Equally evident, according to the Table-Talk, was the pestilent side of the Mass as a pecuniary concern. It is on this account that Luther is fond of calling it the foundation of Popery, as though the Papacy were erected on wealth.[1848] His historical knowledge of the actual facts is as great here as it is when, in his Table-Talk, he makes private Masses originate in the time of Pope Gregory I († 604).[1849]
Incidentally he describes quite frankly one way in which he had endeavoured to overthrow the Mass: At first it had seemed to him impossible to achieve its fall because its roots were so deeply imbedded in the human heart. “But when once the Sacrament is received under both kinds, the Mass will not stand much longer.”[1850]—We have already had occasion to describe the underhand measures he recommended in the warfare against the Mass (Vol. ii., p. 321 f.).
In part at least, he could congratulate himself on the success of his unholy efforts. “If our Lord God allows me to die a natural death, He will be playing a nasty trick on the Papists, because they will have failed to burn the man who has thus brought the Mass to nought.”[1851]
Denunciation of the Mass naturally occupies a place in Luther’s Articles of Schmalkalden.[1852] Since the latter were incorporated in the “Symbolic Books” of the Lutheran Evangelical Church and figure in the Book of Concord with the three oldest Œcumenical Creeds, the Confession of Augsburg, etc., as writings “recognised and accepted as godly truths by our blessed forefathers and by us,” condemnation of the Mass became as much a traditional canon within the Protestant fold as Luther himself could have desired.
In the Schmalkalden Articles we find, after the first article on Justification by Faith alone, a second article on the office and work of Jesus Christ which declares: “That the Mass among the Papists must be the greatest and most frightful abomination” because it is “in direct and violent opposition” to the first article, according to which the Lamb of God alone delivers man from sin, not “a wicked or pious minister of the Mass by his work.” The Mass is a “work of men, yea, of wicked knaves,” a source “of unspeakable abuses by the buying and selling of Masses,” defended by the Papists only because they “know very well, that if the Mass falls, the Papacy too must perish.” Over and above all this, that dragon’s tail, which is the Mass, has produced much filth and vermin and many forms of idolatry: First of all Purgatory; for the execrable market of Masses for the dead produced that “devilish spectre” of Purgatory. Secondly, “on account of it evil spirits have performed much trickery by appearing as the souls of men”; the devils “with unspeakable roguery” demanded Masses, etc. “Thirdly, pilgrimages, whereby people ran after Masses, forgiveness of sins, and the Grace of God, for the Mass ruled everything” and caused men to run after “hurtful, devilish will-o’-the-wisps.” “Fourthly, the brotherhoods” with their Masses, etc., are also “contrary to the first article of the Atonement.” “Fifthly, the holy things” (relics) were also “supposed to effect forgiveness of sin as being a good work and worship of God like the Mass.” “Sixthly, here belong also the beloved Indulgence” in which “Judas incarnate, i.e. the Pope, sells the merits of Christ.”—Hence even Indulgences are made out to be one of the unhappy consequences of the Mass!
It is a relief, after such lamentable utterances which could only have been accepted by people whom prejudice in Luther’s favour had rendered blind, to recall the clear statements—so full of conviction—on the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament, which occur in the very writings in which Luther attacks the Mass. Our second volume concluded with a cheering confession on the part of the Wittenberg Professor of his faith in the Trinity and Incarnation, a confession which both did him honour and expressed those consoling and incontrovertible truths which constitute the common treasure of the Christian creeds. The present volume also, after the sad pictures of dissent of which it is only too full, may charitably end with the words in which Luther voices his belief in the Sacrament of the Altar, the lasting memorial of Divine Love, in which our Lord never ceases to pray for unity amongst those bidden as guests to His table.
“I hereby confess before God and the whole world that I believe and do not doubt, and with the help and grace of my dear Lord Jesus Christ will maintain even to that Day, that where Mass is celebrated according to Christ’s ordinance whether amongst us Lutherans or in the Papacy, or in Greece or in India (even though under one kind only—though that is wrong and an abuse), there is present under the species of the Bread, the true Body of Christ given for us on the cross, and, under the species of wine, the true Blood of Christ shed for us; nor is it a spiritual or fictitious Body and Blood, but the true natural Body and Blood taken of the holy, virginal, and really human body of Mary, without the intervention of any man but conceived of the Holy Ghost alone; which Body and Blood of Christ now sitteth at the right hand of the Majesty of God in the Divine Person, which is Christ Jesus, true, real, and eternal God, with the Father of Whom He is begotten from all eternity, etc. And that same Body and Blood of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, not only the Saints and those who are worthy, but also sinners and the unworthy truly handle and receive, bodily though invisibly, with hands, mouth, chalice, paten, corporal, or whatever else be used when it is given and received in the Mass.”
“This is my faith, this I know, and no one shall take it from me.”
He had always, so he insists, by his testimony upheld the “clear, plain text of the Gospel” against heresies old and new, and withstood the “devil’s malice and work in the service and for the betterment of my dear brothers and sisters, in accordance with Christian charity.”[1853]
END OF VOL. IV