The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

XIV.
OBJECTIONS TO THE NEW TESTAMENT DOCTRINE
OF THE LORD'S SUPPER, AS CONFESSED BY THE
LUTHERAN CHURCH.
I. Objections derived from a false definition.
THE objections to the Lutheran doctrine almost without exception involve
the false DEFINITION of it which is couched in the words
"Consubstantiation," "Impanation." From the time that the passions of men
were roused in the Sacramentarian controversy, these terms of reproach
derived were freely used against it.
1. Not originally made.--Zwingle.
No man used such terms more bitterly than ZWINGLE. Yet not only
did Zwingle, in his original doctrine, when he rejected Transubstantiation,
accept, and for years retain, the same Eucharistic doctrine as Luther, 470 but
even subsequently to his rejection of the doctrine he acknowledged that it
had not the offensive characteristics he afterward so freely imputed to it.
He wrote in 1526: "You steadfastly affirm that the true flesh of Christ is
here eaten, under the bread, but in an ineffable mode" (sed modo quodam
ineffabili). 471 But the moral descent of error is very rapid. Before Luther
had written a line against him, Zwingle had styled the believers in the
doctrine of the true presence, "Carnivorae, Anthropophagites, Cannibals,"
"a stupid race of men;" the doctrine itself he pronounced "impious, foolish,
inhuman," and that its practical consequence was “loss of the faith." But
so much is confessed
470 See Lampe: Synops. H. E., 1721, 332. Cyprian, Unterricht, v. Kirchl. Vereinigung,1726, 163. Zwingle: Comm.
de ver. et fals. relig. Apolog. Libel, de Can. Missae.
471 Ad Theod. Billican. et Urb. Rhegius Epistol. respons. Huld. Zwinglii. Cyprian: Unterr. 176.