The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1880, Page 11

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

11

The Life of Dr. Martin Luther.

XIV.
Lurner at Marpsurec.

The year 1529 is an important year in the

History of the Reformation. In this year
Luther wrote his Larger and Smaller Cate-
chisms, the latter of which is still used in our
Lutheran schools. In this year, too, a Diet
was held in the city of Spires. The Roman-
catholic princes there passed a decree forbid-
ding the preaching of the pure doctrines of
God’s Word. Against this decree the Lutheran
princes entered a solemn Protest, and from this
Protest the Lutherans were for the first time
called Protestants.

In that year 1529 an important Conference
was also held at the city of Marburg to discuss
the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. In the
beginning of the Reformation the friends of the
Gospel-truth were united in the pure doctrine
of God’s Word on this subject. The first who
dissented from the pure doctrine as taught by
Luther. was Carlstadt, that fanatical man who
had raised the disturbances in Wittenberg dur-
ing Luther’s concealment at the Wartburg.
He taught that the body and blood of Christ
are not truly present with the bread and wine
in the Holy Supper. Now, this is contrary to
the plain words of Christ as found in Matthew
26, 26—28.; Mark 14, 22—24.; Luke 22,
19. 20.; 1 Cor. 11, 28—25. The words of
Christ are quite plain, when, in giving the
bread, He says, THIS Is MY BODY, and, in
giving the wine, THIs 1s My BLOOD. Human
reason, however, cannot comprehend how the
true body of Christ can be truly present with
the bread, and the true blood of Christ with
the wine in the holy Sacrament. Men that
follow their reason rather than the Word of
God twist the plain words of Christ and deny
the true presence of the body and blood of
Christ in the Holy Supper. This was done by
Carlstadt, and others followed him. Zvingli,
a pastor in Switzerland, adopted and defended
the false doctrine. The poison of that error
began to spread. Luther saw that Satan, who
had tried to crush the Word of God by popery,
now tried to crush that Word by human reason.
God’s Word, in which Luther had found peace
and consolation, which was his mighty sword
and safe stronghold in his battle against the
Romish church, was now attacked by man’s
reason, and he arose to battle against that new
enemy. He wrote'two powerful books in which
he refuted all the arguments of those false
teachers and held high the banner of God’s
eternal truth. Zwingli and his men, however,
continued in their error and afterwards sepa-
rated from the Church of the pure faith and
organized a church of their own, called the
Reformed, of which church the so-called Pro-
testant denominations, outside of the Lutheran
_ Church, are but branches.

Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, a friend of
Luther's, arranged a Conference between the

two parties. It was held on the first three
days in October, 1529. The principal men
on the Lutheran side were Luther and his
learned friend Melanchthon; on the Reformed
side, Zwingli and Oecolampadius. The Re-
formed, who had many other false doctrines
besides that of the Holy Supper, were first
instructed in the doctrine of the Divinity of
Christ, of Original Sin, of Justification by
Faith, and others. Then the discussion on the
doctrine of the Holy Supper was opened, the
Reformed trying to prove that in the Holy
Supper the body and blood of Christ are not
present. They tried to take their first argu-
ment from the Bible. It was our Lord’s saying
in John 6, 63., ‘The flesh profiteth nothing.”
The Reformed argued that since the flesh of
Christ profiteth nothing, His body cannot be
present in the Sacrament. Luther showed them
that Christ in that verse does not speak of His
flesh, as He had before said that His flesh gives
eternal life; but that He meant our flesh, which
is carnal and does not receive the Word of God;
that it was shocking to say that Christ’s flesh
profited nothing.

The other argument of the Reformed was
taken from human reason. They said that a
body could not be in two places at the same
time, and that the body of Christ, sitting in
heaven, cannot be in the many places where
the Lord’s Supper is administered. Luther
told them that we must not judge of Christ’s
human nature according to our reason but
according to God’s Word, from which we know
that Christ’s human nature is inseparably united
with His divine nature into one person, by
reason of which union the human nature has
part in the glory and majesty of the divine
nature and therefore can be present in many
places at the same time in a manner which is
above our reason. When Zwingli here said
that God does not ask us to believe anything
unreasonable, Luther answered in the power
of faith: ‘“What God speaks is always for our
salvation, even though He should command us
to eat crab apples or pick up straws.’’

The discussion was carried on for three days,
but there was no agreement reached. Luther
had to tell his opponents, ‘‘You have a different
spirit from ours.” By this he meant a spirit
which would not bow to the Word of God, but
would rather follow human reason. He closed
the conference thanking his opponents that
they had conducted the discussion so kindly
and praying that God would bring them back
in the way of truth. The landgrave Philip had
been greatly impressed by Luther's powerful
Bible-arguments for the truth, and he said
publicly: “Now I shall believe the simple
words of Christ rather than the acute thoughts
of men.”? Yes, Luther at this Conference held
fast to the Word of God. When the Conference
opened, he wrote with chalk on the table, at
which he sat, the words of Christ in large
letters: THIS 1s MY BODY. His heart, as well
as his eye, always rested on God’s Word. He,
therefore, could not form 2 union with men

that would not accept the plain Word of God.
He held fast to the pure doctrine of the Holy
Supper until the hour of death, and the
Lutheran Church, thank God, still holds fast
to that precious doctrine and will maintain it,
God helping her, to the end of time.

> +0 pe

Old Nanny.

She was an old Scotch woman; and the folks
called her “Old Nanny’’. She had been sick
for many years; she was bed-ridden and near
the end of her “‘long and weary. pilgrimage’’,
but she rested as a poor sinner with full assur-
ance of faith upon the finished work of Christ.
One day a young minister said to her, ‘‘Now,
Nanny, what if, after all your confidence in
the Saviour, and your watching and waiting,
God should suffer your soul to be lost?” Rais-
ing herself on her elbow, and turning to him
with a look of grief and pain, she laid her hand
on the open Bible before her, and quietly said,
“Ah, dear me, is that all the length you have
got yet, man? God’, she said earnestly,
‘would have the greatest loss. Poor Nannie
would but lose her soul, and that would be a
great loss indeed, but God would lose His honor
and His character. Haven’t I hung my soul
upon His exceeding great and precious prom-
ises? and if He break His word, He would
make Himself a liar, AND ALL THE UNIVERSE .
WOULD RUSH INTO CONFUSION.”

—

A False Witness.

At the city of Stockholm, in Sweden, a man
was to be executed, who, though innocent,
was condemned through false witness. On the
scaffold, seeing the false witness among the
spectators, he raised his hand and cried aloud,
“False witness! false witness! between this
and to-morrow I cite you to appear before the
Judgment seat of God!’’ When the sheriff’s
sword struck off the head of the prisoner, the
false witness also fell to the ground, and was
carried away dead. :

—> oe -

Draw up your Feet.

“You can’t have everything you want in
this world. Life is often like a blanket that is
too short: if you pull it up over your shoulders,
you uncover your feet; and if you cover your
feet, your shoulders must be bare. However,
some cheerful people manage to draw their feet
up a little, and so pass a pleasant night.”

‘ —— +o o>

Fatse Peace.—Any peace that is not based
upon the finished work of the Lord Jesus is
just peace with Satan, peace in a condemned
state, and a peace that will land you in hell.
You can have no peace with God and your sins
too. ‘The blood that makes me a friend to
God, makes me a foe to sin.—Selected.