Page:Balthasar Hübmaier.djvu/309

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
1528]
The Martyr
235

Yea, and so it will be found at the last day. So help me God. Amen."[1]

On all but two points, baptism and the Lord's Supper, Hübmaier thus indicated his willingness to conform to the teachings of the Catholic Church. Faber adds in his statement that his friend denied that it was an article of faith that the body and blood of Christ are in the sacrament of the altar. If this statement is correct, it only shows that Hübmaier's strong point was not the history of the Church and its doctrines, which is abundantly shown by all his writings. His strength lay in his knowledge of the teaching of the Scriptures, and his ability to quote these freely in support of his contentions. Arguing from the Scriptures he was a Samson in controversy; when he began to speak of the Fathers and history he became as other men—and weaker than many.

Precisely what he expected to accomplish by composing such a statement and appeal as the foregoing, it is difificult to conjecture. He can hardly

  1. In the less important articles abridged, but for the most part in Hübmaier's own words, as preserved in MS. in the archives of the Ministry of Justice, discovered by Beck, and first printed by Loserth, pp. 176–180. A similar abstract, less full and correct, in Hoschek, ii., 504, 505.