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propounded to the Council of Trent, is like unto this: for it teacheth that "the true Body and Blood of Christ are given in the Holy Communion;" and refutes those that say, "that the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament are only signs of the absent Body and Blood of Christ."
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Luther was once of opinion, that the Divines of Basil and Strasbourg did acknowledge nothing in the Lord's Supper besides Bread and Wine. To him Bucerus, in the name of all the rest, did freely answer; "That they all unanimously did condemn that error; that neither they, nor the Switzers, ever believed or taught any such thing; that none could expressly be charged with that error, except the Anabaptists; and that he also had once been persuaded, that Luther in his writings, attributed too much to the outward symbols, and maintained a grosser union of Christ with the bread than the Scriptures did allow; as though Christ had been corporally present with it, united into a natural substance with the bread; so that the wicked as well as the faithful were made partakers of grace by receiving the Element; but that their own doctrine and belief concerning that Sacrament was, that the true Body and Blood of Christ was truly presented, given, and received together with the visible signs of Bread and Wine, by the operation of our Lord, and by virtue of His institution, according to the plain sound and sense of His words; and that not only Zuinglius and Œcolampadius had so taught, but they also, in the public confessions of the Churches of the Upper Germany, and other writings, confessed it; so that the controversy was rather about the manner of the presence or absence, than about the presence or absence itself." All which Bucer's associates confirm after him. He also adds; "That the magistrates in their Churches had denounced very severe punishments to any that should deny the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper." Bucerus did also maintain this doctrine of the blessed Sacrament in presence of the Landgrave of Hesse and Melancthon, confessing, "That together with the Sacrament we truly and substantially receive the Body of Christ." Also, "That the Bread and Wine are conferring signs, giving what they represent, so that together with them the Body of Christ is given and received." And to these he adds; "That the Body and Bread are not united in the mixture of their substance, but in that the Sacrament gives what it promiseth, that is, the one is never without the other; and so
