments of the name of holy things, because of the holy use whereunto they serve, and not because of any holiness that lieth hid in the insensible creature. Which although they have no holiness in them, yet they be signs and tokens of the marvellous works and holy effects which God worketh in us by his omnipotent power. And they be no vain nor bare tokens, as you would persuade, (for a bare token is that which betokeneth only, and giveth nothing, as a painted fire which giveth neither light nor heat) but in the due ministration of the sacraments, God is present, working with his word and sacraments. And therefore you gather of my sayings unjustly, that Christ is in deed absent, for I say, according to God's words and the doctrine of the old writers, that Christ is present in his sacraments, as they teach also that he is present in his word, when he worketh mightily by the same in the hearts of the hearers. 

Again we see here the influence of the 1549 Consensus Tigurinus, Article 12 of which declared that "The Sacraments achieve nothing of themselves":

if any good thing is bestowed upon us through the sacraments, it is not because of any inherent virtue, not even if you understand by that the promise by which they are distinguished. For it is God alone who works by his Spirit. 

Hooker would later quite explicitly reaffirm this understanding:

grace is a consequent of Sacramentes, a thinge which accompanieth them as theire ende, a benefit which he that hath receyveth from God him selfe the author of sacramentes and not from anie other naturall or supernaturall qualitie in them ... they conteine in them selves no vitall force or efficacie, they are not physicall but morall instrumentes of salvation (LEP V.57.4).

This, however, as Cranmer states, does not mean that holiness is absent from the elements of the Sacraments. Indeed, the titles Holy Baptism and Holy Communion/Supper indicate that this is not so. This holiness comes from the reality to which the water, bread, and wine testify, for - in a wonderful phrase - "they be signs and tokens of the marvellous works and holy effects which God worketh in us by his omnipotent power". As Bullinger would later declare in the 1566 Second Helvetic Confession:

For they are consecrated by the Word, and shown to be sanctified by him who instituted them. To sanctify or consecrate anything to God is to dedicate it to holy uses; that is, to take it from the common and ordinary use, and to appoint it to a holy use. For the signs in the sacraments are drawn from common use, things external and visible. For in baptism the sign is the element of water, and that visible washing which is done by the minister; but the thing signified is regeneration and the cleansing from sins. Likewise, in the Lord's Supper, the outward sign is bread and wine, taken from things commonly used for meat and drink; but the thing signified is the body of Christ which was given, and his blood which was shed for us, or the communion of the body and blood of the Lord. Wherefore, the water, bread, and wine, according to their nature and apart from the divine institution and sacred use, are only that which they are called and we experience. But when the Word of God is added to them, together with invocation of the divine name, and the renewing of their first institution and sanctification, then these signs are consecrated, and shown to be sanctified by Christ.

When Cranmer concludes this extract by comparing the presence of Christ in the Sacraments to His presence in the proclamation of the Word, this can only become a 'low' view of the Sacraments if we have an impoverished view of holy Scripture and its proclamation. The Lord's presence in the proclaimed Word of Scripture brings to us forgiveness, healing, renewal, reconciliation, salvation, redemption - as does His presence in the Sacraments of Baptism and Supper. This, then, is quite clearly no 'low' theology of 'sacramental absence'. As Cranmer declares, the water of Baptism and the bread and wine of the Supper "be no vain nor bare tokens", for "God is present ... Christ is present". And it is this which gives to the water, bread, and wine "the name of holy things".