reby. For this
reason also no one shall or can reap any benefit from the mass except
he be in trouble of soul and long for divine mercy, and desire to be
rid of his sins; or, if he have an evil intention, he must be changed
during the mass, and come to have a desire for this testament. For this
reason in olden times no open sinner was allowed to be present at the
mass.

When this faith is rightly present, the heart must be made joyful by
the testament, and grow warm and melt in God's love. Then will follow
praise and thanksgiving with a pure heart, from which the mass is
called in Greek Eucharistia, that is, "thanksgiving," because we praise
and thank God for this comforting, rich, blessed testament, just as he
gives thanks, praises and is joyful, to whom a good friend has
presented a thousand and more gulden. Although Christ often fares like
those who make several persons rich by their testament, and these
persons never think of them, nor praise or thank them. So our masses at
present are merely celebrated, without our knowing why or wherefore,
and consequently we neither give thanks nor love nor praise, remain
parched and hard, and have enough with our little prayer. Of this more
another time.

III. The sermon ought to be nothing else than the proclamation of this
testament. But who can hear it if no one preaches it? Now, they who
ought to preach it, themselves do not know it. This is why the sermons
ramble off into other unprofitable stories, and thus Christ is
forgotten, while we fare like the man in II. Kings vii: we see our
riches but do not enjoy them. Of which the Preacher also says, "This is
a great evil, when God giveth a man riches, and giveth him not power to
enjoy them." So we look on at unnumbered masses and do not know whether
the mass be a testament, or what it be, just as if it were any other
common good work by itself. O God, how exceeding blind we are! But
where this is rightly preached, it is necessary that it be diligently
heard, grasped, retained, often thought of, and that the faith be thus
strengthened against all the temptation of sin, whether past, or
present, or to come.

Lo! this is the only ceremony or practice which Christ has instituted,
in which His Christians shall assemble, exercise themselves and keep it
with one accord; and this He did not make to be a mere work like other
ceremonies, but placed into it a rich, exceeding great treasure, to be
offered and bestowed upon all who be