by which he delighted and captivated his hearers." Luther observed no strict method. He usually
followed the text, and combined exposition with application. He made Christ and the gospel his
theme. He lived and moved in the Bible, and understood how to make it a book of life for his time.
He always spoke from intense conviction and with an air of authority. He had an extraordinary
faculty of expressing the profoundest thoughts in the clearest and strongest language for the common
people. He hit the nail on the head. He was bold and brave, and spared neither the Devil nor the
Pope nor the Sacramentarians. His polemical excursions, how-ever, are not always in good taste,
nor in the right spirit.
He disregarded the scholars among his hearers, and aimed at the common people, the women
and children and servants. "Cursed be the preachers," he said, "who in church aim at high or hard
things." He was never dull or tedious. He usually stopped when the hearers were at the height of
attention, and left them anxious to come again. He censured Bugenhagen for his long sermons, of
which people so often and justly complain. He summed up his homiletical wisdom in three rules:
—
"Start fresh; Speak out; Stop short."^628
The mass and the sermon are the chief means of edification,—the one in the Greek and
Roman, the other in the Protestant churches. The mass memorializes symbolically, day by day, the
sacrifice of Christ for the sins of the world; the sermon holds up the living Christ of the gospel as
an inspiration to holy living and dying. Both may degenerate into perfunctory, mechanical services;
but Christianity has outlived all dead masses and dry sermons, and makes its power felt even through
the weakest instrumentalities.
As preaching is an intellectual and spiritual effort, it calls for a much higher education than
the reading of the mass from a book. A comparison of the Protestant with the Roman or Greek
clergy at once shows the difference.- In close connection with preaching is the stress laid on catechetical instruction. Of this
we shall speak in a special section. - The Lord’s Supper was restored to its primitive character as a commemoration of the
atoning death of Christ, and a communion of believers with Him. In the Protestant system the holy
communion is a sacrament, and requires the presence of the congregation; in the Roman system it
is chiefly a sacrifice, and may be performed by the priest alone. The withdrawal of the cup is
characteristic of the over-estimate of the clergy and under-estimate of the laity; and its restoration
was not only in accordance with primitive usage, but required by the doctrine of the general
priesthood of believers.
Luther retained the weekly communion as the conclusion of the regular service on the Lord’s
Day. In the Reformed churches it was made less frequent, but more solemn. - The divine service was popularized by substituting the vernacular for the Latin language
in prayer and song,—a change of incalculable consequence. - The number of church festivals was greatly reduced, and confined to those which
commemorate the great facts of our salvation; namely, the incarnation (Christmas), the redemption
(^628) "Tritt frisch auf; Mach’s Maul auf; Hör’ bald auf." Literally: Get up freshly; Open your mouth widely; Be done quickly. Comp. E.
Jonas, Die Kanzelberedtsamkeit Luthers, Berlin, 1852; Beste, Die bedeutendsten Kanzelredner der älteren luth. Kirche, 1856 (pp. 30-36);
G. Garnier, Sur la predication de Luther, Montauban, 1876; Thomas S. Hastings, Luther as a Preacher, In the "Luther Symposiac" by
the Professors of the Union Theological Seminary, New York, 1883.