Concerning the Sacrament of the Altar he gave the following noteworthy
answer to a question put to him jointly, in 1544, by the three princely
brothers of Anhalt, viz. whether they should do away with the Elevation
of the Sacrament in the liturgy. “By no means,” he replied, “for
such abrogation would tend to diminish respect for the Sacrament and
cause it to be undervalued. When Dr. Pommer abolished the Elevation
[at Wittenberg, in 1542] during my absence, I did not approve of it,
and now I am even thinking of re-introducing it. For the Elevation is
one thing, the carrying about of the Sacrament in procession quite
another [at Wittenberg Luther would not allow such processions of the
Sacrament]. If Christ is truly present in the Bread (‘_in pane_’),
why should He not be treated with the utmost respect and even be
adored?”--Joachim, Prince of Anhalt, added, when relating this: “We
saw how Luther bowed low at the Elevation with great devotion and
reverently worshipped Christ.”[812]
Certain controversialists have undoubtedly been in the wrong in making
out Luther to have been sceptical about, or even opposed at heart to,
many of the ancient dogmas which he never attacked, for instance,
the Trinity, or the Divinity of Christ. A few vague and incautious
statements occasionally let slip by him are more than counterbalanced
by a wealth of others which tell in favour of his faith, and he
himself would have been the last to admit the unfortunate inferences
drawn more or less rightly from certain propositions emitted by him.
It is a lucky thing, that, in actual life, error almost always claims
the right of not being bound down too tightly in the chains of logic.
When Luther, for instance, made every man judge of the meaning of the
Bible, he was setting up a principle which must have dissolved all
cohesion between Christians, and thus, of necessity, he was compelled
to limit, somewhat illogically, the application of the principle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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