# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 10 13_S151
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

actually and truly present, and be conveyed by means of the bread and wine. The Calvinist indeed says that he too believes, in accordance with that apostolic statement, in a communion of the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament; for, he says, faith rises up into heaven at the celebration of the holy Supper and thus enters, through the power of the Holy Spirit, into the communion of the body and blood of Christ; but according to this teaching the apostle would have had to say: the bread and the cup is the absence of the body and blood of Christ, and the communion of these heavenly goods is faith and the Holy Spirit. Moreover, the holy apostle adds: "For we, being many, are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread." (1 Corinthians 10:17.) From this it follows that the apostle is speaking of a communion into which all communicants enter, even those who have no faith, who therefore cannot raise themselves up to heaven with their faith and cannot partake of it spiritually.

But this emerges still more clearly from another passage; for the same apostle writes thus in 1 Corinthians 11:27, 29: "Whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body."

To have read this passage and yet still doubt whether the words of Christ, "This is my body; this is my blood," are to be understood literally—that is, whether, according to these words, in the holy Supper the body and blood of Christ are truly given in, with, and under the bread and wine, and received with the mouth—this seems impossible. For what does the apostle say here? He says that those who partake of the blessed elements unworthily thereby become guilty, not of Christ and his institution in general, but of his body and blood, and that they eat and drink judgment to themselves, and indeed for this reason, because they do not discern the body of the Lord. It plainly follows from this that even he who partakes of the holy Supper unworthily partakes of the body of the Lord, for it is precisely through the unworthy partaking of this body that he becomes guilty of judgment, and his unworthy partaking consists precisely in this, that he does not distinguish the meal in which he partakes of the body of the Lord from other meals in which the body of the Lord is not partaken of. But if the one who eats judgment to himself thereby also partakes of the body of the Lord, then it is beyond contradiction certain that the body of the Lord is really and truly present in the holy Supper, and that, since the unbeliever cannot partake of it with the mouth of faith, it is also partaken of with the bodily mouth, though not in a natural, but in an incomprehensible manner.

So it is indeed certain that the words "This is my body; this is my blood" can be understood in no other way than literally; whoever, in order not to have to accept the mystery expressed therein, wishes to declare these words to be figurative expressions, him those very words will accuse and judge on that day. (Conclusion to follow.)

(Submitted.)
Some Candid Confessions of a Philosopher.

Jacobi, one of the noblest of those who sought to find truth by the way of reason, writes of Claudius: "To him his faith is not merely the highest and deepest philosophy, but something still beyond that, which I too could well wish for myself, but do not know how to obtain." To the pious Hamann the same man writes: "All of us, richer or poorer in spirit, higher or lower, however we set about it, remain dependent, needy beings who can give themselves absolutely nothing; our senses, our understanding, our will are desolate and empty, and the foundation of all speculative philosophy is only a great, bottomless pit into which we look in vain." Who is not reminded here of what the prophet says: "Me, the living fountain, they forsake, and hew themselves out cisterns here and there that can hold no water"; or what the apostle admonishes (Colossians 2:7ff.): "Be rooted and built up in him (Jesus Christ), and be established in the faith, as ye have been taught, and beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit (properly: empty misleading, an enticement away from the right path), after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." — The same Jacobi, writing after the death of his son and his wife, again to this same Hamann: "We shall not philosophize our way up there with and out of our natural body; but if there is a certain knowledge of God possible for man, then there must lie in his soul a capacity to raise him up to it. Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!" — The reader will perhaps not quite understand this, but at bottom nothing else is being said than: I recognize that our philosophy cannot help us into heaven; something else is needed for that, namely that which Christ also impressed upon Nicodemus's heart, John 3: "Ye must be born again; except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." But the apostle says: "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." — Finally, still at the evening of his life, Jacobi writes: "You see, dear Reinhold, that I am still the same; wholly a heathen in understanding, in heart a Christian, I swim between two waters that will not unite for me, so that they might bear me along together; rather, as the one continually lifts me up, so at the same time the other continually pulls me under."

But you, Christian reader, after all this, remember the prayer of your Savior: "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight" — and join in such praise all the more heartily.

(Nördlingen Sunday Paper.)

The Doctrine of Perfect Sanctification According to Experience, Especially in the Hour of Death.

It is well known that Wesley, the founder of the Methodist church, among other things held and preached the dangerous error that a complete mortification of sin and an entire sanctification of body and soul is attainable by believers even in this life. It is remarkable that Wesley himself never believed that he had attained this high degree of a Christian. Even facing death, he expressly declared the opposite of himself. When he was gravely ill at the Conference at Bristol in 1783, in his eightieth year, and feared a stroke, he said to one of his friends: "I have been reflecting on my past life; I have wandered to and fro for fifty or sixty years, and in my poverty have sought to do good to my fellow creatures, and now I am only a few steps from death; on what, then, can I now ground my hope of being saved? I can see nothing that I have done or suffered that would be worth considering. I can appeal to nothing except this: 'I am the chief of sinners, but Jesus died for me.'" (In English, a verse from a hymn: "I the chief of sinners am, but Jesus died for me.") — In his final illness, a few days before his death, he referred again to this confession, and when someone asked him, "Is that still the language of your heart even now, and are you still of the same mind as then?" he replied, "Yes!" The same person then said to him the verse: "Bold I approach th' eternal throne, And claim the crown, through Christ my own" (Boldly I step before the eternal throne, and claim for myself the crown that through Christ is mine), and then added: "That is enough; he, our dear Immanuel, has purchased it, he has promised it"; whereupon Wesley replied emphatically, "He is all in all!" And that same evening he said again: "How necessary it is for everyone to stand on the right foundation! There is no other than this: 'I am the chief of sinners, but Jesus died for me.'" On the following day, the day before his death, in even greater weakness, he said softly but distinctly: "There is no other way into the Holy of Holies except through the blood of Jesus." Thus, to the very last moment, he declared himself in need of forgiveness, both for his earlier and for his then-present life, and clearly recognized on all his works the blemishes that made them wholly unfit to stand before God, according to the demands of his righteousness, without grace.

A Hint for Educators.

An abbot complained, in conversation with Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury at the end of the eleventh century, about the incorrigible youth who would not be reformed by any amount of beating. The archbishop replied: "A good sign of your educational skill!" The abbot answered: "Well, is it then our