# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1862_S193
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Lehre und Wehre.

Volume VIII.    July 1862.    No. 7.

Report on the Right Mean of the Lutheran Liturgy.
(Continued.)

Dr. Rudelbach, Sacramentsworte, p. 72 and 73: "But standing in the sharpest contradiction to the word of the Lord is Calvin's assertion that the consecration is to be directed only to the people — that is, as narration, teaching, exhortation — but by no means refers to the sanctification of the outward symbols.*) For when the Lord says: Do this, he plainly wills that we repeat the words of the testament, blessing and consecrating them, but not that we should instruct the people concerning the institution, purpose, and worthy use of the Supper, of which everyone who comes to the Lord's table must already be instructed. The altar is thus turned into a pulpit, or rather is removed from the church altogether. This error of Calvin's has penetrated so deeply into the liturgies of the Reformed congregations that, with few exceptions, nearly all of them have transformed the consecration into a historical recitation read aloud to the people, and have thereby wholly enervated its meaning. So it stands in the Geneva Liturgy, the type of the rest, at the opening: "Ecoutez, mes Frères, de quelle manière notre Seigueur Jésus-Christ a

*) By "the sanctification of the outward symbols" the orthodox Church understands the setting apart of the bread and wine already present, from their common use, for this particular purpose, so that, according to the words of Christ, "this is my body, this is my blood," they may be the fellowship, the sanctified means or instruments for the distribution of the true body and blood of Jesus Christ, to be eaten and drunk with the mouth. (See Conrad Dietrich's Catechism, Fr. 552 and 580.) "We use," says Hunnius of the consecration, "the Lord's Prayer and the words of institution not so that this thanksgiving and blessing should be either a bare, empty historical narration of the institution, or such an act whereby, say, through an incantation and the sign of the cross, bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of the Lord Christ; but rather that through it, spoken over bread and wine, 1) it be publicly declared how the holy act is now to be performed; 2) bread and wine be set apart from common use and appointed to this particular use; 3) the Lord Christ be reminded of his institution, made once for all, and it be prayed at the same time that he would also this time grant his body and blood to the communicants; 4) the death of the Lord, which took place for us, be proclaimed." (Epitome cred. 702, a.)