Schaff - History of the Christian Church Vol. 8 - Media Sabda Org

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who labored very zealously, though unsuccessfully, for a union of the
Lutherans and the Reformed. Bucer and Capito at Strassburg, Cellarius at
Augsburg, Blaurer at Constance, Hermann at Reutlingen, and Somius at
Ulm, strongly sympathized with the genius and tendency of the Zürich
Reformer. f253 His influence was especially felt in those free cities of
Southern Germany where the democratic element prevailed.
Four of these cities, Strassburg, Constance, Memmingen, and Lindau,
handed to the Diet of Augsburg, 11th July, 1530, a special confession
(Confessio Tetrapolitana) drawn up by Bucer, with the assistance of
Hedio, and answered by the Roman divines, Faber, Eck, and Cochlaeus. It
is the first symbolical book of the German Reformed Church (Zwingli’s
writings having never acquired symbolical authority), but was superseded
by the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) and the Second Helvetic Confession
(1566). It strikes a middle course between the Augsburg Confession of
Melanchthon and the private Confession sent in by Zwingli during the same
Diet, and anticipates Calvin’s view on the Lord’s Supper by teaching a real
fruition of the true body and blood of Christ, not through the mouth, but
through faith, for the nourishment of the soul into eternal life. f254
The Zwinglian Reformation was checked and almost destroyed in Germany
by the combined opposition of Romanism and Lutheranism. The four cities
could not maintain their isolated position, and signed the Augsburg
Confession for political reasons, to join the Smalcaldian League. The
Reformed Church took a new start in the Palatinate under the combined
influence of Zwingli, Melanchthon, and Calvin (1563), gained strength by
the accession of the reigning dynasty of Prussia (since 1614), and was
ultimately admitted to equal rights with the Roman Catholic and Lutheran
Churches in the German Empire by the Treaty of Westphalia.