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Let us not, however, dabble too much in philosophy. Does not Christ appear to have admirably anticipated such curiosity by saying of the wine, not, "Hoc est sanguis meus," but "Hie est sanguis mens" [Matt. 26:28]? And yet more clearly, by bringing in the word "cup," when He said, "This cup is the new testament in my blood." [1 Cor. 11:25] Does it not seem as though He desired to keep us in a simple faith, so that we might but believe His blood to be in the cup? For my part, if I cannot fathom how the bread is the body of Christ, I will take my reason captive to the obedience of Christ [2 Cor. 10:5], and clinging simply to His word, firmly believe not only that the body of Christ is in the bread, but that the bread is the body of Christ. For in this I am borne out by the words, "He took bread, and giving thanks, He brake it and said, Take, eat; this [i. e., this bread which He took and brake] is my body." [1 Cor. 11:23] And Paul says: "The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" [1 Cor. 10:16] He says not, in the bread, but the bread itself, is the communion of the body of Christ. What matters it if philosophy cannot fathom this? The Holy Spirit is greater than Aristotle. Does philosophy fathom that transubstantiation of theirs, of which they themselves admit that here all philosophy breaks down? But the agreement of the pronoun "this" with "body," in Greek and Latin, is owing to the fact that in these languages the two words are of the same gender. But in the Hebrew language, which has no neuter gender, "this" agrees with "bread," so that it would be proper to say, "Hie est corpus meum." This is proved also by the use of language and by common sense; the subject, forsooth, points to the bread, not to the body, when He says, "Hoc est corpus meum," "Das ist mein Leib,"—i. e., This bread is my body.

Therefore it is with the sacrament even as it is with Christ. In order that the Godhead may dwell in Him, it is not necessary that the human nature be transubstantiated and the Godhead be contained under its accidents; but both natures are there in their entirety, and it is truly said, "This man is God," and "This God is man." Even though philosophy cannot grasp this, faith grasps it, and the authority of God's Word is greater than the grasp of our intellect. Even so, in order that the real body and the real blood of Christ may be present in the sacrament, it is not necessary that the bread and wine be transubstantiated and Christ be contained under their accidents; but both remain there together, and it is truly said, "This bread is my body, this wine is my blood," [Matt. 26:26] and vice versa. Thus I will for the nonce understand it, or the honor of the holy words of God, which I will not suffer any petty human arguments to override or wrest to meanings foreign to them. At the same time, I permit other men to follow the other opinion, which is laid down in the decree Firmiter⁴¹⁹; only let them not press us to accept their opinions as articles of faith, as I said above.

[Sidenote: The Third Captivity: The Mass a Good Work and a Sacrifice]

The third captivity of this sacrament is that most wicked abuse of all, in consequence of which there is to-day no more generally accepted and firmly believed opinion in the Church than this,—that the mass is a good work and a sacrifice. And this abuse has brought an endless host of others in its train, so that the faith of this sacrament has Sacrifice become utterly extinct and the holy sacrament has been turned into a veritable air, tavern, and place of merchandise. Hence participations⁴²⁰, brotherhoods⁴²¹, intercessions, merits, anniversaries, memorial days, and the like wares are bought and sold, traded and bartered in the Church, and from this priests and monks derive their whole living.

I am attacking a difficult matter, and one perhaps impossible to abate, since it has become so firmly entrenched through century-long custom and the common consent of men that it would be necessary to abolish most of the books now in vogue, to alter well-nigh the whole external form of the churches, and to introduce, or rather re-introduce, a totally different kind of ceremonies. But my Christ lives; and we must be careful to give more heed to the Word of God than to all the thoughts of men and of angels. I will perform the duties of my office, and uncover the acts in the case; I will give the truth as I have received it, freely and without malice [Matt. 10:8]. For the rest let every man look to his own salvation; I will faithfully do my part that none may cast on me the blame for his lack of faith and knowledge of the truth, when we appear before the judgment-seat of Christ.

[Sidenote: The Word of Christ, which is the Testament]

In the first place, in order to attain safely and fortunately to a true and unbiased knowledge of this sacrament, we must above all else be careful to put aside whatever has been added by the zeal and devotion of men to the original, simple institution of this sacrament,—such things as vestments, ornaments, chants, prayers, organs, candles, and the whole pageantry of outward things; we must turn our eyes and hearts simply to the institution of Christ and to this alone, and set naught before us but the very word of Christ by which He instituted this sacrament, made it perfect, and committed it to us. For in that word, and in that word alone, reside the power, the nature, and the whole substance of the mass. All else is the work of man, added to the word of Christ; and the mass can be held and remain a mass just as well without it. Now the words of Christ, in which He instituted this sacrament, are these:

"And whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake: and gave to His disciples, and said: Take ye and eat. This is my body, which shall be given for you. And taking the chalice. He gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: Drink ye all of this. This is the chalice, the new testament in my blood, which shall be shed for you and for many unto remission of sins. This do for the commemoration of me." [Matt. 26:26; 1 Cor. 11:24 f.; Luke 22:20]

These words the Apostle also delivers and more fully expounds in i Cor. xi [1 Cor. 11:23 ff.]. On them we must lean and build as on a firm foundation, if we would not be carried about with every wind of doctrine, even as we have hitherto been carried about by the wicked doctrines of men, who turn aside the truth [Titus 1:14]. For in these words nothing is omitted that pertains to the completeness, the use and the blessing of this sacrament; and nothing is included that is superfluous and not necessary for us to know. Whoever sets them aside and meditates or teaches concerning the mass, will teach monstrous and wicked doctrines, as they have done who made of the sacrament an opus operatum⁴²² and a sacrifice.

Therefore let this stand at the outset as our infallibly certain proposition,—the mass, or sacrament of the altar, is Christ's testament which He left behind Him at His death, to be distributed among His believers. For that is the meaning of His word,—"This is the chalice, the new testament in my blood." [Luke 22:20] Let this truth stand, I say, as the immovable foundation on which we shall base all that we have to say, or we are going to overthrow, as you will see, all the godless opinions of men imported into this most precious sacrament. Christ, Who is the Truth, saith truly that this is the new testament in His blood, which is shed for us. Not without reason do I dwell on this sentence; the matter is of no small moment, and must be most deeply impressed upon us.

Let us enquire, therefore, what a testament is, and we shall learn at the same time what the mass is, what its use and blessing, and what its abuse. A testament, as every one knows, is a promise made by one about to die, in which he designates his bequest and appoints his heirs. Therefore a testament involves, first, the death of the testator, and secondly, the promise of the bequest and the naming of the heir. Thus St. Paul discusses at length the nature of a testament in Romans iv, Galatians iii and iv, and Hebrews ix. The same thing is also clearly seen in these words of Christ. Christ testifies concerning His death when He says: "This is my body, which shall be given; this is my blood, which shall be shed." [Luke 22:19 f.] He designates the bequest when He says: "Unto remission of sins." And He appoints the heirs when He says: "For you, and for many"—i. e., for such as accept and believe the promise of the testator; or here it is faith that makes men heirs, as we shall see.

You see, therefore, that what we call the mass is the promise of remission of sins made to us by God; and such a promise as has been confirmed by the death of the Son of God. For the one difference between a promise and a testament is that a testament is a promise which implies the death of him who makes it. A testator is a man making a promise who is about to die; whilst he that makes a promise is, if I may so put it, a testator who is not about to die. This testament of Christ was forshadowed in all the promises of God from the beginning of the world; nay, whatever value those olden promises possessed was altogether derived from this new promise that was to come in Christ. Hence the words "covenant" and "testament of the Lord" occur so frequently in the Scriptures, which words signified that God would one day die. For where there is a testament, the death of the testator must needs follow (Hebrews ix). Now God made a testament: therefore it was necessary that He should die [Heb. 9:16]. But God could not die unless He became man. Thus both the incarnation and the death of Christ are briefly comprehended in this one word "testament."

From the above it will at once be seen what is the right and what the wrong use of the mass, what is the worthy and what the unworthy preparation for it. If the mass is a promise, as has been said, it is to be approached, not with any work or strength or merit, but with faith alone. For where there is the word of God Who makes the promise, there must be the faith of man who takes it. It is plain, therefore, that the first step in our salvation is faith, which clings to the word of the promise made by God, Who without any effort on our part, in free and unmerited mercy makes a beginning and offers us the word of His promise. For He sent His Word, and by it healed them [Ps. 107:20]. He did not accept our work and thus heal us. God's Word is the beginning of all; on it follows faith, and on faith charity; then charity works every good work, for it worketh no ill, nay, it is the fulfilling of the law [Rom. 13:10]. In no other way can man come to God and deal with Him than through faith; that is, not man, by any work of his, but God, by His promise, is the author of salvation, so that all things depend on the word of His power, and are upheld and preserved by it [Heb. 1:3], with which word He begat us, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures [Jas. 1:18].

Thus, in order to raise up Adam after the all, God gave him this promise, addressing the serpent: "I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel." [Gen. 3:15] In this word of promise Adam, with them that were his, was carried as it were in God's bosom, and by faith in it he was preserved, patiently waiting for the woman who should crush the serpent's head, as God had promised. And in that faith and expectation he died, not knowing when or in what guise she would come, yet never doubting that she would come. For such a promise, being the truth of God, preserves, even in hell, those who believe it and wait for it. After this came another promise, made to Noah—to last until the time of Abraham—when a bow was set as a sign in the clouds [Gen. 9:12], by faith in which Noah and his descendants found a gracious God. After that He promised Abraham that all nations should be blessed in his seed [Gen. 12:3]; and this is Abraham's bosom, into which his posterity was carried [Luke 16:22]. Then to Moses and the children of Israel, and especially to David, He gave the plain promise of Christ [Deut. 18:18], thereby at last making clear what was meant by the promise to them of old time [2 Sam. 7:6]. And so it came finally to the most complete promise of the new testament, in which with plain words life and salvation are freely promised, and granted to such as believe the promise. And He distinguished this testament by a particular mark from the old, calling it the "new testament." [Luke 22:20] For the old testament, which He gave by Moses, was a promise not of remission of sins or of eternal things, but of temporal,—namely, the land of Canaan,—by which no man was renewed in his spirit, to lay hold on the heavenly inheritance. Therefore it was also necessary that dumb beasts should be slain, as types of Christ, that by their blood the testament might be confirmed; so that the testament was even as the blood, and the promise even as the sacrifice. But here He says: "The new testament in my blood" [Luke 22:20]—not in another's, but in His own, and by this blood grace is promised, through the Spirit, unto the remission of sins, that we may obtain the inheritance.

The mass, according to its substance, is, therefore, nothing else than the aforesaid words of Christ—"Take and eat" [1 Cor. 11:24]; as if He said: "Behold, O sinful man and condemned, out of pure and unmerited love wherewith I love thee, and by the will of the Father of all mercies, I promise thee in these words, or ever thou canst desire or deserve them, the forgiveness of all thy sins and life everlasting. And, that thou mayest be most certainly assured of this my irrevocable promise, I give my body and shed my blood, thus by my very death confirming this promise, and leaving thee my body and blood as a sign and memorial of this same promise. As oft, therefore, as thou partakest of them, remember me, and praise, magnify, and give thanks or my love and largess toward thee."

Herefrom you will see that nothing else is needed for a worthy holding of mass than a faith that confidently relies on this promise, believes Christ to be true in these words of His, and doubts not that these infinite blessings have been bestowed upon it. Hard on this faith there follows, of itself, a most sweet stirring of the heart, whereby the spirit of man is enlarged and waxes at—that is love, given by the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ—so that he is drawn unto Christ, that gracious and good Testator, and made quite another and a new man. Who would not shed tears of gladness, nay well-nigh faint for the joy he hath toward Christ, if he believed with unshaken faith that this inestimable promise of Christ belonged to him! How could one help loving so great a Benefactor, who offers, promises and grants, all unbidden, such great riches, and this eternal inheritance, to one unworthy and deserving of somewhat far different?

Therefore, it is our one misfortune, that we have many masses in the world, and yet none or but the fewest of us recognize, consider and receive these promises and riches that are offered, although verily we should do nothing else in the mass with greater zeal (yea, it demands all our zeal) than set before our eyes, meditate, and ponder these words, these promises of Christ, which truly are the mass itself, in order to exercise, nourish, increase, and strengthen our faith by such daily remembrance. For this is what He commands, saying, "This do in remembrance of me." [1 Cor. 11:24]

This should be done by the preachers of the Gospel, in order that this promise might be faithfully impressed upon the people and commended to them, to the awakening of faith in the same. But how many are there now who know that the mass is the promise of Christ? I will say nothing of those godless preachers of fables, who teach human traditions instead of this promise. And even if they teach these words of Christ, they do not teach them as a promise or testament, and, therefore, not to the awakening of faith.

O the pity of it! Under this captivity, they take every precaution that no layman should hear these words of Christ, as if they were too sacred to be delivered to the common people. So mad are we⁴²³ priests that we arrogantly claim that the so-called words of consecration may be said by ourselves alone, as secret words, yet so that they do not profit even us, or we too fail to regard them as promises or as a testament, for the strengthening of faith. Instead of believing them, we reverence them with I know not what superstitious and godless fancies. This misery of ours, what is it but a device of Satan to remove every trace of the mass out of the Church? although he is meanwhile at work filing every nook and corner on earth with masses, that is, abuses and mockeries of God's testament, and burdening the world more and more heavily with grievous sins of idolatry, to its deeper condemnation. For what worse idolatry can there be than to abuse God's promises with perverse opinions and to neglect or extinguish faith in them?

For God does not deal, nor has He ever dealt, with man otherwise than through a word of promise, as I have said⁴²⁴; again, we cannot deal with God otherwise than through faith in the word of His promise. He does not desire works, nor has He need of them; we deal with men and with ourselves on the basis of works. But He has need of this,—that we deem Him true to His promises, wait patiently for Him, and thus worship Him with faith, hope and love. Thus He obtains His glory among us, since it is not of ourselves who run, but of Him who showeth mercy [Ps. 115:1], promiseth and giveth, that we have and hold every blessing [Rom. 9:16]. That is the true worship and service of God which we must perform in the mass. But if the words of promise are not proclaimed, what exercise of faith can there be? And without faith, who can have hope or love? Without faith, hope and love, what service can there be? There is no doubt, therefore, that in our day all priests and monks, together with all their bishops and superiors, are idolaters and in a most perilous state, by reason of this ignorance, abuse and mockery of the mass, or sacrament, or testament of God.

For any one can easily see that these two—the promise and faith—must go together. For without the promise there is nothing to believe, while without faith the promise, remains without effect; for it is established and fulfilled through faith. From this every one will readily gather that the mass, which is nothing else than the promise, is approached and observed only in this faith, without which whatever prayers, preparations, works, signs of the cross, or genuflections are brought to it, are incitements to impiety rather than exercises of piety; for they who come thus prepared are wont to imagine themselves on that account justly entitled to approach the altar, when in reality they are less prepared than at any other time and in any other work, by reason of the unbelief which they bring with them. How many priests will you find every day offering the sacrifice of the mass, who accuse themselves of a horrible crime if they—wretched men!—commit a trifling, blunder, such as putting on the wrong robe or forgetting to wash their hands or stumbling over their prayers; but that they neither regard nor believe the mass itself, namely, the divine promise—this causes them not the slightest qualms of conscience. O worthless religion of this our age, the most godless and thankless of all ages!

Hence the only worthy preparation and proper use of the mass is faith in the mass, that is to say, in the divine promise. Whoever, therefore, is minded to approach the altar and to receive the sacrament, let him beware of appearing empty before the Lord God [Ex. 23:15; 34:20]. But he will appear empty unless he has faith in the mass, or this new testament. What godless work that he could commit would be a more grievous crime against the truth of God, than this unbelief of his, by which, as much as in him lies, he convicts God of being a liar and a maker of empty promises? The safest course, therefore, will be to go to mass in the same spirit in which you would go to hear any other promise of God; that is, not to be ready to perform and bring many works, but to believe and receive all that is there promised, or proclaimed by the priest as having been promised to you. If you do not go in this spirit, beware of going at all; you will surely go to your condemnation.

I was right then in saying⁴²⁵ that the whole power of the mass consists in the words of Christ, in which He testifies that the remission of sins is bestowed on all those who believe that His body is given and His blood shed for them. For this reason nothing is more important for those who go to hear mass than diligently and in full faith to ponder these words. Unless they do this, all else that they do is in vain.

[Sidenote: The External Sign, which is the Sacrament]

But while the mass is the word of Christ, it is also true that God is wont to add to well-nigh every promise of His a certain sign as a mark or memorial of His promise, so that we may thereby the more faithfully hold to His promise and be the more forcibly admonished by it. Thus, to his promise to Noah that He would not again destroy the world by a flood, He added His bow in the clouds, to show that He would be mindful of His covenant [Gen. 9:13]. And after promising Abraham the inheritance in his seed, He gave him the sign of circumcision as the seal of his righteousness by faith. Thus, to Gideon He granted the sign of the dry and the wet fleece, to confirm His promise of victory over the Midianites [Judges 6:36 ff.]. And to Ahaz He offered a sign through Isaiah concerning his victory over the kings of Syria and Samaria, to strengthen his faith in the promise [Isa. 7:10 ff.]. And many such signs of the promises of God do we find in the Scriptures.

Thus also to the mass, that crown of all His promises. He adds His body and blood in the bread and wine, as a memorial sign of this great promise; as He says, "This do in remembrance of me." [1 Cor. 11:24] Even so in baptism He adds to the words of the promise, the sign of immersion in water. We learn from this that in every promise of God two things are presented to us—the word and the sign—so that we are to understand the word to be the testament, but the sign to be the sacrament. Thus, in the mass, the word of Christ is the testament, and the bread and wine are the sacrament. And as there is greater power in the word than in the sign, so there is greater power in the testament than in the sacrament; for a man can have and use the word, or testament, apart from the sign, or sacrament. "Believe," says Augustine, "and thou hast eaten."⁴²⁶ But what does one believe save the word of promise? Therefore I can hold mass every day, yea, every hour, for I can set the words of Christ before me, and with them refresh and strengthen my faith, as often as I choose. That is a truly spiritual eating and drinking.⁴²⁷

Here you may see what great things our theologians of the Sentences⁴²⁸ have produced. That which is the principal and chief thing, namely, the testament and word of promise, is not treated by one of them; thus they have obliterated faith and the whole power of the mass. But the second part of the mass,—the sign, or sacrament,⁴²⁹—this alone do they discuss, yet in such a manner that here too they teach not faith but their preparations and opera operata, participations and fruits⁴³⁰, as though these were the mass, until they have fallen to babbling of transubstantiation and endless other metaphysical quibbles, and have destroyed the proper understanding and use of both sacrament and testament, altogether abolished faith, and caused Christ's people to forget their God, as the prophet says, days without number [Jer. 2:32]. But do you let the others tell over the manifold fruits of hearing mass, and turn hither your mind, and say and believe with the prophet, that God here prepares a table before you, against all those that afflict you, at which your soul may eat and grow fat [Ps. 23:5]. But your faith is fed only with the word of divine promise, for "not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God." [Deut. 8:3; Matt. 4:4] Hence, in the mass you must above all things pay closest heed to the word of promise, as to your rich banquet, green pasture, and sacred refreshment; you must esteem this word higher than all else, trust in it above all things, and cling firmly to it even through the midst of death and all sins. By thus doing you will attain not merely to those tiny drops and crumbs of "fruits of the mass," which some have superstitiously imagined, but to the very fountainhead of life, which is faith in the word, from which every blessing flows; as it is said in John iv: "He that believeth in me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water" [John 7:38]; and again: "He that shall drink of the water that I will give him, it shall become in him a fountain of living water, springing up into life everlasting." [John 4:14]⁴³¹

Now there are two things that commonly tempt us to lose the fruits of the mass: first, the fact that we are sinners and unworthy of such great things because of our exceeding vileness; and, secondly, the act that, even if we were worthy, these things are so high that our faint-hearted nature dare not aspire to them or ever hope to attain to them. For to have God for our Father, to be His sons and heirs of all His goods—these are the great blessings that come to us through the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting. And who that regarded them aright must not rather stand aghast before them than desire to possess them? Against this twofold faintness of ours we must lay hold on the word of Christ and fix our gaze on it much more firmly than on those thoughts of our weakness. For "great are the works of the Lord [Ps. 111:2]; wrought out according to all His wills, who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." [Eph. 3:20] If they did not surpass our worthiness, our grasp and all our thoughts, they would not be divine. Thus Christ also encourages us when He says: "Fear not, little flock, for it hath pleased your Father to give you a kingdom." [Luke 17:32] For it is just this overflowing goodness of the incomprehensible God, lavished upon us through Christ, that moves us to love Him again with our whole heart above all things, to be drawn to Him with all confidence, to despise all things else, and be ready to suffer all things for Him; wherefore this sacrament is well styled "a fount of love."

Let us take an illustration of this from every day life⁴³². If a thousand gulden were bequeathed by a rich lord to a beggar or an unworthy and wicked servant, it is certain that he would boldly claim and take them regardless of his unworthiness and the greatness of the bequest. And if any one should seek to oppose him by casting in his teeth his unworthiness and the large amount of the legacy, what do you suppose he would say? He would say, forsooth: "What is that to you? What I accept, I accept not on my merits or by any right that I may personally have to it; I know that I am unworthy and receive more than I have deserved, nay, I have deserved the very opposite. But I claim it because it is so written in the will, and on the score of another's goodness. If it was not an unworthy thing for him to bequeath so great a sum to an unworthy person, why should I reuse to accept it because of my unworthiness? Nay, the more unworthy I am, the more reason have I to accept this other man's gracious gift." With such thoughts we need to fortify the consciences of men against all qualms and scruples, that they may lay hold on the promise of Christ with unwavering faith, and take the greatest care to approach the sacrament, not trusting in their confession, prayer and preparation, but rather despairing of these and with a proud confidence in Christ Who gives the promise. For, as we have said again and again, the word of promise must here reign supreme in a pure and unalloyed faith, and such faith is the one and all-sufficient preparation.

[Sidenote: The Mass Converted into a Good Work]

Hence we see how angry God is with us, in that he has permitted godless teachers to conceal the words of this testament from us, and thereby, as much as in them lay, to extinguish faith. And the inevitable result of this extinguishing of faith is even now plainly to be seen—namely, the most godless superstition of works. For when faith dies and the word of faith is silent, works and the traditions of works immediately crowd into their place. By them we have been carried away out of our own land, as in a Babylonian captivity, and despoiled of all our precious possessions. This has been the fate of the mass; it has been converted by the teaching of godless men into a good work, which they themselves call an opus operatum⁴³³ and by which they presumptuously imagine themselves all-powerful with God. Thereupon they proceeded to the very height of madness, and having invented the lie that the mass works ex opere operate⁴³⁴, they asserted further that it is none the less profitable to others, even if it be harmful to the wicked priest celebrating it. On such a foundation of sand they base their applications, participations, sodalities, anniversaries and numberless other money-making schemes.

These lures are so powerful, widespread and firmly entrenched that you will scarcely be able to prevail against them unless you keep before you with unremitting care the real meaning of the mass, and bear well in mind what has been said above. We have seen that the mass is nothing else than the divine promise or testament of Christ, sealed with the sacrament of His body and blood. If that is true, you will understand that it cannot possibly be a work, and that there is nothing to do in it, nor can it be dealt with in any other way than by faith alone. And faith is not a work, but the mistress and the life of all works⁴³⁵. Where in all the world is there a man so foolish as to regard a promise made to him, or a testament given to him, as a good work which by his acceptance of it he renders to the testator? What heir will imagine he is doing his departed father a kindness by accepting the terms of the will and the inheritance bequeathed to him? What godless audacity is it, therefore, when we who are to receive the testament of God come as those who would perform a good work or Him! This ignorance of the testament, this captivity of the sacrament—are they not too sad for tears? When we ought to be grateful for benefits received, we come in our pride to give that which we ought to take, mocking with unheard-of perversity the mercy of the Giver by giving as a work the thing we receive as a gift; so that the testator, instead of being the dispenser of His own goods, becomes the recipient of ours. Out upon such godless doings!