The Lord's Supper in the Theology of Martin Chemnitz Bjarne - Logia

| The Lord’s Supper
walked here in this flesh and gave this to us to eat for salvation, no one eats
this flesh unless he has first worshiped. There has been found a way in
which such a footstool of the Lord may be worshiped; and not only do we
not sin in worshiping, but we sin when we do not worship. (Ex. 2, 278).
The fact that he employed the same quotation in The Two Natures of
Christ (p. 420) and that he together with Andreae also used it in the
“Catalog of Testimonies,” added as an Appendix to the original 1580
Book of Concord (Triglot 1127), indicates that references such as these
had been deeply rooted in his theology.
275 The words of Ambrose on the same text (Psalm 99:5) are also advanced
as supporting the thesis that on the altar is placed the Lamb
of God with His body and blood and that He is worthy of veneration,
“By His footstool let the earth be understood; by the earth, however,
the flesh of Christ, which today also we worship in the mysteries,
which also the Apostles worshiped in the Lord Jesus” (Ex. 2, 278).
This quotation is also found in The Two Natures of Christ (p. 420) and
also in the “Catalog of Testimonies” (Trig. 1127), there to prove that
the “Ancient Pure Church” taught that in the personal union the human
nature truly received and uses divine majesty.
276 Chemnitz must have been acutely aware that the Melanchthonians
were determined to negate the creative power of the Verba as effecting
the Real Presence (see p. 83 f.), for with such rejection they would
deny the permissibility of the adoration of the sacrament. In the Examination
he produces an enormous amount of evidence to show that
he did not disagree with the Early Church nor with Luther, both
of which held to the personal union of the two natures in Christ
and also to an effective consecration. The cumulative effect of this
evidence is quite impressive. He quotes the testimony of Eusebius of
Emesa (a rather obscure bishop of Syria), “When you go up to the
awe-inspiring altar desiring to be sated with spiritual food, look in
faith on the holy body and blood of your God, honor them, marvel
at them, touch them with your mind, take them with the hand of the
heart, and most of all take them with the deep draught of the inner
man” (Ex. 2, 278).
277 In the same paragraph he quotes the epitaph which Gregory of
Nazianzus wrote for his sister Gorgonia, “She called upon Christ,
who was honored upon the altar, namely when the sacrament of the
Supper is celebrated” (Ex. 2, 278). In the Lord’s Supper, which Chem-