# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1856_S177
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

177 "In, With, and Under."

...these do not become outright lies, the more necessary it is for us Lutherans to hold fast to the little words "in, with, and under" — not in order thereby to determine the manner of the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Supper, but rather so that by the little word "in" we may disown the unbelieving Reformed doctrine of absence, by the little word "with" the Roman superstitious doctrine of transformation, and by the little word "under" the cannibalistic, Capernaite doctrine of chewing.

In closing we must further remark that, after we had already begun writing this article, we received the number of the "Reformed Church Gazette" of May 1, in which the editor of that paper not only declares that he cannot absolve us Lutherans of the doctrine of consubstantiation, because he understands by it also the teaching that the body of Jesus Christ is united with the blessed bread, but also accuses us of seeking to conceal the main point at issue, because we did not want to bring it out into the light! To this we have for the present only the following brief answer to give:

If the editor of the "Reformed Church Gazette" does not know what consubstantiation and impanation are, and confuses them with the compraesentia and the unio sacramentalis, then he has only himself to blame if, in his fight against the Lutheran Church up to now, he has not only fought against the Bible but has also struck many mere blows in the air. The mistaken opinion we had hitherto held, that the gentleman knew such things, we hereby most solemnly retract.

As for, finally, our alleged circling around the main point out of an alleged shyness of the light, we give the gentleman our sincere assurance that we, as a Lutheran Lutheran, leave such things to the Calvinists. The gentleman is totally mistaken if he thinks, as it appears he does, that we renounced consubstantiation and impanation so that people might kindly take us for a Calvinist — one who indeed says that Christ's body is present in the Supper, but believes that it is as far from the blessed bread as heaven is from earth.*) Our faith, rather, is expressed in the words of Luther in his last

...people coming from [Reformed] congregations to Holy Communion believed thoroughly in the Lutheran manner and were of the opinion that this was also their Reformed faith. Here that well-known saying is fulfilled: Saepius puriores sunt aures audientium, quam labia docentium — that is, often the ears of the hearers are purer than the lips of those who teach them.

*) As is well known, the Calvinists call such speech a manner of speaking "after the fashion and custom of the sacraments!" This would, were it not too sacred a matter to be so treated, be a truly comical petitio principii: first the gentlemen decide, without and against Scripture, that in the words of institution the things are called what they are not. Then, when one wishes to prove from the words of institution what is in the sacrament, the gentlemen cry out: Where are you Lutherans going with that? Do you not yet know that in the sacraments "body" means bread and "blood" means wine?