Among those objectionable parts retained, was _the elevation of the host_, of which Luther thus speaks, in his _Short Confession about the Sacrament_ against the Fanatics,in 1544.

[Note 1] "It, happened about twenty or twenty-two years ago, when I began to condemn the mass (messe,) and wrote severely against the papists, to show that it (the mass) was not a sacrifice, nor a work of ours, but a gift and blessing or testament of God, which we could not offer to God, but ought and must receive from him.

At that time I was disposed to reject _the elevation of the host_, on account of the papists, who regard it, as a sacrifice, &c.

But as our doctrine was at that time new and exceedingly offensive over the whole world, I had to proceed cautiously, and on account of the weak, to yield many things, which I, at a later period, would not do.

I therefore suffered the elevation of the host, to remain, especially as it admits of a favorable, explanation, as I showed in my little work '_De Captivitate Babylonica, &c._'" The elevation of the host was still practised in Saxony generally in 1542, [Note 2] twelve years after the Confession was written, approving of the ceremonies of the mass, of which this was one.