The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

or the faith of the communicants, but simply and solely by the power of
Almighty God, and the word, institution, and ordination of our Lord Jesus
Christ. For those most true and omnipotent words of Jesus Christ, which
He spake at the original institution, were not only efficacious in that first
Supper, but their power, virtue, and efficacy abide through all time; so that
in all places where the Lord's Supper is celebrated in accordance with
Christ's institution, by virtue of and in the power of those words which
Christ spake at the first Supper, His body and blood are truly present,
communicated, and received." 540 Luther says, "When (wenn-quando),
according to His command and institution in the administration of the
Lord's Supper, we say, 'This is My body,' then (so-tum) it is His body." 541
"Melancthon defines the sacramental action relatively to what is without,
that is over against the inclusion and carrying about of the Sacrament; he
does not divide it against itself, nor define it against itself." 542 In a word,
unless the sacramental action is entire, as Christ ordained it, His
sacramental presence will not be vouchsafed at all; if it be entire, His
presence is given from its beginning to its end. If it be argued, in a little
sophistical spirit, that we cannot tell till the distribution whether the action
will be complete, it is enough to reply that we have all the assurance that
we have in any case of moral certainty. Christ himself knows the end from
the beginning. At the beginning, middle, and end of the Supper, the
minister need not fear to assert, nor the people to believe, the very words of
Christ, in their simplest literal force. It is not going to be but is, when Christ
says it is.
XII. Objection. That the doctrine is useless in the Lutheran System.
XII. The most extraordinary charge against the Lutheran doctrine of
the Lord's Supper is that made by Roman Catholics and by some of the
Anglican High Church school, to wit, that the Lutheran doctrine, while it
asserts the objective character of the presence of the body and blood of
Christ, is able to make very little use
540 Formula Concord. 663, 74, 75.
541 Quoted in the Formula Concord. 664, 78, as confirmatory of its position. See also Gerhard: Loci. Loc. xxii.,
xvii., 194. (Ed. Cotta x. 327-329.)
542 Luther. Opera Lat. Jen. iv. 586.