s considered sufficient
for laymen to be able to recite the names of the seven Roman sacraments.
Hence Luther, in the passage cited from the Large Catechism, declares
that in Popery practically nothing of Baptism and the Lord's Supper was
taught, certainly nothing worth while or wholesome.

84. Parts Inherited from Ancient Church.

The text of the first three chief parts, Luther considered a sacred
heirloom from the ancient Church. "For," says he in his Large Catechism,
"the holy Fathers or apostles have thus embraced in a summary the
doctrine life, wisdom, and art of Christians, of which they speak and
treat, and with which they are occupied." (579, 19.) Thus Luther, always
conservative, did not reject the traditional catechism, both bag and
baggage, but carefully distinguished between the good, which he
retained, and the worthless, which he discarded. In fact, he no more
dreamt of foisting a new doctrine or catechism on the Christian Church
than he ever thought of founding a new church. On the contrary, his sole
object was to restore the ancient Apostolic Church, and his catechetical
endeavors were bent on bringing to light once more, purifying,
explaining, and restoring, the old catechism of the fathers.

In his book _Wider Hans Worst,_ 1541, Luther says: "We have remained
faithful to the true and ancient Church; aye, we are the true and
ancient Church. You Papists, however, have apostatized from us, _i.e._,
from the ancient Church, and have set up a new church in opposition to
the ancient Church." In harmony with this view, Luther repeatedly and
emphatically asserted that in his Catechism he was merely protecting and
guarding an inheritance of the fathers, which he had preserved to the
Church by his correct explanation. In his _German Order of Worship_ we
read: "I know of no simpler nor better arrangement of this instruction
or doctrine than the arrangement which has existed since the beginning
of Christendom, _viz._, the three parts, Ten Commandments, Creed, and
the Lord's Prayer." (W. 19, 76.) In the ancient Church the original
parts for catechumens and sponsors were the _Symbolum_ and the
_Paternoster,_ the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer. To these the
Ten Commandments were added as a formal part of doctrine only since the
thirteenth century. (30, 1, 434.) The usual sequence of these parts was:
Lord's Prayer, Apostles' Creed, and, wherever it was not supplanted by
other matter, the Decalog. It was with de