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

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For an exposition of Zwingli’s doctrine on the Lord’s Supper and
his controversy with Luther, see vol. VI. 520–550 and 669–682;
and A. BAUR, Zwingli’s Theol. II. 268 sqq. (very full and fair).
The eucharistic controversy between Zwingli and Luther has been already
considered in connection with the German Reformation, and requires only
a brief notice here. It lasted from 1524 to 1529, and culminated in the
Colloquy at Marburg, where the two views came into closer contact and
collision than ever before or since, and where every argument for or
against the literal interpretation of the words of institution and the corporal
presence was set forth with the clearness and force of the two champions.
Zwingli and Luther agreed in the principle of a state-church or people’s
church (Volks-Kirche), as opposed to individualism, separatism, and
schism. Both defended the historic continuity of the Church, and put down
the revolutionary radicalism which constructed a new church on the
voluntary principle. Both retained infant baptism as a part of Christian
family religion, against the Anabaptists, who introduced a new baptism
with their new church of converts. Luther never appreciated this agreement
in the general standpoint, and made at the outset the radical mistake of
confounding Zwingli with Carlstadt and the Radicals. f146
But there was a characteristic difference between the two Reformers in the
general theory of the sacraments, and especially the Lord’s Supper. Zwingli
stood midway between Luther and the Anabaptists. He regarded the
sacraments as signs and seals of a grace already received rather than as
means of a grace to be received. They set forth and confirm, but do not
create, the thing signified. He rejected the doctrine of baptismal
regeneration and of the corporal presence; while Luther adhered to both
with intense earnestness and treated a departure as damnable heresy.
Zwingli’s theory reveals the spiritualizing and rationalizing tendency of his
mind; while Luther’s theory reveals his realistic and mystical tendency. Yet
both were equally earnest in their devotion to the Scriptures as the Word
of God and the supreme rule of faith and practice.
When they met face to face at Marburg,—once, and only once, in this
life,—they came to agree in fourteen out of fifteen articles, and even in the
fifteenth article they agreed in the principal part, namely, the spiritual
presence and fruition of Christ’s body and blood, differing only in regard to
the corporal presence and oral manducation, which the one denied, the
other asserted. Zwingli showed on that occasion marked ability as a