The modern world needs to have these truths driven home anew, and, barring a few scholastic phrases here and there, cannot find them better expressed than in the remarkably elevated and devotional language of Luther in this treatise.
The text of the treatise is found in the following editions: Weimar Ed., vol. ii, 742; Erlangen Ed., vol. xxvii, 28; Walch Ed., Vol. xix, 522; St. Louis Ed., xix, 426; Clemen, vol. i, 196; Berlin Ed., vol. iii, 259.
Tschackert, _Enstehung der lutherischen und reformierten Kirchenlehre_, 1910, pp. 174-176.
K. Thieme, _Entwicklung und Bedeutung der Sakramentslehre Luthers_, Neueu Kirchl. Zeitschrift, XII (1901), Nos. 10 and 11.
F. Graebke, _Die Konstruktion der Abendmahlslehre Luthers in ihre Entwicklung dargestellt_, Leipzig 1908.
[2] Enders, II, no. 254. Smith, _Luther's Correspondence_, I, no. 206.
[3] Gess, _Akten und Briefe zur Kirchenpolitik Herzog Georgs von Sachsen_, Leipzig, 1905.
[5] In this edition, Vol. I, pp. 294-336. See especially pp. 312 ff.
[7] _Treatise on the New Testament_, Vol. I, pp. 297 ff.
[8] See Köstlin, _Luther's Theologie_, I, 292 f.; also Hering, _Die Mystik Luthers_, Leipzig, 1879, pp. 171-174.
[11] See _Treatise concerning the Ban_, below, p. 37.
A TREATISE CONCERNING THE BLESSED SACRAMENT OF THE HOLY AND TRUE BODY OF CHRIST AND CONCERNING THE BROTHERHOODS
1. Like the sacrament of holy baptism[1] the holy sacrament of the altar, or of the holy and true body of Christ, has three parts which it is necessary or us to know. The first is the sacrament, or sign, the second is the significance of this sacrament, the third is the faith required by both of these; the three parts which must be found in every sacrament. The sacrament must be external and visible, and have some material form; the significance must be internal and spiritual, within the spirit of man; faith must apply and use both these.
[Sidenote: The First Part of the Sacrament: the Sign]
2. The sacrament, or outward sign, is in the form of bread and wine, just as baptism has as its sign water; although the sign is not simply the form of bread and wine, but the use of the bread and wine in eating and drinking, just as the water of baptism is used by immersion or by pouring. For the sacrament, or sign, must be received, or must at least be desired, if it is to work a blessing. Although at present the two kinds are not given the people daily, as of old,--nor is this necessary,--yet the priesthood partakes of it daily in the sight of the people, and it is enough that the people desire it daily and receive one kind at the proper time, as the Christian Church ordains and offers[2].
