quibble at my language, and boast that I myself here make a sacrifice
in the _sacrament_, although I have hitherto contended that the _mass_
is no sacrifice; then you shall answer thus: I make _neither the mass
nor the sacrament_ a sacrifice, ("Ich mache _weder_ Messe _noch_
Sacrament zum opfer,") but the remembrance of Christ," [Note 16] &c.
Here the two are distinguished as clearly as language can discriminate
between two separate objects, and even placed in antithesis to one
another: and let it be remembered, that all the examples are taken from
works published either before or in the very year in which the Augsburg
Confession was written. A few years later, in 1534, in a letter to a
friend, in which he inveighs strongly against the closet masses and the
perverted order or arrangements of the mass, (verkehrte ordnung der
Messe,) and against the Romish mass in general: "I wish, and would very
gladly see and hear, that the two words mass and sacrament were
considered by every one as being as far apart as light and darkness,
yea, as the devil and God. For they (the Papists) must themselves
confess, that mass dues not signify the reception of the sacrament as
Christ instituted it; but the reception of the sacrament they do, (and
no thanks to them,) they _must_ call _communion. But that is called_
MASS _which the priest alone performs at the altar, in which no common
christian or layman takes part_." All other christians do nothing more
than receive the sacrament, _and do not perform mass_. [Note 17]
Certainly it must be evident that Luther did not regard the word mass as
the ordinary term for eucharist, but had a clear idea of the
distinction, and of the importance of observing it.

II. Let us now adduce similar evidence from the writings of
_Melancthon himself_, who wrote the Confession, to show that he also
observed the distinction between _mass_ and _eucharist_. This evidence
will be the stronger as all his letters quoted, were written from