# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1859_S269
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Difference between the Lutheran and Reformed Church. 269

they divided themselves well into seven spirits over the text, each always differing from the next. The first, Karlstadt, made the text — "this is my body" — mean as much as: Here sits my body, which is given for you. Oh, this was so certain that not only the Holy Spirit but the heavenly Father himself had revealed it to him. The second, Zwingel, says that would not be rightly done, notwithstanding that the heavenly Father himself had revealed it; and he made the text, through his own other holy spirit, mean this: Take, eat, that signifies my body, which is given for you. The third, Oecolampadius, brought forth the third holy spirit; he made the text differently yet again, namely thus: Take, eat, that is the sign of my body. The fourth, Stenkefeld, took it into his head that his stink would be the talk of the whole world, and produced out of the fourth holy spirit this rule: One must put these words ("this is my body") out of one's sight, for they hinder the spiritual understanding. This rule you must mark well, if you wish to become a theologian: namely, wherever the plain words of God hinder your understanding, you are to seek out another sense that pleases you, and then say it is the Holy Spirit; and thereafter you arrange and interpret the words however seems good to you. As, for instance: here you must first grasp the lofty spiritual understanding that bread is bread and wine is wine — which neither Papist nor Luther has ever understood, nor any baker or tavern-keeper either — and accordingly make the text read with the last put first, namely: Take and eat; my body, which is given for you, is this (understand: a spiritual food). There you have it; go now and say that Stenkefeld does not have the Holy Spirit, far beyond the three holy spirits of Karlstadt, Zwingel, and Oecolampadius. The fifth holy spirit — certain persons of his rabble and vermin — make it thus: Take, eat what is given for you, that is my body. The sixth holy spirit makes it thus: Take, eat, this is my body, for a remembrance; which is meant to say as much as: Take, eat, this is the remembrance of my body, which is given for you.

The seventh holy spirit, Johannes Campanus, makes it thus: Take, eat, this is my body — corpus scilicet paneum — which is meant to mean: The bread that I give you is a body or substance by itself, not my living, natural body, but a dead, lifeless body, as stone and wood are a body. But because it is my creature, it is therefore also my body, which I have made. This is the very highest holy spirit, against and above all the others, without taking away the honor due to the bakers, who nevertheless also do something to the bread, while it is God who supplies not the bread itself but the grain for the bread. Beyond these there still roamed about one more, extra holy spirit (for the devil too is holy and a great spirit); he says thus: Here is no article of faith, therefore one should not quarrel over it; let each believe here as he pleases. This holy spirit strikes me as a young holy spirit, hatched and brooded out by the old holy spirit, Stenkefeld.)

*) Is the Holy Spirit also with the General Synod? L. u. W.