# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1855_S373
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Lutheran Formula of Distribution, etc. 373

formula of distribution is this: "Take and eat (or in the plural: take
and eat), this is the true body of Jesus Christ, given for you (or: for
your sin) unto death; may it strengthen and preserve you in the true
faith unto eternal life. Amen. Take and drink, this is the true blood of
Jesus Christ, shed for your sin; may it strengthen and preserve you in
the true faith unto eternal life. Amen." We have not been able to find
where and when this formula was first used and introduced. In the
Kingdom of Saxony it has for centuries been the almost universally used
one. J. P. Fresenius reports that it was also the formula customary in
Frankfurt, except that there the appended wish was omitted. Word for
word the formula is found in the Agenda issued and introduced in 1632
in the Archbishopric of Magdeburg under the name of King Gustavus
Adolphus of Sweden. Likewise in the "renewed Church Order" issued
under the authority of Duke Anton Ulrich for Brunswick-Lüneburg in the
year 1709. In the whole Danish Church the word "true" is likewise
added; the one administering says simply: "This is Jesus Christ's true
body — this is Jesus Christ's true blood." (See Die Sacrament-Worte,
etc., by Dr. A. G. Rudelbach, Leipzig, 1837, p. 79.) Further, we find that
the Wittenberg theological faculty, in the year 1579, in its review of the
Hennebergian Church Order, declared: "Since the sick, on account of
their anxieties, are especially to be directed to the right benefit, we
consider that this form would be the best to use with the sick: 'Take
and eat, this is the true body of Jesus Christ, given for your sin, may it
strengthen and preserve you in the right, steadfast faith unto eternal
life. Amen.' Thus both would be comprised together: both what
concerns the substance and essence, and then also what pertains to the
benefit and use of the Sacrament. And the dying person would also be
provided, with sufficient viaticum (as the old teachers called it), for his
approaching departure." (See Consilia Witebergensia, P. III, fol. 50.)
As it appears, that latter formula was in many cases first applied
privately, and only afterward taken up into church orders and agendas.
We conclude this from another opinion which the same theological
faculty was asked to give. A preacher at Freiberg in Saxony made use,
namely, of the following formula of distribution: "Take and eat, this is
the true body of Christ, given for your sin unto death," etc. — "take
and drink, this is the true blood of Jesus Christ, shed on the tree of the
cross," etc. Over this a dispute arose, namely over the addition: "shed
on the tree of the cross." The decision of the Wittenberg theologians,
however, was this: "As far as observance is concerned, the formula used
by Mr. Johannes (the accused) is in great use in Lower Saxony and in
Hesse; and if Augusti's church order or agenda