4. The nearer, now, our masses are to the first mass of Christ, the better, without doubt, they are; and the farther from Christ's mass, the more perilous. For that reason we may not boast of ourselves, against the Russians or Greeks, that we alone have a right to hold mass; as little as a priest who wears a red chasuble may boast against him who wears one of white or black. For such external additions and differences may by their dissimilarity make sects and dissensions, but they can never make the mass better. Although I neither wish nor am able to displace or discard all such additions, still, because such pompous forms are perilous, we must never permit ourselves to be led away by them from the simple institution by Christ and from the right use of the mass. And, indeed, the greatest and most useful art is to know what really and properly belongs to the mass, and what is added and foreign. For where there is no clear distinction, the eyes and the heart are easily misled by such shamming into a false impression and delusion; so that what men have invented is reckoned the mass, and what the mass is, is never experienced, to say nothing of deriving benefit from it. Thus, alas! it happens in our times; for, I fear, every day more than a thousand masses are said, of which perhaps not one is a real mass. O dear Christian, to have many masses is not to have the mass. There is more to it than that. [Sidneote: The Chief Thing in the Mass] 5. If we desire to say mass rightly and understand it, then we must give up everything that the eyes and all the senses behold and suggest in this act, such as vestments, in bells, songs, ornaments, prayers, processions, elevations, prostrations, or whatever happens in the mass, until we first lay hold of and consider well the words of Christ, by which He completed and instituted the mass and commanded us to observe it. For therein lies the whole mass, its nature, work, profit and benefit, and without them (i. e., the words) no benefit is derived from the mass. But these are the words: Take and eat, this is My body, which is given for you. [Matt. 26:26] Take and drink ye all of it, this is the cup of the new and eternal testament in My blood, [Mark 14:22, 23, 24] which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins [Luke 22:19, 20]. These words every Christian must have before him in the mass and hold fast to them as the chief part of the mass, in which also the really good preparation for the mass and sacrament is taught; this we shall see. [Sidenote: Faith and God's Promises]