# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 01 08_S148
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

His last confessional address at Frohna dealt with the daily testament of a Christian. Yet he did not sense his end to be so near at the very beginning of the illness. But he was full of praise and thanks for every refreshment that came to him through the loving care, continued day and night, of his own household, and for the goodness of God shown in the fruit-laden peach trees that he could see from his bed. At the same time he spoke such kind words to the members of his household that tears often stood in his wife's eyes. Several times the illness seemed to turn toward improvement. The 16th of August especially was a day of renewed hope, when, being much freer from the fever's power, he conversed with the writer of this almost like a convalescent. The physician, too, gave new hope. But it was to be the last conversation. A new worsening soon set in again. Even in the fever's delirium one heard only words of loving concern for his own family or for suffering fellow ministers. He now began to feel his end drawing near. On the last day of his life, a Sunday, the eleventh after Trinity, he saw it coming with certainty; in the early morning hour he had one of his former pupils, the now Pastor Wunder of Centreville, once more pronounce to him the absolution of all his sins in the powerful, anointed words of an old liturgy, openly declared his joy over the comfort received, had his family gather about his bed, blessed them, comforted them, and admonished them. After that the last struggle began, but the comfort of the Holy Spirit remained with him and in him. With his eyes already breaking, he cried out, raising himself once more upon his deathbed: "Lord Jesus, into Thy hands I commit my soul." Thereupon his speech gradually failed him, and he fell gently asleep as the sun sank toward its setting, surrounded and mourned by his family and by numerous members of his congregation. On the morning of August 21, the cast-off tabernacle of his body, accompanied by almost the whole congregation, was committed to the earth. His eldest pupil, Pastor Biltz, delivered the graveside address, beginning with the sorrowful lament: Lord, why hast Thou done this to us? The writer of this had to deliver — what he had never thought possible — the memorial sermon for him. Its text was Hebrews 13:7: "Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation." Its content was: an overview of the departed's course of life and its divine guidance, the example of his faith, the exhortation to follow him, and the comfort in his death.

Let an attempt now be made to sketch his image as it stood before us at the last: like a tall, beautiful palm tree, planted in the courts of the Lord by the rivers of life, tended and raised up by the hand of the heavenly Gardener, laden with the fruits of righteousness through Jesus Christ, fresh and flourishing before us.
(Conclusion to follow.)

147

Dr. Martin Luther's Brief Confession Concerning the Holy Sacrament, Against the Fanatics.
Anno 1544.

I.
(Continuation.)

For the second time they were warned by many, and by me too quite particularly, since I wrote against them so diligently and refuted their grounds and reasons so forcibly that their consciences had to feel it. For they had two sayings on their side: one, John 6:65, "The flesh profiteth nothing," which Oecolampadius called his iron wall. The other, "Christ is ascended into heaven," Ephesians 4:10, therefore His body and blood cannot be in the Lord's Supper. And they adduced more sayings that speak of Christ's ascension, teaching us very emphatically that Christ had ascended into heaven, just as though we had never heard any such thing in some fifteen hundred years. But that therefore mere bread and wine should be in the Supper — that little nut they never once wished to bite into or touch, as my books, which are still extant, testify against them.

The first saying, "The flesh profiteth nothing," I took from them so forcibly that even Zwingli, in his last little book, no longer mentions it.

The other I likewise took from them forcibly, namely thus: it would be impossible that they should in earnest have been moved to deny the body and blood of the Lord in the Supper for the sake of that saying ("He is ascended into heaven"), as they nevertheless in many books and with proud words always kept insisting; rather, they must certainly be lying in this. I prove this from this ground: Christ instituted the Supper and gave His body and blood to His disciples, as the words stand: "Eat, this is My body," before He ascended into heaven. For there He sits at table, here below on earth, and holds the first Supper. Therefore it cannot be true, what they boast, namely, that the sayings about the ascension moved them. For against this stands the fact that Christ holds the Supper before He ascends into heaven. Now, if His ascension does not hinder the first Supper, how can it be in earnest, and not a lie, when they say that the ascension moved and hindered them? — since we for fifteen hundred years now have held no other Supper than the one the Lord first instituted and commanded, as He says: "This do in remembrance of Me." Besides, they neither know nor understand what "ascending into heaven" means; how then could it have moved them?

Against this they could say nothing more, and now sought ways how they might patch and mend their bad cause, and come to an agreement with us. Then the colloquy at Marburg was arranged, in which they improved their position and conceded that it was not mere bread and wine in the Supper, as they had until then contended most vehemently, but that the body and blood of Christ were also present therein, though not bodily but spiritually. This too would not hold up; for to partake spiritually belongs to the saints and the righteous alone. But St. Paul says that the unworthy receive the body and blood of Christ just as well as the worthy, 1 Corinthians 11:27, 29.

And Zwingli carried on with me a long, nonsensical wrangle about local inclusion* — that the body of Christ could not be in the bread as in a space or a vessel — just as though we taught that Christ's body were in the bread the way straw is in a sack, or wine in a cask. Whereupon some of them excused themselves, saying they had not understood it otherwise than that we and the papists taught that Christ's body was in the Sacrament localiter, like straw in a sack. Oh, that was a lame, cold, feeble excuse! For they knew very well that neither the papists nor we had ever taught so. And even if (incredible as it is to say) they had really not understood it otherwise, they would thereby have to confess that, like madmen, they attacked a matter which they themselves had never heard nor understood. For the doctrine of the papists was at that time far more current than it is now — indeed there was no other doctrine current at all — so that the fanatics must have had knowledge of that same teaching.

Thus, however, the papists teach — no, not the papists, but the holy Christian Church, and we together with them (for the pope, as has been said, did not institute the Sacrament) — that Christ's body is not there localiter (like straw in a sack), but definitive, that is, it is certainly there, not as straw in a sack, and yet bodily and truly there, as I have proven at length in my little book. This, I say, they knew well, or were at any rate bound to know, since they wished to rage so horribly against that which they did not know.

Thus we parted from Marburg with such hope (as has been said), because they yielded on all the Christian articles, and in this article of the holy Sacrament also retreated from their former error (that it was merely bread), that they would in time come over entirely and wholly to our side. Since, however, through the devil's doing this has failed, and I have indeed been deceived, as I must note from the little book that came out after Zwingli's death, that he became worse after the colloquy than before, and had certainly dealt falsely with me at Marburg: I am compelled to have no fellowship whatsoever with any fanatic, be he called Schwenckfeld, Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Carlstadt, or whoever they may be — the fanatics, bread-eaters and wine-drinkers, that is, blasphemers and enemies of Christ — but must neither know in my heart, nor even see or hear, their letters, books, greetings, blessings, writings, name, or memory.

For since I am certain, and their own conscience must stand against them, that they are wrong and blaspheme God, I both will and can joyfully say before my dear Lord Jesus Christ on the Last Day: Lord Jesus, I have faithfully warned and admonished them, and thereto their own conscience has convicted them; that they must confess before Thee; that Thou knowest well, dear Lord.

*) Of local enclosure.