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July 6 - July 7, 2020
But why does Westphal cite these when he himself knows full well how many things were written back and forth then, arguments which the writers themselves later explained much more plainly and clearly? It is as though he thinks that if you were allowed to search through every one of Luther’s written works, you would not find there very many sentiments109 which we do not doubt would have later displeased no one more than Luther himself!
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John Oecolampadius117 then entered the contest, a man whose piety and learning no one ever belittled except one who never knew him or who lacked all piety and learning.
on the contrary, say that the actual reality is nowhere else than in heaven while the signs of those realities are on earth.
No, the controversy concerns whether these words—“to receive,” “to eat,” “to drink”—should actually be understood in the Lord’s Supper in the literal sense for the symbols, but metaphorically for the actual realities, although
Believe, and you have eaten.”
Calvin does not draw from the swamps of the Sophists the things that he writes. Westphal cannot endure
‘Behold, I am with you to the very end of the age.’” And then, “This is because He did not in His divinity abandon nor desert those whom in His humanity He left and from whom He departed. For He is absent from us in the form of
By the kindness of God we profess that all things must be done in the church of God properly and decently.278 The mysteries, then, must be administered reverently, not only with our speech but also in truth and in our actions.279 We are accustomed to testify without hesitation that this reverence—even if it principally resides in the attitude of the
Yet we judge that they have acted correctly and wisely who have thrown out of their churches that whole form of dress, which is more suited to actors than to ministers of the Word, as well as other remnants of paganism. For surely they can do a great deal of harm, as experience itself has taught; and they cannot help at all. But we certainly do not count the restoring
the frightening, raging love for idols359 with which the world still seethes should have been sufficient warning that absolutely no images ought to be tolerated in the churches. That deed of Epiphanius is well known, who chopped in pieces a cloth360 on which there was an image of the crucified Christ, even though (as I think, at any rate) it had not been set there for worship.
We ought to shape what is useful for the church according to this pattern rather than according to the mere inventions of our own brains!
If it should happen that someone’s child dies before he can be offered for baptism, we do not doubt about his salvation at all because we think that the contempt of baptism is fatal, not the absence of it.
We believe, however, that the children of the saints have already been adopted right in the womb according to the covenantal formula. And so we baptize them.
It really should put us to shame that for so many years the advance of the gospel has been slowed down by such lamentable arguments as these. Let us grant that to this point (even as our sins well deserved) the contest has been waged with hatred. Why do we not rather fight with charity? We definitely have common enemies, we have a common God and Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We have a common doctrine and religion when it comes to original sin, the office of Mediator, faith, good works, the Word of the Lord, the church, and the magistrate. Whatever our difference in sacramental perspective, is
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At one time he was my teacher,
